de in Rome for the campaign of 537.
The senate thought, and not unreasonably, that, despite the lost
battle, their position was by no means fraught with serious danger.
Besides the coast garrisons, which were despatched to Sardinia,
Sicily, and Tarentum, and the reinforcements which were sent to Spain,
the two new consuls Gaius Flaminius and Gnaeus Servilius obtained
only as many men as were necessary to restore the four legions to
their full complement; additions were made to the strength of the
cavalry alone. The consuls had to protect the northern frontier, and
stationed themselves accordingly on the two highways which led from
Rome to the north, the western of which at that lime terminated at
Arretium, and the eastern at Ariminum; Gaius Flaminius occupied the
former, Gnaeus Servilius the latter. There they ordered the troops
from the fortresses on the Po to join them, probably by water, and
awaited the commencement of the favourable season, when they proposed
to occupy in the defensive the passes of the Apennines, and then,
taking up the offensive, to descend into the valley of the Po and
effect a junction somewhere near Placentia. But Hannibal by no means
intended to defend the valley of the Po. He knew Rome better perhaps
than the Romans knew it themselves, and was very well aware how
decidedly he was the weaker and continued to be so notwithstanding the
brilliant battle on the Trebia; he knew too that his ultimate object,
the humiliation of Rome, was not to be wrung from the unbending Roman
pride either by terror or by surprise, but could only be gained by
the actual subjugation of the haughty city. It was clearly apparent
that the Italian federation was in political solidity and in military
resources infinitely superior to an adversary, who received only
precarious and irregular support from home, and who in Italy was
dependent for primary aid solely on the vacillating and capricious
nation of the Celts; and that the Phoenician foot soldier was,
notwithstanding all the pains taken by Hannibal, far inferior in
point of tactics to the legionary, had been completely proved by
the defensive movements of Scipio and the brilliant retreat of the
defeated infantry on the Trebia. From this conviction flowed the two
fundamental principles which determined Hannibal's whole method of
operations in Italy--viz., that the war should be carried on, in
somewhat adventurous fashion, with constant changes in the plan and
in