t put down an insurrectionary
movement in Etruria, by visiting the various towns and using
conciliatory language; after this, he wished to consecrate a temple,
which he had built out of the spoils of Sicily, to Glory and Valour,
but being prevented by the priests on the ground that two gods could
not be included in one temple, he began to build another one, being
very much vexed at the opposition he encountered, but influenced by
omens: for he was disturbed at this time by many portentous
occurrences, such as several temples being struck by lightning, and
the gold in the temple of Jupiter being gnawed by the mice. It was
also reported that an ox had spoken with a human voice, and that a
child had been born with the head of an elephant--so the priests kept
him in Rome to conduct the expiatory rites and atonements for these,
though he was fretting and eager to take the field; for no man ever
was so passionately desirous of anything as he was to measure himself
with Hannibal in battle. His one dream by night, his only talk to his
friends and colleagues, his sole prayer to the gods was that he might
meet Hannibal in a fair field. I believe that he would most willingly
have enclosed both armies within a wall or palisade, and there have
fought out the quarrel. Had it not been that he was now loaded with
honours, and had given proofs of his superiority in wisdom and conduct
to any other general, men would have said that he showed a more boyish
ambition than befitted a man of his age; for he was over sixty years
old when he entered upon his fifth consulship.

XXIX. However, when he had completed the necessary sacrifices and
purifications enjoined by the soothsayers, he took the field with his
colleague, and harassed Hannibal much in the country between the towns
of Bantia and Venusia. Hannibal declined battle, but, learning that a
force was detached from the Roman army to attack the Epizephyrian
Lokrians, he laid an ambuscade on the mountain near Petelia, and
defeated them with a loss of two thousand five hundred men. This
excited Marcellus, and he led his forces nearer to those of Hannibal.
There was between the two camps a hill of some strength as a military
post, overgrown with wood. Its sloping sides afforded a view of either
camp, and upon them appeared the sources of several mountain streams.

The Romans were surprised at Hannibal, that, having had the first
choice of so excellent a position as this, he had not occupied