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Updated: June 16, 2025
Not only were the allies to be prevented from believing that Rome was disposed to enter into negotiations, but even the meanest citizen was to be made to understand that for him as for all there was no peace, and that safety lay only in victory. Polybius's account of the battle on the Trebia is quite clear.
Then he had joined forces with the Gauls and together they had defeated a second Roman army just before they crossed the Trebia and laid siege to Placentia, the northern terminus of the road which connected Rome with the province of the Alpine districts. The Senate, surprised but calm and energetic as usual, hushed up the news of these many defeats and sent two fresh armies to stop the invader.
What did Hannibal promise his father? What sort of a leader was Hannibal? How did Hannibal reach Italy? How did he win the battle of the Trebia? Why was he unable to force the Romans to yield? How long before the beginning of the Christian Era did this war with Hannibal close? How long after the battle of Marathon, and after the death of Alexander the Great?
But, though a young general, Hannibal was an old soldier when he led his army from the Ebro to the Trebia, as the avenging agent of his country's gods. Eight years later he took the place which his father and brother-in-law had held, called to it by the voice of the army.
A thousand horse and a thousand foot, under the command of Mago, having been thus sent off, Hannibal orders the Numidian cavalry to ride up, after crossing the river Trebia by break of day, to the gates of the enemy, and to draw them out to a battle by discharging their javelins at the guards; and then, when the fight was commenced, by retiring slowly to decoy them across the river.
All the fatigues and hardships they had undergone were forgotten in the hour of triumph, and their native allies believed that their freedom from Rome was now assured. The verdict of great commanders of all ages has assigned to the battle of the Trebia the glory of being the greatest military exploit ever performed.
Beyond them, thrown back in echelon, marched Africans in little squares of sixteen front. These had substituted for their own equipment the Roman spoils of Trasimenus and Trebia.
Upon the former engagement near Trebia, neither the general who wrote, nor the express who told the news, used straightforward and direct terms, nor related it otherwise than as a drawn battle, with equal loss on either side; but on this occasion, as soon as Pomponius the praetor had the intelligence, he caused the people to assemble, and, without disguising or dissembling the matter, told them plainly, "We are beaten, O Romans, in a great battle; the consul Flaminius is killed; think, therefore, what is to be done for your safety."
On the following night, therefore, though the guard of the camp and the principal part of the soldiers that remained passed the Trebia on rafts, they either did not perceive it, on account of the beating of the rain, or being unable to bestir themselves, through their fatigue and wounds, pretended that they did not perceive it; and the Carthaginians remaining quiet, the army was silently led by the consul Scipio to Placentia, thence transported across the Po to Cremona, lest one colony should be too much burdened by the winter quarters of two armies.
The second son of the vine-dresser, Jean Birotteau, was drafted into the militia, and won the rank of captain early in the wars of the Revolution. At the battle of Trebia, Macdonald called for volunteers to carry a battery. Captain Jean Birotteau advanced with his company, and was killed.
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