assadors with
their letters had been made prisoners. Not knowing, therefore, what
had been agreed upon between Hannibal and his ambassadors, or what
proposals they were to have brought back to him, he sent another
embassy with the same instructions. The ambassadors sent to Hannibal
were Heraclitus, surnamed Scotinus, Crito of Beraea, and Sositheus of
Magnesia; these successfully took and brought back their commissions,
but the summer had passed before the king could take any step or make
any attempt. Such an influence had the capture of one vessel, together
with the ambassadors, in deferring a war which threatened the Romans.
Fabius crossed the Vulturnus, after having at length expiated the
prodigies, and both the consuls prosecuted the war in the
neighbourhood of Capua. Fabius regained by force the towns
Compulteria, Trebula, and Saticula, which had revolted to the
Carthaginians; and in them were captured the garrisons of Hannibal and
a great number of Campanians. At Nola, as had been the case the
preceding year, the senate sided with the Romans, the commons with
Hannibal; and deliberations were held clandestinely on the subject of
massacring the nobles and betraying the city; but to prevent their
succeeding in their designs, Fabius marched his army between Capua and
the camp of Hannibal on Tifata, and sat down in the Claudian camp
above Suessula, whence he sent Marcus Marcellus, the proconsul, with
those forces which he had under him, to Nola for its protection.

40. In Sardinia also the operations of the war, which had been
intermitted from the time that Quintus Mucius, the praetor, had been
seized with a serious illness, began to be conducted by Titus Manlius,
the praetor. Having hauled the ships of war on shore at Carale, and
armed his mariners, in order that he might prosecute the war by land,
and received the army from the praetor, he made up the number of
twenty-two thousand foot and twelve hundred horse. Setting out for the
territory of the enemy with these forces of foot and horse, he pitched
his camp not far from the camp of Hamsicora. It happened that
Hampsicora was then gone among the Sardinians, called Pelliti, in
order to arm their youth, whereby he might augment his forces. His
son, named Hiostus, had the command of the camp, who coming to an
engagement, with the presumption of youth, was routed and put to
flight. In that battle as many as three thousand of the Sardinians
were slain, and about eight hun