onsul and censor, and had subdued the
Sardinians during his consulate. Nearly about the same time a fleet
sent from Carthage to Sardinia under the conduct of Hasdrubal,
surnamed the Bald, having suffered from a violent tempest, was driven
upon the Balearian islands, where a good deal of time was lost in
refitting the ships, which were hauled on shore, so much were they
damaged, not only in their rigging but also in their hulls.

35. As the war was carried on in Italy with less vigour since the
battle of Cannae, the strength of one party having been broken, and
the energy of the other relaxed, the Campanians of themselves made an
attempt to subjugate Cumae, at first by soliciting them to revolt from
the Romans, and when that plan did not succeed, they contrived an
artifice by which to entrap them. All the Campanians had a stated
sacrifice at Hamae. They informed the Cumans that the Campanian senate
would come there, and requested that the Cuman senate should also be
present to deliberate in concert, in order that both people might have
the same allies and the same enemies; they said that they would have
an armed force there for their protection, that there might be no
danger from the Romans or Carthaginians. The Cumans, although they
suspected treachery, made no objection, concluding that thus the
deception they meditated might be concealed. Meanwhile Tiberius
Sempronius, the Roman consul, having purified his army at Sinuessa,
where he had appointed a day for their meeting, crossed the Vulturnus,
and pitched his camp in the neighbourhood of Liternum. As his troops
were stationed here without any employment, he compelled them
frequently to go through their exercise, that the recruits, which
consisted principally of volunteer slaves, might accustom themselves
to follow the standards, and know their own centuries in battle While
thus engaged, the general was particularly anxious for concord, and
therefore enjoined the lieutenant-generals and the tribunes that "no
disunion should be engendered among the different orders, by casting
reproaches on any one on account of his former condition. That the
veteran soldier should be content be placed on an equal footing with
the tiro, the free-man with the volunteer slave; that all should
consider those men sufficiently respectable in point of character and
birth, to whom the Roman people had intrusted their arms and
standards; that the measures which circumstances made it necessary t