Salinator supposed that Hasdrubal would require the same length of time as Hannibal to make his passage through the Alps. He was wrong. Hasdrubal moved much more swiftly; his army and his elephants arrived in Italy well before Salinator had moved his own army into a blocking position. Hasdrubal's elephants suffered cruelly in the Alpine cold, and only 10 survived. Hannibal had experienced the same difficulty. Still, even 10 elephants, massed, were an imposing striking force.

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In one of the great ironies of history, Hasdrubal was a victim of his own success. He had outwitted Salinator and reached the plain of the Po River unchecked. Nevertheless, he was in Italy well before Hannibal was expecting him. To coordinate their armies, it was vital that Hannibal know he had arrived.

He sent messengers to his brother with strict instructions that, should they be in peril of capture, his letters be destroyed. The messengers traversed nearly the entire route in safety, but by mischance, when almost within reach of Hannibal, they were seized by a Roman detachment. It happened so swiftly that they were unable to destroy the letters in time. Thus Nero, rather than Hannibal, had in his hands the entire plan of the Punic campaign.

Hannibal's intelligence network had been superb, and had helped him gain many of his triumphs. This was the first time in the war that Rome had held this priceless advantage. But for Nero it posed an agonizing dilemma. The Carthaginians had employed stratagem after stratagem, with stunning success. Was this another Punic trick?

Everything about the captured messengers and messages had the ring of authenticity. The men and horses were obviously fatigued, as though from a very long journey. Further, the horses were covered with heavy dust, and it had been raining in southern Italy. But what if this was actually an elaborate Punic ruse? Nero decided to treat the intercepted letters as genuine. But, possessed of this vital knowledge, and assuming it to be true, what to do with it? It was a cruelly difficult decision. Nero, after all, faced Hannibal, the general who always seemed to know everything, whose prowess as a commander had now reached mythic proportions.

Nero made a desperate decision. From his army, perhaps 45,000 strong, he took 6,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, telling them they were going on a night raid against Hannibal. Obviously, he was doing everything possible to keep Hannibal in the dark, fearing his ubiquitous spy system.

The Roman historian Livy says these men were individually picked — the best in the army — but this is unlikely. To destroy unit cohesion and send these men into battle under officers they did not know would have been exceptionally unwise. The numbers of men chosen would equal two somewhat understrength legions, and it seems almost certain that Nero simply picked his two best legions for the expedition.

The idea was for Nero to take these reinforcements, join Salinator and defeat Hasdrubal before Hannibal knew he was gone. It was a terrible risk. If Hannibal sensed what had happened and attacked Nero's army, weakened by the absence of its best legions and the army's supreme commander, all would be over.

There was another problem. What Nero was doing was against the law. Under Roman law, a consul was forbidden to leave the front assigned to him without permission from the Senate. Nero obviously felt that if he lost it would not matter, and if he won he would certainly be forgiven.

Hannibal was in the extreme south of Italy, Hasdrubal far to the north. The march took many days, and one can only guess at the torment Nero must have experienced every hour, not knowing the fate of the army he had left behind. He sent messengers forward to alert Salinator to his plan, and he arrived with a much stronger force than when he had departed, since along the way volunteers offered themselves for service. He selected sturdy, though overage, veterans of past campaigns.

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