is men to encourage them
with his presence and words, even the iron frame of Hannibal gave way
under the terrible hardships. The long continued strain, the want of
sleep, and the obnoxious miasma from the marshes, brought on a fever
and cost him the sight of one of his eyes. Of all the elephants but one
survived the march, and it was with an army as worn out and exhausted as
that which had issued from the Alps that he descended into the fertile
plains of Tuscany, near Fiesole.

The army of Flaminius, 30,000 strong, was still lying at Arezzo, on his
direct road south, and it was with this only that Hannibal had now to
deal, the force of Servilius being still far away at Rimini. His own
army was some 35,000 strong, and crossing the Upper Arno near Florence,
Hannibal marched towards Arezzo. Flaminius, as soon as he had heard
that Hannibal was ascending the slopes of the Apennines, had sent
to Servilius to join him, but the latter, alleging that he feared an
invasion by the Gaulish tribes on the north, refused to move, but sent
four thousand cavalry to Flaminius. This brought the armies to nearly
equal strength, but, although Hannibal marched his troops within sight
of Arezzo, Flaminius would not issue from his camp to attack him.

He knew that Hannibal had defeated a force of tried troops, much
exceeding his own in numbers, in the north, and that he would therefore
probably be successful against one which scarcely equalled his own. He
hoped, too, that Hannibal would attack him in his intrenched position.
This the Carthaginian general had no intention of doing, but, leaving
the camp behind him, marched on, plundering and ravaging the country
towards Rome. Flaminius at once broke up his camp and followed on his
track, preparing to take any opportunity which might occur to fall upon
the Carthaginians, and knowing that the senate would at once call up the
army of Servilius to assist him.

Hannibal, by means of scouts left in his rear, found that Flaminius
was marching on with his troops in solid column, taking no precaution
against surprise, secure in the belief that Hannibal's object was to
march on Rome without a stop. The Carthaginian general prepared at once
to take advantage of his enemy's carelessness. He halted his troops at
Cortona. The road by which he had passed wound along the shore of Lake
Trasimene, at the foot of a range of steep hills, which approached
closely to the water.

Half way along these hills a stre