After this disaster old Fabius was called to the helm and he carried out his own totally different policy; a policy of endless waiting. During the whole of the rest of the year Hannibal could not force Fabius to give battle. Hannibal moved gradually south, along the western coast. But the Italians did not rise in any great numbers. Hannibal believed that a crushing defeat of Rome would make them do so, and prepared to that end. This is Livy’s account of Fabius’s plan of campaign, and of some of the difficulties he met with in carrying it out: difficulties not only from Hannibal but from his own captains. Thus Varro, his master of the horse, was constantly stirring up discontent.
The Strategy of Fabius
The dictator took over the consul’s army from his deputy, Fulvius Fleccus, and marching through the Sabine land came to Tibur on the day which he had fixed for the gathering of the new recruits. From Tibur he moved to Praeneste, and by cross roads to the Latin way. Thence, after very careful scouting, he led his army against the enemy, determined not to risk an engagement anywhere if he could avoid it. On the day that Fabius first encamped within view of the enemy, not far from Arpi, Hannibal at once formed his army into line and offered battle; but when he saw no movement of troops and no stir in the camp, he retired exclaiming that the ancestral spirit of the Romans was broken, that they were finally conquered, and that they admitted their inferiority in valour and renown. But an unspoken anxiety invaded his mind that he would now have to deal with a general very unlike Flaminius and Sempronius, and that the Romans, taught by their disasters, had at last sought out a leader equal to himself.
Thus Hannibal at once saw reason to fear the wariness of the new dictator, but as he had not yet put his determination to the proof, he began to worry and harass him by constantly moving his camp and pillaging the lands of the allies actually before his eyes. Sometimes he would hurriedly march out of sight, sometimes he would wait concealed beyond a bend of the road, in the hope that he might catch him on the level. Fabius, however, led his troops along the high ground, neither losing touch with his enemy nor giving him battle. The soldiers were kept in the camp unless some necessary service called them out. If fodder and wood were wanted, they went in strong parties that did not scatter. A force of cavalry and light-armed infantry, formed and posted to meet sudden attacks, protected their own comrades and threatened the scattered plunderers of the enemy. The safety of the army was never staked on one pitched battle, while small successes in trivial engagements, begun without risk and with a retreat at hand, taught the soldiers, demoralized by previous disasters, to think better of their own valour and the chances of victory. But he did not find Hannibal such a formidable enemy of this sound strategy as the master of the horse, who was only prevented by his subordinate position from ruining the country, being headstrong and rash in action and unrestrained in speech. First with a few listeners, afterwards openly among the soldiers, he described the deliberation of his commander as indolence and his caution as cowardice, attributing to him faults that were akin to his virtues, and tried to exalt himself by depreciation of his superior, a detestable practice that has become common because it has been too successful.
Livy, xxii. 12.
In the following year, Varro, this same master of the horse, was made consul, sharing the command with Aemilius Paulus. Aemilius was an experienced soldier; but he was on the worst of terms with Varro, and Fabius did not mend matters by warning him that Varro’s rashness was likely to be more dangerous to Rome than Hannibal himself.
The Roman army was the largest yet put in the field and especially strong in infantry. The Plain of Cannae, where Hannibal was encamped, was not favourable for infantry, Aemilius therefore wanted to put off battle. Varro was eager for it. They could not agree. In the end they decided to take command alternately. As soon as Varro’s day came the soldiers saw, to their delight, the red flag of battle flying from the general’s tent.
HELMET found on the
field of CANNAE