re plundering Campania.
Falling in with some scouts of theirs and seeing them quickly retire
he got the impression that all the enemy were at that point and
believed they were in flight. Accordingly, in his hurry to come to
blows with them before his father should arrive, in order that the
success might appear to be his own and not his elder's, he went ahead
with a careless formation. Thus he encountered a compact body of foes
and would have been utterly destroyed, had not night intervened. Many
of his men died also after that with no physician or relative to
attend them, because they had hastened on far ahead of the baggage
carriers in the expectation of immediate victory. Of a surety they
would have perished on the following day but for the fact that the
Samnites, thinking Fabius's father to be near, felt afraid and
withdrew.

[Sidenote: FRAG. 33^24] THOSE IN THE CITY ON HEARING THIS BECAME
TERRIBLY ANGRY, SUMMONED THE CONSUL, AND WANTED TO PUT HIM ON TRIAL.
BUT THE OLD MAN HIS FATHER BY ENUMERATING HIS OWN AND HIS ANCESTORS'
BRAVE DEEDS, BY PROMISING THAT HIS SON SHOULD MAKE NO RECORD THAT WAS
UNWORTHY OF THEM, AND BY URGING HIS SON'S YOUTH TO ACCOUNT FOR THE
MISFORTUNE, IMMEDIATELY ABATED THEIR WRATH. JOINING HIM IN THE
CAMPAIGN HE CONQUERED THE SAMNITES IN BATTLE, CAPTURED THEIR CAMP,
RAVAGED THEIR COUNTRY, AND DROVE AWAY GREAT BOOTY. A PART OF IT HE
DEVOTED TO PUBLIC USES AND A PART HE ACCORDED TO THE SOLDIERS. FOR
THESE REASONS THE ROMANS EXTOLLED HIM AND ORDERED THAT HIS SON ALSO
SHOULD COMMAND FOR THE FUTURE WITH CONSULAR POWERS AND STILL EMPLOY
HIS FATHER AS LIEUTENANT. THE LATTER MANAGED AND ARRANGED EVERYTHING
FOR HIM, SPARING HIS OLD AGE NOT A WHIT, YET HE DID NOT LET IT BE SEEN
THAT HE WAS EXECUTING THE BUSINESS ON HIS OWN RESPONSIBILITY, BUT MADE
THE GLORY OF HIS EXPLOITS ATTACH TO HIS CHILD.

[Sidenote: FRAG. 37] VIII, 2.--AFTER THIS, WHEN THE TRIBUNES MOVED AN
ANNULMENT OF DEBTS, THE PEOPLE, SINCE THIS WAS NOT YIELDED BY THE
LENDERS AS WELL, FELL INTO TURMOIL: and their turbulent behavior was
not quieted until foes came against the city.

_(BOOK 9, BOISSEVAIN.)_

Those to begin the wars were the Tarentini, [Sidenote: FRAG. 39^1] WHO
HAD ASSOCIATED WITH THEMSELVES THE ETRUSCANS AND GAULS AND SAMNITES
AND SEVERAL OTHER TRIBES. These allies the Romans engaged and defeated
in various battles, with different consuls on different occasions, but
the Tarentini, although they had themselves been the autho