22.9
Hannibal
marched in a straight course through Umbria as far as Spoletum, and after
laying the country round utterly waste, he commenced an attack upon the
city which was repulsed with heavy loss. As a single colony was strong
enough to defeat his unfortunate attempt he was able to form some
conjecture as to the difficulties attending the capture of Rome, and
consequently diverted his march into the territory of Picenum, a district
which not only abounded in every kind of produce but was richly stored with
property which the greedy and needy soldiers seized and plundered without
restraint. He remained in camp there for several days during which his
soldiers recruited their strength after their winter campaigns and their
journey across the marshes, and a battle which though ultimately successful
was neither without heavy loss nor easily won. When sufficient time for rest
had been allowed to men who delighted much more in plundering and
destroying than in ease and idleness, Hannibal resumed his march and
devastated the districts of Praetutia and Hadria, then he treated in the same
way the country of the Marsi, the Marrucini, and the Peligni and the part of
Apulia which was nearest to him, including the cities of Arpi and Luceria.
Cn. Servilius had fought some insignificant actions with the Gauls and taken
one small town, but when he heard of his colleague's death and the
destruction of his army, he was alarmed for the walls of his native City, and
marched straight for Rome that he might not be absent at this most critical
juncture.
Q. Fabius Maximus was now Dictator for the second time. On the
very day of his entrance upon office he summoned a meeting of the senate,
and commenced by discussing matters of religion. He made it quite clear to
the senators that C. Flaminius' fault lay much more in his neglect of the
auspices and of his religious duties than in bad generalship and foolhardiness.
The gods themselves, he maintained, must be consulted as to the necessary
measures to avert their displeasure, and he succeeded in getting a decree
passed that the decemvirs should be ordered to consult the Sibylline Books,
a course which is only adopted when the most alarming portents have been
reported. After inspecting the Books of Fate they informed the senate that
the vow which had been made to Mars in view of that war had not been duly
discharged, and that it must be discharged afresh and on a much greater
scale. The Great Games must be vowed to Jupiter, a temple to Venus
Erycina and one to Mens; a lectisternium must be held and solemn
intercessions made; a Sacred Spring must also be vowed. All these things
must be done if the war was to be a successful one and the republic remain in
the same position in which it was at the beginning of the war. As Fabius
would be wholly occupied with the necessary arrangements for the war, the
senate with the full approval of the pontifical college ordered the praetor, M.
Aemilius, to take care that all these orders were carried out in good time.
