s were left in that part
of the camp which faced the enemy: that the tents were open, and that
all their valuables were left exposed: that in some places he had seen
silver carelessly thrown about the passages, as if laid there for
plunder. This intelligence, which it was hoped would deter their minds
from greediness, inflamed them; and the soldiers clamorously
declaring, that unless the signal was given they would advance without
their leaders, they by no means wanted one, for Varro instantly gave
the signal for marching. Paulus, whom, unwilling from his own
suggestions to move, the chickens had not encouraged by their
auspices, ordered the unlucky omen to be reported to his colleague,
when he was now leading the troops out of the gate. And though Varro
bore it impatiently, yet the recent fate of Flaminius, and the
recorded naval defeat of Claudius, the consul in the first Punic war,
struck religious scruples into his mind. The gods themselves (it might
almost be said) rather postponed than averted the calamity which hung
over the Romans; for it fell out by mere accident, that when the
soldiers did not obey the consul who ordered them to return to the
camp, two slaves, one belonging to a horseman of Formiae, the other to
one of Sidicinum, who had been cut off by the Numidians among a party
of foragers, when Servilius and Atilius were consuls, had escaped on
that day to their masters: and being brought into the presence of the
consuls, inform them that the whole army of Hannibal was lying in
ambush on the other side of the adjoining mountains. The seasonable
arrival of these men restored the consuls to their authority, when the
ambition of one of them had relaxed his influence with the soldiers,
by an undignified compliance.43. Hannibal, perceiving that the Romans
had been indiscreetly prompted rather than rashly carried to a
conclusion, returned to his camp without effecting any thing, as his
stratagem was discovered. He could not remain there many days, in
consequence of the scarcity of corn; and, moreover, not only among the
soldiers, who were mixed up of the off-scouring of various nations,
but even with the general himself, day by day new designs arose: for,
first, when there had been murmuring of the soldiers, and then an open
and clamorous demand of their arrears of pay, and a complaint first of
the scarcity of provisions, and lastly of famine; and there being a
report that the mercenaries, particularly the Spanis