Ancient history

Beginning of a new year of war (217)

Book XXII:The events of the years 217 and 216
1st part:[22,1-18]

Beginning of a new year of war (217)

Already spring was approaching; so Hannibal left his winter quarters, after having previously tried in vain to cross the Apennines in intolerable cold, and having remained in his camp at the cost of great danger and great fear. The Gauls, who had been impelled by the hope of plunder and plunder, seeing that instead of stealing themselves, and carrying off cattle and prisoners from foreign territory, it was their lands which were the seat of war and overwhelmed by the winter quarters of both armies, turned their hatred of the Romans against Hannibal; the latter was often exposed to ambushes from their chiefs; but their reciprocal betrayals - for they denounced their plots as lightly as they had plotted - saved him; and by changing, sometimes clothes, sometimes wigs, he also made them commit errors which had protected him from their pitfalls. However, this fear was one more reason for him to abandon his winter quarters early.

At the same time, the consul Cneius Servilius, in Rome, took office on the ides of March. As, on this occasion, he was consulting the senators on the general situation, hatred against Caius Flaminius again manifested itself among them:they have, they say, appointed two consuls, and they have only one. The other, in fact, what does he possess that is legitimate in terms of command, in terms of auspice? The magistrate carries these rights from his household, from the public and private penates, after having celebrated the Latin Feria, performing the sacrifice on the mountain, expressing his vows publicly, ritually, at the Capitol; but a private individual, the auspices do not accompany him, and, once he has departed without auspices, he cannot, on foreign soil, take them again, with all their value.

These fears were increased by the prodigies announced from a large number of places at once:in Sicily, the javelins of several soldiers, in Sardinia, the staff held in the hand of a knight who made a round on the ramparts, s were inflamed; on the shore numerous fires had burned; two shields had sweated blood; some soldiers had been struck down; the globe of the sun had seemed smaller; at Praeneste, burning stones had fallen from the sky; at Arpi, shields had been seen in the sky and a combat of the sun against the moon; (at Capena, in broad daylight, two moons had risen; the waters of Cere had flowed mingled with blood, and at the very source of Hercules, the water had had bloodstains; at Antium, reapers had saw bloody ears fall into their baskets; (at Falerians, the sky had seemed to open as if through a wide slit, and through this opening had shone a dazzling light; the tablets of spells had shrunk of their own accord, and there had fallen one bearing the inscription:"Mavors waves his lance"; at the same time, in Rome, the statue of Mars, on the Appian way, and the effigies of the wolves had sweated; in Capua, the sky had appeared ignite and the moon fall in the middle of the rain, after which they gave credence to even less important prodigies:some had seen their goats bear wool, a hen had changed into a rooster, and a rooster into a hen.

After having explained these prodigies as they had been announced, and introduced their guarantors into the curia, the consul consulted the senators on religious affairs. It was decreed to remedy these prodigies by the sacrifice partly of great victims, partly of milk-producing animals, and to supplicate the gods, for three days, at all their parade beds; for the rest, when the decemvirs had consulted the books, to do what they would prescribe by their formulas as dear to the heart of the gods. On the advice of the decemvirs, it was first decreed, for Jupiter, to have him make a gold thunderbolt of fifty pounds; for Juno and Minerva, to give them silver offerings; for Juno Queen, on the Aventine, and Juno Sospita at Lanuvium, to sacrifice great victims to them; to have the matrons, each paying as much money as they could without bothering each other, bring an offering to Juno Queen on the Aventine; to hold a lectisterne; finally, to make the freedwomen themselves pay, in order to bring an offering to Feronia, a contribution proportional to their resources. This done, the decemvirs sacrificed to Ardea, on the forum, great victims. Finally - it was already December - a sacrifice was made, in Rome, at the temple of Saturn, a lectisterne was ordered - the bed of which was prepared by the senators - and a public banquet; (the cry of the Saturnalia was shouted through the city for a day and a night, and the people were invited to hold this day for a feast day and to observe it in the future.