He drilled them pitilessly.
He was respected for his courage and especially for his strength.
Moreover he inspired a sort of mystic dread, and it was believed that
he conversed at night with phantoms. The other captains were animated
by his example. The army soon grew disciplined. From their houses the
Carthaginians could hear the bugle-flourishes that regulated their
exercises. At last the Barbarians drew near.
To crush them in the isthmus it would have been necessary for two armies
to take them simultaneously in the rear, one disembarking at the end of
the gulf of Utica, and the second at the mountain of the Hot Springs.
But what could be done with the single sacred Legion, mustering at most
six thousand men? If the enemy bent towards the east they would join the
nomads and intercept the commerce of the desert. If they fell back to
the west, Numidia would rise. Finally, lack of provisions would
sooner or later lead them to devastate the surrounding country like
grasshoppers, and the rich trembled for their fine country-houses, their
vineyards and their cultivated lands.
Hanno proposed atrocious and impracticable measures, such as promising a
heavy sum for every Barbarian's head, or setting fire to their camp with
ships and machines. His colleague Gisco, on the other hand, wished them
to be paid.
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