第 47 页

fallen into the hands of the Carthaginians.

Hannibal directed Malchus that, in the event of his failing in his

mission, he was not to trouble to send these things back, but was to

retain them to win the friendship and goodwill of the chiefs of the

country to which he proposed to journey. The next morning Malchus took

an affectionate farewell of the general and his old comrades, and then,

with Clotilde riding by his side--for the women of the Gauls were as

well skilled as the men in the management of horses--he started at the

head of his party. He followed the route marked out for him without any

adventure of importance. He had one or two skirmishes with parties of

tribesmen allied with Rome, but his movements were too rapid for any

force sufficient to oppose his passage being collected.

After ascending the sea coast the troop skirted the northern slopes of

the Apennines, passing close to the battlefield of Trebia, and

crossing the Po by a ford, ascended the banks of the Orcus, and reached

Clotilde's native village. A few ruins alone marked where it had stood.

Malchus halted there and despatched scouts far up the valley. These

succeeded in finding a native, who informed them that Brunilda with the

remains of the tribe were living in the forests far up on the slopes.

The scouts delivered to them the message with which they were charged:

that Clotilde and Malchus, with a Carthaginian force, were at Orca. The

following evening Brunilda and her followers came into camp.

Deep was the joy of the mother and daughter. The former had long since

given up all hope of ever hearing of Clotilde again, and had devoted her

life to vengeance on the Romans. From her fastness in the mountain she

had from time to time led her followers down, and carried fire and sword

over the fields and plantations of the Roman colonists, retiring rapidly

before the garrisons could sally from the towns and fall upon her. She

was rejoiced to find that her child had found a husband and protector

in the young Carthaginian, still more rejoiced when she found that the

latter had determined upon throwing in his lot with the Gauls.

All that night mother and daughter sat talking over the events which

had happened since they parted. Brunilda could give Malchus but little

encouragement for the mission on which he had come. The legion of

Postumius had indeed been defeated and nearly destroyed in a rising

which had taken place early in the spring; but fresh troops had arrived,

dissensions had, as usual, broken out among the chiefs, many of them

had again submitted to the Romans, and the rest had been defeated and

crushed. Brunilda thought that there was little hope at present of their

again taking up arms.

For some weeks Malchus attempted to carry out Hannibal's instructions;

he and his lieutenants, accompanied by small parties of horse, rode

through the country and visited all the chiefs of Cisalpine Gaul, but

the spirit of the people was broken. The successes they had gained had

never been more than partial, the Roman garrison towns had always defied

all their efforts, and sooner or later the Roman legions swept down

across the Apennines and carried all before them.

In vain Malchus told them of the victories that Hannibal had won, that

Southern Italy was in his hands, and the Roman dominion tottering. In

reply they pointed to the garrisons and the legion, and said that, were

Rome in a sore strait, she would recall her legion for her own defence,

and no arguments that Malchus could use could move them to lay aside

their own differences and to unite in another effort for freedom. Winter

was now at hand. Malchus remained in the mountains with the Orcans until

spring came, and then renewed his efforts with no greater success

than before. Then he dismissed the Carthaginians, with a letter giving

Hannibal an account of all he had done, and bade them find their way

back to Capua by the road by which they had come.

Brunilda had joyfully agreed to his proposal that they should cross

the Alps and join her kinsmen in Germany, and the remnant of the tribe

willingly consented to accompany them. Accordingly in the month of May

they set out, and journeying north made their way along the shore of

the lake now called the Lago di Guarda, and, crossing by the pass of

the Trentino, came down on the northern side of the Alps, and, after

journeying for some weeks among the great forests which covered the

country, reached the part inhabited by the tribe of the Cherusei, to

which Brunilda belonged.

Here they were hospitably received. Brunilda's family were among the

noblest of the tribe, and the rich presents which the ample resources of

Malchus enabled him to distribute among all the chiefs, at once raised

him to a position of high rank and consideration among them. Although

accepting the life of barbarism Malchus was not prepared to give up all

the usages of civilization. He built a house, which, although it

would have been but a small structure in Carthage, was regarded with

admiration and wonder by the Gauls. Here he introduced the usages and

customs of civilization. The walls, indeed, instead of being hung with

silk and tapestry, were covered with the skins of stags, bears, and

other animals slain in the chase; but these were warmer and better

suited for the rigour of the climate in winter than silks would have

been. The wealth, knowledge, and tact of Malchus gained him an immense

influence in the tribe, and in time he was elected the chief of that

portion of it dwelling near him. He did not succeed in getting his

followers to abandon their own modes of life, but he introduced among

them many of the customs of civilization, and persuaded them to adopt

the military formation in use among the Carthaginians. It was with some

reluctance that they submitted to this; but so complete was the victory

which they obtained over a rival tribe, upon their first encounter when

led by Malchus and his able lieutenant Nessus, that he had no difficulty

in future on this score.

The advantages, indeed, of fighting in solid formation, instead of

the irregular order in which each man fought for himself, were so

overwhelming that the tribe rapidly increased in power and importance,

and became one of the leading peoples in that part of Germany. Above

all, Malchus inculcated them with a deep hatred of Rome, and warned them

that when the time came, as it assuredly would do, that the Romans would

cross the Alps and attempt the conquest of the country, it behooved the

German tribes to lay aside all their disputes and to join in a common

resistance against the enemy.

From time to time rumours, brought by parties of Cisalpine Gauls, who,

like the Orcans, fled across the Alps to escape the tyranny of Rome,

reached Malchus. For years the news came that no great battle had been

fought, that Hannibal was still in the south of Italy defeating all the

efforts of the Romans to dislodge him.

It was not until the thirteenth year after Hannibal had crossed the Alps

that any considerable reinforcement was sent to aid the Carthaginian

general. Then his brother Hasdrubal, having raised an army in Spain

and Southern Gaul, crossed the Alps to join him. But he was met, as

he marched south, by the consuls Livius and Nero with an army greatly

superior to his own; and was crushed by them on the river Metaurus,

the Spanish and Ligurian troops being annihilated and Hasdrubal himself

killed.

For four years longer Hannibal maintained his position in the south of

Italy. No assistance whatever reached him from Carthage, but alone and

unaided he carried on the unequal war with Rome until, in 204 B.C.,

Scipio landed with a Roman force within a few miles of Carthage,

captured Utica, defeated two Carthaginian armies with great slaughter,

and blockaded Carthage. Then the city recalled the general and the army

whom they had so grossly neglected and betrayed.

Hannibal succeeded in safely embarking his army and in sailing to

Carthage; but so small was the remnant of the force which remained to

him, that when he attempted to give battle to Scipio he was defeated,

and Carthage was forced to make peace on terms which left her for the

future at the mercy of Rome. She was to give up all her ships of war

except ten, and all her elephants, to restore all Roman prisoners,

to engage in no war out of Africa--and none in Africa except with the

consent of Rome, to restore to Massinissa, a prince of Numidia who had

joined Rome, his kingdom, to pay a contribution of two hundred talents a

year for fifty years, and to give a hundred hostages between the ages of

fourteen and thirty, to be selected by the Roman general.

These terms left Carthage at the mercy of Rome, when the latter,

confident in her power, entered upon the third Punic war, the overthrow

and the destruction of her rival were a comparatively easy task for her.

Hannibal lived nineteen years after his return to Carthage. For eight

years he strove to rectify the administration, to reform abuses, and to

raise and improve the state; but his exposure of the gross abuses of the

public service united against him the faction which had so long profited

by them, and, in B. C. 196, the great patriot and general was driven

into exile.

He then repaired to the court of Antiochus, King of Syria, who was at

that time engaged in a war against Rome; but that monarch would not

follow the advice he gave him, and was in consequence defeated at

Magnesia, and was forced to sue for peace and to accept the terms the

Romans imposed, one of which was that Hannibal should be delivered into

their hands.

Hannibal, being warned in time, left Syria and went to Bithynia. But

Rome could not be easy so long as her great enemy lived, and made a

demand upon Prusias, King of Bithynia, for his surrender. He was about

to comply with the request when Hannibal put an end to his life, dying

at the age of sixty-four.

No rumour of this event ever reached Malchus, but he heard, fifteen

years after he had passed into Germany, that Hannibal had at last

retired from Italy, and had been defeated at Zama, and that Carthage had

been obliged to submit to conditions which placed her at the mercy of

Rome. Malchus rejoiced more than ever at the choice he had made. His

sons were now growing up, and he spared no efforts to instill in them

a hatred and distrust of Rome, to teach them the tactics of war, and to

fill their minds with noble and lofty thoughts.

Nessus had followed the example of his lord and had married a Gaulish

maiden, and he was now a subchief in the tribe. Malchus and Clotilde

lived to a great age, and the former never once regretted the choice

he had made. From afar he heard of the ever growing power of Rome, and

warned his grandsons, as he had warned his sons, against her, and begged

them to impress upon their descendants in turn the counsels he had given

them. The injunction was observed, and the time came when Arminius, a

direct descendant of Malchus, then the leader of the Cherusei, assembled

the German tribes and fell upon the legions of Varus, inflicting upon

them a defeat as crushing and terrible as the Romans had ever suffered

at the hands of Hannibal himself, and checking for once and all the

efforts of the Romans to subdue the free people of Germany.

THE END

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