m free. Silence being enforced,
Minucius said: "Dictator, you have won two victories to-day, for you
have conquered Hannibal by your bravery, and your colleague by your
kindness and your generalship. By the one you have saved our lives, and
by the other you have taught us our duty, for we have been disgracefully
defeated by Hannibal, but beneficially and honourably by you. I call you
my excellent father, having no more honourable appellation to bestow,
since I owe a greater debt of gratitude to you than to him who begot me.
To him I merely owe my single life, but to you I owe not only that but
the lives of all my men." After these words he embraced Fabius, and the
soldiers followed his example, embracing and kissing one another, so
that the camp was full of joy and of most blessed tears.

XIV. After this, Fabius laid down his office, and consuls were again
elected. Those who were first elected followed the defensive policy of
Fabius, avoiding pitched battles with Hannibal, but reinforcing the
allies and preventing defections. But when Terentius Varro was made
consul, a man of low birth, but notorious for his rash temper and his
popularity with the people, he made no secret, in his inexperience and
self-confidence, of his intention of risking everything on one cast. He
was always reiterating in his public speeches that under such generals
as Fabius the war made no progress, whereas he would conquer the enemy
the first day he saw him. By means of these boastful speeches he
enrolled as soldiers such a multitude as the Romans had never before had
at their disposal in any war, for there collected for the battle
eighty-eight thousand men. This caused great disquietude to Fabius and
other sensible Romans, who feared that if so many of the youth of Rome
were cut off, the city would never recover from the blow. They addressed
themselves therefore to the other consul, Paulus Aemilius, a man of
great experience in war, but disagreeable to the people and afraid of
them because he had once been fined by them. Fabius encouraged him to
attempt to hold the other consul's rashness in check, pointing out that
he would have to fight for his country's safety with Terentius Varro no
less than with Hannibal. Varro, he said, will hasten to engage because
he does not know his own strength, and Hannibal will do so because he
knows his own weakness. "I myself, Paulus," said he, "am more to be
believed than Varro as to the condition of Hannibal's