for thirty days in his own house, after which all signs of mourning were
to be put away. As the feast of Ceres fell during those days, it was
thought better to omit both the sacrifices and the processions than to
have them marred by the consciousness of their misfortune, which would
be painfully evident in the small number of worshippers and their
downcast looks. However, everything that the soothsayers commanded to
appease the anger of the gods and to expiate prodigies was carried out.
Fabius Pictor, a relative of the great Fabius, was sent to Delphi, and
of two of the Vestal virgins who were found to have been seduced, one
was buried alive, as is the usual custom, while the other died by her
own hand. Especially admirable was the spirit and the calm composure of
the city when the consul Varro returned after his flight. He came
humbled to the dust, as a man would who had been the cause of a
terrible disaster, but at the gate the Senate and all the people went
out to greet him. The chief men and the magistrates, amongst whom was
Fabius, having obtained silence, spoke in praise of him "because he had
not despaired of the State after such a calamity, but had come back to
undertake the conduct of affairs and do what he could for his countrymen
as one who thought they might yet be saved."

XIX. When they learned that Hannibal after the battle had turned away
from Rome to other parts of Italy, the Romans again took courage and
sent out armies and generals. Of those the most remarkable were Fabius
Maximus and Claudius Marcellus, both equally admirable, but from an
entirely different point of view. Marcellus, as has been related in his
Life, was a man of activity and high spirit, rejoicing in a hand-to-hand
fight, and just like the lordly warriors of Homer. With a truly
venturesome audacity, he in his first battles outdid in boldness even
the bold Hannibal himself; while Fabius, on the other hand, was
convinced that his former reasoning was true, and believed that without
any one fighting or even meddling with Hannibal, his army would wear
itself out and consume away, just as the body of an athlete when
overstrained and exerted soon loses its fine condition. For this reason
Poseidonius calls Fabius the shield, and Marcellus the sword of Rome,
because the steadiness of Fabius, combined with the warlike ardour of
Marcellus, proved the saving of the state. Hannibal, frequently meeting
Marcellus, who was like a raging torrent, had