should have
been at once left to the only authority which was in a position to
undertake it--the senate--and there should have been reserved for the
comitia the mere formality of confirmation. The brilliant successes
of the Scipios in the difficult arena of Spanish warfare showed what
might in this way be achieved. But political demagogism, which was
already gnawing at the aristocratic foundations of the constitution,
had seized on the management of the Italian war. The absurd
accusation, that the nobles were conspiring with the enemy without,
had made an impression on the "people." The saviours to whom
political superstition looked for deliverance, Gaius Flaminius and
Gaius Varro, both "new men" and friends of the people of the purest
dye, had accordingly been empowered by the multitude itself to execute
the plans of operations which, amidst the approbation of that
multitude, they had unfolded in the Forum; and the results were the
battles on the Trasimene lake and at Cannae. Duty required that the
senate, which now of course understood its task better than when it
recalled half the army of Regulus from Africa, should take into its
hands the management of affairs, and should oppose such mischievous
proceedings; but when the first of those two defeats had for the
moment placed the rudder in its hands, it too had hardly acted in a
manner unbiassed by the interests of party. Little as Quintus Fabius
may be compared with these Roman Cleons, he had yet conducted the war
not as a mere military leader, but had adhered to his rigid attitude
of defence specially as the political opponent of Gaius Flaminius; and
in the treatment of the quarrel with his subordinate, had done what he
could to exasperate at a time when unity was needed. The consequence
was, first, that the most important instrument which the wisdom of
their ancestors had placed in the hands of the senate just for such
cases--the dictatorship--broke down in his hands; and, secondly--at
least indirectly--the battle of Cannae. But the headlong fall of the
Roman power was owing not to the fault of Quintus Fabius or Gaius
Varro, but to the distrust between the government and the governed--to
the variance between the senate and the burgesses. If the deliverance
and revival of the state were still possible, the work had to begin at
home with the re-establishment of unity and of confidence. To have
perceived this and, what is of more importance, to have done it,