Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 19, 2025
This army was, however, no more successful than its predecessors had been. Hannibal contrived to entrap Flaminius by a stratagem, as he had entrapped Sempronius before. There is in the eastern part of Etruria, near the mountains, a lake called Lake Thrasymene.
It happened that this lake extended so near to the base of the mountains as to leave only a narrow passage between a passage but little wider than was necessary for a road. Hannibal contrived to station a detachment of his troops in ambuscade at the foot of the mountains, and others on the declivities above, and then in some way or other to entice Flaminius and his army through the defile.
On the other side, to go about a work of this nature by a league without a head, is to abdicate that magistracy wherewith he has not only endued you, but whereof he will require an account of you; for, 'cursed is he that does the work of the Lord negligently. Wherefore you are to take the course of Rome: if you have subdued a nation that is capable of liberty, you shall make them a present of it, as did Flaminius to Greece, and AEmilius to Macedon, reserving to yourselves some part of that revenue which was legally paid to the former government, together with the right of being head of the league, which includes such levies of men and money as shall be necessary for the carrying on of the public work.
While the consul employs himself at Rome in appeasing the gods and holding the levy, Hannibal, setting out from his winter quarters, because it was reported that the consul Flaminius had now arrived at Arretium, although a longer but more commodious route was pointed out to him, takes the nearer road through a marsh where the Arno had, more than usual, overflowed its banks.
Hannibal, by marching through the swampy district of the Arno, where he himself lost an eye, flanked the defensive position of the Romans. The consul Flaminius was decoyed into a narrow pass; and, in the battle of Lake Trasumenus , his army of thirty thousand men was slaughtered or made prisoners. The consul himself was killed. All Etruria was lost.
Beneath the Capitoline on the west, toward the river, was the Circus Flaminius, the Portico of Octavius, the Theatre of Balbus, and the Theatre of Pompey, where forty thousand spectators were accommodated.
These six thousand he armed with the Gallic spoils which were carried in the procession at the triumph of Caius Flaminius. Thus he marched from the city at the head of twenty-five thousand men.
Their stimulating influence was invoked by the dictator to inspire the people with confidence, while he soothed them with the intimation that Flaminius had failed rather through overcourage and neglect of divine things than through mere plebeian temerity and ignorance. Fabius took care to impress it upon all that he himself would take full warning from the lesson.
Family policy and demagogism carried on a similar and equally dangerous rivalry in patronizing and worshipping the rabble. Gaius Flaminius was regarded by the statesmen of the following generation as the initiator of that course from which proceeded the reforms of the Gracchi and we may add the democratico-monarchical revolution that ensued.
This was done in the year 534 by one of the most notable men of the party of reform, the censor Gaius Flaminius, and was then repeated and more stringently enforced fifty years later by the censor Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the father of the two authors of the Roman revolution.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking