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Updated: May 25, 2025
To those who have made the journey from Florence to Rome a single fine page of the introduction brings back a thrill of that long ecstasy. In these few quiet words he spreads Thrasymene before us: "It has a soft, still beauty especially its own.
But it is far more fearful than even this, to look on one, who is bound to us by the nearest and most cherished ties with cheek yet glowing expression's flush mantling still and yet to doubt whether the intellect, which adorned that frame the jewel in the casket hath not for ever left its earthly tenement. The Vetturini. "Far other scene is Thrasymene now."
On the ascent, at intervals, the eye is fascinated by prospects to the north and east over Val di Chiana, Cortona, Thrasymene, Chiusi; to south and west over Monte Cetona, Radicofani, Monte Amiata, the Val d'Ombrone, and the Sienese Contado.
He seems to have thought it not quite prudent to advance to the actual attack of the city, after the battle of Lake Thrasymene; for the vast population of Rome was sufficient, if rendered desperate by his actually threatening the capture and pillage of the city, to overwhelm his army entirely.
Trebia, Thrasymene and Cannæ, year after year, threaten complete destruction to the State. Then comes the great Scipio; and no doubt, if we must mark an era of Roman greatness, it would be that of the battle of Zama and the submission of Carthage, 201 years before Christ.
Vines twine round the fruit-trees; black pigs and their families make their appearance in tribes; the lake of Thrasymene, near which Hannibal defeated the Romans, spreads itself out before us. The train is going from Florence to Rome.
For two thousand years history has accused him with bitterness for his inaction after the battle of Aufidus, and for his delay at Capua; perhaps it might reproach him more justly for having removed from the north of Italy, and for having allowed his communications with the soldiers who had conquered under him at Thrasymene and Cannæ, to be cut off.
After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the Lake of Thrasymene through oak-woods full of nightingales. The Lake lay basking, leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, rain-charged, sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its shore, we stopped for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of very poor people, who live entirely by labour on the waters.
Pray, ye poor people; chant and pray. If all be but a dream, to wake from this were loss for you indeed! The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona.
After lunch we walked out to see the lions of Spoleto, and found our way up a steep and narrow street that led us to the city gate, at which, it is traditionally said, Hannibal sought to force an entrance, after the battle of Thrasymene, and was repulsed. The gateway has a double arch, on the inner one of which is a tablet, recording the above tradition as an unquestioned historical fact.
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