On descending the southern declivities of the Apennines he learned that a new Roman army, under a new consul, was advancing toward him from the south. He
was eager to meet this force, and was preparing to press forward at once by the
nearest way. He found, however, that this would lead him across the lower part
of the valley of the Arno, which was here very broad, and, though usually passable, was now overflowed in consequence of the swelling of the waters of the river by the melting of the snows upon the mountains. The whole country was now, in fact, a vast expanse of marshes and fens.
Perilous march.
Hannibal's sickness.
Still, Hannibal concluded to cross it, and, in the attempt, he involved his army in difficulties and dangers as great, almost, as he had encountered upon the Alps.
The waters were rising continually; they filled all the channels and spread over extended plains. They were so turbid, too, that every thing beneath the surface was concealed, and the soldiers wading in them were continually sinking into deep and sudden channels and into bogs of mire, where many were lost. They were all exhausted and worn out by the wet and cold, and the long continuance
of their exposure to it. They were four days and three nights in this situation, as their progress was, of course, extremely slow. The men, during all this time, had scarcely any sleep, and in some places the only way by which they could get any
repose was to lay their arms and their baggage in the standing water, so as to build, by this means, a sort of couch or platform on which they could lie.
Hannibal himself was sick too. He was attacked with a violent inflammation of
the eyes, and the sight of one of them was in the end destroyed. He was not, however, so much exposed as the other officers; for there was one elephant left
of all those that had commenced the march in Spain, and Hannibal rode this elephant during the four days' march through the water. There were guides and
attendants to precede him, for the purpose of finding a safe and practicable road, and by their aid, with the help of the animal's sagacity, he got safely through.
Crossing the Marshes.
CROSSING THE MARSHES.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DICTATOR FABIUS.
B.C. 216
Alarm at Rome.
The consul Flaminius.
In the mean time, while Hannibal was thus rapidly making his way toward the gates of Rome, the people of the city became more and more alarmed, until at last a general feeling of terror pervaded all the ranks of society. Citizens and soldiers were struck with one common dread. They had raised a new army and
put it under the command of a new consul, for the terms of service of the others had expired. Flaminius was the name of this new commander, and he was moving northward at the head of his forces at the time that Hannibal was conducting his troops with so much labor and difficulty through the meadows and morasses of the Arno.
Another stratagem.
Confidence of Flaminius.
This army was, however, no more successful than its predecessors had been.
Hannibal contrived to entrap Flaminius by a stratagem, as he had entrapped Sempronius before. There is in the eastern part of Etruria, near the mountains, a lake called Lake Thrasymene. It happened that this lake extended so near to the
base of the mountains as to leave only a narrow passage between—a passage but
little wider than was necessary for a road. Hannibal contrived to station a detachment of his troops in ambuscade at the foot of the mountains, and others
on the declivities above, and then in some way or other to entice Flaminius and
his army through the defile. Flaminius was, like Sempronius, ardent, self-confident, and vain. He despised the power of Hannibal, and thought that his success hitherto had been owing to the inefficiency or indecision of his predecessors. For his part, his only anxiety was to encounter him, for he was sure of an easy victory. He advanced, therefore, boldly and without concern into the pass of Thrasymene, when he learned that Hannibal was encamped beyond
it.
Complete rout of the Romans.
Hannibal had established an encampment openly on some elevated ground beyond the pass, and as Flaminius and his troops came into the narrowest part of the defile, they saw this encampment at a distance before them, with a broad plain beyond the pass intervening. They supposed that the whole force of the enemy was there, not dreaming of the presence of the strong detachments which
were hid on the slopes of the mountains above them, and were looking down upon them at that very moment from behind rocks and bushes. When, therefore,
the Romans had got through the pass, they spread out upon the plain beyond it,
and were advancing to the camp, when suddenly the secreted troops burst forth
from their ambuscade, and, pouring down the mountains, took complete
possession of the pass, and attacked the Romans in the rear, while Hannibal attacked them in the van. Another long, and desperate, and bloody contest ensued. The Romans were beaten at every point, and, as they were hemmed in
between the lake, the mountain, and the pass, they could not retreat; the army was, accordingly, almost wholly cut to pieces. Flaminius himself was killed.
