of Italy who had fought so long against
Rome. His march, which marks the beginning of the Second Punic War,
started from the banks of the Ebro in the beginning of the summer of
219. His army was 20,000 foot and 12,000 horse, partly Carthaginian,
partly Gaul and Iberian. The horsemen were Moorish, and he had
thirty-seven elephants. He left his brother Hasdrubal with 10,000 men at
the foot of the Pyrenees and pushed on, but he could not reach the Alps
before the late autumn, and his passage is one of the greatest wonders
of history. Roads there were none, and he had to force his way up the
passes of the Little St. Bernard through snow and ice, terrible to the
men and animals of Africa, and fighting all the way, so that men and
horses perished in great numbers, and only seven of the elephants were
left when he at length descended into the plains of Northern Italy,
where he hoped the Cisalpine Gauls would welcome him.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.

219.

When the Romans heard that Hannibal had passed the Pyrenees, they had
two armies on foot, one under Publius Cornelius Scipio, which was to go
to Spain, and the other under Tiberius Sempronius Longus, to attack
Africa. They changed their plan, and kept Sempronius to defend Italy,
while Scipio went by sea to Marsala, a Greek colony in Gaul, to try to
stop Hannibal at the Rhone; but he was too late, and therefore, sending
on most of his army to Spain, he came back himself with his choicest
troops. With these he tried to stop the enemy from crossing the river
Ticinus, but he was defeated and so badly wounded that his life was only
saved by the bravery of his son, who led him out of the battle.

[Illustration: MEETING OF HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO AT ZAMA.]

Before he was able to join the army again, Sempronius had fought
another battle with Hannibal on the banks of the Trebia and suffered a
terrible defeat. But winter now came on, and the Carthaginians found it
very hard to bear in the marshes of the Arno. Hannibal himself was so
ill that he only owed his life to the last of his elephants, which
carried him safely through when he was almost blind, and in the end he
lost an eye. In the spring he went on ravaging the country in hopes to
make the two new consuls, Flaminius and Servilius, fight with him, but
they were too cautious, until at last Flaminius attacked him in a heavy
fog on the shore of Lake Trasimenus. It is said that an earthquake shook