us Cornelius Scipio, afterwards called Africanus, elected
aedile before he had attained the age required by the law. The citadel
of Tarentum, in which the Roman garrison had taken refuge, betrayed to
Hannibal. Games instituted in honour of Apollo, called Apollinarian.
Quintus Fulvius and Appius Claudius, consuls, defeat Hanno the
Carthaginian general. Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus betrayed by a
Lucanian to Mago, and slain. Centenius Penula, who had been a
centurion, asks the senate for the command of an army, promising to
engage and vanquish Hannibal, is cut off with eight thousand men.
Cneius Fulvius engages Hannibal, and is beaten, with the loss of
sixteen thousand men slain, he himself escapes with only two hundred
horsemen. Quintus Fulvius and Appius Claudius, consuls, lay siege to
Capua. Syracuse taken by Claudius Marcellus after a siege of three
years. In the tumult occasioned by taking the city, Archimedes is
killed while intently occupied on some figures which he had drawn in
the sand. Publius and Cornelius Scipio, after having performed many
eminent services in Spain, are slain, together with nearly the whole
of their armies, eight years after their arrival in that country; and
the possession of that province would have been entirely lost, but for
the valour and activity of Lucius Marcius, a Roman knight, who,
collecting the scattered remains of the vanquished armies, utterly
defeats the enemy, storming their two camps, killing thirty-seven
thousand of them, and taking eighteen hundred together with an immense
booty._

* * * * *

1. Hannibal passed the summer during which these events occurred in
Africa and Italy, in the Tarentine territory, with the hope of having
the city of the Tarentines betrayed to him. Meanwhile some
inconsiderable towns belonging to them, and to the Sallentines,
revolted to him. At the same time, of the twelve states of the
Bruttians, which had in a former year gone over to the Carthaginians,
the Consentians and Thurians returned to the protection of the Roman
people. And more would have done the same, had not Titus Pomponius
Veientanus, praefect of the allies, having acquired the appearance of
a regular general, in consequence of several successful predatory
expeditions in the Bruttian territory, got together a tumultuary band,
and fought a battle with Hanno. In that battle, a great number of men,
consisting, however, of a disorderly rabble of slaves