rdinary sacrifices were performed, according to the directions
of the books of the fates; among which a Gallic man and woman, and a
Greek man and woman, were let down alive in the cattle market, into a
place fenced round with stone, which had been already polluted with
human victims, a rite by no means Roman. The gods being, as they
supposed, sufficiently appeased, Marcus Claudius Marcellus sends from
Ostia to Rome, as a garrison for the city, one thousand five hundred
soldiers, which he had with him, levied for the fleet. He himself
sending before him a marine legion, (it was the third legion,) under
the command of the military tribunes, to Teanum Sidicinum, and
delivering the fleet to Publius Furius Philus, his colleague, after a
few days, proceeded by long marches to Cannsium. Marcus Junius,
created dictator on the authority of the senate, and Titus Sempronius,
master of the horse, proclaiming a levy, enrol the younger men from
the age of seventeen, and some who wore the toga praetexta: of these,
four legions and a thousand horse were formed. They send also to the
allies and the Latin confederacy, to receive the soldiers according to
the terms of the treaty. They order that arms, weapons, and other
things should be prepared; and they take down from the temples and
porticoes the old spoils taken from the enemy. They adopted also
another and a new form of levy, from the scarcity of free persons, and
from necessity: they armed eight thousand stout youths from the
slaves, purchased at the public expense, first inquiring of each
whether he was willing to serve. They preferred this description of
troops, though they had the power of redeeming the captives at a less
expense.

58. For Hannibal, after so great a victory at Cannae, being occupied
with the cares of a conqueror, rather than one who had a war to
prosecute, the captives having been brought forward and separated,
addressed the allies in terms of kindness, as he had done before at
the Trebia and the lake Trasimenus, and dismissed them without a
ransom; then he addressed the Romans too, who were called to him, in
very gentle terms: "That he was not carrying on a war of extermination
with the Romans, but was contending for honour and empire. That his
ancestors had yielded to the Roman valour; and that he was
endeavouring that others might be obliged to yield, in their turn, to
his good fortune and valour together. Accordingly, he allowed the
captives the liberty of r