Tweet
....and before them lay at last the valley of the Po river. But instead of relief, Anaximander, a ten year veteran of the Iberian wars, was engulfed by a sense of despair...
Were all those hardships he had to endure really worth it?
Celtic ambuses, violent winters and avalances in the treacherous Alps, Iberian tribesmen and exhausting night marches... Of the original seventy thousand men
that formed the invasion force just a mere twenty five thousand had survived. And they still hadn't met the enemy. What were these rag-tag remnants that styled themselves as "army" supposed to do?
The province they had set out to conquer was huge and extremely rich; Its army so vast that even Alexander would have had second thoughts; And the enemy's spirit so defiant that a Gaulic chief would shrowd in awe.
Rome.
That was their objective. He could already see the enemy banners in the distance as the legions were forming in Placentia. Alas, there was no turning back now.....
He suddenly burst into laughter.
A laughter that sprung not from a happy heart, but from one which was almost beside itself with its misfortunes.
The time to weep, as he remembered Hannibal saying, was when our arms were taken fom us, our ships were burnt and we were forbidden foreign wars...
Were all those hardships he had to endure really worth it?
Celtic ambuses, violent winters and avalances in the treacherous Alps, Iberian tribesmen and exhausting night marches... Of the original seventy thousand men
that formed the invasion force just a mere twenty five thousand had survived. And they still hadn't met the enemy. What were these rag-tag remnants that styled themselves as "army" supposed to do?
The province they had set out to conquer was huge and extremely rich; Its army so vast that even Alexander would have had second thoughts; And the enemy's spirit so defiant that a Gaulic chief would shrowd in awe.
Rome.
That was their objective. He could already see the enemy banners in the distance as the legions were forming in Placentia. Alas, there was no turning back now.....
He suddenly burst into laughter.
A laughter that sprung not from a happy heart, but from one which was almost beside itself with its misfortunes.
The time to weep, as he remembered Hannibal saying, was when our arms were taken fom us, our ships were burnt and we were forbidden foreign wars...
Comment