xpecting success before commencing their undertaking, and then go
steadily forward, under all aspects of the sky--when it shines and
when it rains--till they reach the end. The inefficient and undecided
can act only under the stimulus of present hope. The end they aim at
must be visible before them all the time. If for a moment it passes
out of view, their motive is gone, and they can do no more, till, by
some change in circumstances, it comes in sight again.

Hannibal was energetic and decided. The time for him to consider
whether he would encounter the hostility of the Roman empire, aroused
to the highest possible degree, was when his army was drawn up upon
the banks of the Iberus, before they crossed it. The Iberus was his
Rubicon. That line once overstepped, there was to be no further
faltering. The difficulties which arose from time to time to throw a
cloud over his prospects, only seemed to stimulate him to fresh
energy, and to awaken a new, though still a calm and steady
resolution. It was so at the Pyrenees; it was so at the Rhone; it was
so among the Alps, where the difficulties and dangers would have
induced almost any other commander to have returned; and it was still
so, now that he found himself shut in on every hand by the stern
boundaries of Northern Italy, which he could not possibly hope again
to pass, and the whole disposable force of the Roman empire,
commanded, too, by one of _the consuls_, concentrated before him. The
imminent danger produced no faltering, and apparently no fear.

The armies were not yet in sight of each other. They were, in fact,
yet on opposite sides of the River Po. The Roman commander concluded
to march his troops across the river, and advance in search of
Hannibal, who was still at some miles' distance. After considering the
various means of crossing the stream, he decided finally on building a
bridge.

Military commanders generally throw some sort of a bridge across a
stream of water lying in their way, if it is too deep to be easily
forded, unless, indeed, it is so wide and rapid as to make the
construction of the bridge difficult or impracticable. In this latter
case they cross as well as they can by means of boats and rafts, and
by swimming. The Po, though not a very large stream at this point, was
too deep to be forded, and Scipio accordingly built a bridge. The
soldiers cut down the trees which grew in the forests along the banks,
and after trimming off the tops and br