21.26
When
the intelligence of this sudden outbreak reached Rome and the senate
became aware that they had a Gaulish war to face in addition to the war with
Carthage, they ordered C. Atilius, the praetor, to go to the relief of Manlius
with a Roman legion and 5000 men who had been recently enlisted by the
consul from among the allies. As the enemy, afraid to meet these
reinforcements, had retired, Atilius reached Tannetum without any fighting.
After raising a fresh legion in place of the one which had been sent away
with the praetor, P. Cornelius Scipio set sail with sixty warships and coasted
along by the shores of Etruria and Liguria, and from there past the
mountains of the Salyes until he reached Marseilles. Here he disembarked his
troops at the first mouth of the Rhone to which he came -the river flows
into the sea through several mouths -and formed his entrenched camp,
hardly able yet to believe that Hannibal had surmounted the obstacle of the
Pyrenees. When, however, he understood that he was already contemplating
crossing the Rhone, feeling uncertain as to where he would meet him and
anxious to give his men time to recover from the effects of the voyage, he
sent forward a picked force of 300 cavalry accompanied by Massilian guides
and friendly Gauls to explore the country in all directions and if possible to
discover the enemy.
Hannibal had overcome the opposition of the native tribes by either
fear or bribes and had now reached the territory of the Volcae. They were a
powerful tribe, inhabiting the country on both sides of the Rhone, but
distrusting their ability to stop Hannibal on the side of the river nearest to
him, they determined to make the river a barrier and transported nearly all
the population to the other side, on which they prepared to offer armed
resistance. The rest of the river population and those of the Volcae even,
who still remained in their homes, were induced by presents to collect boats
from all sides and to help in constructing others, and their efforts were
stimulated by the desire to get rid as soon as possible of the burdensome
presence of such a vast host of men. So an enormous number of boats and
vessels of every kind, such as they used in their journeys up and down the
river, was got together; new ones were made by the Gauls by hollowing out
the trunks of trees, then the soldiers themselves, seeing the abundance of
timber and how easily they were made, took to fashioning uncouth canoes,
quite content if only they would float and carry burdens and serve to
transport themselves and their belongings.
