person who possessed the right of appointing a dictator, and that as
the state, terrified by the disasters which had just befallen it,
could not abide the delay, it had recourse to the determination that
the people should create a prodictator, that his subsequent
achievements, his singular renown as a general, and his descendants,
who exaggerated the inscription of his statue, easily brought it about
that he should be called dictator, instead of prodictator.

32. The consuls, Atilius and Geminus Servilius, having received, the
former the army of Fabius, the latter that of Minucius, and fortified
their winter quarters in good time, (it was the close of the autumn,)
carried on the war with the most perfect unanimity, according to the
plans of Fabius. In many places they fell upon the troops of Hannibal
when out on foraging excursions, availing themselves of the
opportunity, and both harassing their march and intercepting the
stragglers. They did not come to the chance of a general battle, which
the enemy tried by every artifice to bring about. And Hannibal was so
straitened by the want of provisions, that had he not feared in
retiring the appearance of flight, he would have returned to Gaul, no
hope being left of being able to subsist an army in those quarters, if
the ensuing consuls should carry on the war upon the same plan. The
war having been arrested in its progress at Geronium, the winter
interrupting it, ambassadors from Naples came to Rome. They carried
into the senate-house forty golden goblets, of great weight, and spoke
to this effect. "That they knew the treasury of the Romans was
exhausted by the war, and since the war was carried on alike in
defence of the cities and the lands of the allies, and of the empire
and city of Rome, the capital and citadel of Italy, that the
Neapolitans thought it but fair that they should assist the Roman
people with whatever gold had been left them by their ancestors as
well for the decoration of their temples as for the relief of
misfortune. If they had thought that there was any resource in
themselves, that they would have offered it with the same zeal. That
the Roman fathers and people would render an acceptable service to
them, if they would consider all the goods of the Neapolitans as their
own, and if they would think them deserving, that they should accept a
present at their hands, rendered valuable and of consequence rather by
the spirit and affection of those who gave i