the enemy's capital. Modern warfare, it is true, decides a war on the
field of battle; but in ancient times, when the system of attacking
fortresses was far less developed than the system of defence, the most
complete success in the field was on numberless occasions neutralized
by the resistance of the walls of the capitals. The council and
citizens of Carthage were not at all to be compared to the senate
and people of Rome; the peril of Carthage after the first campaign of
Regulus was infinitely more urgent than that of Rome after the battle
of Cannae; yet Carthage had made a stand and been completely
victorious. With what colour could it be expected that Rome would now
deliver her keys to the victor, or even accept an equitable peace?
Instead therefore of sacrificing practicable and important successes
for the sake of such empty demonstrations, or losing time in the
besieging of the two thousand Roman fugitives enclosed within the
walls of Canusium, Hannibal had immediately proceeded to Capua before
the Romans could throw in a garrison, and by his advance had induced
this second city of Italy after long hesitation to join him. He might
hope that, in possession of Capua, he would be able to seize one of
the Campanian ports, where he might disembark the reinforcements which
his great victories had wrung from the opposition at home.

Renewal of the War in Campania
The War in Apulia

When the Romans learned whither Hannibal had gone, they also left
Apulia, where only a weak division was retained, and collected
their remaining forces on the right bank of the Volturnus. With
the two legions saved from Cannae Marcus Marcellus marched to Teanum
Sidicinum, where he was joined by such troops as were at the moment
disposable from Rome and Ostia, and advanced--while the dictator
Marcus Junius slowly followed with the main army which had been
hastily formed--as far as the Volturnus at Casilinum, with a view if
possible to save Capua. That city he found already in the power of
the enemy; but on the other hand the attempts of the enemy on Neapolis
had been thwarted by the courageous resistance of the citizens, and
the Romans were still in good time to throw a garrison into that
important port. With equal fidelity the two other large coast towns,
Cumae and Nuceria, adhered to Rome. In Nola the struggle between
the popular and senatorial parties as to whether they should attach
themselves to the Carthaginians or to the Rom