Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.
Do you not share in the happiness of such a company? And are you not rejoiced that they happened to meet near the Ager Falernus, where they could have the best Massic and Falernian wines?
New Capua, through which the road from Rome to Naples lies, is a small town of no importance. The ancient city of that name was situated two miles distant from the new. The ruins of the amphitheatre, which are still to be seen, give some idea of the ancient grandeur of that city. Before the amphitheatre of Vespasian was built, there was none in Rome of equal size with this. Old Capua is said, at one period, to have vied in magnificence with Rome and Carthage:
Altera dicta olim Carthago, atque altera Roma,
Nunc prostrata jacet, proprioque sepulta sepulchro.
The army of Hannibal is said to have been conquered by the luxuries of this place; but the judicious Montesquieu observes, that the Carthaginian army, enriched by so many victories, would have found a Capua wherever they had gone. Whether Capua brought on the ruin of Hannibal or not, there can be no doubt that Hannibal occasioned the ruin of Capua.
Having broken their connection with Rome, and formed an alliance with her enemy, the Capuans were, in the course of the war, besieged by the Consuls Fulvius and Appius. Hannibal exerted all his vast abilities for the relief of his new friends; but was not able to bring the Roman army to a battle, or to raise the siege. When every other expedient had failed, he marched directly to Rome, in the hopes of drawing the Roman army after him to defend the capital. A number of alarming events conspired, at this time, to depress the spirit of the Roman Senate. The Proconsul Sempronius Gracchus, who commanded an army in Lucania, had fallen into an ambuscade, and was massacred. The two gallant brothers, the Scipios, who were their generals in Spain, had been defeated and killed; and Hannibal was at their gates. How did the Senate behave at this crisis? Did they spend their time in idle harangues and mutual accusations? Did they throw out reflections against those senators who were against entering into a treaty with the Carthaginians till their army should be withdrawn from Italy? Did they recall their army from Capua? Did they shew any mark of despondence? In this slate of affairs, the Roman Senate sent orders to Appius to continue the siege of Capua; they ordered a reinforcement to their army in Spain; the troops for that service marching out at one gate of Rome, while Hannibal threatened to enter by storm at another. How could such a people fail to become the masters of the world!
The country between Capua and Naples displays a varied scene of lavish fertility, and with great propriety might be named Campania Felix, if the richest and most generous soil, with the mildest and most agreeable climate, were sufficient to render the inhabitants of a country happy.
[5] Anxur fuit quæ nunc Terracinæ sunt; urbs prona in paludes. Tit. Liv. lib. iv.