Marcus Marcellus,
was on the point of attempting to recover Capua. To these there fell
to be added on the Roman side the reserve of two legions in the
capital, the garrisons placed in all the seaports--Tarentum and
Brundisium having been reinforced by a legion on account of the
Macedonian landing apprehended there--and lastly the strong fleet
which had undisputed command of the sea. If we add to these the Roman
armies in Sicily, Sardinia, and Spain, the whole number of the Roman
forces, even apart from the garrison service in the fortresses of
Lower Italy which was provided for by the colonists occupying them,
may be estimated at not less than 200,000 men, of whom one-third were
newly enrolled for this year, and about one-half were Roman citizens.
It may be assumed that all the men capable of service from the 17th
to the 46th year were under arms, and that the fields, where the war
permitted them to be tilled at all, were cultivated by the slaves
and the old men, women, and children. As may well be conceived,
under such circumstances the finances were in the most grievous
embarrassment; the land-tax, the main source of revenue, came in but
very irregularly. Yet notwithstanding these difficulties as to men
and money the Romans were able--slowly indeed and by exerting all
their energies, but still surely--to recover what they had so rapidly
lost; to increase their armies yearly, while those of the Phoenicians
were diminishing; to gain ground year by year on the Italian allies
of Hannibal, the Campanians, Apulians, Samnites, and Bruttians, who
neither sufficed, like the Roman fortresses in Lower Italy, for their
own protection nor could be adequately protected by the weak army of
Hannibal; and finally, by means of the method of warfare instituted by
Marcus Marcellus, to develop the talent of their officers and to bring
into full play the superiority of the Roman infantry. Hannibal might
doubtless still hope for victories, but no longer such victories as
those on the Trasimene lake and on the Aufidus; the times of the
citizen-generals were gone by. No course was left to him but to wait
till either Philip should execute his long-promised descent or his own
brothers should join him from Spain, and meanwhile to keep himself,
his army, and his clients as far as possible free from harm and in
good humour. We hardly recognize in the obstinate defensive system
which he now began the same general who had carried on the offen