And he laments, that the two great men he was speaking of, should have sacrificed all their other virtues to their valour, in being lavish of their blood and lives without a necessity, in dying for themselves, and not for their country, to which generals are as accountable for their deaths, as for their lives. 8. Art and Dexterity. It were necessary to be a professed soldier to point out, in the different engagements of Hannibal and Scipio, their ability, address, and presence of mind; their watchfulness to make an advantage of all the motions of the enemy, of all the sudden occasions offered by chance, of all the circumstances of time and place, and in a word, of all that might contribute to the victory. I am very sensible that a soldier must take a great deal of pleasure in reading the description in good authors, of those famous battles which have decided the fate of the universe, as well as the reputation of the great captains of antiquity; and that to study under such masters, and be able to improve, as well from their faults, as their good qualities, is a great means of attaining perfection in the art of war. But such reflections are beyond my power, and do not properly belong to me. 9. To have the Talent of Speaking and conciliating others to his Purposes with Address. I place this quality amongst the military virtues, because a general should excel in every thing; and the tongue, no less than the head and hand, is often a necessary instrument for the discharging his duty as he ought. It is one of the things which Hannibal admired most in Pyrrhus. [1] Artem etiam conciliandi sibi homines miram habuisse. And he makes this talent equal to the perfect knowledge in the art of war, by which Pyrrhus was most distinguished. To judge of our two generals by their speeches, as historians have preserved them, they both excelled in the talent of speaking. But I question whether those historians have not lent them a little of their own eloquence. Some very ingenious repartees of Hannibal, which history has handed down to us, shew that he had an excellent wit, and that nature alone wrought in him what others attain by art and study. As to Scipio, he had a mind better improved, and though his age was not altogether so polite as that of the second Scipio Africanus, yet his intimate acquaintance with the poet Ennius, with whom he chose to lie buried in one common grave, gives us reason to believe that he did not want a taste for polite learning. However, [m] Livy observes, that upon his arrival in Spain to take upon him the command of the troops, in the first audience he gave the deputies of the province, he spoke with a certain air of grandeur commanding respect, and at the same time with so much simplicity and persuasion, that without letting drop one single expression that had the least tincture of haughtines and pride, he immediately calmed the fears of al those, whom the view of past ills had kept under ter ror and disquietude. [n] Upon another occasion, whe Scipio had an interview with Asdrubal, in the apart ment of Syphax, the same historian observes, that Sc pio could wind and turn them as he pleased, with s much dexterity, that he alike charmed his host an his enemy with the force and turns of his eloquenc And the Carthaginian afterwards owned that this pa ticular discourse had given him a much higher idea Scipio than all his victories and conquests, and th he did not question but Syphax and his kingdom we already in the power of the Romans, such art and al [n] Lib. 28. n. 18, 1 Liv. lib. 25. n. 14: ance bu lieve How Spain in the vince, nding plicity single tiness of all er ter 7, when apart at Sci with so ost and quence his par idea of and that Om were and abi OF PROFANE HISTORY. lity had Scipio to draw over others to his party. One The Conclusion. It would be proper here to give a judgment, whether Hannibal or Scipio excelled most in military vir-: tues. But such a decision is beyond my ability. I have heard say, that in the opinion of good judges,. Hannibal was the most consummate general that ever. was, in the knowledge of war; and that the Romans attained perfection in his school, after having served their first apprenticeship in that of Pyrrhus. It must be owned, no general ever succeeded better in the choice of ground for drawing up an army, or in putting his troops upon the services for which they were most suited, or in laying an ambuscade, or providing á remedy under misfortune, or in maintaining discipline among so many different nations. He drew from himself alone, the subsistence of his troops, the pay of his soldiers, the remounting of his cavalry, the recruits of his foot, and all the necessary ammunition for maintaining a heavy war in a distant country, against a powerful enemy, for the space of sixteen successive years, and in spite of a powerful faction at home, which refused him every thing, and crossed him in all his enterprises. Thus he may certainly be called a great general. I own too, that in making a just comparison of Hannibal's design with Scipio's, the design of Hannibal must be allowed to be more bold, hazardous, dif ficult, and destitute of all résources. He was obliged to march through Gaul, which he was to look upon as an enemy's country; to pass the Alps, which had been thought unsurmountable by any other: to fix the 151 theatre of the war in the midst of an enemy's country, and in the very bosom of Italy, where he had no strong places, no magazines, no certainty of succour, nor any hopes of retreat. Add to this, that he attacked the Romans at the time of their greatest vigour, when their troops, quite fresh, and animated with the success of the preceding war, were full of courage and confidence. As for Scipio, he had but a short passage to make from Sicily into Africa. He had a powerful fleet, and was master at sea. He kept up a free communication with Sicily, from whence he was supplied with his ammunition and provision whenever he pleased. He attacked the Carthaginians at the close of a war, wherein they had suffered great losses, at a time when their power was already upon the decline, and they began to be exhausted of money, men and courage; Spain, Sardinia, and Sicily had been taken from them, and they could no longer make any diversion there against the Romans. Asdrubal's army was lately cut to pieces, and Hannibal's was extremely weakened, by several shocks it had received, and an almost general want of necessaries. All these circumstances seem to give Hannibal a great advantage over Scipio. But there are two difficulties still to be got over; the one drawn from the generals he conquered, and the other from the faults he committed. May not the victories which have rendered the name of Hannibal so famous, be properly said to be as much owing to the imprudence and rashness of the Roman generals, as to his own valour and wisdom? When they sent a Fabius against him, and then a Scipio, the first put a stop to his progress, and the other overcame him. The two faults which Hannibal committed, in no marching immediately to Rome after the battle o Cannæ, and suffering his soldiers to be corrupted an enervated at Capua, are likewise supposed to take of very much from his reputation. For, these faults ma be reckoned essential, decisive and irreparable; an both of them contrary to the principal quality of judgment he gave of the most accomplished generals, after having assigned the third place to himself after Alexander and Pyrrhus, and Scipio asking him what would he say then if he had conquered him? I do not wonder that he should reply, "I would then have "taken the place of Alexander and Pyrrhus, and of all "the generals that have ever been." [o] A fine flattering encomium in favour of Scipio, whom he distinguished from every other commander, as being superior to them all, and not proper to be brought into comparison with any. II. MORAL AND CIVIL VIRTUES. Here Scipio triumphs, whose goodness, mildness, moderation, generosity, justice, chastity, and religion, are justly boasted of. Here, I say, we have his triumph, or rather the triumph of virtue, which is by far preferable to all the victories, conquests and dignities in the world. It is a beautiful expression of Livy, when speaking of the deliberation of the senate, that was assembled to determine which of the Romans was the man of the greatest probity. [p] Haud parvæ rei judicium senatum tenebat, qui vir optimus in civitate esset. Veram certè victoriam ejus rei sibi quisque mallet quàm ulla imperia, honoresve suffragio seu patrum seu plebis delatos. "The determin 66 ing which of all the citizens was the most worthy man, was a subject of no small import. Certainly every man would have chosen a victory given to "himself in this respect, rather than any empires or "honours either senate or people could confer." |