een under a roof. In the next
year (539) the war acquired another aspect. The tried general Marcus
Marcellus, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who had distinguished himself
in the campaign of the previous year as master of the horse to the
dictator, and the veteran Quintus Fabius Maximus, took--Marcellus as
proconsul, the two others as consuls--the command of the three Roman
armies which were destined to surround Capua and Hannibal; Marcellus
resting on Nola and Suessula, Maximus taking a position on the right
bank of the Volturnus near Cales, and Gracchus on the coast near
Liternum, covering Neapolis and Cumae. The Campanians, who marched
to Hamae three miles from Cumae with a view to surprise the Cumaeans,
were thoroughly defeated by Gracchus; Hannibal, who had appeared
before Cumae to wipe out the stain, was himself worsted in a combat,
and when the pitched battle offered by him was declined, retreated
in ill humour to Capua. While the Romans in Campania thus not only
maintained what they possessed, but also recovered Compulteria and
other smaller places, loud complaints were heard from the eastern
allies of Hannibal. A Roman army under the praetor Marcus Valerius
had taken position at Luceria, partly that it might, in connection
with the Roman fleet, watch the east coast and the movements of the
Macedonians; partly that it might, in connection with the army of
Nola, levy contributions on the revolted Samnites, Lucanians, and
Hirpini. To give relief to these, Hannibal turned first against his
most active opponent, Marcus Marcellus; but the latter achieved under
the walls of Nola no inconsiderable victory over the Phoenician army,
and it was obliged to depart, without having cleared off the stain,
from Campania for Arpi, in order at length to check the progress of
the enemy's army in Apulia. Tiberius Gracchus followed it with his
corps, while the two other Roman armies in Campania made arrangements
to proceed next spring to the attack of Capua.

Hannibal Reduced to the Defensive
His Prospects as to Reinforcements

The clear vision of Hannibal had not been dazzled by his victories.
It became every day more evident that he was not thus gaining his
object Those rapid marches, that adventurous shifting of the war to
and fro, to which Hannibal was mainly indebted for his successes,
were at an end; the enemy had become wiser; further enterprises were
rendered almost impossible by the inevitable necessity of defending