wenty-five denarii; and to each foot soldier ten
denarii, and such arms as they wanted; and every other kind of
hospitality showed them, both publicly and privately: emulously
striving that the people of Venusia might not be surpassed by a woman
of Canusium in kind offices. But the great number of her guests
rendered the burden more oppressive to Busa, for they amounted now to
ten thousand men. Appius and Scipio, having heard that the other
consul was safe, immediately send a messenger to inquire how great a
force of infantry and cavalry he had with him, and at the same time to
ask, whether it was his pleasure that the army should be brought to
Venusia, or remain at Canusium. Varro himself led over his forces to
Canusium. And now there was some appearance of a consular army, and
they seemed able to defend themselves from the enemy by walls, if not
by arms. At Rome intelligence had been received, that not even these
relics of their citizens and allies had survived, but that the two
consuls, with their armies, were cut to pieces, and all their forces
annihilated. Never when the city was in safety was there so great a
panic and confusion within the walls of Rome. I shall therefore shrink
from the task, and not attempt to relate what in describing I must
make less than the reality. The consul and his army having been lost
at the Trasimenus the year before, it was not one wound upon another
which was announced, but a multiplied disaster, the loss of two
consular armies, together with the two consuls: and that now there was
neither any Roman camp, nor general nor soldiery: that Apulia and
Samnium, and now almost the whole of Italy, were in the possession of
Hannibal. No other nation surely would not have been overwhelmed by
such an accumulation of misfortune. Shall I compare with it the
disaster of the Carthaginians, sustained in a naval battle at the
islands Aegates, dispirited by which they gave up Sicily and Sardinia,
and thenceforth submitted to become tributary and stipendiary? Or
shall I compare with it the defeat in Africa under which this same
Hannibal afterwards sunk? In no respect are they comparable, except
that they were endured with less fortitude.

55. Publius Furius Philus and Manius Pomponius, the praetors,
assembled the senate in the curia hostilia, that they might deliberate
about the guarding of the city; for they doubted not but that the
enemy, now their armies were annihilated, would come to assault Rome,