The advantages of a high position were, in this instance, strikingly exemplified, for if Hannibal had moved in the humbler walks on this occasion, the probability is, that he could not have walked at all; but that, sinking in the marshes, he would have gone down--in a swamp--to posterity. He, himself, lost the use of one of his eyes, though, indeed, he exhibited throughout this disastrous affair an unusual amount of shortsightedness. After reaching Fæsulæ, now Fiesole, near Florence, he made for Rome, and Flaminius made after him as far as Cortona; but Hannibal, turning sharp round the corner of the Lake Trasimenus; ran unperceived up the heights, getting round to the rear of the Roman general, who thought the foe was still in front of him. While Flaminius was pressing forward, Hannibal and his forces fell upon him right and left, as well as behind, and a fog coming on at the time added to the perplexity of the Consul, by preventing him from seeing his danger. A fight in a fog is one of the most dismal pictures that can be described, if, indeed, it can be called a picture at all, when nothing can be seen, and the whole is a mere daub, caused by a fearful brush between two conflicting armies. Such was the fury of the fight, that it is said an earthquake, which happened at the time, was unperceived by the combatants; and, indeed, so shocking was the carnage, that a shock of nature might have sunk by its side into comparative insignificance. 15,000 Romans were slain, and those who are always ready to prophecy after an event, began to see clearly in certain omens that had happened some time before, the cause of all that had lately happened. A shower of stones had fallen at Picenum, but it does not appear whether those who told the story of the stones had a hand in throwing them. In Gaul a wolf had swallowed the sword of a sentinel; and in Cœre the answers of the oracle were suddenly written in smaller characters--a proof only that the oracle had got from text into round-hand--the ordinary result of improved penmanship. The battle had undoubtedly been fearful in its results, for Flaminius himself was slain; and 15,000 Romans having been cut to pieces, were thrown into a brook, which still bears the name of Sanguinetta, from its being turned into the colour of blood, though the statement is too extravagant to have the colour of probability. The horrors of the war were great enough without the aid of exaggeration, and though the instances of suffering were no doubt great, we are inclined to doubt the story, that the Numidians went without their allowance of wine, in order to wash the feet of their horses; for, though the animals might have been unable to do without their hock, they could surely have dispensed with their Falernian.