de by the
defensive and to expect success mainly from the cutting off of the
enemy's means of subsistence, there was yet something strange in a
system of defence and of starving out, under which the enemy had laid
waste all central Italy without opposition beneath the eyes of a Roman
army of equal numbers, and had provisioned themselves sufficiently for
the winter by an organized method of foraging on the greatest scale.
Publius Scipio, when he commanded on the Po, had not adopted this view
of a defensive attitude, and the attempt of his successor to imitate
him at Casilinum had failed in such a way as to afford a copious fund
of ridicule to the scoffers of the city. It was wonderful that the
Italian communities had not wavered, when Hannibal so palpably showed
them the superiority of the Phoenicians and the nullity of Roman aid;
but how long could they be expected to bear the burden of a double
war, and to allow themselves to be plundered under the very eyes of
the Roman troops and of their own contingents? Finally, it could not
be alleged that the condition of the Roman army compelled the general
to adopt this mode of warfare. It was composed, as regarded its core,
of the capable legions of Ariminum, and, by their side, of militia
called out, most of whom were likewise accustomed to service; and, far
from being discouraged by the last defeats, it was indignant at the
but little honourable task which its general, "Hannibal's lackey,"
assigned to it, and it demanded with a loud voice to be led against
the enemy. In the assemblies of the people the most violent
invectives were directed against the obstinate old man. His political
opponents, with the former praetor Gaius Terentius Varro at their
head, laid hold of the quarrel--for the understanding of which we must
not forget that the dictator was practically nominated by the senate,
and the office was regarded as the palladium of the conservative
party--and, in concert with the discontented soldiers and the
possessors of the plundered estates, they carried an unconstitutional
and absurd resolution of the people conferring the dictatorship, which
was destined to obviate the evils of a divided command in times of
danger, on Marcus Minucius,(4) who had hitherto been the lieutenant
of Quintus Fabius, in the same way as on Fabius himself. Thus the
Roman army, after its hazardous division into two separate corps had
just been appropriately obviated, was once more divided;