22.32
Fabius
army was transferred to Atilius, Servilius Geminus took over the one which
Minucius had commanded. They lost no time in fortifying their winter
quarters, and during the remainder of the autumn conducted their joint
operations in the most perfect harmony on the line which Fabius had laid
down. When Hannibal left his camp to collect supplies, they were
conveniently posted at different spots to harass his main body and cut off
stragglers; but they refused to risk a general engagement, though the enemy
employed every artifice to bring one on. Hannibal was reduced to such
extremities that he would have marched back into Gaul had not his departure
looked like flight. No chance whatever would have been left to him of
feeding his army in that part of Italy if the succeeding consuls had persevered
in the same tactics. When the winter had brought the war to a standstill at
Gereonium, envoys from Neapolis arrived in Rome. They brought with them
into the Senate-house forty very heavy golden bowls, and addressed the
assembled senators in the following terms: "We know that the Roman
treasury is being drained by the war, and since this war is being carried on
for the towns and fields of the allies quite as much as for the head and
stronghold of Italy, the City of Rome and its empire, we Neapolitans have
thought it but right to assist the Roman people with the gold which has been
left by our ancestors for the enriching of our temples and for a reserve in
time of need. If we thought that our personal services would have been of
any use we would just as gladly have offered them. The senators and people
of Rome will confer a great pleasure upon us if they look upon everything
that belongs to the Neapolitans as their own, and deign to accept from us a
gift, the value and importance of which lie rather in the cordial goodwill of
those who gladly give it than in any intrinsic worth which it may itself
possess." A vote of thanks was passed to the envoys for their munificence
and their care for the interests of Rome, and one bowl, the smallest, was
accepted.
