long deferred. There 70,000
Romans perished; the loss on the side of the conquerors was 5500,
of which 4000 were Gauls. Out of 60,000 Gauls, whom Hannibal had
enumerated around him after the combat of the Trebia, 25,000 only
remained; battle, sickness, above all, the fatal passage over the
marshes of Etruria, had cut off all the rest; for up to this period
they had supported almost exclusively the weight of the war. The
victory of Cannae brought to the Carthaginians other auxiliaries; a
crowd of men from Campania, Lucania, Brutium, and Apulia, filled
his camp; but it was not that warlike race which he formerly
recruited on the banks of the Po. Cannae was the term of his
success; and assuredly the fault ought not to be imputed to his
genius, more admirable even in adverse than in good fortune--his
army only had changed. 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 Cannae, to be cut off. Rome perceived
the fault of Hannibal, and hastened to profit by it. Two armies in
_echelon_, the one to the north, and the other to the south,
intercepted the communication between the Cisalpines and Magna
Graecia. That of the north, by its incursions and by its threatening
attitude, occupied the Gauls at their own hearths, whilst the
second made head against the Carthaginians."--(I. 297-300.)

It has been said by the most renowned conqueror of modern times, that,
give him but the Gallic infantry and the Mameluke cavalry, and he would
subdue the world. And it cannot fail to strike the attentive reader with
astonishment, to learn that the severest blow ever given to the power of
Rome was inflicted by the Gaulish foot and the Numidian horse. It is
curious, as exemplifying the unchanging characters of race, to observe
that the greatest general of antiquity triumphed at the head of an army,
composed of those very nations whom Napoleon, after the lapse of two
thousand years, declared best fitted to pursue the blood-stained paths
of military greatness.

The efforts of the Gauls did not cease with the battle of Cannae; they
defeated an army under P