The History of Rome, Books 09 to 26 - Livy

The Roman army was at that time in the territory of Larinum. Minucius, the master of the horse, had the command of it; the dictator, as was before mentioned, having gone to the city. But the camp, which had been pitched in an elevated and secure situation, was now brought down into the plain; plans of a bolder character, agreeably with the temper of the general, were in agitation; and either an attack was to be made upon the scattered foragers, or upon the camp now left with an inconsiderable guard. Nor did it escape the observation of Hannibal, that the plan of the war had been changed with the general, and that the enemy would act with more boldness than counsel. Hannibal himself too, which one would scarcely credit, though the enemy was near, despatched a third part of his troops to forage, retaining the remaining two-thirds in the camp. After that he advanced his camp itself nearer to the enemy, to a hill within the enemy's view, nearly two miles from Geronium; that they might be aware that he was on the alert to protect his foragers if any attack should be made upon them. Then he discovered an eminence nearer to, and commanding the very camp of the Romans: and because if he marched openly in the day-time to occupy it, the enemy would doubtless anticipate him by a shorter way, the Numidians having been sent privately in the night, took possession of it. These, occupying this position, the Romans, the next day, despising the smallness of their numbers, dislodge, and transfer their camp thither themselves. There was now, therefore, but a very small space between rampart and rampart, and that the Roman line had almost entirely filled; at the same time the cavalry, with the light infantry sent out against the foragers through the opposite part of the camp, effected a slaughter and flight of the scattered enemy far and wide. Nor dared Hannibal hazard a regular battle; because with so few troops, that he would scarcely be able to protect his camp if attacked. And now he carried on the war (for part of his army was away) according to the plans of Fabius, by sitting still and creating delays. He had also withdrawn his troops to their former camp, which was before the walls of Geronium. Some authors affirm that they fought in regular line, and with encountering standards; that in the first encounter the Carthaginian was driven in disorder quite to his camp; but that, a sally thence having been suddenly made all at once, the Romans in their turn became alarmed; that after that the battle was restored by the arrival of Numerius Decimius the Samnite; that this man, the first in family and fortune, not only in Bovianum, whence he came, but in all Samnium, when conducting by command of the dictator to the camp eight thousand infantry and five hundred horse, having shown himself on the rear of Hannibal, seemed to both parties to be a fresh reinforcement coming with Quintus Fabius from Rome; that Hannibal, fearing also some ambuscade, withdrew his troops; and that the Roman, aided by the Samnite, pursuing him, took by storm two forts on that day; that six thousand of the enemy were slain, and about five thousand of the Romans; but that though the loss was so nearly equal, intelligence was conveyed to Rome of a signal victory; and a letter from the master of the horse still more presumptuous.

These things were very frequently discussed, both in the senate and assemblies. When the dictator alone, while joy pervaded the city, attached no credit to the report or letter; and granting that all were true, affirmed that he feared more from success than failure; then Marcus Metilius, a Plebeian tribune, declares that such conduct surely could not be endured. That the dictator, not only when present was an obstacle to the right management of the affair, but also being absent from the camp, opposed it still when achieved; that he studiously dallied in his conduct of the war, that he might continue the longer in office, and that he might have the sole command both at Rome and in the army. Since one of the consuls had fallen in battle, and the other was removed to a distance from Italy, under pretext of pursuing a Carthaginian fleet; and the two praetors were occupied in Sicily and Sardinia, neither of which provinces required a praetor at this time. That Marcus Minucius, the master of the horse, was almost put under a guard, lest he should see the enemy, and carry on any warlike operation. That therefore, by Hercules, not only Samnium, which had now been yielded to the Carthaginians, as if it had been land beyond the Iberus, but the Campanian, Calenian, and Falernian territories had been devastated, while the dictator was sitting down at Casilinum, protecting his own farm with the legions of the Roman people: that the army, eager for battle, as well as the master of the horse, were kept back almost imprisoned within the rampart: that their arms were taken out of their hands, as from captured enemies: at length, as soon as ever the dictator had gone away, having marched out beyond their rampart, that they had routed the enemy and put him to flight. On account of which circumstances, had the Roman commons retained their ancient spirit, that he would have boldly proposed to them to annul the authority of Quintus Fabius; but now he would bring forward a moderate proposition, to make the authority of the master of the horse and the dictator equal; and that even then Quintus Fabius should not be sent to the army, till he had substituted a consul in the room of Caius Flaminius. The dictator kept away from the popular assemblies, in which he did not command a favourable hearing, and even in the senate he was not heard with favourable ears, when his eloquence was employed in praising the enemy, and attributing the disasters of the last two years to the temerity and unskilfulness of the generals; and when he declared that the master of the horse ought to be called to account for having fought contrary to his injunction. That "if the supreme command and administration of affairs were intrusted to him, he would soon take care that men should know, that to a good general fortune was not of great importance; that prudence and conduct governed every thing; that it was more glorious for him to have saved the army at a crisis, and without disgrace, than to have slain many thousands of the enemy." Speeches of this kind having been made without effect, and Marcus Atilius Regulus created consul, that he might not be present to dispute respecting the right of command, he withdrew to the army on the night preceding the day on which the proposition was to be decided. When there was an assembly of the people at break of day, a secret displeasure towards the dictator, and favour towards the master of the horse, rather possessed their minds, than that men had not sufficient resolution to advise a measure which was agreeable to the public; and though favour carried it, influence was wanting to the bill. One man indeed was found who recommended the law, Caius Terentius Varro, who had been praetor in the former year, sprung not only from humble but mean parentage. They report that his father was a butcher, the retailer of his own meat, and that he employed this very son in the servile offices of that trade.

This young man, when a fortune left him by his father, acquired in such a traffic, had inspired him with the hope of a higher condition, and the gown and forum were the objects of his choice, by declaiming vehemently in behalf of men and causes of the lowest kind, in opposition to the interest and character of the good, first came to the notice of the people, and then to offices of honour. Having passed through the offices of quaestor, plebeian, and curule aedile, and, lastly, that of praetor; when now he raised his mind to the hope of the consulship, he courted the gale of popular favour by maligning the dictator, and received alone the credit of the decree of the people. All men, both at Rome and in the army, both friends and foes, except the dictator himself, considered this measure to have been passed as an insult to him; but the dictator himself bore the wrong which the infuriated people had put upon him, with the same gravity with which he endured the charges against him which his enemies laid before the multitude; and receiving the letter containing a decree of the senate respecting the equalization of the command while on his journey, satisfied that an equal share of military skill was not imparted together with the equal share of command, he returned to the army with a mind unsubdued alike by his fellow-citizens and by the enemy.