"When he broke the second seal, I heard the second animal shout, 'Come.' And out came another horse, bright red, and its rider was given this duty: to take away peace from the earth and set people killing each other. He was given a huge sword." -Revelation 6: 3-4
The Second Seal
Xi Piscium: 220 BC
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The alignment of the Vernal Equinox (VE) with the second of the stars in the constellation Pisces opened a chapter of Roman history which for many centuries was to strike fear in the hearts of both schoolboys and young children in their beds who listened wide-eyed as they were warned about "Hannibal ad portam," Hannibal at the gates.
The Second Punic War (the war with Hannibal) was in many ways the equivalent of the Second World War in our own time. It included many theaters of operation, both in Europe (Spain, Italy, and Greece) and in Africa. Each were born out of the bitter settlement of a prior conflict wherein the victor seized a disproportionate share of the spoils, sowing the sour seeds of discontent. Both saw lightning warfare; WW II produced the Desert Fox, while the Second Punic War produced Hannibal.
Hannibal and his elephants
crossing the Alps
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Although the Second Punic War is traditionally dated from 219-202 BC when the Carthaginian forces first lay siege to Saguntum, a city on the coast of Spain, Hannibal in fact began his stratagem the year before when he stormed and sacked Carteia, the capital of the Olcades. This was 220 BC, the year the VE aligned with Xi Piscium, the second star in the constellation Pisces. An outline follows:
After the fall of Saguntum and Rome's acceptance of war, Hannibal quickly marched over the Pyrenees, through modern France, and over the Alps into northern Italy. Having started with possibly 50,000 men, his forces were cut to approximately 26,000 by the end of this difficult and dangerous trek. Throwing a force of some 40,000 against him late in 218, the Roman were taken in the flank and rear by concealed Carthaginian forces, slaughtering all but 10,000 of them.
Hannibal
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In 217 a force of some 25,000 Romans were pinned against Lake Trasimene and were butchered. Finally, in 216 the Romans attempted to overpower Hannibal with the sheer weight of numbers, throwing 100,000 men against his 40,000. Hannibal met the Romans on an open field of battle where there could be no concealment or natural boundaries to pin the enemy against. Even so, by the use of his superior cavalry Hannibal was able to surround and contain the larger force at the Battle of Cannae, completely wiping them out at the cost of possibly 6,000 of his own troops.
The war was to drag on for another 14 years, with Hannibal's superior tactical abilities finally giving way to sheer Roman determination. Following Cannae, the Romans simply refused to openly meet Hannibal in the field, and Rome was too strongly fortified for Hannibal to take.
The promise of the second seal was "to take peace away from the earth and set people killing each other." Like the confrontation at Veii, this war strained Rome to her absolute limits, but on a far grander scale than anything the world had ever seen before. Its beginning curiously coincided with the astronomical date of the opening of the second seal.
Next week:
The Bi-Way of Heaven
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