In the first day of the battle, Hannibal
was able to destroy all his enemies, without suffering any damage. In the
second day of the battle, Hannibal’s troops went on the offensive, and crossed
into enemy territory, delivering the first blow of the battle – a significant
achievement – for it is well known, that in a battle of wills, it is of the
utmost urgency to strike first, to deliver the first blow – and Hannibal’s
forces had done that.
Meanwhile, the enemy from the west
could do no damage to Hannibal and his forces – drawing not a drop of blood in
the second day of the battle, nor in the third. Hannibal, the battle-hardened
veteran, had the enemy baffled - not with any overwhelming blows, but with
cunning and guile - some sideways maneuvering, some bluffs, to keep the enemy
off balance – he even used a butterfly (which Hannibal called by its Iberian
name, mariposa), to mesmerize the enemy.
Hannibal’s namesake, from years
ago, was more hard-hitting than this Hannibal, and more prone to launch
lightning strikes (his family name, after all, was Barca (lightning)). A major exception for the ancient southpaw was his long (and very wide)
hook, delivered from the top, which featured some of the heaviest artillery ever seen. That long-ago
Hannibal deployed some 40 elephants, from which soldiers hurled high, hard stones –
but it wasn’t the accuracy or the potency of the projectiles launched from atop
the elephants that did damage to the enemy; instead, the elephants were used mainly
to strike fear into the hearts of enemy forces - to make ’em sweat. This
Hannibal, for his part, employed those delicate mariposas – in about the same number, as the ancient Hannibal had, elephants.
Hannibal’s camp maintained the
advantage in the field, and the enemy could still make no headway – not in the
fourth day of battle, not in the fifth, nor in the sixth. They could not lay a
hand on Hannibal and his troops.
Hannibal had done this before. In
his first year as a warrior. thirteen years and one month before, in a battle defending
his home turf in the south, a battle that lasted nine days, Hannibal vanquished
nearly every one of the enemy forces that challenged him, and they drew no
blood from Hannibal’s forces – they did not even land one blow to his camp.
Four of the enemy’s soldiers managed to escape - but even from their positions,
on Hannibal’s left flank, they were not able to advance much further, as
Hannibal kept a close eye on them, to freeze their activities.
Meanwhile, back at home base,
Hannibal was reunited with his brother. This time, though, Hasdrubal joined his
brother’s camp with his head intact.
In the recent battle, Hannibal,
the general from south of the great sea, continued, unharmed, through the
seventh day of fighting. Through those first seven days, he had only used 89
arrows and spears, to vanquish his enemy’s forces. He was not only victorious over his foes, he was also being very economical.
In the morning of the eighth day
of the battle, the enemy directed a low-flying projectile towards Hannibal’s left
flank, hoping to land a blow against his forces, but one of Hannibal’s nearby
troops was able to intercept the spear, before it could do any harm.
Then, late in the evening of the
eighth day, Hannibal faced a new foe – one that had been kept in reserve by the
enemy, and whom Hannibal had not yet seen in this battle. After an arduous
struggle between the combatants, all the soldiers and observers on hand beheld,
with a collective gasp, a dying quail sailing across the battlefield, and saw
it land in the distant fields, between Hannibal’s ranks. Everyone knew the
significance of this ominous sign, and Hannibal’s civilian leaders immediately
knew what to do – they recalled their general home, and sent in the reserve
cavalry.
It is true, that Hannibal might
have exhausted his supply of arrows and spears – and butterflies – but it was
the dying quail, which all had seen descend in the distant field, more than his
material resources, that people feared – and the enemy hoped – would shoot down
Hannibal’s morale; for all observers of battle have witnessed such sights, after an
unbroken series of conquests – and there was no mistaking its meaning.
For the remainder of the eighth
night, and over the course of the ninth day of the battle, a member of the
cavalry, who was unaffected by the dying quail, concluded the victorious battle.
In the next battle of the
campaign, which began, the next day, Hannibal’s successor general, a man who hailed from
Germania, picked up the torch, and for the first six days of the battle, he and
his troops went unharmed, vanquishing nearly every one of the enemy forces. This,
too, had been done before. Six years earlier, Hannibal and the same Germani general had led consecutive battles, near the northern front, and gone unharmed, for the first
five days of each battle.
What remains to be seen is, will this
Hannibal and his troops win all the battles, but lose the war.
