ng to help. The Senate promised the
help of the Latin armies, but the preparation for this expedition took
some time, and meanwhile Saguntum had been taken and had been destroyed.
This had been done in direct opposition to the will of Rome. The Senate
decided upon war. One Roman army was to cross the African sea and make
a landing on Carthaginian soil. A second division was to keep the
Carthaginian armies occupied in Spain to prevent them from rushing
to the aid of the home town. It was an excellent plan and everybody
expected a great victory. But the Gods had decided otherwise.

It was the fall of the year 218 before the birth of Christ and the Roman
army which was to attack the Carthaginians in Spain had left Italy.
People were eagerly waiting for news of an easy and complete victory
when a terrible rumour began to spread through the plain of the Po.
Wild mountaineers, their lips trembling with fear, told of hundreds of
thousands of brown men accompanied by strange beasts "each one as big
as a house," who had suddenly emerged from the clouds of snow which
surrounded the old Graian pass through which Hercules, thousands of
years before, had driven the oxen of Geryon on his way from Spain to
Greece. Soon an endless stream of bedraggled refugees appeared before
the gates of Rome, with more complete details. Hannibal, the son of
Hamilcar, with fifty thousand soldiers, nine thousand horsemen and
thirty-seven fighting elephants, had crossed the Pyrenees. He had
defeated the Roman army of Scipio on the banks of the Rhone and he had
guided his army safely across the mountain passes of the Alps although
it was October and the roads were thickly covered with snow and ice.
Then he had joined forces with the Gauls and together they had defeated
a second Roman army just before they crossed the Trebia and laid siege
to Placentia, the northern terminus of the road which connected Rome
with the province of the Alpine districts.

The Senate, surprised but calm and energetic as usual, hushed up
the news of these many defeats and sent two fresh armies to stop the
invader. Hannibal managed to surprise these troops on a narrow road
along the shores of the Trasimene Lake and there he killed all the Roman
officers and most of their men. This time there was a panic among
the people of Rome, but the Senate kept its nerve. A third army was
organised and the command was given to Quintus Fabius Maximus with full
power to act "as was necessary t