d were
levelled with the ground; in order that it might appear to have been
the term of some secret compact: the other from an act of his own, at
first perhaps suspicious, because in it he had not waited for the
authority of the senate, but in the result turning unequivocally to
his highest credit, with relation to the exchange of prisoners: for,
as was the case in the first Punic war, an agreement had been made
between the Roman and Carthaginian generals, that whichever received
more prisoners than he restored, should give two pounds and a half of
silver for every man. And when the Roman had received two hundred and
forty-seven more than the Carthaginian, and the silver which was due
for them, after the matter had been frequently agitated in the senate,
was not promptly supplied, because he had not consulted the fathers,
he sent his son Quintus to Rome and sold his farm, uninjured by the
enemy, and thus redeemed the public credit at his own private expense.
Hannibal lay in a fixed camp before the walls of Geronium, which city
he had captured and burnt, leaving only a few buildings for the
purpose of granaries: thence he was in the habit of sending out
two-thirds of his forces to forage; with the third part kept in
readiness, he himself remained on guard, both as a protection to his
camp, and for the purpose of looking out, if from any quarter an
attack should be made upon his foragers.

24. The Roman army was at that time in the territory of Larinum.
Minucius, the master of the horse, had the command of it; the
dictator, as was before mentioned, having gone to the city. But the
camp, which had been pitched in an elevated and secure situation, was
now brought down into the plain; plans of a bolder character,
agreeably with the temper of the general, were in agitation; and
either an attack was to be made upon the scattered foragers, or upon
the camp now left with an inconsiderable guard. Nor did it escape the
observation of Hannibal, that the plan of the war had been changed
with the general, and that the enemy would act with more boldness than
counsel. Hannibal himself too, which one would scarcely credit, though
the enemy was near, despatched a third part of his troops to forage,
retaining the remaining two-thirds in the camp. After that he advanced
his camp itself nearer to the enemy, to a hill within the enemy's
view, nearly two miles from Geronium; that they might be aware that he
was on the alert to protect his fo