their ground and fight. "It is not by prayers," he cried, "or entreaties to the gods, but by strength and courage that you must win your way out. The sword cuts a path through the midst of the battle; and the less fear, there for the most part the less danger." But such was the uproar and confusion, neither encouragements nor commands could be heard; so far were the men from knowing their standards, their ranks, or their places, that they had scarcely presence of mind to snatch up their arms and address them to the fight, and some found them an overwhelming burden rather than a protection. So dense too was the mist, that the ear was of more service than the eye. The groans of the wounded, the sound of blows on body or armor, the mingled shouts of triumph or panic, made them turn this way and that an eager gaze. Some would rush in their flight on a dense knot of combatants, and become entangled in the mass; others returning to the battle would be carried away by the crowd of fugitives. But after awhile, when charges had been vainly tried in every direction, when it was seen that the hills and the lake shut them in on either side, and the hostile lines in front and rear, when it was manifest that the only hope of safety lay in their own right hands and swords, then every man began to look to himself for guidance and for encouragement, and there began afresh what was indeed a new battle. No battle was it with its three ranks of combatants, its vanguard before the standards and its second line fighting behind them, with every soldier in his own legion, cohort, or company: chance massed them together, and each man's impulse assigned him his post, whether in the van or rear. So fierce was their excitement, so intent were they on the battle, that not one of the combatants felt the earthquake which laid whole quarters of many Italians cities in ruins, changed the channels of rapid streams, drove the sea far up into rivers, and brought down enormous landslips from the hills.

For nearly three hours they fought, fiercely everywhere, but with especial rage and fury round the consul. It was to him that the flower of the army attached themselves. He, wherever he found his troops hard pressed or distressed, was indefatigable in giving help; conspicuous in his splendid arms, the enemy assailed and his fellow Romans defended him with all their might. At last an Insubrian trooper (his name was Ducarius), recognizing him also by his face, cried to his comrades, "See! this is the man who slaughtered our legions, and laid waste our lds and our city: I will offer him as a sacrifice to the shades

of my countrymen whom he so foully slew." Putting spurs to his horse, he charged through the thickest of the enemy, struck down the armor-bearer who threw himself in the way of his furious advance, and ran the consul through with his lance. When he would have stripped the body, some veterans thrust their shields between and hindered him.

Then began the flight of a great part of the army. And now neither lake nor mountain checked their rush of panic; by every defile and height they sought blindly to escape, and arms and men were heaped upon each other. Many, finding no possibility of flight, waded into the shallows at the edge of the lake, advanced until they had only head and shoulders above the water, and at last drowned themselves. Some in the frenzy of panic endeavored to escape by swimming; but the endeavor was endless and hopeless, and they either sunk in the depths when their courage failed them, or they wearied themselves in vain till they could hardly struggle back to the shallows, where they were slaughtered in crowds by the enemy's cavalry which had now entered the water. Nearly six thousand men of the vanguard made a determined rush through the enemy, and got clear out of the defile, knowing nothing of what was happening behind them. Halting on some high ground, they could only hear the shouts of men and clashing of arms, but could not learn or see for the mist how the day was going. It was when the battle was decided, that the increasing heat of the sun scattered the mist and cleared the sky. The bright light that now rested on hill and plain showed a ruinous defeat and a Roman army shamefully routed. Fearing that they might be seen in the distance and that the cavalry might be sent against them, they took up their standards and hurried away with all the speed they could. The next day, finding their situation generally desperate, and starvation also imminent, they capitulated to Hannibal, who had overtaken them with the whole of his cavalry, and who pledged his word that if they would surrender their arms, they should go free, each man having a single garment. The promise was kept with Punic faith by Hannibal, who put them all in chains.

Such was the famous fight at Trasumennus, memorable as few other disasters of the Roman people have been. Fifteen thousand men fell in the battle; ten thousand, flying in all directions over Etruria, made by different roads for Rome. Of the enemy two thousand five hundred fell in the battle. Many died

afterwards of their wounds. Other authors speak of a loss on both sides many times greater. I am myself averse to the idle exaggeration to which writers are so commonly inclined; and I have here followed as my best authority Fabius, who was actually contemporary with the war. Hannibal released without ransom all the prisoners who claimed Latin citizenship; the Romans he imprisoned. He had the corpses of his own men separated from the vast heaps of dead, and buried. Careful search was also made for the body of Flaminius, to which he wished to pay due honor; but it could not be found.

THE DEATH OF HANNIBAL.

He had always anticipated some such end to his life [being delivered up to the Romans]; both because he knew the unrelenting hatred the Romans bore him, and because he had little faith in the honor of princes. He had taken refuge with Prusias, King of Bithynia; and the Roman General Flaminius demanded his death or rendition to them. He asked a slave for the poison which he had for some time kept ready for such an emergency. "Let us free Rome from this anxiety," said he, "since they think it long to wait for an old man's death." [His age was only forty-five.] "The triumph which Flaminius will win over an unarmed and aged man is neither great nor glorious; verily, this moment bears witness that the character of the Roman people has somewhat changed. Their fathers, when King Pyrrhusan armed enemy-lay camped in Italy, forewarned him to beware of poison. These present men have sent one of their Consulars on such an errand as this to urge Prusias to the base murder of his guest."

Then launching execrations against Prusias and his kingdom, and calling on the gods to witness his breach of faith and hospitalities, he swallowed the draught. Such was the end of Hannibal.

A CHARACTERISTIC EPISODE OF CLASSICAL WARFARE.

THE Locrians had been treated with such insolence and cruelty by the Carthaginians since their revolt from the Romans, that they were able to endure severities of an ordinary kind not only with patience but almost with willingness. But

indeed, so greatly did Pleminius surpass Hamilcar who had commanded the garrison, so greatly did the Roman soldiers in the garrison surpass the Carthaginians in villainy and rapacity, that it would appear that they endeavored to outdo each other not in arms but in vices. None of all those things which render the power of a superior hateful to the powerless was omitted towards the inhabitants, either by the general or his soldiers. The most shocking insults were committed against their own persons, their children, and their wives.

One of Pleminius's men, while running away with a silver cup which he had stolen from the house of a townsman, the owners pursuing him, happened to meet Sergius and Matienus, the military tribunes. The cup having been taken away from him at the order of the tribunes, abuse and clamor ensued, and at last a fight arose between the soldiers of Pleminius and those of the tribunes; the numbers engaged and the tumult increasing at the same time, as either party was joined by their friends who happened to come up at the time. When the soldiers of Pleminius, who had been worsted, had run to him in crowds, not without loud clamoring and indignant feelings, showing their blood and wounds, and repeating the reproaches which had been heaped upon him during the dispute, Pleminius, fired with resentment, flung himself out of his house, ordered the tribunes. to be summoned and stripped, and the rods to be brought out. During the time which was consumed in stripping them, they made resistance, and implored their men to aid them, sudden the soldiers, flushed with their recent victory, ran together from every quarter, as if there had been a shout to arms against enemies; and when they saw the bodies of their tribunes now mangled with rods, then indeed, suddenly inflamed with much more ungovernable rage, without respect not only for the dignity of their commander but of humanity, they made an attack upon the lieutenant-general, having first mutilated the lictors in a shocking manner; they then cruelly lacerated the lieutenantgeneral himself, having cut him off from his party and hemmed him in, and after mutilating his nose and ears, left him almost lifeless.

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Accounts of these occurrences arriving at Messana, Scipio, a few days after, passing over to Locri in a ship with six banks of oars, took cognizance of the cause of Pleminius and the tribunes. Having acquitted Pleminius and left him in command of the same place, and pronounced the tribunes guilty and thrown ther

into chains, that they might be sent to Rome to the Senate, he returned to Messana, and thence to Syracuse. Pleminius, unable to restrain his resentment, — for he thought the injury he had sustained had been treated negligently and too lightly by Scipio, and that no one could form an estimate of the punishment which ought to be inflicted in such a case except the man who had in his own person felt its atrocity, ordered the tribunes to be dragged before him, and after lacerating them with every punishment which the human body could endure, put them to death; and not satisfied with the punishment inflicted on them while alive, cast them out unburied. The like cruelty he exercised towards the Locrian nobles, who he heard had gone to Scipio to complain of the injuries he had done them. The horrid acts, prompted by lust and rapacity, which he had before perpetrated upon his allies, he now multiplied from resentment; thus bringing infamy and odium not only upon himself, but upon the general also.