s a garrison,
were here surprised and overpowered. The booty, and there was a
considerable quantity of it, was given up to the troops. Also, two
hundred and forty thousand pecks of wheat, with a hundred and ten
thousand pecks of barley, were found here. The joy, however, thus
occasioned, was by no means so great as a disaster sustained a few
days afterwards, not far from the town Herdonea. Cneius Fulvius, the
consul, was lying encamped there, in the hope of regaining Herdonea,
which had revolted from the Romans after the defeat at Cannae, his
position being neither sufficiently secure from the nature of the
place, nor strengthened by guards. The natural negligence of the
general was now increased by the hope that their attachment to the
Carthaginians was shaken when they had heard that Hannibal, after the
loss of Salapia, had retired from that neighbourhood into Bruttium.
Intelligence of all these circumstances being conveyed to Hannibal by
secret messengers from Herdonea, at once excited an anxious desire to
retain possession of a city in alliance with him, and inspired a hope
of attacking the enemy when unprepared. With a lightly equipped force
he hastened to Herdonea by forced marches, so as almost to anticipate
the report of his approach and in order to strike greater terror into
the enemy, came up with his troops in battle-array. The Roman, equal
to him in courage, but inferior in strength, hastily drawing out his
troops, engaged him. The fifth legion and the left wing of the allied
infantry commenced the battle with spirit. But Hannibal ordered his
cavalry, on a signal given, to ride round as soon as the foot forces
had their eyes and thoughts occupied with the contest before them, and
one half of them to attack the camp of the enemy, the other half to
fall upon their rear, while busily engaged in fighting. He himself,
sarcastically alluding to the similarity of the name Fulvius, as he
had defeated Cneius Fulvius, the praetor, two years ago, in the same
country, expressed his confidence that the issue of the battle would
be similar. Nor was this expectation vain; for after many of the
Romans had fallen in the close contest, and in the engagement with the
infantry, notwithstanding which they still preserved their ranks and
stood their ground; the alarm occasioned by the cavalry on their rear,
and the enemy shout, which was heard at the same time from their camp,
first put to flight the sixth legion, which being post