Not the least of Scipio’s cares was to warn Syphax; and envoys were sent and uttered threats. They advised him to abide in his own kingdom, to be mindful of the gods and keep his pledge of friendship; his bride and his Carthaginian alliance would help him little when the Roman swords were busy. For, if he refused their advice, the too fond and compliant husband would pay with his life for his subservience to a bride whom he loved with passion.
Thus Scipio warned him and threatened also. But his warning was vain; for the bridegroom’s ears were stopped. Therefore the general, angered by the failure of his counsel, had recourse to the sword; he appealed to the solemn oaths of alliance which the king had broken, and then began active warfare, leaving no device untried. As the enemy’s tents were wattled with light rushes and reeds from the marshes, like the lonely cabins dear to the Moorish herdsman, Scipio attacked the camp while darkness concealed his stratagem, and in the silence of night scattered fire-brands undetected. Then, when the fires began to unite and spread the danger quickly, and to rush with a great noise over the rich food provided for them, the flames rose up blazing to the sky and drove clouds of smoke before them with their flying glare. The dread scourge sped like a whirlwind over the whole camp; the fire-god devoured his dry food with loud panting breath; and every tent spouted flame. Many, starting from their sleep, felt the fire before they saw it; and the flames stifled the cries of many for aid. The fire-god spread everywhere victorious, and seized men and arms in his fierce embrace. The plague broke all bounds, and the burnt-out camp flew up in white ash to the topmost clouds. The fire, crackling doom, made a great leap to surround the quarters of Syphax himself, and would have devoured him, had not an attendant, fearing disaster, dragged him, uttering many a curse, from the bed he slept on.
But presently, when the Massylian and Carthaginian generals had united their forces behind a common rampart, and fresh troops summoned from all the kingdom had mitigated the disaster of the night, anger and shame and love for his bride — a third incentive — filled the king’s heart with inordinate passion: he breathed out savage threats and ground his teeth, to think that his face had been scorched by the fire in the camp, and that he had with difficulty been rescued from the foe, a naked man in the midst of his discomfited soldiers. No man on earth, he declared, could ever have conquered Syphax in bright daylight or in face of the sun. Such was his mad boasting; but Atropos was already putting an end to his insolence and suffered him to say no more; and the thread of that proud talker was nearly spun.
For, when he rushed forth from the camp, like a swollen river, which carries trees and rocks with it, rolling headlong down a new channel and widening its banks with its foaming flood, so he rode in the van and summoned the ranks to follow him. Against him stood the valiant Roman infantry; and the horsemen, when they saw the king far off, seized their arms and rushed forward. Each man said to himself: “See, see! how the Massylian king rides in front of his army and challenges us to battle! May mine be the arm to win this glory! He has profaned the altars of the gods and broken his word pledged to our stainless general. Let him be content with having escaped once from his camp on fire!” Such were their thoughts, as they hurled their javelins with a will. The first flying spear lodged in the fiery nostrils of the king’s charger. With blood dripping from his face, the animal reared up and beat the air with his forefeet; then he fell down, in rage and pain, and, tossing from side to side the part pierced by the spear-point, betrayed his rider into the hands of the enemy. They fell upon him; and, though he strove to draw the weapon from the wound and by it to raise his injured limbs from the ground, flight was impossible, and they seized him. Then chains and fetters were laid upon him — a sorry sight, and a warning never to trust prosperity — and the hands that had wielded the sceptre were tightly bound. So he was led away — a king hurled down from his lofty throne, who had lately seen at his feet whole countries and their rulers, and whose control of the sea had stretched to the shore of Ocean. When the power of Syphax was overthrown, the Carthaginian ranks were mowed down; and Hasdrubal, no favourite of Mars and famous for repeated flights, fled once more and gave up the struggle.
Now that all her limbs were severed, Carthage depended entirely upon one man for support; and the great name of Hannibal, even in his absence, kept the edifice of her greatness from falling in utter ruin. He alone remained; and her desperate plight forced her to summon him in her need of succour and support. When men saw themselves deprived of heaven’s protection, they fled to him for refuge in their fear. Without delay envoys sailed across the salt sea, to recall him and carry a message from his country: he was warned that, should he linger, he might find no city of Carthage standing.
Dawn of the fourth day brought the vessel to the shores of Daunus, when Hannibal’s sleep was disturbed by terrible dreams. For while resting at night from his burden of anxiety, he dreamed that Flaminius and Gracchus and Paulus were all attacking him at once with drawn swords and driving him off the soil of Italy; and the whole army of ghosts from Cannae and Lake Trasimene were marching against him and forcing him to the sea. Eager to escape, he was fain to flee by his familiar path across the Alps, and clutched the soil of Italy with both arms; but the pressure of his enemies drove him at last to the sea and gave him to the stormy winds to carry off.
Still troubled by his dream, he was approached by the envoys bearing their message. They explained the desperate danger of their country — how the Massylian army was overthrown; how the king of Libya now bore fetters on his neck and was not permitted to die, but kept alive to grace the triumphal procession to Jupiter’s temple; how Carthage was dismayed and shattered by the repeated retreats of the cowardly Hasdrubal, who was now master of the state. With sorrow they told how they had seen two camps burning in the silence of night, and all Africa lit up with evil flames. Scipio (they said) moved with lightning speed, and threatened that, while Hannibal lingered on the Bruttian coast, he would destroy Carthage with fatal fires, and Hannibal would have no country to return to, bringing his mighty deeds with him. When they had spoken thus and revealed their disasters and fears, they wept and kissed his hand as if it were a god’s.
The general listened with a fixed and stern countenance. He kept silence and pondered anxiously in his heart, considering whether Carthage was worth so great a sacrifice. And then he spoke thus: “How dreadful the doom that waits on mortal men! how envy ever stunts the growth of great deeds and nips them in the bud! Long ago I might have overthrown Rome and sacked the city and levelled her with the ground; I might have carried her people away into slavery and dictated conditions of peace. But I was refused money and weapons and fresh recruits for my army which victories had worn out; and Hanno thought fit to cheat my soldiers even of bread to eat; and now all Africa is wreathed with fire, and the Roman lance beats on the gates of Carthage. Hannibal is now the glory of his country and her only rock of refuge; their one remaining hope is in my right arm. I shall march away, as the senate has decreed; I shall save the walls of Carthage and at the same time save Hanno.”
When he had thundered out this speech, he launched his tall ships and sailed with many a groan over the sea. None dared to attack his rear as they departed, none dared to recall him. All thought it a gift from Heaven, that he should go of his own accord and at last set Italy free. Men prayed for wind and were content to see the shore with never an enemy upon it. So, when the gale ceases to blow and departs, leaving the sea once more to the mariners, their prayers are modest and ask no favouring breezes: it is enough for them that the storm has ceased, and they find the calm as good as a speedy voyage. While all the Carthaginian soldiers bent their gaze upon the sea, Hannibal kept his eyes steadily fixed on the Italian coast; the silent tears flowed down his cheeks, and again and again he sighed, like an exile driven to a dismal shore, who leaves behind his native land and the home he loves.
But when the winds rose and the ships began to move forward, while the hills grew less and less in the distance, till Italy d
isappeared and the land of Daunus was no longer visible, Hannibal thought thus as he gnashed his teeth: “Am I mad? Do not I deserve to return thus, as a punishment for ever leaving Italy? Better that Carthage had been burned with fire, and the name of Elissa been blotted out for ever! Was I in my senses then when I failed to carry my fiery weapons from Cannae to the Capitol, and to hurl Jupiter down from his throne? I ought to have scattered fire-brands over the Seven Hills which none then defended; I ought to have consigned that proud nation to the destruction of Troy and the doom of their ancestors. Why should this thought, however, torment me? Who prevents me from attacking in arms even now and marching a second time against the walls of Rome? I shall go. I shall march back over the remains of my former camps and tread a familiar track to the waters of the Anio. Turn the ships’ prows back towards Italy and alter our course! I warrant that beleaguered Rome will summon Scipio ere long to return.”
While Hannibal raged thus furiously, Neptune looked forth over the deep and saw the ships turning back to shore. Then the sea-god, shaking his blue locks, churned up the sea from the bottom and drove the swollen tide above the coast-line. At once he summoned the winds from the rocky cave of Aeolus, with rains and stormy blasts, and veiled the sky with clouds. Then with his trident he stirred up the inmost recesses of his realm, and smote the sea from East and West, and troubled the whole source of Ocean. High rose the foaming waves, and dashed on every rock till it shook. First, the cloudy South-wind, rising in the land of the Nasamones, caught up the waters of the Syrtis and left it bare; the North-wind followed, bearing aloft on its dark wings part of the sea which it had carried off; and the black East-wind thundered with opposing blast and seized its share of the deep. Now thunder rent the sky, and now the lightning-flashes came thick and fast, and the inexorable sky rushed down upon the ships. Fire and rain, waves and angry winds, all worked together, and darkness covered the sea with night. But lo! a gust, launched by the South-wind, struck Hannibal’s ship astern; it roared against the yard, while the cordage creaked and whistled with a fearful noise; then it carried a wave, mountain-high, from the darkling deep and broke it over Hannibal’s head. He shuddered and cried out, as he surveyed the sea and sky: “Fortunate were you, O brother Hasdrubal, and made equal to the gods in your death. You died gloriously, falling in battle by a soldier’s hand; and Fate permitted you to bite the soil of Italy as you died. But I was not suffered, either to breathe my last on the field of Cannae, where Paulus and many another hero fell, or, when I carried firebrands against the Capitol, to be struck down to Hades by the bolt of Jupiter.”
While he lamented thus, two waves driven by opposite winds smote both sides of his vessel and held it fast beneath the dark heaps of water, as if a water-spout had sunk it. Then, driven up by boiling eddies of black sand, the ship came up again to the surface and hung above the waves, kept on an even keel by the opposite winds. But the fierce South-wind dashed two other vessels against the cliffs and jagged rocks — a pitiful sight to see. As they struck, their beaks crashed; and then the hulls, split by the sharp rocks, cracked as their framework broke up. Now a motley sight was seen: all over the water there floated, together with weapons and helmets and scarlet plumes, the treasure of Capua in her palmy days, the Italian booty set apart for Hannibal’s triumph, tripods and tables of the gods, and images which the Romans had vainly worshipped in their affliction. Then Venus, appalled by the sight of the raging deep, spoke thus to the Ruler of the Sea : “Sire, have done with your wrath for the time; your threats are terrible enough to secure greater objects. But now, I pray you, be merciful to the sea; or else cruel Carthage may boast that a son of hers proved invincible in war, and that the Aeneadae, my children, needed the sea and all its waves to put Hannibal to death.”
Thus Venus spoke, and the swelling waves sank to rest......... and they pushed their army forward, to meet the foe.
Hannibal, a veteran soldier, knew well how to heighten the ardour of his men by means of praise. In a fiery speech he roused their spirit to madness, and inflamed their hearts with ambition to excel. “You it was,” he said to one, “who brought me the dripping head of slain Flaminius; I recognize that hand. — And you rushed forward first to strike huge Paulus, and drove your point in to the bone. — And you bear the glorious spoils taken from brave Marcellus. — And yours was the blade which Gracchus wetted with his life-blood, as he fell. — I see too the hand which laid warlike Appius low with a spear launched from the summit of the rampart, when he was attacking the walls of lofty Capua. — And yonder is another arm, like lightning in speed, which inflicted more than one wound on the breast of noble Fulvius. — You who slew the consul Crispinus in battle, come hither and stand in the front rank. — Keep by my side through the fray, you who at Cannae, as I remember well, rejoicing in your martial ardour brought me the head of Servilius fixed upon a pike. — Next, O bravest son of Carthage, I see your flashing eyes and countenance as formidable as even your sword; just so I saw you by the bloody stream of the famous Trebia, when you clasped a Roman officer in your mighty arms and drowned him in the depths, in spite of his struggling. — You next, who were first to dye your sword with the blood of the elder Scipio beside the cold stream of the Ticinus, now complete your task and give me the life-blood of his son. Need I fear to meet the gods themselves in battle, when you stand firm — my men, whom I saw treading peaks that reached to heaven and speeding over the Alpine heights, — when I see before me those who, sword in hand, set fire to the far-stretching plains of Argyripa? — And you, who hurled the first missile against the Roman walls, unwilling that even I should outstrip you in the race for glory, shall I find you less active now? — And you above all, do you need encouragement, who, when I confronted the lightning and thunder, the storm and the wrath of Jupiter himself, bade me ignore the idle rattling of the clouds, and ran in front of me against the height of the Capitol? — Need I appeal to you, the men who destroyed Saguntum by your prowess and won renown from the first campaign of the war? I call on you: maintain your former fame in a manner worthy of me and of yourselves. I myself, favoured by the gods, have grown old in a career of conquest; and now, after thrice five years, I go back to my distressed country, and I hope, relying upon you, to see my home, so long unvisited, and my son, and the face of the wife who has ever been loyal to me. Neither Carthage nor Rome can fight another battle. To-day must decide the struggle between us for the mastery of the world.” Thus Hannibal spoke; but, when Scipio opened his lips to address the Roman soldiers, they resented the delay and refused to listen, demanding the signal for battle.
Juno watched these things from a cloud in the distant sky, and the Father of the gods marked her eager gaze and sad countenance. Then he addressed her with friendly speech: “What grief preys upon your heart? Tell your husband what it is. Is it the plight of Hannibal that torments you, and anxiety for your loved city of Carthage? Just consider in your own heart the madness of that people. Will there ever come a time, I ask you, sister, when they will cease to break treaties and wage fresh war against the Teucri whose dominion is ordained by Fate? Carthage herself has not suffered more and endured more than you yourself have done, in your exertions for the defence of that people. You stirred up land and sea; you sent forth that proud young warrior against Italy; the walls of Rome were shaken; and for twice eight years Hannibal has been the foremost of all living men. The time has come to quiet the nations. We have reached the end, and the gate of war must be shut.”
Then Juno made her humble petition: “I did not seat myself upon this overhanging cloud, in order that I might change events whose term is fixed already; nor do I seek to recall the armies and prolong the war. I ask only what you have power to grant — since my influence has waned and your first passion for me has cooled; I do not interfere with the spinning of the Three Sisters. Let Hannibal retreat before the foe, since such is your pleasure, and let the ashes of Troy reign at Carthage. But one thing I beg of you, I your sister and your spouse, in the name of the twofold
tie between us: suffer the noble leader to pass safe through danger, and spare his life; let him not be taken captive, to carry Roman fetters. Also, let the walls of my city, though sorely battered, remain standing when the Carthaginian name has perished, and be preserved to honour me.”
Thus Juno spoke, and Jupiter answered her briefly thus: “I grant to the walls of lofty Carthage the reprieve you seek. Let them stand, in answer to your tears and entreaties. But hear how far your husband is able to grant your requests. The days of Carthage are numbered, and another Scipio shall come, to raze to the ground the towers which for the present are safe. Further, let your prayer for Hannibal be granted: let him be rescued from the fray and continue to breathe the air of heaven. He will seek to throw the world into confusion and to fill the earth with renewed warfare. I know his heart, which can bring forth nothing but war. But I grant him life on one condition: he must never hereafter see the land of Saturn and never again return to Italy. Snatch him away at once from imminent death; or else, if he joins in fierce battle on the broad plains, you may be unable to rescue him from the right hand of the young Roman general.”
While the Almighty Father thus fixed the doom of Carthage and of Hannibal, the armies began the battle, and their shouting challenged the stars. Never did the earth behold mightier nations in conflict or greater generals in command of their country’s armies. High was the prize of victory set before them — even all that the wide canopy of heaven covers. The Punic leader came forth, glittering in purple; and the head he bore so high was made higher by his ruddy crest of nodding plumes. Dread and terror of his mighty name went before him; and his sword that Rome knew so well shone bright. Over against him was Scipio, arrayed in glowing scarlet, and displaying his dreadful shield, on which were engraved the figures of his father and his uncle, breathing fierce battle; and his lofty front sent forth a mighty flame. Though there was present so great a force of combatants and weapons, yet, for all, the hope of victory depended upon the leaders alone. Nay — so strongly were men moved by confidence in their leader or fear of his adversary — most believed that, if Scipio had been a son of Africa, universal empire would have fallen to the sons of Agenor; but, had Hannibal been born in Italy, they doubted not that Rome would have ruled the world.
Complete Works of Silius Italicus Page 38