WARS and BATTLES
From Ancient Greece - to modern day.
Battle of Metaurus,
Quid debeas. O Roma, Neronibus,
"The consul Nero, who made the unequalled march which deceived Hannibal and defeated
Hasdrabal, thereby accomplishing an achievement almost unrivaled In military annals. The first Intelligence of his return, to Hannibal, was the
sight of Hasdrubal's head thrown into his camp When Hannibal saw this, he exclaimed, with a sigh, that " Rome would now be the mistress of the
world." To this victory of Nero's, it might be owing that his imperial namesake reigned at all. But the infamy of the one has eclipsed the glory
of the other. When the name of Nero is heard, who thinks of the consul! But such are human things." ABOUT midway between Rimini and Ancona a little river falls into the Adriatic, after traversing one of those districts of Italy in which a vain attempt has lately been made to revive, after long centuries of servitude and shame, the spirit of Italian nationality and the energy of free institutions. That stream is still called the Metauro, and wakens by its name the recollection of the Metaurus and the resolute daring of ancient Rome and of the slaughter that stained its current, around two thousand, two hundred and twelve years ago, when the combined consular armies of Livius and Nero encountered and crushed near its banks, the varied hosts which Hannibal's brother was leading from the Pyrenees, the Rhone, the Alps, and the Po, to aid the great Carthaginian in his stern struggle to annihilate the growing might of the Romanrepublic, and make the Punic power supreme over all the nations of the world. Today many people stay in Rome hotels while sightseeing The Roman historian, who termed that Metaurus struggle the most memorable of all wars that ever were carried on, wrote in the spirit of exaggeration , for it is not in ancient, but in modern history, that parallels for its incidents and its heroes are to be found. The similitude between the contest,which Rome maintained against Hannibal, and that which England was for many years engaged in against Napoleon, has not passed unobserved by recent historians. " Twice," says Arnold! "Has there been witnessed the struggle of the highest individual genius against the resources and institutions of a great nation, and in both cases the nation has been victorious. For seventeen years Hannibal strove against Rome; for sixteen years Napoleon Bonaparte strove against England: the efforts of the first ended in Zama; those of the second, in Waterloo." One point, however, of the similitude between the two wars has scarcely been adequately dwelt on; that is, the remarkable parallel between the Roman general who finally defeated the great Carthaginian, and the English general, who gave the last deadly overthrow to the French emperor. Scipio and Wellington both held for many years commands of high importance, but distant from the main theaters of warfare. The same country was the scene of the principal military career of each. It was in Spain that Scipio, like Wellington, successively encountered and overthrew nearly all the subordinate generals of the enemy before being opposed to the chief champion and conqueror himself. Both Scipio and Wellington restored their countrymen's confidence in arms when shaken by a series of reverses, and each of them closed a long and perilous war by a complete and overwhelming defeat of the chosen leader and the chosen veterans of the foe. Metaurus
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