Having descended from the Apennines, he moved his camp back towards Placentia, and having proceeded as far as ten miles, took up his station. On the following day he leads out twelve thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry against the enemy. Nor did Sempronius the consul (for he had now returned from Rome) decline the engagement; and during that day three miles intervened between the two camps. On the following day they fought with amazing courage and various success. At the first onset the Roman power was so superior, that they not only conquered the enemy in the regular battle, but pursued them when driven back quite into their camp, and soon after also assaulted it. Hannibal, having stationed a few to defend the rampart and the gates, and having admitted the rest in close array into the middle of the camp orders them to watch attentively the signal for sallying out. It was now about the ninth hour of the day when the Roman, having fatigued his soldiers to no purpose, after there was no hope of gaining possession of the camp, gave the signal for retreat; which when Hannibal heard, and saw that the attack was slackened, and that they were retreating from the camp, instantly having sent out the cavalry on the right and left against the enemy, he himself in the middle with the main force of the infantry rushed out from the camp. Seldom has there been a combat more furious, and few would have been more remarkable for the loss on both sides, if the day had suffered it to continue for a longer time. Night broke off the battle when raging most from the determined spirit of the combatants. The conflict therefore was more severe than the slaughter: and as it was pretty much a drawn battle, they separated with equal loss. On neither side fell more than six hundred infantry, and half that number of cavalry. But the loss of the Romans was more severe than proportionate to the number that fell, because several of equestrian rank, and five tribunes of the soldiers, and three prefects of the allies were slain. After this battle Hannibal retired to the territory of the Ligurians, and Sempronius to Luca. Two Roman quaestors, Caius Fulvius and Lucius Lucretius, who had been treacherously intercepted, with two military tribunes and five of the equestrian order, mostly sons of senators, are delivered up to Hannibal when coming among the Ligurians, in order that he might feel more convinced that the peace and alliance with them would be binding.

While these things are transacting in Italy, Cneius Cornelius Scipio having been sent into Spain with a fleet and army, when, setting out from the mouth of the Rhone, and sailing past the Pyrenaean mountains, he had moored his fleet at Emporiae, having there landed his army, and beginning with the Lacetani, he brought the whole coast, as far as the river Iberus, under the Roman dominion, partly by renewing the old, and partly by forming new alliances. The reputation for clemency, acquired by these means, had influence not only with the maritime states, but now also with the more savage tribes in the inland and mountainous districts; nor was peace only effected with them, but also an alliance of arms, and several fine cohorts of auxiliaries were levied from their numbers. The country on this side of the Iberus was the province of Hanno, whom Hannibal had left to defend that region. He, therefore, judging that he ought to make opposition, before every thing was alienated from him, having pitched his camp in sight of the enemy, led out his forces in battle-array; nor did it appear to the Roman, that the engagement ought to be deferred, as he knew that he must fight with Hanno and Hasdrubal, and wished rather to contend against each of them separately, than against both together. The conflict did not prove one of great difficulty; six thousand of the enemy were slain, and two thousand made prisoners, together with the guard of the camp; for both the camp was stormed, and the general himself, with several of the chief officers, taken; and Scissis, a town near the camp, was also carried by assault. But the spoil of this town consisted of things of small value, such as the household furniture used by barbarians and slaves that were worth little. The camp enriched the soldiers; almost all the valuable effects, not only of that army which was conquered, but of that which was serving with Hannibal in Italy, having been left on this side the Pyrenees, that the baggage might not be cumbrous to those who conveyed it.

Before any certain news of this disaster arrived, Hasdrubal, having passed the Iberus with eight thousand foot and a thousand horse, intending to meet the Romans on their first approach, after he heard of the ruin of their affairs at Scissis, and the loss of the camp, turned his route towards the sea. Not far from Tarraco, having despatched his cavalry in various directions, he drove to their ships, with great slaughter, and greater route, the soldiers belonging to the fleet and the mariners, while scattered and wandering through the fields (for it is usually the case that success produces negligence), but not daring to remain longer in that quarter, lest he should be surprised by Scipio, he withdrew to the other side of the Iberus. And Scipio, having quickly brought up his army on the report of fresh enemies, after punishing a few captains of ships and leaving a moderate garrison at Tarraco, returned with his fleet to Emporiae. He had scarcely departed, when Hasdrubal came up, and having instigated to a revolt the state of the Ilergetes, which had given hostages to Scipio, he lays waste, with the youth of that very people, the lands of the faithful allies of the Romans. Scipio being thereupon roused from his winter quarters, Hasdrubal again retires from in all the country on this side the Iberus. Scipio, when with a hostile army he had invaded the state of the Ilergetes, forsaken by the author of their revolt, and having driven them all into Athanagia, which was the capital of that nation laid siege to the city; and within a few days, having imposed the delivery of more hostages than before, and also fined the Ilergetes in a sum of money, he received them back into his authority and dominion. He then proceeded against the Ausetani near the Iberus, who were also the allies of the Carthaginians; and having laid siege to their city, he cut off by an ambuscade the Lacetani, while bringing assistance by night to their neighbours, having attacked them at a small distance from the city, as they were designing to enter it. As many as twelve thousand were slain; the rest, nearly all without their arms, escaped home, by dispersing through the country in every direction. Nor did any thing else but the winter, which was unfavourable to the besiegers, secure the besieged. The blockade continued for thirty days, during which the snow scarce ever lay less deep than four feet; and it had covered to such a degree the sheds and mantelets of the Romans, that it alone served as a defence when fire was frequently thrown on them by the enemy. At last, when Amusitus, their leader, had fled to Hasdrubal, they are surrendered, on condition of paying twenty talents of silver. They then returned into winter quarters at Tarraco.

At Rome during this winter many prodigies either occurred about the city, or, as usually happens when the minds of men are once inclined to superstition, many were reported and readily believed; among which it was said that an infant of good family, only six months old, had called out "Io triumphe" in the herb market: that in the cattle market an ox had of his own accord ascended to the third story, and that thence, being frightened by the noise of the inhabitants, had flung himself down; that the appearance of ships had been brightly visible in the sky, and that the temple of Hope in the herb market had been struck by lightning; that the spear at Lanuvium had shaken itself; that a crow had flown down into the temple of Juno and alighted on the very couch; that in the territory of Amiternum figures resembling men dressed in white raiment had been seen in several places at a distance, but had not come close to any one; that in Picenum it had rained stones; that at Caere the tablets for divination had been lessened in size; and that in Gaul a wolf had snatched out the sword from the scabbard of a soldier on guard, and carried it off. On account of the other prodigies the decemvirs were ordered to consult the books; but on account of its having rained stones in Picenum the festival of nine days was proclaimed, and almost all the state was occupied in expiating the rest, from time to time. First of all the city was purified, and victims of the greater kind were sacrificed to those gods to whom they were directed to be offered; and a gift of forty pounds' weight of gold was carried to the temple of Juno at Lanuvium; and the matrons dedicated a brazen statue to Juno on the Aventine; and a lectisternium was ordered at Caere, where the tablets for divination had diminished; and a supplication to Fortune at Algidum; at Rome also a lectisternium was ordered to Youth, and a supplication at the temple of Hercules, first by individuals named and afterwards by the whole people at all the shrines; five greater victims were offered to Genius; and Caius Atilius Serranus the praetor was ordered to make certain vows if the republic should remain in the same state for ten years. These things, thus expiated and vowed according to the Sibylline books, relieved, in a great degree, the public mind from superstitious fears.

Flaminius, one of the consuls elect, to whom the legions which were wintering at Placentia had fallen by lot, sent an edict and letter to the consul, desiring that those forces should be ready in camp at Ariminum on the ides of March. He had a design to enter on the consulship in his province, recollecting his old contests with the fathers, which he had waged with them when tribune of the people, and afterwards when consul, first about his election to the office, which was annulled, and then about a triumph. He was also odious to the fathers on account of a new law which Quintus Claudius, tribune of the people, had carried against the senate, Caius Flaminius alone of that body assisting him, that no senator, or he who had been father of a senator, should possess a ship fit for sea service, containing more than three hundred amphorae. This size was considered sufficient for conveying the produce of their lands: all traffic appeared unbecoming a senator. This contest, maintained with the warmest opposition, procured the hatred of the nobility to Flaminius, the advocate of the law; but the favour of the people, and afterwards a second consulship. For these reasons, thinking that they would detain him in the city by falsifying the auspices, by the delay of the Latin festival, and other hinderances to which a consul was liable, he pretended a journey, and, while yet in a private capacity, departed secretly to his province. This proceeding, when it was made public, excited new and additional anger in the senators, who were before irritated against him. They said, "That Caius Flaminius waged war not only with the senate, but now with the immortal gods; that having been formerly made consul without the proper auspices, he had disobeyed both gods and men recalling him from the very field of battle; and now, through consciousness of their having been dishonoured, had shunned the Capitol and the customary offering of vows, that he might not on the day of entering his office approach the temple of Jupiter, the best and greatest of gods; he might not see and consult the senate, himself hated by it, as it was hateful to him alone; that he might not proclaim the Latin festival, or perform on the Alban mount the customary rights to Jupiter Latiaris; that he might not, under the direction of the auspices, go up to the Capitol to recite his vows, and thence, attended by the lictors, proceed to his province in the garb of a general; but that he had set off, like some camp boy, without his insignia, without the lictors, in secrecy and stealth, just as if he had been quitting his country to go into banishment; as if forsooth he would enter his office more consistently with the dignity of the consul at Ariminum than Rome, and assume the robe of office in a public inn better than before his own household gods."--it was unanimously resolved that he, should be recalled and brought back, and be constrained to perform in person every duty to gods and men before he went to the army and the province. Quintus Terentius and Marcus Antistius having set out on this embassy, (for it was decreed that ambassadors should be sent,) prevailed with him in no degree more than the letter sent by the senate in his former consulship. A few days after he entered on his office, and as he was sacrificing a calf, after being struck, having broken away from the hands of the ministers, sprinkled several of the bystanders with its blood. Flight and disorder ensued, to a still greater degree at a distance among those who were ignorant what was the cause of the alarm. This circumstance was regarded by most persons as an omen of great terror. Having then received two legions from Sempronius, the consul of the former year, and two from Caius Atilius, the praetor, the army began to be led into Etruria, through the passes of the Apennines.

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Spring was now at hand, when Hannibal quitted his winter quarters, having both attempted in vain to cross the Apennines, from the intolerable cold, and having remained with great danger and alarm. The Gauls, whom the hope of plunder and spoil had collected, when, instead of being themselves engaged in carrying and driving away booty from the lands of others, they saw their own lands made the seat of war and burdened by the wintering of the armies of both forces, turned their hatred back again from the Romans to Hannibal; and though plots were frequently concerted against him by their chieftains, he was preserved by the treachery they manifested towards each other; disclosing their conspiracy with the same inconstancy with which they had conspired; and by changing sometimes his dress, at other times the fashion of his hair, he protected himself from treachery by deception. However, this fear was the cause of his more speedily quitting his winter quarters. Meanwhile Cneius Servilius, the consul, entered upon his office at Rome, on the ides of March. There, when he had consulted the senate on the state of the republic in general, the indignation against Flaminius was rekindled. They said "that they had created indeed two consuls, that they had but one; for what regular authority had the other, or what auspices? That their magistrates took these with them from home, from the tutelar deities of themselves and the state, after the celebration of the Latin holidays; the sacrifice upon the mountain being completed, and the vows duly offered up in the Capitol: that neither could an unofficial individual take the auspices, nor could one who had gone from home without them, take them new, and for the first time, in a foreign soil." Prodigies announced from many places at the same time, augmented the terror: in Sicily, that several darts belonging to the soldiers had taken fire; and in Sardinia, that the staff of a horseman, who was going his rounds upon a wall, took fire as he held it in his hand; that the shores had blazed with frequent fires; that two shields had sweated blood at Praeneste; that redhot stones had fallen from the heavens at Arpi; that shields were seen in the heavens, and the sun fighting with the moon, at Capena; that two moons rose in the day-time; that the waters of Caere had flowed mixed with blood; and that even the fountain of Hercules had flowed sprinkled with spots of blood. In the territory of Antium, that bloody ears of corn had fallen into the basket as they were reaping. At Falerii, that the heavens appeared cleft as if with a great chasm; and, that where it had opened, a vast light had shone forth; that the prophetic tablets had spontaneously become less; and that one had fallen out thus inscribed, "Mars shakes his spear." During the same time, that the statue of Mars at Rome, on the Appian way, had sweated at the sight of images of wolves. At Capua that there had been the appearance of the heavens being on fire, and of the moon as falling amidst rain. After these, credence was given to prodigies of less magnitude: that the goats of certain persons had borne wool; that a hen had changed herself into a cock; and a cock into a hen: these things having been laid before the senate as reported, the authors being conducted into the senate-house, the consul took the sense of the fathers on religious affairs. It was decreed that those prodigies should be expiated, partly with full-grown, partly with sucking victims; and that a supplication should be made at every shrine for the space of three days; that the other things should be done accordingly as the gods should declare in their oracles to be agreeable to their will when the decemviri had examined the books. By the advice of the decemviri it was decreed, first, that a golden thunderbolt of fifty pounds' weight should be made as an offering to Jupiter; that offerings of silver should be presented to Juno and Minerva; that sacrifices of full-grown victims should be offered to Juno Regina on the Aventine; and to Juno Sospita at Lanuvium; that the matrons, contributing as much money as might be convenient to each, should carry it to the Aventine, as a present to Juno Regina; and that a lectisternium should be celebrated. Moreover, that the very freed-women should, according to their means, contribute money from which a present might be made to Feronia. When these things were done, the decemviri sacrificed with the larger victims in the forum at Ardea. Lastly, it being now the month of December, a sacrifice was made at the temple of Saturn at Rome, and a lectisternium ordered, in which senators prepared the couch and a public banquet. Proclamation was made through the city, that the Saturnalia should be kept for a day and a night; and the people were commanded to account that day as a holiday, and observe it for ever.

While the consul employs himself at Rome in appeasing the gods and holding the levy, Hannibal, setting out from his winter quarters, because it was reported that the consul Flaminius had now arrived at Arretium, although a longer but more commodious route was pointed out to him, takes the nearer road through a marsh where the Arno had, more than usual, overflowed its banks. He ordered the Spaniards and Africans (in these lay the strength of his veteran army) to lead, their own baggage being intermixed with them, lest, being compelled to halt any where, they should want what might be necessary for their use: the Gauls he ordered to go next, that they might form the middle of the marching body; the cavalry to march in the rear: next, Mago with the light-armed Numidians to keep the army together, particularly coercing the Gauls, if, fatigued with exertion and the length of the march, as that nation is wanting in vigour for such exertions, they should fall away or halt. The van still followed the standards wherever the guides did but lead them, through the exceeding deep and almost fathomless eddies of the river, nearly swallowed up in mud, and plunging themselves in. The Gauls could neither support themselves when fallen, nor raise themselves from the eddies. Nor did they sustain their bodies with spirit, nor their minds with hope; some scarce dragging on their wearied limbs; others dying where they had once fallen, their spirits being subdued with fatigue, among the beasts which themselves also lay prostrate in every place. But chiefly watching wore them out, endured now for four days and three nights. When, the water covering every place, not a dry spot could be found where they might stretch their weary bodies, they laid themselves down upon their baggage, thrown in heaps into the waters. Piles of beasts, which lay every where through the whole route, afforded a necessary bed for temporary repose to those seeking any place which was not under water. Hannibal himself, riding on the only remaining elephant, to be the higher from the water, contracted a disorder in his eyes, at first from the unwholesomeness of the vernal air, which is attended with transitions from heat to cold; and at length from watching, nocturnal damps, the marshy atmosphere disordering his head, and because he had neither opportunity nor leisure for remedies, loses one of them.

Many men and cattle having been lost thus wretchedly, when at length he had emerged from the marshes, he pitched his camp as soon as he could on dry ground. And here he received information, through the scouts sent in advance, that the Roman army was round the walls of Arretium. Next the plans and temper of the consul, the situation of the country, the roads, the sources from which provisions might be obtained, and whatever else it was useful to know; all these things he ascertained by the most diligent inquiry. The country was among the most fertile of Italy, the plain of Etruria, between Faesulae and Arretium, abundant in its supply of corn, cattle, and every other requisite. The consul was haughty from his former consulship, and felt no proper degree of reverence not only for the laws and the majesty of the fathers, but even for the gods. This temerity, inherent in his nature, fortune had fostered by a career of prosperity and success in civil and military affairs. Thus it was sufficiently evident that, heedless of gods and men, he would act in all cases with presumption and precipitation; and, that he might fall the more readily into the errors natural to him, the Carthaginian begins to fret and irritate him; and leaving the enemy on his left, he takes the road to Faesulae, and marching through the centre of Etruria, with intent to plunder, he exhibits to the consul, in the distance, the greatest devastation he could with fires and slaughters. Flaminius, who would not have rested even if the enemy had remained quiet; then, indeed, when he saw the property of the allies driven and carried away almost before his eyes, considering that it reflected disgrace upon him that the Carthaginian now roaming at large through the heart of Italy, and marching without resistance to storm the very walls of Rome, though every other person in the council advised safe rather than showy measures, urging that he should wait for his colleague, in order that, joining their armies, they might carry on the war with united courage and counsels; and that, meanwhile, the enemy should be prevented from his unrestrained freedom in plundering by the cavalry and the light-armed auxiliaries; in a fury hurried out of the council, and at once gave out the signal for marching and for battle. "Nay, rather," says he, "let him be before the walls of Arretium, for here is our country, here our household gods. Let Hannibal, slipping through our fingers, waste Italy through and through; and, ravaging and burning every thing, let him arrive at the walls of Rome; let us move hence till the fathers shall have summoned Flaminius from Arretium, as they did Camillus of old from Veii." While reproaching them thus, and in the act of ordering the standards to be speedily pulled up, when he had mounted upon his horse, the animal fell suddenly, and threw the unseated consul over his head. All the bystanders being alarmed at this as an unhappy omen in the commencement of the affair, in addition word is brought, that the standard could not be pulled up, though, the standard-bearer strove with all his force. Flaminius, turning to the messenger, says, "Do you bring, too, letters from the senate, forbidding me to act. Go, tell them to dig up the standard, if, through fear, their hands are so benumbed that they cannot pluck it up." Then the army began to march; the chief officers, besides that they dissented from the plan, being terrified by the twofold prodigy; while the soldiery in general were elated by the confidence of their leader, since they regarded merely the hope he entertained, and not the reasons of the hope.

Hannibal lays waste the country between the city Cortona and the lake Trasimenus, with all the devastation of war, the more to exasperate the enemy to revenge the injuries inflicted on his allies. They had now reached a place formed by nature for an ambuscade, where the Trasimenus comes nearest to the mountains of Cortona. A very narrow passage only intervenes, as though room enough just for that purpose had been left designedly; after that a somewhat wider plain opens itself, and then some hills rise up. On these he pitches his camp, in full view, where he himself with his Spaniards and Africans only might be posted. The Baliares and his other light troops he leads round the mountains; his cavalry he posts at the very entrance of the defile, some eminences conveniently concealing them; in order that when the Romans had entered, the cavalry advancing, every place might be enclosed by the lake and the mountains. Flaminius, passing the defiles before it was quite daylight, without reconnoitering, though he had arrived at the lake the preceding day at sunset, when the troops began to be spread into the wider plain, saw that part only of the enemy which was opposite to him; the ambuscade in his rear and overhead escaped his notice. And when the Carthaginian had his enemy enclosed by the lake and mountains, and surrounded by his troops, he gives the signal to all to make a simultaneous charge; and each running down the nearest way, the suddenness and unexpectedness of the event was increased to the Romans by a mist rising from the lake, which had settled thicker on the plain than on the mountains; and thus the troops of the enemy ran down from the various eminences, sufficiently well discerning each other, and therefore with the greater regularity. A shout being raised on all sides, the Roman found himself surrounded before he could well see the enemy; and the attack on the front and flank had commenced ere his line could be well formed, his arms prepared for action, or his swords unsheathed.

The consul, while all were panic-struck, himself sufficiently undaunted though in so perilous a case, marshals, as well as the time and place permitted, the lines which were thrown into confusion by each man's turning himself towards the various shouts; and wherever he could approach or be heard exhorts them, and bids them stand and fight: for that they could not escape thence by vows and prayers to the gods but by exertion and valour; that a way was sometimes opened by the sword through the midst of marshalled armies, and that generally the less the fear the less the danger. However, from the noise and tumult, neither his advice nor command could be caught; and so far were the soldiers from knowing their own standards, and ranks, and position, that they had scarce sufficient courage to take up arms and make them ready for battle; and certain of them were surprised before they could prepare them, being burdened rather than protected by them; while in so great darkness there was more use of ears than of eyes. They turned their faces and eyes in every direction towards the groans of the wounded, the sounds of blows upon the body or arms, and the mingled clamours of the menacing and the affrighted. Some, as they were making their escape, were stopped, having encountered a body of men engaged in fight; and bands of fugitives returning to the battle, diverted others. After charges had been attempted unsuccessfully in every direction, and on their flanks the mountains and the lake, on the front and rear the lines of the enemy enclosed them, when it was evident that there was no hope of safety but in the right hand and the sword; then each man became to himself a leader, and encourager to action; and an entirely new contest arose, not a regular line, with principes, hastati, and triarii; nor of such a sort as that the vanguard should fight before the standards, and the rest of the troops behind them; nor such that each soldier should be in his own legion, cohort, or company: chance collects them into bands; and each man's own will assigned to him his post, whether to fight in front or rear; and so great was the ardour of the conflict, so intent were their minds upon the battle, that not one of the combatants felt an earthquake which threw down large portions of many of the cities of Italy, turned rivers from their rapid courses, carried the sea up into rivers, and levelled mountains with a tremendous crash.

The battle was continued near three hours, and in every quarter with fierceness; around the consul, however, it was still hotter and more determined. Both the strongest of the troops, and himself too, promptly brought assistance wherever he perceived his men hard pressed and distressed. But, distinguished by his armour, the enemy attacked him with the utmost vigour, while his countrymen defended him; until an Insubrian horseman, named Ducarius, knowing him also by his face, says to his countrymen, "Lo, this is the consul who slew our legions and laid waste our fields and city. Now will I offer this victim to the shades of my countrymen, miserably slain;" and putting spurs to his horse, he rushes through a very dense body of the enemy; and first slaying his armour-bearer, who had opposed himself to his attack as he approached, ran the consul through with his lance; the triarii, opposing their shields, kept him off when seeking to despoil him. Then first the flight of a great number began; and now neither the lake nor the mountains obstructed their hurried retreat; they run through all places, confined and precipitous, as though they were blind; and arms and men are tumbled one upon another. A great many, when there remained no more space to run, advancing into the water through the first shallows of the lake, plunge in, as far as they could stand above it with their heads and shoulders. Some there were whom inconsiderate fear induced to try to escape even by swimming; but as that attempt was inordinate and hopeless, they were either overwhelmed in the deep water, their courage failing, or, wearied to no purpose, made their way back, with extreme difficulty, to the shallows; and there were cut up on all hands by the cavalry of the enemy, which had entered the water. Near upon six thousand of the foremost body having gallantly forced their way through the opposing enemy, entirely unacquainted with what was occurring in their rear, escaped from the defile; and having halted on a certain rising ground, and hearing only the shouting and clashing of arms, they could not know nor discern, by reason of the mist, what was the fortune of the battle. At length, the affair being decided, when the mist, dispelled by the increasing heat of the sun, had cleared the atmosphere, then, in the clear light, the mountains and plains showed their ruin and the Roman army miserably destroyed; and thus, lest, being descried at a distance, the cavalry should be sent against them, hastily snatching up their standards, they hurried away with all possible expedition. On the following day, when in addition to their extreme sufferings in other respects, famine also was at hand, Maharbal, who had followed them during the night with the whole body of cavalry, pledging his honour that he would let them depart with single garments, if they would deliver up their arms, they surrendered themselves; which promise was kept by Hannibal with Punic fidelity, and he threw them all into chains.

This is the celebrated battle at the Trasimenus, and recorded among the few disasters of the Roman people. Fifteen thousand Romans were slain in the battle. Ten thousand, who had been scattered in the flight through all Etruria, returned to the city by different roads. One thousand five hundred of the enemy perished in the battle; many on both sides died afterwards of their wounds. The carnage on both sides is related, by some authors, to have been many times greater. I, besides that I would relate nothing drawn from a worthless source, to which the minds of historians generally incline too much, have as my chief authority Fabius, who was contemporary with the events of this war. Such of the captives as belonged to the Latin confederacy being dismissed without ransom, and the Romans thrown into chains, Hannibal ordered the bodies of his own men to be gathered from the heaps of the enemy, and buried: the body of Flaminius too, which was searched for with great diligence for burial, he could not find. On the first intelligence of this defeat at Rome, a concourse of the people, dismayed and terrified, took place in the forum. The matrons, wandering through the streets, ask all they meet, what sudden disaster was reported? what was the fate of the army? And when the multitude, like a full assembly, having directed their course to the comitium and senate-house, were calling upon the magistrates, at length, a little before sunset, Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, declares, "We have been defeated in a great battle;" and though nothing more definite was heard from him, yet, full of the rumours which they had caught one from another, they carry back to their homes intelligence, that the consul, with a great part of his troops, was slain; that a few only survived, and these either widely dispersed in flight through Etruria, or else captured by the enemy. As many as had been the calamities of the vanquished army, into so many anxieties were the minds of those distracted whose relations had served under Flaminius, and who were uninformed of what had been the fate of their friends, nor does any one know certainly what he should either hope or fear. During the next and several successive days, a greater number of women almost than men stood at the gates, waiting either for some one of their friends or for intelligence of them, surrounding and earnestly interrogating those they met: nor could they be torn away from those they knew especially, until they had regularly inquired into every thing. Then as they retired from the informants you might discern their various expressions of countenance according as intelligence, pleasing or sad, was announced to each; and those who congratulated or condoled on their return home. The joy and grief of the women were especially manifested. They report that one, suddenly meeting her son, who had returned safe, expired at the very door before his face--that another, who sat grieving at her house at the falsely reported death of her son, became a corpse, from excessive joy, at the first sight of him on his return. The praetors detained the senators in the house for several days from sunrise to sunset, deliberating under whose conduct and by what forces, the victorious Carthaginians could be opposed.

Before their plans were sufficiently determined another unexpected defeat is reported: four thousand horse, sent under the conduct of C. Centenius, propraetor, by Servilius to his colleague, were cut off by Hannibal in Umbria, to which place, on hearing of the battle at Trasimenus, they had turned their course. The report of this event variously affected the people. Some, having their minds preoccupied with heavier grief, considered the recent loss of cavalry trifling, in comparison with their former losses; others did not estimate what had occurred by itself, but considered that, as in a body already labouring under disease, a slight cause would be felt more violently than a more powerful one in a robust constitution, so whatever adverse event befell the state in its then sickly and impaired condition, ought to be estimated, not by the magnitude of the event itself, but with reference to its exhausted strength, which could endure nothing that could oppress it. The state therefore took refuge in a remedy for a long time before neither wanted nor employed, the appointment of a dictator, and because the consul was absent, by whom alone it appeared he could be nominated, and because neither message nor letter could easily be sent to him through the country occupied by Punic troops, and because the people could not appoint a dictator, which had never been done to that day, the people created Quintus Fabius Maximus pro dictator, and Marcus Minucius Rufus master of the horse. To them the senate assigned the task of strengthening the walls and towers of the city, of placing guards in such quarters as seemed good, and breaking down the bridges of the river, considering that they must now fight at home in defence of their city, since they were unable to protect Italy.

Hannibal, marching directly through Umbria, arrived at Spoletum, thence, having completely devastated the adjoining country, and commenced an assault upon the city, having been repulsed with great loss and conjecturing from the strength of this one colony, which had been not very successfully attacked, what was the size of the city of Rome, turned aside into the territory of Picenum, which abounded not only with every species of grain, but was stored with booty, which his rapacious and needy troops eagerly seized. There he continued encamped for several days, and his soldiers were refreshed, who had been enfeebled by winter marches and marshy ground, and with a battle more successful in its result than light or easy. When sufficient time for rest had been granted for soldiers delighting more in plunder and devastation than ease and repose, setting out, he lays waste the territories of Pretutia and Hadria, then of the Marsi, the Marrucini, and the Peligni, and the contiguous region of Apulia around Arpi and Luceria. Cneius Servilius, the consul, having fought some slight battles with the Gauls, and taken one inconsiderable town, when he heard of the defeat of his colleague and the army, alarmed now for the walls of the capital, marched towards the city, that he might not be absent at so extreme a crisis. Quintus Fabius Maximus, a second time dictator, assembled the senate the very day he entered on his office; and commencing with what related to the gods, after he had distinctly proved to the fathers, that Caius Flaminius had erred more from neglect of the ceremonies and auspices than from temerity and want of judgment, and that the gods themselves should be consulted as to what were the expiations of their anger, he obtained a resolution that the decemviri should be ordered to inspect the Sibylline books, which is rarely decreed, except when some horrid prodigies were announced. Having inspected the prophetic books, they reported, that the vow which was made to Mars on account of this war, not having been regularly fulfilled, must be performed afresh and more fully; that the great games must be vowed to Jupiter, temples to Venus Erycina and Mens; that a supplication and lectisternium must be made, and a sacred spring vowed, if the war should proceed favourably and the state continue the condition it was in before the war. Since the management of the war would occupy Fabius, the senate orders Marcus Aemilius, the praetor, to see that all these things are done in good time, according to the directions of the college of pontiffs.