“For as The towered elephants attempt to pass, Into the flood with violence they fell (As when a rock, torn from its native hill By tempests, falls into the angry main); And Trebia, afraid to entertain Such monstrous bodies, flies before their beast, Or shrinks beneath them, with their weight oppressed. But as adversity man’s courage tries, And fearless valor doth to honor rise Through danger, stout Fibrenus doth disclaim A death ignoble, or that wanted fame; And cries, ‘My fate shall be observed, nor shall Fortune beneath these waters hide my fall. I’ll try if earth doth any living bear Which the Ansonian sword and Tyrrhen spear Cannot subdue and kill.’ With that, he pressed His lance into the right eye of the beast, That, with blind rage, the penetrating blow Pursued; and tossing up his mangled brow, Besmeared with reeking blood, with horrid cries Turns round, and from his fallen master flies; Then with their darts and frequent arrows all Invade him, and now dare to hope his fall. His immense shoulders and his sides appear One wound entire; his dusky back doth bear Innumerable shafts, that, like a wood, Still waving as he moved, upon him stood; Till, in so long a fight, their weapons all Consumed, he fell, death hasting through his fall.” _Silius Italicus_, by THOMAS ROSS. After the battle of Trebia, the elephants were marched with the army, over the Apennines; and Livy tells us that seven starved to death; later, in passing the Arno, which was a raging torrent, numbers of men, elephants, and horses were swept away, the only elephant left being the one the great general himself rode. Previous to this, in crossing the Po, Hannibal had arranged his elephants in a long line across the shallow river, to break the force of the stream by a living dam. Perdiccas did the same, in an unfortunate attempt to cross the Nile near Memphis; but the waters of the Arno were too swift, and, notwithstanding the fact that elephants are fine swimmers, they were carried away and drowned. Hannibal was not cast down by his misfortune, and immediately sent for a new supply of elephants from Carthage. At the battle of Cannæ (216 B.C.),’the Roman forces attacked the elephants with torches, and succeeded in firing the towers upon their backs. This terrible scene is thus described by Silius Italicus:—