Notes for Chapter V

1.  Polybius’s account of the battle on the Trebia is quite clear.  If Placentia lay on the right bank of the Trebia where it falls into the Po, and if the battle was fought on the left bank, while the Roman encampment was pitched upon the right—­both of which points have been disputed, but are nevertheless indisputable—­the Roman soldiers must certainly have passed the Trebia in order to gain Placentia as well as to gain the camp.  But those who crossed to the camp must have made their way through the disorganized portions of their own army and through the corps of the enemy that had gone round to their rear, and must then have crossed the river almost in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy.  On the other hand the passage near Placentia was accomplished after the pursuit had slackened; the corps was several miles distant from the field of battle, and had arrived within reach of a Roman fortress; it may even have been the case, although it cannot be proved, that a bridge led over the Trebia at that point, and that the -tete de pont- on the other bank was occupied by the garrison of Placentia.  It is evident that the first passage was just as difficult as the second was easy, and therefore with good reason Polybius, military judge as he was, merely says of the corps of 10,000, that in close columns it cut its way to Placentia (iii. 74, 6), without mentioning the passage of the river which in this case was unattended with difficulty.

The erroneousness of the view of Livy, which transfers the Phoenician camp to the right, the Roman to the left bank of the Trebia, has lately been repeatedly pointed out.  We may only further mention, that the site of Clastidium, near the modern Casteggio, has now been established by inscriptions (Orelli-Henzen, 5117).

2.  III.  III.  The Celts Attacked in Their Own Land

3.  The date of the battle, 23rd June according to the uncorrected calendar, must, according to the rectified calendar, fall somewhere in April, since Quintus Fabius resigned his dictatorship, after six months, in the middle of autumn (Lav. xxii. 31, 7; 32, i), and must therefore have entered upon it about the beginning of May.  The confusion of the calendar (p. 117) in Rome was even at this period very great.

4.  The inscription of the gift devoted by the new dictator on account of his victory at Gerunium to Hercules Victor—­ -Hercolei sacrom M. Minuci(us) C. f. dictator vovit- —­was found in the year 1862 at Rome, near S. Lorenzo.

5.  III.  III.  Northern Italy

Chapter VI

The War under Hannibal from Cannae to Zama

The Crisis