The Hannibalian War Continued
What profit is it to our readers to describe wars and
battles, the storming of cities and the enslavement of their
inhabitants, if they are to know nothing of the causes which
conduce to success and failure? The results of such operations
merely touch the fancy: it is the tracing of the designs of the
actors in such scenes that is really instructive; and above all
it is the following in detail of each step that can educate the
ideas of the student.
Ability of Hannibal. See Livy, 28, 12
Who could refrain from speaking in terms of admiration of
this great man's strategic skill, courage, and ability, when one
looks to the length of time during which he displayed those
qualities; and realises to one's self the pitched battles, the
skirmishes and sieges, the revolutions and counter-revolutions
of states, the vicissitudes of fortune, and in fact the course of
his design and its execution in its entirety? For sixteen continuous years Hannibal maintained the war with
Rome in
Italy, without once releasing his army
from service in the field, but keeping those vast numbers
under control, like a good pilot, without any sign of disaffection
towards himself or towards each other, though he had troops
in his service who, so far from being of the same tribe, were not
even of the same race. He had Libyans, Iberians, Ligurians,
Celts, Phoenicians, Italians, Greeks, who had naturally nothing
in common with each other, neither laws, nor customs, nor
language. Yet the skill of the commander was such, that
these differences, so manifold and so wide, did not disturb the
obedience to one word of command and to a single will. And yet
circumstances were not by any means unvarying: for though
the breeze of fortune often set strongly in his favour, it as often
also blew in exactly the opposite direction. There is therefore
good ground for admiring Hannibal's display of ability in
campaign; and there can be no fear in saying that, if he had
reserved his attack upon the Romans until he had first subdued
other parts of the world, there is not one of his projects which
would have eluded his grasp. As it was, he began with those
whom he should have attacked last, and accordingly began
and ended his career with them. . . .
