22.12
The
Dictator took over the consul's army from Fulvius Flaccus, the second in
command, and marched through Sabine territory to Tibur, where he had
ordered the newly raised force to assemble by the appointed day. From there
he advanced to Praeneste, and taking a cross-country route, came out on the
Latin road. From this point he proceeded towards the enemy, showing the
utmost care in reconnoitring all the various routes, and determined not to
take any risks anywhere, except so far as necessity should compel him. The
first day he pitched his camp in view of the enemy not far from Arpi; the
Carthaginian lost no time in marching out his men in battle order to give him
the chance of fighting. But when he saw that the enemy kept perfectly quiet
and that there were no signs of excitement in their camp, he tauntingly
remarked that the spirits of the Romans, those sons of Mars, were broken at
last, the war was at an end, and they had openly foregone all claim to valour
and renown. He then returned into camp. But he was really in a very anxious
state of mind, for he saw that he would have to do with a very different type
of commander from Flaminius or Sempronius; the Romans had been taught
by their defeats and had at last found a general who was a match for him. 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. Unless they
were employed on necessary duty, the soldiers were confined to camp. When
they went in quest of wood or forage they went in large bodies and only
within prescribed limits. 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. Headstrong and impetuous in counsel and with an ungovernable
tongue, the only thing that prevented Minucius from making shipwreck of
the State was the fact that he was in a subordinate command. At first to a
few listeners, afterwards openly amongst the rank and file, he abused Fabius,
calling his deliberation indolence and his caution cowardice, attributing to
him faults akin to his real virtues, and by disparaging his superior -a vile
practice which, through its often proving successful, is steadily on the
increase -he tried to exalt himself.
