Livy

“ It is mere folly to fancy that the war can be brought to an end by sitting still or making vows to heaven. Your duty is to take your arms and go down and meet the enemy man to man. It is by doing and daring that Rome has increased her dominion not by these counsels of sloth which cowards call caution." Minucius said all this before a host of Roman tribunes and knights, as if he were addressing the Assembly, and his daring words even reached the ears of the soldiery; if they could have voted on the question, there is no doubt that they would have superseded Fabius for Minucius. ”

“ And yet if he carries out his threat and brings on an action at once, either I am utterly ignorant of military science, of the nature of this war, of the enemy with whom we are dealing, or else some place or other will be rendered more notorious by our defeat than even Trasumennus. As we are alone, this is hardly a time for boasting, and I would rather be thought to have gone too far in despising glory than in seeking it, but as a matter of fact, the only rational method of carrying on war against Hannibal is the one which I have followed. ”

“ Maharbal replied: "The gods have not given all their gifts to one man. You know how to win victory, Hannibal, you do not how to use it." That day's delay is believed to have saved the City and the empire. The next day, as soon as it grew light, they set about gathering the spoils on the field and viewing the carnage, which was a ghastly sight even for an enemy. There all those thousands of Romans were lying, infantry and cavalry indiscriminately as chance had brought them together in the battle or the flight. ”

“ A force of cavalry and light infantry told off in readiness against sudden alarms, made everything safe for his own soldiers and dangerous for the scattered foragers of the enemy. He refused to stake everything on a general engagement, whilst slight encounters, fought on safe ground with a retreat close at hand, encouraged his men, who had been demoralised by their previous defeats, and made them less dissatisfied with their own courage and fortunes. But his sound and common-sense tactics were not more distasteful to Hannibal than they were to his own Master of the Horse. ”

“ You have enlisted men of all ages and of every condition; I hear that eight thousand slaves are armed. Our number is no less, and it will not cost more to ransom us than it did to purchase them, but if I were to compare ourselves as soldiers with them, I should be offering an insult to the name of Roman. I should think, senators, that in deciding upon a matter like this, you should also take into consideration, if you are disposed to be too severe, to what sort of an enemy you are going to abandon us. Is it to a Pyrrhus, who treated his prisoners as though they were his guests? ”

“ Could you see the chains, the squalor, the disgusting appearance of your fellow-citizens, the sight would, I am sure, move you no less than if, on the other hand, you beheld your legions lying scattered over the plains of Cannae. You can behold the anxiety and the tears of our kinsmen as they stand in the vestibule of your House and await your reply. If they are in such anxiety and suspense about us and about those who are not here, what, think you, must be the feelings of the men themselves whose life and liberty are at stake? ”

“ For your own soldiers will want the same thing as the enemy; Varro though he is a Roman consul will desire just what Hannibal the Carthaginian commander desires. You must hold your own single-handed against both generals. And you will hold your own if you stand your ground firmly against public gossip and private slander, if you remain unmoved by false misrepresentations and your colleague's idle boasting. It is said that truth is far too often eclipsed but never totally extinguished. The man who scorns false glory will possess the true. ”

“ But, before daylight overtakes us and the enemy gathers in larger force to bar our path, let us cut our way through the men who in disorder and confusion are clamouring at our gates. Good swords and brave hearts make a way through enemies, however densely they are massed. If you march shoulder to shoulder you will scatter this loose and disorganised force as easily as if nothing opposed you. Come then with me, all you who want to preserve yourselves and the State." With these words he drew his sword, and with his men in close formation marched through the very midst of the enemy. ”

“ They sought refuge behind the front ranks of the legions, who alone amidst the general panic preserved their coolness and presence of mind. Had it been a straightforward fight, man to man, they would to all appearance have been quite a match for their foes, so much had their success, a few days previously, restored their courage. But the sudden appearance of the concealed troops and their combined attack on both flanks and on the rear of the Roman legions created such confusion and alarm that not a man had any spirit left to fight or any hope of escaping by flight. ”

“ Do you doubt then, that if we sit still we shall get the better of a man who is growing weaker day by day, who has neither supplies nor reinforcements nor money? How long has he been sitting before the walls of Gereonium, a poor fortress in Apulia, as though they were the walls of Carthage? But I will not sound my own praises even before you. See how the late consuls, Cn. Servilius and Atilius, fooled him. This, L. Paulus, is the only safe course to adopt, and it is one which your fellow citizens will do more to make difficult and dangerous for you than the enemy will. ”

“ No camp is more truly a hostile camp than one in which such treason is meditated." He started off with a few followers to the house where Metellus was lodging, and finding the young men about whom the report had been made gathered there in council, he held his naked sword over the heads of the conspirators and uttered these words: "I solemnly swear that I will not abandon the Republic of Rome, nor will I suffer any other Roman citizen to do so; if I knowingly break my oath, then do thou, O Jupiter Optimus Maximus, visit me, my home, my family, and my estate with utter destruction. ”

“ I do not envy the fortune or the circumstances of any man, whether he be a fellow-citizen or a fellow-soldier, nor would I wish it to be said that I had glorified myself by depreciating others, but this I will say, not even those who fled from the battle, mostly without arms, and did not stay their flight till they had reached Venusia or Canusium, can claim precedence over us or boast that they are more of a defence to the State than we are. ”

“ Let them call you a coward because you are cautious, a laggard because you are deliberate, unsoldierly because you are a skilful general. I would rather have you give a clever enemy cause for fear than earn the praise of foolish compatriots. Hannibal will only feel contempt for a man who runs all risks, he will be afraid of one who never takes a rash step. ”

“ Years ago the prisoners who were released by Pyrrhus without ransom returned to Rome, but they returned in company with the foremost men of the State who had been sent to effect their ransom. Am I to return to my native country as a citizen not thought worth three hundred coins ? Each of us has his own feelings, senators. I know that my life and person are at stake, but I dread more the peril to my good name, in case we depart condemned and repulsed by you; for men will never believe that you grudged the cost. ”

“ These nations, more than any other, inspired terror by the vastness of their stature and their frightful appearance: the Gauls were naked above the waist, the Spaniards had taken up their position wearing white tunics embroidered with purple, of dazzling brilliancy. The total number of infantry in the field was 40,000, and there were 10,000 cavalry. Hasdrubal was in command of the left wing, Maharbal of the right; Hannibal himself with his brother Mago commanded the centre. ”

“ It was the wariness not the impetuosity of the Dictator that was the immediate cause of his alarm; he had not yet tested his inflexible resolution. He began to harass and provoke him by frequently shifting his camp and ravaging the fields of the allies of Rome before his very eyes. Sometimes he would march rapidly out of sight and then in some turn of the road take up a concealed position in the hope of entrapping him, should he come down to level ground. Fabius kept on high ground, at a moderate distance from the enemy, so that he never lost sight of him and never closed with him. ”

“ We are carrying on war in Italy, in our own country on our own soil, everywhere round us are citizens and allies, they are helping us with men, horses, supplies, and they will continue to do so, for they have proved their loyalty thus far to us in our adversity; and time and circumstance are making us more efficient, more circumspect, more self-reliant. Hannibal, on the other hand, is in a foreign and hostile land, far from his home and country, confronted everywhere by opposition and danger ”

“ Never lose control of your forces and yourself; be always prepared, always on the alert; never fail to seize an opportunity favourable to yourself, and never give a favourable opportunity to the enemy. The man who is not in a hurry will always see his way clearly; haste blunders on blindly."
40 The consul's reply was far from being a cheerful one, for he admitted that the advice given was true, but not easy to put into practice. If a Dictator had found his Master of the Horse unbearable, what power or authority would a consul have against a violent and headstrong colleague? ”

“ This is the secret understanding that has been come to by all the nobles, and we shall never see the end of the war till we have elected as our consul a man who is really a plebeian, that is, one from the ranks. The plebeian nobility have all been initiated into the same mysteries; when they are no longer looked down upon by the patricians, they at once begin to look down upon the plebs. Who does not see that their one aim and object was to bring about an interregnum in order that the elections might be controlled by the patricians? ”

“ Since the first order of intelligence and capacity has been denied to us let us cling to the second and intermediate one, and whilst we are learning to command, let us make up our minds to obey him who is wise and far sighted. Let us join camp with Fabius. When we have carried the standards to his tent where I shall salute him as 'Father,' a title which the service he has done us and the greatness of his office alike deserve, you soldiers will salute as 'Patrons' those whose arms and right hands protected you a little while ago. ”

“ Senators: we are every one of us aware that no State has held its prisoners of war of less account than our own, but, unless we think our case a better one than we have any right to do, we would urge that none have ever fallen into the hands of the enemy who were more deserving of consideration than we are. For we did not give up our arms during the battle from sheer cowardice; standing on the heaps of the slain we kept up the struggle till close on night, and only then did we retire into camp ”

“ For the flight at the Allia saved the army though it lost the City, whereas at Cannae hardly fifty men shared the consul's flight, nearly the whole army met their death in company with the other consul. As those who had taken refuge in the two camps were only a defenceless crowd without any leaders, the men in the larger camp sent a message to the others asking them to cross over to them at night when the enemy, tired after the battle and the feasting in honour of their victory, would be buried in sleep. Then they would go in one body to Canusium. ”

“ His success in shaking the influence of Fabius and weakening the authority of the Dictator had invested him with a certain glory in the eyes of the mob, which was heightened by the other's unpopularity, and they did their utmost to raise him to the consulship. The patricians opposed him with their utmost strength, dreading lest it should become a common practice for men to attack them as a means of rising to an equality with them. ”

“ Now that the victory of the enemy was no longer doubtful this struggle of the dismounted cavalry was such as might be expected when men preferred to die where they stood rather than flee, and the victors, furious at them for delaying the victory, butchered without mercy those whom they could not dislodge. ”

“ Hannibal did not fail to observe that his own tactics were being employed against him. As he could not get out through Casilinum, and would have to make for the mountains and cross the ridge of Callicula, he would be liable to be attacked by the Romans whilst he was shut up in the valleys. To guard against this he decided upon a stratagem which, deceiving the eyes of the enemy by its alarming appearance, would enable him to scale the mountains in a night march without fear of interruption. ”

“ I only wish that the facts which I am about to allege could be brought before the army at Canusium, which is best able to testify to each man's courage or cowardice, or at least that we had before us P. Sempronius Tuditanus, for if these men had followed him they would at this moment be in the Roman camp, not prisoners in the hands of the foe.
"The enemy had nearly all returned to their camp, tired out with fighting, to make merry over their victory, and these men had the night clear for a sortie. ”