tal.

The instant the news of the defeat reached Rome, a levy of all males
over seventeen years of age was ordered, and this produced another ten
thousand men and a thousand cavalry. Eight thousand slaves who were
willing to serve were enlisted and armed, and four thousand criminals
and debtors were released from prison and pardoned, on the condition of
their taking up arms. The praetor Marcellus was at Ostia with the ten
thousand men with which he was about to embark for Sicily.

Thus Rome would be defended by forty-three thousand men, while Hannibal
had but thirty-three thousand infantry, and his cavalry, the strongest
arm of his force, would be useless. From Cannae to Rome was twelve days'
march with an army encumbered with booty. He could not, therefore, hope
for a surprise. The walls of Rome were exceedingly strong, and he had
with him none of the great machines which would have been necessary for
a siege. He must have carried with him the supplies he had accumulated
for the subsistence of his force, and when these were consumed he would
be destitute. Fresh Roman levies would gather on his rear, and before
long his whole army would be besieged.

In such an undertaking he would have wasted time, and lost the prestige
which he had acquired by his astonishing victory. Varro, who had escaped
from the battle, had rallied ten thousand of the fugitives at the strong
place of Canusium, and these would be a nucleus round which the rest of
those who had escaped would rally, and would be joined by fresh levies
of the Italian allies of Rome.

The Romans showed their confidence in their power to resist a siege by
at once despatching Marcellus with his ten thousand men to Canusium.
Thus, with a strongly defended city in front, an army of twenty thousand
Roman soldiers, which would speedily increase to double that number, in
his rear, Hannibal perceived that were he to undertake the siege of
Rome he would risk all the advantages he had gained. He determined,
therefore, to continue the policy which he had laid down for himself,
namely, to move his army to and fro among the provinces of Italy until
the allies of Rome one by one fell away from her, and joined him, or
until such reinforcements arrived from Carthage as would justify him in
undertaking the siege of Rome.

Rome herself was never grander than in this hour of defeat; not for
a moment was the courage and confidence of her citizens shaken. The
promptness with which she