Complete Works of Silius Italicus Page 19

  All these knew how to make war; but the Marsi could not only fight but could also send snakes to sleep by charms, and rob a serpent’s tooth of its venom by simples and spells. They say that Angitia, daughter of Aeetes, first revealed to them magic herbs, and taught them to tame vipers by handling them, to drive the moon from the sky, to arrest the course of rivers by their muttering, and to strip the hills by calling down the forests. But this people got their name from Marsyas, the settler who fled in fright across the sea from Phrygian Crenai, when the Mygdonian pipe was defeated by Apollo’s lyre. Marruvium, which bears the famous name of ancient Marrus, is the chief of their cities; and further inland lies Alba in water-meadows, and compensates by its orchards for the lack of corn. Their other strongholds, though unknown to fame and with no name among the people, are formidable by their number. The Pelignians were forward to join the rest, and brought their troops in haste from chilly Sulmo.

  No less zealous were the natives of Sidicinum, whose mother-city is Cales. Cales had no mean founder — even Calais, who, as legend tells, was nurtured in Thracian caves by Orithyia, when she w as carried off by the blast of wanton Boreas through the sky. The Vestini, inferior to none as fighters, and hardened by hunting wild animals, came in serried ranks; their flocks graze on the heights of Fiscellus and green Pinna, and in the meadows of Aveia that are quick to grow again. The Marrueini likewise, in rivalry with Frentani, brought with them the inhabitants of Corfinium, and great Teate. All these carried a pike to battle, and all carried slings that had struck down many a bird high in air. For corslets they wore the skins of bears slain by the hunters.

  Moreover the Oseans, whom Campania, rich in wealth and ancient blood, sent to battle from all her wide domain, were waiting close by for the coming of their leaders: Sinuessa of warm springs, and Vulturnum within sound of the sea, and Amyclae which silence once destroyed; Fundi, and Caieta where Lamus once was king, and the home of Antiphates shut in by the sea; Liternum with its marshy pools, and Cyme which could once foretell the future. There were seen Nueeria and Gaurus; and the sons of Dicaearchus were sent forth from their arsenal; Greek Parthenope was there, with many a man-at-arms, and Nola, barred against Hannibal; Allifae also, and Acerrae, ever mocked at by the Clanius. One might have seen too the Sarrastian men and all the assembled might of the gentle Samus. There were the chosen men from the Phlegraean bays rich in sulphur, and from Misenus, and from the seat of Baius the Ithacan with its mighty red-hot crater. Prochyte was not absent, nor Inarime, the place appointed for ever-burning Typhoeus, nor the rocky isle of ancient Telo, nor Calatia of the little walls. Surrentum was there, and Abella ill-provided with corn-fields; and Capua above all; but she, alas, knew not how to observe moderation in prosperity, and her wicked pride went before a fall.

  Scipio trained the Campanians for war, and they were proud of their leader. He had given them javelins and iron corslets; at home they had carried lighter weapons after the fashion of their fathers — made of wood hardened in the fire and with no iron point; they used the club and the axe, the countryman’s tool. In their midst Scipio gave splendid promise of his future fame, hurling stakes, leaping trenches under city-walls, and stemming the billows of the sea with his breastplate on; such the display of vigour he gave before the ranks. Often his flying feet outstripped a courser as it flew, cruelly spurred, over the open plain; often, rising to his full height, he threw stone or spear beyond the limits of the camp. He had a martial brow and flowing hair; nor was the hair at the back of his head shorter. His eyes burned bright, but their regard was mild; and those who looked upon him were at once awed and pleased.

  The Samnites too there were; their allegiance was not yet turning towards the Carthaginians, but they still cherished their ancient grudge. Here were the reapers of Batulum and Nuerae, the hunters of Bovianum, the dwellers in the gorge of Caudium, and those whom Rufrae or Aesernia or unknown Herdonia sent from her untilled fields.

  The Bruttians, inferior to none in spirit, and also the men called forth from the Lucanian hills, and the Hirpini, carried pointed weapons and were shaggy with the hides of beasts. They get their living by hunting; they live in the forest, and slake their thirst in the rivers, and earn their sleep by toil.

  To these were added the Calabrians, and the troops of Sallentia, and of Brundisium where Italy comes to an end. These troops were given to bold Cethegus as commander; and he reviewed their united strength, not broken up into companies. Here men from the rocks of Leucosia show ed themselves, and those whom Picentia sent from Paestum; and men of Cerillae, which was afterwards depopulated by the enemy; and people fed by the water of the Silarus, which has power, men say, to turn into stone branches dipped in it. Cethegus praised the sickle-shaped swords with which the fighting Salernians are armed, and the rough oaken clubs which the men of Buxentum suited to their grasp. He himself, with his shoulder bared in the manner of his fathers, took pleasure in his unruly steed, and exerted his youthful strength in forcing the hard-mouthed horse to turn in circles.

  Ye too, the peoples of the river Po, though sore smitten and bereft of your men, rushed forth now to battle and defeat, and no god hearkened to your prayers. Placentia, though crippled by the war, vied with Mutina; and Cremona sent forth her sons in rivalry with Mantua — Mantua, the home of the Muses, raised to the skies by immortal verse, and a match for the lyre of Homer. Men came from Verona too, round which flows the Athesis; from Faventia, skilful to nurture the pine-trees that grow everywhere round her fields; and Vercellae, with Pollentia rich in dusky fleeces; and Bononia of the little Rhine; the ancient seat of Ocnus, which went to war long ago with the Trojans against Laurentum. Then came the men of Ravenna, who paddle slowly with heavy oars over muddy waters, as they cleave the stagnant pools of their marshes. There was also a band of Trojans, coming from the Euganean country in ancient times and driven forth from the sacred soil of Antenor. Aquileia too together with the Veneti was full to overflowing with troops. The active Ligurians, and the Vagenni who dwell scattered among rocks, sent their hardy sons to swell the triumph of Hannibal. All these peoples had Brutus for their leader and relied entirely upon him; and his appeals roused their spirit against a foe they knew already. Though dignified, Brutus was genial; his powerful intellect won men’s hearts, and there was nothing forbidding in his virtue. To wear a frowning brow, or win a thankless reputation for severity, was not his way; nor did he court notoriety by a perverse course of life.

  Three thousand men, skilled archers, had also been sent by the loyal king from Etna in Sicily; and Ilva had armed with her native iron, on which war thrives, fewer men, but all of them eager to gird on the sword.

  Any man who had seen so great an army mustered might have pardoned Varro’s eagerness to fight a battle. In ancient times when great Mycenae attacked Troy, Leander’s Hellespont saw a thousand ships swarm with as huge a host on the shore of Rhoeteum.

  When the Romans reached Cannae, built on the site of a former city, they planted their doomed standards on a rampart of evil omen. Nor, when such destruction was hanging over their unhappy heads, did the gods fail to reveal the coming disaster. Javelins blazed up suddenly in the hands of astounded soldiers; high battlements fell down along the length of the ramparts; Mount Garganus, collapsing with tottering summit, overset its forests; the Aufidus rumbled in its lowest depths and roared; and far away across the sea seamen were scared by fire burning on the Ceraunian mountains. Light was suddenly withdrawn, and the Calabrian mariners, plunged in darkness, looked in vain for the shore and land of Sipus; and many a screech-owl beset the gates of the camp. Thick swarms of bees constantly twined themselves about the terrified standards, and the bright hair of more than one comet, the portent that dethrones monarchs, showed its baleful glare. Wild beasts also in the silence of night burst through the rampart into the camp, snatched up a sentry before the eyes of his frightened comrades, and scattered his limbs over the adjacent fields. Sleep also was mocked by terrible images: men dreamt that the ghosts of the Gauls wer
e breaking forth from their graves. Again and again the Tarpeian rock was shaken and wrenched from its very base; a dark stream of blood flowed in the temples of Jupiter; and the ancient image of Father Quirinus shed floods of tears. The Allia rose high above its fatal banks. The Alps did not keep their place, and the Apennines were never still day or night among their vast gorges. In the southern sky, bright meteors shot against Italy from the direction of Africa; and the heavens burst open with a fearful crash, and the countenance of the Thunderer was revealed. Vesuvius also thundered, hurling flames worthy of Etna from her cliffs; and the fiery crest, throwing rocks up to the clouds, reached to the trembling stars.

  But lo! in the midst of the army a soldier foretells the battle. With distraction in his aspect and his brain, he fills the camp with his wild shouting, and gasps as he reveals coming disaster: “Spare us, ye cruel gods! The heaps of dead are more than the fields can contain; I see Hannibal speeding through the serried ranks and driving his furious chariot over armour and human limbs and standards. The wind rages in wild gusts, and drives the dust of battle in our faces and eyes. Servilius, careless of his life, is down; his absence from the field of Trasimene does not help him now. Whither is Varro fleeing? Ye gods! Paulus, the last hope of despairing men, is struck down by a stone. Trebia cannot rival this destruction. See! the bodies of the slain form a bridge, and reeking Aufidus belches forth corpses, and the huge beast treads the plain victorious.

  The Carthaginian copies us and carries the consul’s axes, and his lictors bear blood-stained rods. The triumphal procession of the Roman passes from Rome to Libya. And, O grief! — do the gods force us to witness this also? — victorious Carthage measures the downfall of Rome by all the heap of gold that was torn from the left hands of the slain.”

  BOOK IX

  ARGUMENT

  VARRO IS EAGER TO FIGHT, AND HIS BOLDNESS IS INCREASED BY A SUCCESSFUL SKIRMISH. PAULUS TRIES IN VAIN TO RESTRAIN HIS COLLEAGUE (1-65). A HORRIBLE CRIME COMMITTED IN IGNORANCE DURING THE NIGHT PORTENDS DISASTER TO THE ROMANS (66-177). HANNIBAL ENCOURAGES HIS MEN AND THEN DRAWS THEM UP IN LINE OF BATTLE (178-243). VARRO DOES THE SAME (244-277). THE BATTLE OF CANNAE (278-X. 325).

  THOUGH Italy was disturbed by these portents and the gods in vain revealed tokens of coming disaster throughout the land, yet Varro behaved as if the omens for the imminent battle were favourable and auspicious. He took no sleep that night but brandished his sword in the darkness, at one time blaming Paulus for inaction, at another seeking to sound by night the fierce war-note of his trumpets. Nor was Hannibal less eager for instant conflict. Driven on by evil fortune, our soldiers sallied out from the camp, and battle was joined. For a body of Macae, foraging here and there in the neighbouring plains, discharged a cloud of winged missiles. Here Mancinus fell, while rejoicing to be the foremost fighter and first to dye his sword with the blood of an enemy; and with him fell many soldiers. Still, though Paulus objected that the entrails of the victims were ominous of the gods’ disfavour, Varro would not have checked the fighting, had not the rule of alternate command over the army denied him the power of decision, as he rushed upon his fate. Yet this rule could give the doomed multitude a reprieve for one day only. Back they went to camp; and Paulus loudly lamented, because he saw that to-morrow the command would devolve on a madman, and that he had saved the lives of his men to no purpose. For Varro, in fierce anger and resenting the postponement of battle, addressed him thus: “Is this the way, Paulus, you show gratitude and repay me for saving your life? Is this the reward of those who rescued you from the laws and from a jury that meant mischief? Better bid our men at once surrender to the foe the swords and weapons which you called back from battle; or snatch them yourself from their grasp. But you, my men, whose faces I saw wet with tears when Paulus ordered you to turn your backs in retreat, break with custom and anticipate the word of command for battle: let each man be his own commander and rush to action as soon as the first rays of the sun are thrown on the summit of Mount Garganus. I shall open the gates of the camp myself with no delay. Rush ahead, and make up for the opportunity you were robbed of to-day.” Thus in his excitement he tried to animate the sick hearts of his men with a fatal desire for battle.

  Meanwhile Paulus underwent a change: he felt and looked now as when he stood after the battle and the field lay before him strewn with Roman corpses; for the imminent disaster pressed upon his very sight. So sits a mother stunned and senseless, when all hope of her son’s life is lost, and she cherishes with a last fruitless embrace the limbs that are not yet cold. He spoke thus: “By the walls of Rome so often shaken, and by these innocent lives, round whom the shadow of infernal night is now hovering, I implore you, Varro, go not to meet disaster. Until Heaven’s wrath has passed away and the anger of Fortune is spent, be content, if our recruits learn to endure the name of Hannibal and cease to turn cold at sight of the enemy. See you not how the very sound of his approach drives the blood in a moment from their pale faces, how the swords drop from their hands before the trumpet sounds? You think Fabius a sick man and a dawdler; but every soldier whom he led to battle beneath the standards you blame is in the ranks to-day, whereas the troops of Flaminius — but may Heaven avert the evil omen! Even if your heart is set against my warnings and entreaties, open your ears to the god. Long ago, in the time of our forefathers, the priestess of Cumae foretold these things to mankind, and her foreknowledge proclaimed to the world you and your madness. Now I turn prophet too and tell you the future to your face in no riddling strain: if you move the standards tomorrow, you shall confirm by my death the prophecy of the Sibyl, Apollo’s priestess, and this field shall no longer be famous because of Diomede the Greek but because of you, the Roman consul.” Thus Paulus spoke, and the tears sprang from his burning eyes.

  That night too was stained by a terrible crime committed in error. Satricus, taken prisoner by Xanthippus, had endured slavery in the land of Libya, and had then been given to the king of the Autololes with other rewards conferred on him in recognition of his valour. This man was a native of Sulmo and left two boys there at their mother’s breast — Mancinus and one who bore the Trojan name of Solimus; for their remote ancestor was a Trojan who had followed Aeneas as his sovereign and built a famous city which he called by his own name, Solimus; but, when many Italian colonists resorted thither, the name was gradually shortened into Sulmo. And now Satricus had come with his king among the foreign invaders; and the Gaetulians were willing enough, when occasion required, to use his services to interpret Latin speech. But when the chance was given him of revisiting his native town and he could hope to see his father’s house again, he summoned night to aid his enterprise and stole out of the hated camp. But he fled unarmed: to carry a shield might betray his design, and he started home with no weapon in his hand. Therefore he scanned the armour of the dead who lay on the field, and armed himself with weapons taken from the corpse of Mancinus. Now he felt less fear; but it was his own son, slain a few hours before by a Libyan foe, whose limbs he had stripped, and from whose lifeless body he had taken the spoils which now he carried.

  Now when night came and sleep began, his other son, Solimus, came forth from the Roman camp, to relieve in his allotted turn the watch at the gate, and searched for the body of his brother, Mancinus, among the corpses lying on the field; he wished to bury the hapless youth secretly. He had not hastened far when he saw an armed enemy coming towards him from the Carthaginian camp. Thus surprised, he took the course that chance offered him, and concealed himself behind the tomb of Thoas, an Aetolian. But then, when he saw no soldiers following close behind, but only a single man walking alone in the dark, he pprang up from the tomb and threw his javelin at his father’s unprotected back. His aim was true; and Satricus, believing that he was pursued by a Carthaginian force and that his wound was due to them, looked round anxiously, to discover the unseen hand that had struck him.

  But when Solimus, running with youthful vigour, came up to his victim, a dismal light flashed from the fam
iliar arms, and the shield of Mancinus, revealed by the moonlight, showed itself clear before his eyes and gleamed close beside him. Then the young man, fired with sudden wrath, cried out: ‘No true son of Satricus, no native of Sulmo, should I be, and no brother of Mancinus — and I would own myself no worthy descendant of Trojan Solimus, if I suffered this man to escape unpunished! Shall he wear before my eyes the noble spoils he took from my brother? Is this traitor to carry off the glorious armour of a Pelignian house, while I am alive to prevent it? No! To you, dear mother Acca, I shall carry back this gift, to assuage your grief, and for you to fix for ever on the grave of your son.” Thus shouting, he rushed on with sword unsheathed.

  But already sword and shield were slipping from the grasp of Satricus, when he heard Sulmo named, and the arms, and the names of his wife and children: frozen horror had stunned him, mind and body. And then a piteous cry came forth from his half-dead lips: “Hold your hand, my son — not that I may live on (for to desire the enjoyment of such a life would be a crime), but that you may not bring a curse on your hand by shedding your father’s blood. I am Satricus, son of Solimus, who was taken prisoner by Carthage long ago and have now just returned to my native land. You did no wrong, my son. When you hurled your impetuous spear at me, I was a Carthaginian. But I had slipped out of the hated camp and was hastening home, eager to see the face of my dear wife. I snatched this shield from a corpse; but now carry it back, purged of guilt, to your brother’s body; no son but you have I now. But your first duty, my son, must be to warn Paulus, the Roman general: he must strive to prolong the war and give Hannibal no chance of a battle. Hannibal, overjoyed by the divine omens, hopes for an immediate engagement and immeasurable slaughter. Restrain, I entreat, Varro’s madness; for it is said that he is urging his standards on. For me this will be consolation enough at the end of a wretched life, to have warned my countrymen. And now, my son, give the last embrace to the father whom you have found and lost in the same hour.” Thus he spoke and, doffing his helmet, embraced his son, who stood motionless in horror, with trembling arms. Fearing for his terror-stricken son, he strove by his words to heal the shame felt for the wound inflicted, and to make excuses for the stroke: “None was present to see what we have done, none was privy to it. Was not the mistake concealed by the darkness of night? Why tremble so? Rather suffer me to embrace you, my son. I, your father, myself pronounce you innocent, and I entreat you to end my troubles and close my eyes with your hand.” The unhappy youth groaned deeply, and could find no voice or words in reply; but he made haste to stop the flow of dark blood and bind up the deep wound with a piece torn off his own garment; and his tears fell fast. At last the voice of his complaint forced its way through his groans: “Is it thus, father, that cruel Fortune brings you back to your country and to us? is it thus she restores father to son and son to father? Thrice and four times happy was my brother, whom death prevented from recognizing his father. But I whom the enemy did not kill — behold! I recognize him by wounding him. This at least Fortune should have permitted, to comfort me for my sin — she should have spared me the clear proof of our ill-starred kinship. But the cruel gods shall no longer find it possible to hide our sufferings.”