ter the disastrous day of
Cannae, the senate and people had turned their eyes to this brave and
experienced officer, and entrusted him at once with the actual supreme
command. He had received his training in the troublesome warfare
against Hamilcar in Sicily, and had given brilliant evidence of his
talents as a leader as well as of his personal valour in the last
campaigns against the Celts. Although far above fifty, he still
glowed with all the ardour of the most youthful soldier, and only a
few years before this he had, as general, cut down the mounted general
of the enemy(1)--the first and only Roman consul who achieved that
feat of arms. His life was consecrated to the two divinities, to
whom he erected the splendid double temple at the Capene Gate--to
Honour and to Valour; and, while the merit of rescuing Rome from this
extremity of danger belonged to no single individual, but pertained to
the Roman citizens collectively and pre-eminently to the senate, yet
no single man contributed more towards the success of the common
enterprise than Marcus Marcellus.

Hannibal Proceeds to Campania

From the field of battle Hannibal had turned his steps to Campania, He
knew Rome better than the simpletons, who in ancient and modern times
have fancied that he might have terminated the struggle by a march on
the enemy's capital. Modern warfare, it is true, decides a war on the
field of battle; but in ancient times, when the system of attacking
fortresses was far less developed than the system of defence, the most
complete success in the field was on numberless occasions neutralized
by the resistance of the walls of the capitals. The council and
citizens of Carthage were not at all to be compared to the senate
and people of Rome; the peril of Carthage after the first campaign of
Regulus was infinitely more urgent than that of Rome after the battle
of Cannae; yet Carthage had made a stand and been completely
victorious. With what colour could it be expected that Rome would now
deliver her keys to the victor, or even accept an equitable peace?
Instead therefore of sacrificing practicable and important successes
for the sake of such empty demonstrations, or losing time in the
besieging of the two thousand Roman fugitives enclosed within the
walls of Canusium, Hannibal had immediately proceeded to Capua before
the Romans could throw in a garrison, and by his advance had induced
this second city of Italy after long hesitation to