Latin Literature by Michael Grant

Latin Literature by Michael Grant

Author:Michael Grant
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141398129
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-01-27T16:00:00+00:00


THE DEFEAT OF HANNIBAL

After maintaining his army for fifteen years in Italy, he is driven out, followed to North Africa, and finally defeated at the battle of Zama.1

Over twenty thousand of the Carthaginians and their allies were slain on that day. About the same number were captured, together with one hundred and thirty-two military standards and eleven elephants. Of the victors, about fifteen hundred fell.

Hannibal, escaping with a few horsemen in the midst of the confusion, fled to Hadrumetum.2 He had tried every expedient both before and during the engagement before he withdrew from the fray. And even by Scipio’s admission and that of all the military experts he had achieved this distinction, that he had drawn up his line that day with extraordinary skill: the elephants in the very front, that their haphazard charge and irresistible strength might prevent the Romans from following their standards and keeping their ranks – these were the tactics upon which they based most of their hopes; then the auxiliaries in front of the line of Carthaginians, so that men who were brought together from the offscouring of all nations and held not by loyalty but by their pay might have no way of escape open to them – and that at the same time, as they met the first fiery attack of the enemy, they might exhaust them and, if they could do no more, might blunt the enemy’s swords by their own wounds; next in order the soldiers in whom lay all his hopes, the Carthaginians and Africans, that (being equal to the Romans in everything else) they might have the advantage in fighting with strength undiminished against the weary and the wounded; then, removed to the last line and separated by an open space as well, the Italian troops, of whom it was uncertain whether they were allies or enemies. Having produced this as his last masterpiece, Hannibal after his flight to Hadrumetum was called away – returning to Carthage in the thirty-sixth year after he had left it as a boy. Thereupon, in the Senate House, he admitted that he had been defeated not only in a battle but also in the war, and that there was no hope of safety except in successfully suing for peace.

F. G. MOORE (1949)



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