21.4
Hanno's
proposal received but slight support, though almost all the best men in the
council were with him, but as usual, numbers carried the day against reason.
No sooner had Hannibal landed in Spain than he became a favourite with the
whole army. The veterans thought they saw Hamilcar restored to them as he
was in his youth; they saw the same determined expression the same piercing
eyes, the same cast of features. He soon showed, however, that it was not
his father's memory that helped him most to win the affections of the army.
Never was there a character more capable of the two tasks so opposed to
each other of commanding and obeying; you could not easily make out
whether the army or its general were more attached to him. Whenever
courage and resolution were needed Hasdrubal never cared to entrust the
command to any one else; and there was no leader in whom the soldiers
placed more confidence or under whom they showed more daring. He was
fearless in exposing himself to danger and perfectly self-possessed in the
presence of danger. No amount of exertion could cause him either bodily or
mental fatigue; he was equally indifferent to heat and cold; his eating and
drinking were measured by the needs of nature, not by appetite; his hours of
sleep were not determined by day or night, whatever time was not taken up
with active duties was given to sleep and rest, but that rest was not wooed
on a soft couch or in silence, men often saw him lying on the ground
amongst the sentinels and outposts, wrapped in his military cloak. His dress
was in no way superior to that of his comrades; what did make him
conspicuous were his arms and horses. He was by far the foremost both of
the cavalry and the infantry, the first to enter the fight and the last to leave
the field. But these great merits were matched by great vices -inhuman
cruelty, a perfidy worse than Punic, an utter absence of truthfulness,
reverence, fear of the gods, respect for oaths, sense of religion. Such was his
character, a compound of virtues and vices. For three years he served under
Hasdrubal, and during the whole time he never lost an opportunity of gaining
by practice or observation the experience necessary for one who was to be a
great leader of men.
