mus to the skies. His
renown was equal with Hannibal, and his enemies the Carthaginians and
then at length they began to feel that they were engaged in war with
Romans, and in Italy. For the two preceding years they entertained so
utter a contempt for the Roman generals and soldiers, that they could
scarcely believe that they were waging war with the same nation which
their fathers had reported to them as being so formidable. They relate
also, that Hannibal said, as he returned from the field that at length
that cloud, which was used to settle on the tops of the mountains, had
sent down a shower with a storm.

31. While these events occur in Italy, Cneius Servilius Geminus, the
consul, having sailed round the coast of Sardinia and Corsica with a
fleet of one hundred and twenty ships, and received hostages from both
places, crossed over into Africa, and before he made a descent upon
the continent, having laid waste the island of Meninx, and received
from the inhabitants of Cercina ten talents of silver, in order that
their fields too might not be burnt and pillaged, he approached the
shores of Africa, and landed his troops. Thence the soldiers were led
out to plunder, and the crews scattered about just as if they were
plundering uninhabited islands and thus, carelessly falling upon an
ambuscade, when they were surrounded--the ignorant of the country by
those acquainted with it, the straggling by those in close array, they
were driven back to then ships in ignominious flight, and with great
carnage. As many as one thousand men, together with Sempionius
Blaesus, the quaestor, having been lost, the fleet hastily setting
sail from the shore, which was crowded with the enemy, proceeded
direct for Italy, and was given up at Lilybaeum to Titus Otacilius,
the praetor, that it might be taken back to Rome by his lieutenant,
Publius Suia. The consul himself, proceeding through Sicily on foot,
crossed the strait into Italy, summoned, as well as his colleague,
Marcus Atilius, by a letter from Quintus Fabius, to receive the armies
from him, as the period of his command, which was six months, had
nearly expired. Almost all the annalists record that Fabius conducted
the war against Hannibal, as dictator Caelius also writes, that he was
the first dictator created by the people. But it has escaped Caelius
and all the others that Cneius Servilius, the consul, who was then a
long way from home in Gaul, which was his province, was the only