money to purchase it from abroad there was none. Instant
victory was a matter of life or death. Three of her six armies were
ordered to the North, but the first of these was required to overawe the
disaffected Etruscan. The second army of the North was pushed forward,
under Porcius, the praetor, to meet and keep in check the advanced
troops of Hasdrubal; while the third, the grand army of the North, which
was to be under the immediate command of the consul Livius, who had the
chief command in all North Italy, advanced more slowly in its support.
There were similarly three armies in the South, under the orders of the
other consul, Claudius Nero.

The lot had decided that Livius was to be opposed to Hasdrubal, and that
Nero should face Hannibal. And "when all was ordered as themselves
thought best, the two consuls went forth from the city, each his several
way. The people of Rome were now quite otherwise affected than they had
been when L. AEmilius Paulus and C. Terentius Varro were sent against
Hannibal. They did no longer take upon them to direct their generals, or
bid them despatch and win the victory betimes, but rather they stood in
fear lest all diligence, wisdom, and valor should prove too little; for
since few years had passed wherein some one of their generals had not
been slain, and since it was manifest that, if either of these present
consuls were defeated or put to the worst, the two Carthaginians would
forthwith join, and make short work with the other, it seemed a greater
happiness than could be expected that each of them should return home
victor, and come off with honor from such mighty opposition as he was
like to find. With extreme difficulty had Rome held up her head ever
since the battle of Cannae; though it were so, that Hannibal alone, with
little help from Carthage, had continued the war in Italy. But there was
now arrived another son of Hamilcar, and one that in his present
expedition had seemed a man of more sufficiency than Hannibal himself;
for whereas, in that long and dangerous march through barbarous nations,
over great rivers and mountains that were thought unpassable, Hannibal
had lost a great part of his army, this Hasdrubal, in the same places,
had multiplied his numbers, and gathering the people that he found in
the way, descended from the Alps like a rolling snowball, far greater
than he came over the Pyrenees at his first setting out of Spain. These
considerations and the like, of whi