21.32
Three
days after Hannibal had left the banks of the Rhone, P. Cornelius Scipio
arrived at the deserted camp with his army in battle order, ready to engage at
once. When, however, he saw the abandoned lines and realised that it would
be no easy matter to overtake his opponent after he had got such a long
start, he returned to his ships. He considered that the easier and safer course
would be to meet Hannibal as he came down from the Alps. Spain was the
province allotted to him, and to prevent its being entirely denuded of Roman
troops he sent his brother Cneius Scipio with the greater part of his army to
act against Hasdrubal, not only to keep the old allies and win new ones, but
to drive Hasdrubal out of Spain. He himself sailed for Genoa with a very
small force, intending to defend Italy with the army lying in the valley of the
Po. From the Durance Hannibal's route lay mostly through open level
country, and he reached the Alps without meeting with any opposition from
the Gauls who inhabited the district. But the sight of the Alps revived the
terrors in the minds of his men. Although rumour, which generally magnifies
untried dangers, had filled them with gloomy forebodings, the nearer view
proved much more fearful. The height of the mountains now so close, the
snow which was almost lost in the sky, the wretched huts perched on the
rocks, the flocks and herds shrivelled and stunted with the cold, the men wild
and unkempt, everything animate and inanimate stiff with frost, together
with other sights dreadful beyond description -all helped to increase their
alarm.
As the head of the column began to climb the nearest slopes, the
natives appeared on the heights above; had they concealed themselves in the
ravines and then rushed down they would have caused frightful panic and
bloodshed. Hannibal called a halt and sent on some Gauls to examine the
ground, and when he learnt that advance was impossible in that direction he
formed his camp in the widest part of the valley that he could find;
everywhere around the ground was broken and precipitous. The Gauls who
had been sent to reconnoitre got into conversation with the natives, as there
was little difference between their speech or their manners, and they brought
back word to Hannibal that the pass was only occupied in the daytime, at
nightfall the natives all dispersed to their homes. Accordingly, at early dawn
he began the ascent as though determined to force the pass in broad daylight,
and spent the day in movements designed to conceal his real intentions and
in fortifying the camp on the spot where they had halted. As soon as he
observed that the natives had left the heights and were no longer watching
his movements, he gave orders, with the view of deceiving the enemy, for a
large number of fires to be lighted, larger in fact than would be required by
those remaining in camp. Then, leaving the baggage with the cavalry and the
greater part of the infantry in camp, he himself with a specially selected body
of troops in light marching order rapidly moved out of the defile and
occupied the heights which the enemy had held.