Notes

III. So, at the age which I have stated, he set out to Spain with his father. After the latter's death, Hasdrubal succeeded as commander and Hannibal was placed in command of all the cavalry. When Hasdrubal was also killed, the army transmitted the supreme command to him. When this was reported at Carthage, it was publicly confirmed. So Hannibal, when he was less than twenty-five years old was made commander and in the next three years he subjugated all the races of Spain by war; Saguntum, an allied community, he conquered by force; he gathered up three very large armies. Of these, he sent one to Africa, he left another with his brother Hasdrubal in Spain, and he took the third with him into Italy. He crossed a Pyrenean mountain pass. Wherever he travelled, he came into conflict with all the inhabitants: he did not leave any enemy unconquered. After this he came to the Alps, which separate Italy from Gaul, which no one had ever crossed with an army before, except Hercules the Greek - for which reason this pass is today called "the Greek." He cut through the inhabitants of the Alps who tried to prevent him from crossing, he threw the way open, secured the routes, made it so that an armoured elephant could go where a single unarmed man could scarcely sneak through before. In this way he led his forces over and brought them into Italy.

IV. They joined battle near the Rhone with Publius Cornelius Scipio, the consul,[4] and beat him. He clashed decisively with the same man at Clastidum, near the Po, wounded him and then sent him fleeing away.[5] For a third time, Scipio came against him with his colleague Tiberius Longus, near the Trebia.[6] He joined the melee with them and put them to flight. Then he crossed the Apennines through Ligurian territory, making for Etruria. On this journey, he was afflicted with a disease of the eyes, so serious that afterwards his right eye never fully recovered. Even as he was suffering from this state of health and had to be carried in a litter, he surrounded Gaius Flaminius the consul near Trasimene with his army and killed him in an ambush,[7] then, not much later, killed Gaius Centenius the praetor as well, who had occupied the woods with a picked band. From here he continued into Apulia. There two consuls came to block his progress: Gaius Terentius and Lucius Aemilius.[8] He routed both of their armies in a single battle, killed the consul Paulus[9] and some former consuls, including Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, who had been consul the year before.