Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
field again the next day, that the fame of their victory might arrive at
Rome before that of their flight. Dismissing the assembly, he commanded
barley instead of wheat to be given to those companies that had turned
their backs. These rebukes were so bitter to the soldiers, that though a
great number of them were grievously wounded, yet they relate there was
not one to whom the general's oration was not more painful and smarting
than his wounds.
The day breaking, a scarlet toga, the sign of instant battle, was
displayed. The companies marked with ignominy, begged they might be
posted in the foremost place, and obtained their request. Then the
tribunes bring forth the rest of the forces, and draw them up. On news
of which, "O strange!" said Hannibal, "what will you do with this man,
who can bear neither good nor bad fortune? He is the only man who
neither suffers us to rest when he is victor, nor rests himself when he
is overcome. We shall have, it seems, perpetually to fight with him; as
in good success his confidence, and in ill success his shame, still urges
him to some further enterprise?" Then the armies engaged. When the
fight was doubtful, Hannibal commanded the elephants to be brought into
the first battalion, and to be driven upon the van of the Romans. When
the beasts, trampling upon many, soon caused disorder, Flavius, a tribune
of soldiers, snatching an ensign, meets them, and wounding the first
elephant with the spike at the bottom of the ensign staff, puts him to
flight. The beast turned round upon the next, and drove back both him
and the rest that followed. Marcellus, seeing this, pours in his horse
with great force upon the elephants, and upon the enemy disordered by
their flight. The horse, making a fierce impression, pursued the
Carthaginians home to their camp, while the elephants, wounded, and
running upon their own party, caused a considerable slaughter. It is
said, more than eight thousand were slain; of the Roman army three
thousand, and almost all wounded. This gave Hannibal opportunity to
retire in the silence of the night, and to remove to greater distance
from Marcellus; who was kept from pursuing by the number of his wounded
men, and removed, by gentle marches, into Campania, and spent the summer
at Sinuessa, engaged in restoring them.
But as Hannibal, having disentangled himself from Marcellus, ranged with
his army round about the country, and wasted Italy free from all fear, at
Rome Marcellus was evil spoken of. His detractors induced Publicius
Bibulus, tribune of the people, an eloquent and violent man, to undertake
his accusation. He, by assiduous harangues, prevailed upon the people to
withdraw from Marcellus the command of the army; "Seeing that Marcellus,"
said he, "after brief exercise in the war, has withdrawn as it might be
from the wrestling ground to the warm baths to refresh himself."
Marcellus, on hearing this, appointed lieutenants over his camp, and
hasted to Rome to refute the charges against him: and there found ready
drawn up an impeachment consisting of these calumnies. At the day
prefixed, in the Flaminian circus, into which place the people had
assembled themselves, Bibulus rose and accused him. Marcellus himself
answered, briefly and simply: but the first and most approved men of the
city spoke largely and in high terms, very freely advising the people not
to show themselves worse judges than the enemy, condemning Marcellus of
timidity, from whom alone of all their captains the enemy fled, and as
perpetually endeavored to avoid fighting with him, as to fight with
others. When they made an end of speaking, the accuser's hope to obtain
judgment so far deceived him, that Marcellus was not only absolved, but
the fifth time created consul.
No sooner had he entered upon this consulate, but he suppressed a great
commotion in Etruria, that had proceeded near to revolt, and visited and
quieted the cities. Then, when the dedication of the temple, which he had
vowed out of his Sicilian spoils to Honor and Virtue, was objected to by
the priests, because they denied that one temple could be lawfully
dedicated to two gods, he began to adjoin another to it, resenting the
priests' opposition, and almost converting the thing into an omen. And,
truly, many other prodigies also affrighted him; some temples had been
struck with lightning, and in Jupiter's temple mice had gnawed the gold;
it was reported also, that an ox had spoke, and that a boy had been born
with a head like an elephant's. All which prodigies had indeed been
attended to, but due reconciliation had not been obtained from the gods.
The aruspices therefore detained him at Rome, glowing and burning with
desire to return to the war. For no man was ever inflamed with so great
desire of any thing, as was he to fight a battle with Hannibal. It was
the subject of his dreams in the night, the topic of all his
consultations with his friends and familiars, nor did he present to the
gods any other wish, but that he might meet Hannibal in the field. And I
think, that he would most gladly have set upon him, with both armies
environed within a single camp. Had he not been even loaded with honors,
and had he not given proofs in many ways of his maturity of judgment and
of prudence equal to that of any commander, you might have said, that he
was agitated by a youthful ambition, above what became a man of that age:
for he had passed the sixtieth year of his life when he began his fifth
consulship.
The sacrifices having been offered, and all that belonged to the
propitiation of the gods performed, according to the prescription of the
diviners, he at last with his colleague went forth to carry on the war.
He tried all possible means to provoke Hannibal, who at that time had a
standing camp betwixt Bantia and Venusia. Hannibal declined an engagement,
but having obtained intelligence that some troops were on their way to
the town of Locri Epizephyrii, placing an ambush under the little hill of
Petelia, he slew two thousand five hundred soldiers. This incensed
Marcellus to revenge; and he therefore moved nearer Hannibal. Betwixt
the two camps was a little hill, a tolerably secure post, covered with
wood; it had steep descents on either side, and there were springs of
water seen trickling down. This place was so fit and advantageous, that
the Romans wondered that Hannibal, who had come thither before them, had
not seized upon it, but had left it to the enemies. But to him the place
had seemed commodious indeed for a camp, but yet more commodious for an
ambuscade; and to that use he chose to put it. So in the wood and the
hollows he hid a number of archers and spearmen, confident that the
commodiousness of the place would allure the Romans. Nor was he deceived
in his expectation. For presently in the Roman camp they talked and
disputed, as if they had all been captains, how the place ought to be
seized, and what great advantage they should thereby gain upon the
enemies, chiefly if they transferred their camp thither, at any rate, if
they strengthened the place with a fort. Marcellus resolved to go, with
a few horse, to view it. Having called a diviner he proceeded to
sacrifice. In the first victim the aruspex showed him the liver without
a head; in the second the head appeared of unusual size, and all the
other indications highly promising. When these seemed sufficient to free
them from the dread of the former, the diviners declared, that they were
all the more terrified by the latter: because entrails too fair and
promising, when they appear after others that are maimed and monstrous,
render the change doubtful and suspicious But
Nor fire nor brazen wall can keep out fate;
as Pindar observes. Marcellus, therefore, taking with him his colleague
Crispinus, and his son, a tribune of soldiers, with two hundred and
twenty horse at most, (among whom there was not one Roman, but all were
Etruscans, except forty Fregellans, of whose courage and fidelity he had
on all occasions received full proof,) goes to view the place. The hill
was covered with woods all over; on the top of it sat a scout concealed
from the sight of the enemy, but having the Roman camp exposed to his
view. Upon signs received from him, the men that were placed in ambush,
stirred not till Marcellus came near; and then all starting up in an
instant, and encompassing him from all sides, attacked him with darts,
struck about and wounded the backs of those that fled, and pressed upon
those who resisted. These were the forty Fregellans. For though the
Etruscans fled in the very beginning of the fight, the Fregellans formed
themselves into a ring, bravely defending the consuls, till Crispinus,
struck with two darts, turned his horse to fly away; and Marcellus's side
was run through with a lance with a broad head. Then the Fregellans,
also, the few that remained alive, leaving the fallen consul, and
rescuing young Marcellus, who also was wounded, got into the camp by
flight. There were slain not much above forty; five lictors and eighteen
horsemen came alive into the enemy's hands. Crispinus also died of his
wounds a few days after. Such a disaster as the loss of both consuls in
a single engagement, was one that had never before befallen the Romans.
Hannibal, little valuing the other events, so soon as he was told of
Marcellus's death, immediately hasted to the hilt. Viewing the body, and
continuing for some time to observe its strength and shape, he allowed
not a word to fall from him expressive of the least pride or arrogancy,
nor did he show in his countenance any sign of gladness, as another
perhaps would have done, when his fierce and troublesome enemy had been
taken away; but amazed by so sudden and unexpected an end, taking off
nothing but his ring, gave order to have the body properly clad and
adorned, and honorably burned. The relics, put into a silver urn, with a
crown of gold to cover it, he sent back to his son. But some of the
Numidians setting upon those that were carrying the urn, took it from
them by force, and cast away the bones; which being told to Hannibal, "It
is impossible, it seems then," he said, "to do anything against the will
of God!" He punished the Numidians; but took no further care of sending
or recollecting the bones; conceiving that Marcellus so fell, and so lay
unburied, by a certain fate. So Cornelius Nepos and Valerius Maximus
have left upon record: but Livy and Augustus Caesar affirm, that the urn
was brought to his son, and honored with a magnificent funeral. Besides
the monuments raised for him at Rome, there was dedicated to his memory
at Catana in Sicily, an ample wrestling place called after him; statues
and pictures, out of those he took from Syracuse, were set up in
Samothrace, in the temple of the gods, named Cabiri, and in that of
Minerva at Lindus, where also there was a statue of him, says Posidonius,
with the following inscription:
This was, O stranger, once Rome's star divine,
Claudius Marcellus of an ancient line;
To fight her wars seven times her consul made,
Low in the dust her enemies he laid.
The writer of the inscription has added to Marcellus's five consulates,
his two proconsulates. His progeny continued in high honor even down to
Marcellus, son of Octavia, sister of Augustus, whom she bore to her
husband Caius Marcellus; and who died, a bridegroom, in the year of his
aedileship, having not long before married Caesar's daughter. His
mother, Octavia, dedicated the library to his honor and memory, and
Caesar, the theater which bears his name.
COMPARISION OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS
These are the memorable things I have found in historians, concerning
Marcellus and Pelopidas. Betwixt which two great men, though in natural