Even Hannibal Acknowledges the Spirit of the Romans
Resuming my history from the point at which I started
on this digression I will briefly refer to one transaction, that
I may give a practical illustration of the perfection and power
of the Roman polity at that period, as though I were producing
one of his works as a specimen of the skill of a good artist.
When Hannibal, after conquering the Romans in the
battle at
B. C. 216. Hannibal offers to put the prisoners at Cannae to ransom. |
Cannae, got possession of the eight thousand who
were guarding the Roman camp, he made them
all prisoners of war, and granted them permission
to send messages to their relations that they might
be ransomed and return home. They accordingly selected ten of their chief men, whom Hannibal allowed
to depart after binding them with an oath to return. But one
of them, just as he had got outside the palisade of the camp,
saying that he had forgotten something, went back; and, having
got what he had left behind, once more set out, under the belief
that by means of this return he had kept his promise and discharged his oath. Upon the arrival of the envoys at
Rome,
imploring and beseeching the Senate not to grudge the captured
troops their return home, but to allow them to rejoin their
friends by paying three minae each for them,—for these were
the terms, they said, granted by Hannibal,—and declaring that
the men deserved redemption, for they had neither played the
coward in the field, nor done anything unworthy of
Rome,
but had been left behind to guard the camp; and that, when
all the rest had perished, they had yielded to absolute necessity in surrendering to Hannibal: though the Romans had
been severely defeated in the battles, and though they were at
the time deprived of, roughly speaking, all their allies, they
neither yielded so far to misfortune as to disregard what was
becoming to themselves, nor omitted to take into account
any necessary consideration. They saw through Hannibal's
purpose in thus acting,—which was at once to get a large supply
of money, and at the same time to take away all enthusiasm
from the troops opposed to him, by showing that even the
conquered had a hope of getting safe home again. Therefore
the Senate, far from acceding to the request, refused all pity
even to their own relations, and disregarded the services to be
expected from these men in the future: and thus frustrated
Hannibal's calculations, and the hopes which he had founded
on these prisoners, by refusing to ransom them; and at the
same time established the rule for their own men, that they
must either conquer or die on the field, as there was no other
hope of safety for them if they were beaten. With this answer
they dismissed the nine envoys who returned of their own
accord; but the tenth who had put the cunning trick in
practice for discharging himself of his oath they put in chains
and delivered to the enemy. So that Hannibal was not so
much rejoiced at his victory in the battle, as struck with
astonishment at the unshaken firmness and lofty spirit
displayed in the resolutions of these senators.
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