Crispinus, after a few days, died
of his wounds. Such a misfortune as this, losing both consuls in one
battle, never before befel the Romans.

XXX. Hannibal heard of the fate of all the rest with indifference, but
when he was told that Marcellus had fallen he himself hastened to the
place, and stood for a long time beside the corpse, admiring its
strength and beauty. He made no boastful speech, and showed no joy in
his countenance, as a man who had slain a troublesome and dangerous
enemy, but, wondering at the strangeness of his ending, he drew the
ring from the dead man's finger, and had the corpse decently attired
and burned. The relics he gathered into a silver urn, upon which he
placed a golden crown, and sent it to Marcellus's son. But on the way
some Numidians fell in with the party who were escorting the urn, and
while they tried to take it away and the others struggled to retain
it, the bones were scattered on the ground. Hannibal, on hearing of
this, said, "Nothing can be done against the will of heaven." He
ordered the Numidians to be punished, but took no further thought
about collecting or sending away the relics of Marcellus, concluding
that some god had decreed the strange death and strange lack of burial
which had befallen him. This is the story related by Cornelius Nepos
and Valerius Maximus, but Livy and Augustus Caesar declare that the urn
was brought to his son, and that it was splendidly buried. Besides
his monuments at Rome there was a gymnasium at Katana in Sicily which
bore his name, and statues and votive tablets from the plunder of
Syracuse were set tip in Samothrace in the temple of the gods called
Kabeiri, and in Lindus (in Rhodes) in the temple of Athena.

On his statue there, according to Poseidonius, these verses are
written:

"This monument, O stranger, doth enshrine
Marcellus, of the famous Claudian line,
Who seven times was consul, and in fight
His country's foes o'erthrew and put to flight."

For the writer of this epitaph counted his two proconsulates as well
as his five consulates. His family remained one of the chief in Rome
down to the time of Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus, who was the son
of Octavia, Augustus's sister, and Caius Marcellus. He died in the
office of aedile while yet a bridegroom, having just married Augustus's
daughter Julia. In honour of his memory his mother Octavia established
a library, and Augustus built a theatre, both of which bore his