Next day, the barbarians running in to the attack between (the two divisions)
less vigorously, the forces were re-united, and the defile passed, not without
loss, but yet with a greater destruction of beasts of burden than of men. From
that time the mountaineers fell upon them in smaller parties, more like an attack
of robbers than war, sometimes on the van, sometimes on the rear, according
as the ground afforded them advantage, or stragglers advancing or loitering
gave them an opportunity. Though the elephants were driven through steep and
narrow roads with great loss of time, yet wherever they went they rendered the
army safe from the enemy, because men unacquainted with such animals were afraid
of approaching too nearly. On the ninth day they came to a summit of the Alps,
chiefly through places trackless; and after many mistakes of their way, which
were caused either by the treachery of the guides, or, when they were not trusted,
by entering valleys at random, on their own conjectures of the route. For two
days they remained encamped on the summit; and rest was given to the soldiers,
exhausted with toil and fighting: and several beasts of burden, which had fallen
down among the rocks, by following the track of the army arrived at the camp.
A fall of snow, it being now the season of the setting of the constellation
of the Pleiades, caused great fear to the soldiers, already worn out with weariness
of so many hardships. On the standards being moved forward at daybreak, when
the army proceeded slowly over all places entirely blocked up with snow, and
languor and despair strongly appeared in the countenances of all, Hannibal,
having advanced before the standards, and ordered the soldiers to halt on a
certain eminence, whence there was a prospect far and wide, points out to them
Italy and the plains of the Po, extending themselves beneath the Alpine mountains;
and said "that they were now surmounting not only the ramparts of Italy, but
also of the city of Rome; that the rest of the journey would be smooth and down-hill;
that after one, or, at most, a second battle, they would have the citadel and
capital of Italy in their power and possession." The army then began to advance,
the enemy now making no attempts beyond petty thefts, as opportunity offered.
But the journey proved much more difficult than it had been in the ascent, as
the declivity of the Alps being generally shorter on the side of Italy is consequently
steeper; for nearly all the road was precipitous, narrow, and slippery, so that
neither those who made the least stumble could prevent themselves from falling,
nor, when fallen, remain in the same place, but rolled, both men and beasts
of burden, one upon another.
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