The Story of Greece and Rome for boys and girls
- Автор: Macgregor Mary
- Год: 1914
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Зарубежная литература для детей
Электронная книга - «The Story of Greece and Rome for boys and girls». Краткое содержание книги:
The Story of Greece: Told to Boys and Girls от Mary Macgregor
The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus, Told to Boys and Girls от Mary Esther Miller MacGregor
The great general left Italy sorrowfully, for the hopes with which he had entered her had not been fulfilled.
In spite of all the great victories he had won, Italy had slipped from his grasp. Perhaps it was true, as Maharbal had said, ‘Hannibal knows how to win victories, but not how to use them.’
But if Hannibal left the country reluctantly, the people rejoiced at his departure. They could never feel secure while he was in their land. His name, indeed, still made the Romans tremble.
Before the great general left, he ordered bronze tablets to be made, and on these he ordered to be engraved the battles he had fought in Italy, as well as a full account of the war. These records were written both in the Greek and the Punic language.
A famous historian, who was a boy when Hannibal was fighting in Italy, saw these tablets when he grew to be a man, and so he was able to write a true account of the second Punic war.
But all the history that Polybius wrote was not carefully preserved. So that after the battle of Cannæ we have no records save those given to us by Roman historians. And what they, in their pride, wrote, was not, many people think, the same as Hannibal recorded on his bronze tablets.
After the capture of King Syphax, a short truce had been arranged between the two powers, while an embassy went from Carthage to Rome to try to obtain peace.
But the truce was broken by the Carthaginians, and for this the Romans made them suffer heavily.
Some ships, laden with provisions for the Roman army, were on their way from Sardinia to join Scipio’s fleet, when a storm blew them on to an island in the Bay of Carthage. The Carthaginians seized some of the ships, being unable to resist the temptation to get food, of which they had had but little for some time.
Scipio was indignant at this breach of the truce, and he at once sent to Carthage to demand that the booty should be restored.
But there were some in Carthage who wished the war with Rome to go on, and they were more powerful than those who longed for peace. So the war party arranged that the Roman ambassadors should be sent back by ship to Scipio, with a safe conduct, indeed, but without an answer to his demands.
They were taken safe to within sight of their own ships, then their escort withdrew, while the admiral of the Punic fleet, having been secretly instructed, at once tried to take the ambassadors prisoners.
Two of the crew were injured, some were even killed, while the ambassadors escaped with difficulty.
After so evident an insult to the messengers of Rome, Scipio at once prepared to carry on the war.
By the autumn of 203 B.C. Hannibal was in Carthage, and the people, full of confidence in their great general, were eager that he should at once take the field.
But Hannibal roughly bade the citizens ‘attend to their own affairs, and leave him to choose his own time of fighting.’
He then begged for an interview with Scipio, and tried to arrange terms of peace. But the Consul refused to have anything to do with such terms, saying that the truce had been broken, his envoys insulted, and the Carthaginians must suffer the consequences of such deeds.
Scipio was indeed impatient to fight, that the war might the sooner come to an end.
It was already the month of October, 202 B.C., and although the people of Rome had decreed that Scipio should still continue in Africa, the Senate was anxious that one of the new Consuls should be sent to join him, and share his power.
Claudius, the hero of Metaurus, was one of the new Consuls, and he was ordered to cross to Africa with a fleet of fifty quinqueremes.
Scipio resented this, for if the war with Carthage ended successfully after Claudius reached Africa, it was he, as Consul, who would enjoy the triumph at Rome.
Now the invasion of Africa had been Scipio’s own scheme, and he wished to have the glory of its success himself alone. So before the end of October he hastened to lead his army to battle in the neighbourhood of Zama.
CHAPTER LXXI
THE BATTLE OF ZAMA
Hannibal was not ready for battle when the Roman army drew near to him at Zama. He had but just determined to change his camp and move to a better position in which to face the enemy.
Before he had time to carry out his plan, the enemy was upon him, and he was forced to fight in a position with which he was not satisfied.
The elephants belonging to the Punic army no longer terrified the Romans as they used to do, for they had grown accustomed to the animals on many an Italian battleground.
Besides, they had now learned how to elude the onslaught of the heavy beasts, by simply leaving spaces between their companies, through which the elephants could run without causing much damage. These spaces were at the beginning of the battle filled with soldiers, who irritated the elephants with darts and then stepped swiftly aside.
But at Zama, the elephants did not even attack the enemy. Startled by the noise of trumpets and the blowing of horns, they rushed back, instead of forward, upon the Numidian cavalry, which was stationed on Hannibal’s left wing. Masinissa seized the opportunity, and before the cavalry had rallied from the shock of the elephants, he charged and put it to flight. The Carthaginian cavalry on Hannibal’s right was at the same time routed by Lælius.
Two bodies of heavily-armed troops still faced the Romans.
First came the mercenaries hired by Hannibal. Fiercely they fought and well, although they were no match for their enemy. Nor did they once falter until they began to fear that the Carthaginians were failing to support them.
Then they turned, stricken by sudden panic, and anxious only to force their way through those behind, who they believed had betrayed them.
As the Romans followed them in their flight, all was soon in confusion, the mercenaries and Carthaginians being slain, not only by the Romans, but by each other.
Hannibal, meanwhile, was with a band of veterans whom he had held in reserve.
Those soldiers who had escaped from the Romans now tried to steal in among these veterans, but Hannibal, who had no mercy for cowards, ordered his men to lower their spears and push them away. The desperate wretches then escaped from the battlefield as best they might.
Scipio was now ready to advance against the veterans, and here the struggle was long and stern. For these Carthaginian soldiers were inflexible against every attack. Not one man flinched, but each stood steadfastly at his post until he was killed. Only when Lælius and Masinissa returned from pursuing the enemy’s horse and fell upon Hannibal’s rear was the battle won.
The number of the slain was terrible. Twenty thousand Carthaginians were said to have fallen, and almost as many to have been taken prisoner, while the Romans did not lose more than fifteen thousand men.
Hannibal escaped to Carthage, leaving his camp to be seized by the enemy.
CHAPTER LXXII
SCIPIO RECEIVES A TRIUMPH
After the battle of Zama, in 202 B.C., the war was at an end, for the Carthaginians had no longer any army.
They had, indeed, no choice now, save to accept the terms Rome might offer, unless they were prepared to see Carthage itself besieged.
Since submission was inevitable, the Carthaginians resolved to yield with as good a grace as possible. So they decked one of their ships with olive branches, and sent ambassadors on board to sail toward Utica. They hoped that the ambassadors would thus meet Scipio, who was on his way to the town of Tunes.
But the Roman general haughtily refused to receive them until he reached his destination. Then his interview with the suppliants was brief, his answer to their petition for merciful terms, proud.
‘You deserve nothing at our hand but condign punishment’, he told them, ‘yet Rome has determined to treat you with magnanimity, on condition that you receive the terms offered to you.’