Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Since Pericles has proved to be such a man among those worthy of remembrance, as we have set out, let us now turn our narrative to Fabius. Some say that Fabius was born of a nymph, others of a local woman, who lay with Heracles beside the river Thymbris, a man who gave Rome the great and distinguished house of the Fabii, taking its name from him,
though some record that the first members of this house who used pit-trapping in the hunt were in ancient times called Fodii, since to this day trenches are called "fossae" and "to dig" is "fodere"; and in time, the two sounds having shifted, they came to be called Fabii. This house gave rise to many distinguished men, and Rullus, foremost among them and on that account given the surname Maximus among the Romans, was the ancestor, four generations back, of the Fabius Maximus whose life we are now recounting.
He had a nickname from a bodily mark, Verrucosus, since a small wart rose just above his lip; he was also called Ovicula, meaning "little sheep," a name given for the gentleness and gravity of his character while he was still a boy. For his quietness, his silence, the great caution with which he took hold of childish pleasures, his slowness and difficulty in learning, and his easy compliance toward his companions gave outsiders the suspicion of a certain dullness and sluggishness; few were those who could see beneath this the depth of his immovability, and the lion-like greatness of soul within his nature.
But with the passage of time, once events had stirred him into action, he soon revealed to the multitude that what looked like passivity was true steadiness of mind, that his caution was in fact sound judgment, and that his refusal to be shaken or moved amounted, in every case, to firmness and constancy. Recognizing how great the state was and how numerous its wars, he trained his body for combat as a weapon nature had given him, and likewise trained his tongue as a tool for winning over the people, shaping it to suit the life he led.
For there was in it no ornamental flourish, nor the empty, market-place kind of charm, but a mind of its own, distinctive, and possessing depth and shape in its maxims, which they say most resemble those of Thucydides. There survives a speech of his which he delivered before the people, a eulogy for his own son, who died after having held the consulship.
Of the five consulships he held, the first brought him a triumph over the Ligurians; for they were defeated by him in battle and, having lost many men, were driven back into the Alps, and ceased plundering and doing harm to the neighboring parts of Italy.
But when Hannibal, having invaded Italy and first prevailed in battle at the river Trebia, was marching on and ravaging the land of Etruria, casting terrible consternation and fear into Rome — with omens, some of the sort familiar to the Romans, coming from thunderbolts, others altogether extraordinary
and of great strangeness, falling upon them: for it was said that shields had become drenched with blood of their own accord, that harvests of grain near Antium were reaped bloody, that stones red-hot and burning fell from the sky, that over Falerii the heaven seemed to burst open and many tablets fell out and were scattered, and on one of these was found written, word for word, "Ares is stirring up his own weapons,"
none of this blunted the consul Gaius Flaminius, a man who besides his naturally hot temper and ambition was lifted up by great successes, which he had earlier won beyond expectation, when, against the wishes of the Senate and against the opposition of his colleague, he had joined battle with the Gauls by force and prevailed. Fabius, though, though the omens touched many people, was less troubled by them, on account of their irrationality;
but learning of the small numbers and lack of resources of the enemy, he urged the Romans to hold back and not to fight against a man who was using, for this very purpose, an army trained through many contests, but instead to send reinforcements to their allies, to hold the cities firmly in hand, and to let the vigor of Hannibal wither away of itself, like a flame that has flared up from a small and light fuel.
He did not, however, persuade Flaminius, who declared that he would not tolerate the war approaching Rome, nor, like the old Camillus, fight it out for the city within the city itself, and ordered the tribunes to lead the army out. As he himself leapt onto his horse, for no evident cause the horse suddenly and unaccountably trembled and shied, and he was thrown and fell headlong; yet even so he changed none of his resolve, but, holding to his original purpose of confronting Hannibal, he positioned his troops beside the body of water known as Lake Thrasymene, in Etruria.
When the soldiers had joined battle, at the very moment of the engagement an earthquake occurred, by which cities were overturned, the courses of rivers were shifted from their beds, and the bases of cliffs were torn away. But although the disturbance was so violent, not one of the combatants perceived it at all,
and Flaminius himself, displaying many deeds of daring and strength, fell, and around him the bravest of his men; of the rest, once put to flight, there was great slaughter, and fifteen thousand were cut down, and as many others were taken captive. Hannibal, wishing out of respect for his valor to bury and honor the body of Flaminius, could not find it among the dead; it had utterly vanished, no one knew how.
Now as for the earlier rout at the Trebia, neither the commanding officer's dispatch nor the courier who carried news of it gave a truthful account; instead both pretended that victory had merely been hard-fought and left undecided. But concerning this later defeat, as soon as the praetor Pomponius heard of it, he gathered the people into assembly and, without evasions or roundabout phrases, said outright as he came before them, "We have been defeated, men of Rome, in a great battle, and the army has been destroyed, and Flaminius the consul is dead. But take counsel
for your own safety and security." This man, casting his words like a gust of wind into the sea of so great a populace, threw the city into turmoil, and people's reasoning could not hold steady or endure against so great a shock. Everyone converged on one conclusion: that the crisis called for an office of unchecked, sole command — what the Romans term a dictatorship — held by a man willing to exercise it boldly and without hesitation;
and that this man should be one, Fabius Maximus, who possessed a spirit and a dignity of character equal to the greatness of the office, and who had reached that time of life at which the body's strength still holds together with the deliberations of the soul, and boldness is blended with prudence.
When this was decided, Fabius, appointed dictator, and having himself appointed Marcus Minucius as master of the horse, first asked the Senate's permission to use a horse on campaign. For it was not lawful; it had been forbidden by some ancient law, whether it was because they staked most of their military strength on the infantry and consequently believed their commander should stay stationed with the massed ranks rather than ride off from them, or because, given that the office's authority is in almost every other respect so vast and despotic, they wished the dictator, in this one matter at least, to appear to be in need of the people's permission.
Nevertheless, Fabius himself, wishing at once to demonstrate the greatness and majesty of his office, so that the citizens would be more submissive and obedient to him, came forward having assembled together twenty-four rods of office; and when the other consul came to meet him, he sent his attendant and ordered him to dismiss his lictors and, laying aside the insignia of his office, to meet him as a private citizen.
After this, beginning most nobly from the gods, and teaching the people that it was through the general's neglect and contempt of the divine, not through the cowardice of those who fought, that they had been overthrown, he urged them not to fear their enemies but rather to propitiate and honor the gods, not instilling superstition, but strengthening their courage through piety and, by hopes drawn from the gods, removing and soothing away their fear of the enemy.
Many of the hidden, valuable books were then examined, the ones known as the Sibylline books; and reportedly a number of the prophecies contained there matched, in a striking way, the events and circumstances of that period. But what was learned from them could not be inquired into by anyone else; the dictator came forward before the crowd and vowed to the gods to sacrifice, at the coming year's end, all the offspring of that year of goats, pigs, sheep, and cattle that the mountains, plains, rivers, and meadows of Italy would nourish by the appointed season, and to hold musical and theatrical festivals funded by three hundred thirty-three thousand sesterces and three hundred thirty-three thousand denarii, with a third part still remaining over,
which sum amounts to eighty thousand drachmas, plus three thousand five hundred eighty-three drachmas and two obols. It is difficult to give an account of the precision and division of this sum among the multitude, unless one wished to praise the power of the number three, in that it is by nature complete and the first of the odd numbers, and is the origin of multitude in itself, having gathered up and joined together the earliest intervals and the building blocks out of which every number is composed.
Fabius, then, having turned the resolve of the many toward the divine, made them more cheerful about the future; but he himself, placing all his hopes of victory in himself, on the ground that god grants success through virtue and prudence, turned toward Hannibal — not intending to fight him decisively, but resolved to wear down and consume, over time, the height of his vigor, with money his lack of resources, and with numbers of men his fewness,
and for this reason he was always encamped aloft, keeping clear of the enemy's cavalry, hovering about them in mountainous places; when they were encamped, he kept still, but when they moved, he circled around the high ground and showed himself at a distance sufficient not to be forced by a javelin's cast into fighting, giving the enemy, through this mere hesitation, the fear that he was about to engage them. By thus drawing out the time he came to be despised by all; he was spoken ill of in his own camp, and to the enemy he seemed utterly lacking in daring, and nothing at all except in the eyes of one man, Hannibal.
He alone perceived Fabius's cleverness and the manner in which he had resolved to fight, and, understanding that the man must be moved to battle by every art and force, or else the Carthaginians' cause was ruined — since, where they had the advantage, they were unable to use their weapons, while where they fell short, in numbers of men and in resources, they were being worn down and spent to no purpose — turned to every kind of general's stratagem and wrestling-trick, and, testing him like a skilled athlete searching for a hold, kept attacking, disturbing, and shifting Fabius from place to place, wishing to dislodge him from his calculations of safety.
But Fabius's judgment, holding firm confidence in what was advantageous, stood steadfast and unshaken in itself; yet he was troubled by his master of horse, Minucius, who loved battle unseasonably, grew bold, and stirred up the army — filled as it was, thanks to him, with a mad impulse and empty hopes — men who mocked and despised Fabius, calling him Hannibal's tutor, while they considered Minucius a great man, worthy of Rome,
as their general. Minucius, given over all the more to arrogance and boldness, mocked the encampments upon the high places, saying that the dictator was always preparing fine theater-seats for them to watch Italy being ravaged and set aflame, and asked Fabius's friends whether he was lifting the army up into the sky, as one who had given up on the earth, or whether he was hiding behind clouds and mists to escape the enemy.
When his friends reported these things to Fabius and urged him to wash away the disgrace by risking battle, he said, "I should indeed become more of a coward than I am now thought to be, if, fearing jeers and abuse, I abandoned my own calculations. To fear for one's country is no shame, but to be terrified by men's opinion, their slanders and reproaches, is unworthy of a man holding so great an office — rather, it belongs to one enslaved to those whom he ought instead to master and rule, for their poor judgment."
After this a mistake occurs on Hannibal's part. Wishing to draw Fabius's army farther off and to seize plains that offered forage, he ordered his guides to lead the way, right after dinner, toward Casinum. But they, not hearing the name accurately because of his foreign accent, led his force instead into the lowlands of Campania, to a city called Casilinum, through the middle of which flows a river the Romans call the Volturnus.
The region is enclosed on other sides by mountains, but a valley opens out toward the sea, where the marshes formed by the river's overflow lie, and it has deep dunes of sand, and ends at a wave-beaten, harborless shore. As Hannibal descended into this place, Fabius, going around by his knowledge of the roads, blocked the way out by stationing four thousand hoplites there, and, having posted the rest of his army advantageously upon the other heights, sent his lightest and most ready troops to attack the rearmost of the enemy, throwing the whole army into confusion and destroying about eight hundred of them.
After this, Hannibal, wishing to lead his army away, and recognizing the mistake in the terrain and the danger, crucified the guides, and gave up hope of forcing his way past the enemy and fighting through, since they held the passes. As everyone was in a state of despondency and fear, believing themselves surrounded on every side by inescapable difficulties, he resolved to deceive the enemy by a trick, which was as follows.
He ordered about two thousand oxen taken from the captives to be collected, and to each set of horns to bind a torch, or a bundle of dry brushwood or twigs; then, at night, when the signal was raised, they were to light these and drive the oxen up toward the passes, past the narrow places and the enemy's guard posts. At the same time, those given this order made their preparations, and he himself, having roused the rest of the army, now that it was already dark, led them off at an unhurried pace.
As long as the fire was small and merely singed the wood, the oxen advanced quietly, driven toward the foothills, and it was a marvel to the herdsmen and shepherds watching from the heights — the flames blazing at the very tips of the horns — as though an army in single order were marching by the light of many torches;
but when the burning horn, down to its root, transmitted the sensation to the flesh, and the oxen, in their agony, tossing and shaking their heads, became covered all over with flame from one another, they no longer kept to the order of their march, but, terrified and in great pain, rushed at a run over the mountains, their tails and foreheads ablaze, setting fire to much of the woodland through which they fled.
It was a terrifying sight, then, for the Romans who were watching the passes: the flames looked like torches being carried about by running men, and there was great confusion and fear among them, since they supposed that other enemies were bearing down on them from different directions and encircling them on every side. For this reason they did not dare to remain, but withdrew to the larger camp, abandoning the narrow passes. Hannibal's light troops, seizing the opportunity, occupied the passes, and the rest of his force now advanced without fear, dragging along a great and heavy quantity of plunder.
Fabius happened to perceive the trick while it was still night, for some of the cattle, straying, had fallen into his men's hands; but fearing an ambush in the darkness, he kept his force quietly under arms. When day came, he pursued and fell upon the enemy's rearguard, and skirmishes broke out in the rough ground, and there was much confusion, until men sent by Hannibal from the vanguard — light and swift-footed Iberians skilled at climbing mountains — fell upon the heavily armed Romans, and after destroying not a few of them, drove Fabius back.
It was then above all that Fabius came to be spoken of badly and held in contempt. For having held back from boldness in arms, on the ground that he would defeat Hannibal by judgment and forethought, he now appeared to have been defeated and outgeneraled by these very means. Hannibal, wishing rather to inflame the Romans' anger against him, when he came to Fabius's own farmlands, ordered everything else burned and destroyed, but forbade his men to touch those alone, and stationed a guard that allowed no harm to be done there nor anything taken from it.
These things, reported at Rome, further slandered Fabius. The tribunes of the people cried out loudly against him before the crowd, chief among them Metilius, who pressed the attack — not out of hostility to Fabius, but because, sharing blood kinship with Minucius, the master of horse, and he reckoned that Fabius's disgrace would win honor and glory for his relative. The senate too had grown angry, blaming most of all the agreement made with Hannibal concerning the prisoners,
for they had agreed among themselves that man should be ransomed for man among the captives, but if one side had more, the party recovering them should pay two hundred and fifty drachmas for each. So when the man-for-man exchange had taken place, it was found that two hundred and forty Romans remained in Hannibal's hands; regarding these men, the senate resolved against dispatching the ransom money, and it further accused Fabius of improperly and unprofitably bringing back men who had become the enemy's prey through cowardice.
On hearing this, Fabius bore his fellow citizens' anger calmly; but having no money himself, and unwilling either to deceive Hannibal or to abandon his fellow citizens, he sent his son to Rome, ordering him to sell his farms and bring the silver at once to him at the camp. When the young man had sold the land and quickly returned, Fabius sent the ransom to Hannibal and recovered the captives; and though many later tried to repay him, he took nothing from anyone, but forgave the debt to all.
After this, the priests summoned him to Rome for certain sacrifices, and he handed over the army to Minucius, having declared — not only as commander but with many exhortations and entreaties besides — that Minucius must not fight or engage the enemy. Minucius, giving these words the least regard, immediately pressed the attack against the enemy.
And once, having watched for a moment when Hannibal had sent off the greater part of his army to forage for grain, he attacked the force left behind, drove it back into its camp, destroyed no small number of men, and struck fear into all as though they were about to be besieged by him. And when Hannibal's force had gathered again into the camp, Minucius withdrew safely, having filled both himself with immoderate boasting and his soldiers with overconfidence.
Quickly a report of the deed, exaggerated still further, spread to Rome. Fabius, on hearing it, said that he feared Minucius's good fortune more than his bad. But the people were elated and ran joyfully to the forum, and Metilius the tribune, mounting the rostrum, delivered a speech magnifying Minucius while accusing Fabius — not of softness nor cowardice, but now of outright treason —
charging jointly that the most powerful and foremost men had brought on the war from the start in order to overthrow popular government, and to cast the city at once into an unaccountable monarchy — a war which, by being drawn out, would establish a stronghold for Hannibal and give time for yet another army to come from Libya, as though he were already master of Italy.
When Fabius, coming forward, did not even attempt to defend himself before the tribune, but said only that the sacrifices and rites had been completed most speedily, so that he would go to the army to punish Minucius for having engaged the enemy against his orders, a great commotion ran through the people, as though Minucius were in danger. For a dictator holds authority to jail a man or execute him without a hearing, and the people feared that Fabius's anger, once stirred from such deep gentleness, would prove heavy and hard to appease.
Because of this the rest of them, fearful, kept quiet; but Metilius, having the immunity granted by his tribunate — for this office alone, once a dictator is chosen, does not lose its power, but remains while the rest are suspended — pressed hard upon the people, begging them not to abandon Minucius nor allow him to suffer what Manlius Torquatus did to his own son: after he had distinguished himself and been crowned, cutting off his neck with an axe — and to take away Fabius's tyranny and entrust affairs to one both able and willing to save them.
Moved by such words, the people did not dare to force Fabius to lay down his sole command, though he had fallen into disrepute, but they voted that Minucius, holding equal rank in generalship, should conduct the war with the same authority as the dictator — a thing that had not happened before at Rome, though it happened again a little later, after the disaster at Cannae.
For at that time too Marcus Junius was dictator in charge of the armies, and at Rome it was necessary to fill up the senate, because so great a number of senators had died in the fighting; another dictator was chosen, Fabius Buteo. But this man, once he had come forward and enrolled the men and filled up the senate, on that same day dismissed his lictors, slipped away from those escorting him, threw himself into the crowd, mingled with it, and, already managing some of his own affairs and business like a private citizen, went about in the forum.
Having appointed Minucius to the same powers as the dictator, they thought Fabius had been curbed and humbled altogether — judging the man wrongly. For he did not consider their ignorance a misfortune to himself, but, like Diogenes the sage, when someone said to him, "These men are laughing at you," replied, "But I am not being laughed at," holding that only those are laughed at who yield and are thrown into confusion by such things —
so too Fabius bore, without suffering and with ease, whatever happened to him in this matter, offering himself as proof of what the philosophers maintain: that a good and serious man can be neither insulted nor dishonored. What troubled him was the people's poor judgment concerning the common good, since they had given occasion to a man whose ambition for the war was not a healthy one.
Fearing that Minucius, driven altogether out of his senses by empty glory and conceit, might bring about some disaster before it could be stopped, Fabius set out without telling anyone, and arriving at the camp and finding Minucius no longer restrainable, but overbearing and puffed up, demanding to command in alternation, Fabius did not grant this, but instead divided the army with him, thinking it better to command a part alone than to command the whole in alternation,
and he himself took the first and fourth legions, while giving over the second and the third to Minucius, splitting the allied forces evenly between them too. Minucius, priding himself and rejoicing that the outward show of the highest and greatest office had been lowered and disgraced on his account, was reminded by Fabius that his contest was not with Fabius, but — if he had any sense — with Hannibal:
but if he wished to compete with his co-commander instead, he should consider how the one who had been honored and had won should not appear more careless of the citizens' safety and security than the one who had been defeated and disgraced among his fellow citizens.
Minucius took this as an old man's irony, and taking the force allotted to him by lot, encamped separately and apart, Hannibal being in no way ignorant of what was happening, but watching all closely. There was a hill in the middle, not difficult to seize, but, once seized, secure for a camp and sufficient for every purpose; and the plain around it appeared level from a distance, being bare and smooth, but it had within it certain ditches, not large, and other hollows.
For this reason Hannibal, though it was possible for him to seize the hill secretly with the greatest ease, was unwilling to do so, but left it as an occasion for battle in the midst. Yet once he noticed that Minucius had become detached from Fabius, under cover of darkness he distributed a number of his troops among the gullies and hollows, and at daybreak openly sent not many men to seize the hill, so as to draw Minucius into a clash over the position.
And this indeed happened: first he sent out the light-armed troops, then the cavalry, and finally, seeing Hannibal coming to the aid of the men on the hill, Minucius came down with his whole force drawn up in order, and, joining a fierce battle, defended himself against those hurling missiles from the hill, engaging closely and holding his own, until Hannibal, seeing him well and truly deceived and offering his rear bare to those lying in ambush, raised the signal.
At this, men rose up from many sides at once and charged with a shout, cutting down those at the rear; an indescribable confusion and terror seized the Romans, and Minucius's own boldness was broken, and he looked now to one commander, now to another, none daring to hold his ground, but all being pushed toward a flight that offered no safety. For the Numidians, already in control, were riding around the plain and killing those who scattered.
While the Romans were in such distress, the danger did not escape Fabius; rather, having already anticipated what was coming, as it seems, he had kept his force drawn up under arms and was taking care to know what was happening not through messengers, but by keeping watch himself in front of the camp. So when he saw the army being surrounded and thrown into confusion, and shouting fell upon his ears — not of men holding their ground, but of men already terrified and turning to flight —
striking his thigh and groaning aloud, he told the bystanders, "By Heracles, Minucius has ruined himself faster than I anticipated, even if less quickly than his own impatience demanded." And ordering the standards brought out quickly and the army to follow, he cried out: "Now, soldiers, let each man press on remembering Marcus Minucius! For he is a fine man devoted to his homeland, and should his eagerness to expel the foe have led him into some blunder, we will find fault with that another time."
First, then, appearing on the scene, he routed and scattered the Numidians who were riding around the plain; then he advanced against those fighting and positioned behind the Romans, and killed those in his path, while the rest, before they could be cut off and find themselves caught in the very trap they themselves had set for the Romans, turned and fled.
Seeing this reversal, and Fabius pressing vigorously, beyond his years, through the fighting men up toward Minucius on the hill, Hannibal broke off the battle, and, signaling recall with the trumpet, led the Carthaginians back to camp, the Romans too gladly withdrawing. It is said that as he departed he said something of this sort to his friends about Fabius, in jest: "Did I not tell you many times about that cloud sitting on the heights, that it would one day burst into a storm of wind and rain?"
After the battle, Fabius, having stripped the spoils from as many of the enemy as he had killed, withdrew, saying nothing arrogant or offensive about his co-commander; but Minucius, gathering his own army together, said, "Fellow soldiers, to make no error at all in great affairs is beyond what is human, but to use one's mistakes as lessons for the future is the mark of a good and sensible man.
For my part, then, I admit that in finding small fault with fortune I have reason to praise it for greater things. What I could not grasp across so long a span, I learned within a mere fraction of one day, having come to know that I am not capable of commanding others, but need another to command me, and I am ambitious to be defeated by those it is finer to be defeated by than to conquer. To you the dictator is commander in all else, but in gratitude toward him I myself will be the leader, presenting myself first as obedient and doing what is commanded by him."
Having said this, and ordering the eagles taken up and everyone to follow, he led them to Fabius's camp. And going inside, he walked toward the general's tent, so that everyone was amazed and at a loss. When Fabius came forward, Minucius set his standards before him, and in a loud voice hailed him as father, while his soldiers greeted Fabius's soldiers as patrons — this being the address used by freedmen toward those who freed them.
When quiet had fallen, Minucius said: "Two victories, dictator, you have won on this day: Hannibal by courage, and your co-commander by good counsel and kindness. By the one you have saved us, by the other you have taught us — we having been defeated shamefully by him, but beautifully and to our salvation by you.
I address you as a kind father, having no more honorable title, since the favor from you is greater than the favor of the one who begot me. For I was born of him alone, but I am saved by you along with so many others." With these words spoken, he threw his arms around Fabius and pressed a kiss upon him. And the same could be seen the soldiers doing to one another: they clung to each other and kissed one another, so that the camp was full of joy and the sweetest tears.
Following this episode, Fabius relinquished his post, and successive new consuls took office. Of these, the first pair preserved the form of warfare that Fabius had established, avoiding pitched battle against Hannibal, but coming to the aid of their allies and preventing their defection. But Terentius Varro, advanced to the consulship — of undistinguished family, but of a life made conspicuous through demagoguery and rashness — made it clear at once, through his inexperience and boldness, that he would cast the die for everything at stake.
For he kept shouting in the assemblies that the war would go on for as long as the city employed Fabiuses as generals, whereas he himself would, on the very same day, both see the enemy and defeat them; and while making these speeches he was at the same time assembling and enrolling a force so vast as the Romans had never before mustered against any enemy. For the army drawn up for battle came to nine myriads short of two thousand men -- a great terror to Fabius and to those Romans who had their wits about them, for they had no hope that the city could recover its strength if it were struck down while its manhood was staked at such a size.
For this reason Fabius went to Paulus Aemilius, the colleague of Terentius, a man experienced in many wars but not popular with the people and rather timid on account of a conviction that had once been brought against him before the public court, and roused and encouraged him to take hold of that man's madness, teaching him that his contest on behalf of the fatherland would be no less against Terentius than against Hannibal; for the one was eager to bring on a battle because he had no perception of Hannibal's strength, while the other, because he perceived his own weakness, was not.
"I," he said, "O Paulus, have a juster claim than Terentius to be believed when I insist, concerning Hannibal's situation, that if no one fights him this year, the man will either perish where he remains or depart in flight -- he who, even now, though he seems to be winning and prevailing, has had not a single one of the enemy come over to him, while of the force he brought from home not even a third part any longer survives in full."
In answer to this it is said that Paulus replied, "For my own part, Fabius, weighing my own situation, dying beneath the enemy's spears suits me better than once more facing the ballots cast by my countrymen; but if matters of state truly stand as you describe, I shall strive to appear a good general in your eyes rather than in the eyes of all the others who are pushing for the opposite course." With this resolve Paulus went out to the war.
But Terentius, having thrust himself into command on his day of alternation, and having encamped opposite Hannibal by the river Aufidus and the place called Cannae, at daybreak displayed the signal for battle -- this is a scarlet tunic stretched above the general's tent -- so that even the Carthaginians were thrown into confusion from the start, seeing both the general's boldness and the multitude of the army, when they themselves were not even half its number.
Hannibal, having ordered his force to arm, himself rode on horseback with a few men to the crest of a certain gentle hill and surveyed the enemy already forming into their ranks. And when one of those about him, a man of equal rank named Gisco, said that the multitude of the enemy seemed astonishing to him, Hannibal drew his face together and said, "There is another thing, Gisco, that has escaped your notice, more astonishing than this." When Gisco asked what that was, he said, "That, though these men are so many, not one among them is called Gisco."
The jest, coming unexpectedly to them, brought laughter upon them all, and once they had descended from the hillside they went on relaying the joke to everyone they encountered, so that laughter rippled far and wide through the ranks, and Hannibal's companions could scarcely compose themselves again. This, when the Carthaginians saw it, put courage into them, for they reasoned that a man who advanced so contemptuously, laughing and jesting with his general in the very presence of danger, must be doing so out of great and strong confidence.
In the battle he employed several stratagems: first, one drawn from the terrain -- he arranged to have the wind at his back, for it burst forth like a blazing whirlwind, and lifting rough dust from the sandy and open plains, he drove it over the phalanx of the Carthaginians against the Romans, striking full in the faces of men who turned away from it and were thrown into confusion,
and disordered. Second was the one concerning the arrangement of his line: he posted the toughest, most battle-ready portion of his troops along each flank of the center, while packing the center itself with his weakest men, meaning to use it as a wedge thrust out well ahead of the rest of the phalanx. It had been arranged with the best troops that, once the Romans broke through these and, pushing on toward the yielding middle as it gave way and curved inward, found themselves enclosed within the phalanx, they should wheel sharply round from both sides and strike them on the flanks, surrounding and hemming them in from behind.
This indeed seems to have produced the greatest slaughter. For when the center gave way and received the Romans as they pursued, Hannibal's phalanx changed its shape and became crescent-shaped, and the officers of the picked troops quickly wheeled some to the left, others to the right, and fell upon the exposed flanks, and all who had not escaped in time from the encirclement were destroyed and cut to pieces in the middle.
It is said that a strange mischance also befell the Roman cavalry. Paulus, it seems, was thrown when his horse was wounded, and one after another of those around him abandoned their mounts and came on foot to defend the consul. When the cavalry saw this, as if a command had passed down the ranks, every one of them dismounted and met the enemy on foot. Seeing this, Hannibal said, "I would rather have had this than if I had taken them bound."
But these are the things reported by those who wrote the detailed histories. Of the consuls, Varro rode off with a small escort to the city of Venusia, while Paulus, amid the depth and surge of that rout, riddled with the many missiles lodged in his wounds, his body and spirit crushed under so heavy a sorrow, sat down beside a certain stone, waiting for one of the enemy to finish him off; he was so covered with blood
over his head and face that he was recognizable to few, and even his friends and attendants passed him by unknowingly. Only Cornelius Lentulus, a young patrician, saw him and, taking thought, leapt down from his horse, and coming up to him urged him to make use of him and to save himself for the citizens, who at that moment had special need of a good commander.
But he rejected this entreaty, and forced the young man, in tears, to mount his horse again; then, grasping his right hand and rising with him, he said, "Report, Lentulus, to Fabius Maximus, and be yourself a witness of this, that Paulus Aemilius remained true to his reasoning to the very end and broke none of what he had agreed with him, but was defeated first by Varro, and then by Hannibal."
Having given these instructions, he sent Lentulus away, and himself, plunging into the thick of the slaughter, died. It is said that fifty thousand of the Romans fell in the fighting, that another four thousand were captured alive, and that once the fighting ended, those seized from both camps came to no fewer than ten thousand.
Although Hannibal's friends urged him, after so great a success, to press his good fortune and sweep in together with the fleeing enemy straight into the city itself -- for within five days of the victory, they said, he would be dining on the Capitol -- what reasoning held him back is not easy to state; rather it seems that his hesitation and faintheartedness in this matter were the work of some spirit or god blocking his path rather than of calculation. For this reason they say that Barca the Carthaginian said to him in anger, "You know how to win a victory, Hannibal, but you do not know how to use one."
And yet the victory brought about so great a change in his fortunes that, whereas before the battle he held no city, no market-town, no harbor of Italy, and could scarcely and with difficulty bring in supplies for his army by plunder, having no secure base from which to wage the war, but wandered and roamed about with his camp like some great band of pirates, he now made almost the whole of Italy subject to himself.
For most and the greatest of the peoples came over to him willingly, and Capua, which holds the greatest standing among the cities after Rome itself, he took when it joined him. It was not only, as it seems, the testing of friends that is, as Euripides says, no small evil, but also the testing of prudent generals; for the caution and coolness people had pinned on Fabius while the battle was still to come, once the fighting was over, no longer looked like ordinary human judgment at all, but something divine in his thinking, touched with the supernatural, foreseeing from so far off what was to come -- things which those who lived through them could scarcely believe.
For this reason Rome at once gathered her remaining hopes upon that man, and, taking refuge in his judgment as in a temple and an altar, found in his prudence the first and greatest cause of her remaining together and not dissolving, as had happened in her sufferings at the hands of the Gauls.
For he who in circumstances that seemed to hold no terror had appeared cautious and slow to hope, now, when all the rest had cast themselves into boundless mourning and useless confusion, alone went about through the city with a gentle step, a composed face, and a kindly address, putting a stop to women's lamentations and preventing the gatherings of those who, in public grief, were carrying their mourning into the streets; he also persuaded the senate to convene and encouraged the magistrates, being himself the strength and power to which every office looked.
At the gates, then, he stationed men to keep back the crowd that was rushing out and abandoning the city, and he set both a place and a time for mourning, ordering that whoever wished might lament within his own house for thirty days; after these days, all mourning was to be laid aside and the city purified of such things.
And since a festival of Demeter fell within those days, it seemed better to skip both the sacrifices and the procession altogether rather than let the scale of the disaster show through the sparse, downcast turnout of those who gathered; for indeed the divine takes pleasure in being honored by the fortunate.
Nevertheless, whatever the seers advised for propitiating the gods or averting portents was carried out. For Pictor, a kinsman of Fabius, was sent as an inquirer to Delphi, and after two of the Vestal Virgins were discovered to have been defiled, the one, following custom, was buried alive, while the other took her own life.
One might especially admire the spirit and gentleness of the city on the occasion when the consul Varro returned from his flight, coming back as one might who had done the most shameful and ill-fated of deeds, humbled and downcast; the senate and the whole populace went out to meet him at the gates and greeted him.
And the men in authority and the leading members of the senate, among whom was Fabius, when silence had fallen, praised him for not giving up on the city despite so crushing a disaster, but instead coming forward to take charge of affairs and to rely on the laws and on the citizens as still able to be saved,
When word reached them that Hannibal, once the battle was over, had veered off toward the rest of Italy, they took heart again and sent out commanders and armies, the most distinguished of whom were Fabius Maximus and Claudius Marcellus, admired in almost equal measure though for nearly opposite policies.
For the one, as has been said in what has been written concerning him, possessed a shining and exultant energy, being a man mighty of hand and by nature of the sort that Homer especially calls "lovers of war" and "haughty," and in a reckless and headlong manner he engaged in his first contests, matching daring against the daring Hannibal:
but Fabius, holding to those first calculations of his, hoped that, if no one fought or provoked him, Hannibal would work harm upon himself and wear himself down over the course of the war, just like an athlete's body that, its strength strained too far and overtaxed, most quickly loses its prime. For this reason Posidonius says that the Romans called the one a shield and the other a sword, and that Fabius's steadfastness and security, mixed with Marcellus's aggressiveness, became of great benefit to the Romans.
Hannibal, meeting the one, as it were, like a river flowing violently, was shaken and had his forces torn apart, but by the other, undermining him little by little, silently and constantly wearing away at him, he was, without noticing it, worn down and depleted; and in the end he fell into such difficulty that Marcellus grew weary of fighting him, while Fabius feared him even when he was not fighting.
For the greater part, so to speak, of the time he waged war against these two, whether appointed as generals, proconsuls, or consuls; each of the two was consul five times. But Marcellus, while consul for the fifth time, Hannibal caught in an ambush and killed, while against Fabius, though he brought every kind of deception and trial to bear on him many times, he accomplished nothing, except that once he came close to outwitting and tripping up the man,
for he composed letters as though from the powerful and leading men of Metapontum and sent them to Fabius, saying that the city would be handed over if he came, and that those who were doing this were waiting for him to arrive and show himself nearby. These letters swayed Fabius, and taking part of his army he was on the verge of setting out by night; then, when he consulted the bird omens and found them unfavorable, he turned back, and soon afterward it came to light that the letters had been fabricated by Hannibal's cunning and sent to him, and that Hannibal himself lay waiting in ambush for him near the city. But this one might credit to the goodwill of the gods.
As for the defections of cities and the movements of the allies, Fabius thought it better to check and to shame them through gentle and mild dealing rather than by testing every suspicion and being altogether harsh toward those under suspicion. For it is said that, when he perceived that a soldier, a Marsian, first among the allies in courage and birth, had been conversing with some men in the camp about defection, he did not provoke him further,
but, admitting that the man had been neglected beyond his desert, said that for the present he blamed the commanders for distributing honors according to favor rather than to merit, but that in future he would blame the man himself if he did not speak up and come to him, should he need anything. And having said this he gave him a war-horse as a gift and honored him with other prizes of valor, so that from that time the man became the most loyal and eager of all,
For he thought it a terrible thing that men who train horses and hounds remove the beasts' savagery, irritability, and bad temper through care, familiarity, and proper feeding rather than through whips and collars, while a ruler of men does not set his main effort on kindness and gentleness in correcting them, but treats them more harshly and violently than farmers treat wild fig trees, wild pears, and wild olives, taming and domesticating some into olive trees, others into pear trees, others into fig trees.
Here is another instance. The company commanders reported to him a man of Lucanian birth who kept wandering away from the camp and repeatedly leaving his post. Fabius asked what sort of man he was otherwise thought to be. When everyone testified that there was hardly another soldier like him, and told of certain notable acts of courage and deeds of his, seeking the cause of his indiscipline he found that the man was in the grip of love for a slave girl, and was risking danger each time by making long journeys from the camp to see her.
So sending certain men without the soldier's knowledge, he had the little woman seized and hidden in his own tent, and calling the Lucanian privately to himself he said, "It has not escaped me that, contrary to Roman custom and the laws, you have often spent the night away from camp — but neither had it escaped me before that you were a good man. Well then, let your offenses be redeemed by your brave deeds, but from now on
I will place you under another's watch for guard duty." While the soldier was still wondering at this, Fabius brought the woman forward and put her into his hands, saying, "She stands surety that you will remain in camp with us. You will show by your conduct whether it was for some other vice that you kept leaving — or whether love, as claimed, was truly the reason." This is what the historians report about these matters.
He took the city of the Tarentines, which had been captured through betrayal, in the following manner. There was serving under him a young Tarentine man who had a sister devoted to him with great trust and affection. A Bruttian man, one of those stationed by Hannibal to guard the city, was in love with her and held a position of command; this gave the Tarentine hope of accomplishing something. With Fabius's knowledge he was let go into the city, but the story given out was that he had deserted to his sister in Tarentum.
For the first days the Bruttian kept to himself and rested, while the sister supposed her brother knew nothing of it. Then the young man said to her, "Word has certainly gone around there that you are keeping company with a man of power and importance. Who is this? For if he is a man of good repute and distinction in valor, as they say, war that mixes everything together cares least of all for lineage; and there is nothing shameful in what necessity brings, but rather a stroke of good fortune, in a time when justice is weak, to make use of the gentlest of those who use force."
After this the woman sent for the Bruttian and made him acquainted with her brother; and he, quickly furthering the young man's desire and seeming to make his sister more devoted and compliant to the foreigner than before, won his trust so completely that it was not difficult to turn the mind of a man in love, a mercenary at that, toward hopes of the great rewards which Fabius promised to provide him.
This, then, is what most writers report about these matters. But according to another account, the woman who persuaded the Bruttian over to their side was not from Tarentum at all, but a Bruttian herself by birth, and she was one of Fabius's mistresses; that when she perceived that the commander of the Bruttians was a fellow-citizen and an acquaintance, she told Fabius, and, meeting the man in conversation beneath the wall, persuaded and worked him over.
While these things were being carried out, Fabius, contriving to draw Hannibal away, sent word to the troops stationed at Rhegium that they should invade Bruttium, set up camp, and seize Caulonia by direct assault — eight thousand men, most of them deserters, and the most useless of those disgraced men brought from Sicily by Marcellus, men who would be lost to the city with the least grief and harm.
For he hoped that by exposing these men to Hannibal and luring him with the bait, he could lure Hannibal off in another direction, away from Tarentum — and events unfolded exactly along those lines. For Hannibal at once moved off there in pursuit with his force, and on the sixth day, while Fabius was encamped around Tarentum, the young man who had already conferred with the Bruttian through his sister came to him by night, knowing exactly and having observed the spot where the Bruttian, on guard duty, was going to give way and let the attackers through.
Fabius, however, did not stake the whole action simply on the betrayal; instead he himself went there and kept quiet, while the rest of the army attacked the walls from both land and sea at once, making a great deal of shouting and uproar, until, when most of the Tarentines had rushed there to help and were engaged with those fighting at the walls, the Bruttian sentry sent his signal over to Fabius, whereupon Fabius climbed up by ladders and seized control of the city.
Here, however, he seems to have yielded to a desire for reputation; for he ordered the Bruttians killed first, so that he would not appear openly to hold the city by betrayal — yet he failed to gain this reputation, and instead incurred the charge of bad faith and cruelty besides. Many of the Tarentines also died; those sold into slavery numbered thirty thousand, and the army plundered the city; three thousand talents were brought into the public treasury,
and while everything else was being carried off and hauled away, it is said that the secretary asked Fabius what he ordered concerning the gods — referring in this way to the paintings and the statues. Fabius replied, "Let us leave the Tarentines their angry gods."
Nevertheless he had the colossal statue of Heracles brought from Tarentum and set up on the Capitoline, and near it a bronze equestrian image of himself — appearing in this matter far more inappropriate than Marcellus, or rather making that man appear altogether admirable for his gentleness and humanity, as has been written in his Life.
Hannibal, it is said, in pursuit was left behind by only forty stadia, and openly remarked, "So the Romans, it seems, have another Hannibal too — for we have lost the city of the Tarentines just as we took it." And privately, then for the first time, he is said to have stood before his friends and said that for a long time he had seen it was hard for them, but now it was impossible to prevail with the resources Italy afforded them.
This was the second triumph Fabius celebrated, more splendid than the first, like a good athlete contending against Hannibal and easily loosening himself from his holds, as if the knots and grips no longer had the same tension. For the one force had been relaxed through luxury and wealth on Hannibal's part, while the other had been blunted and worn down, as it were, by unrelenting struggles.
There was one Marcus Livius, from whom Hannibal had detached Tarentum while he was holding it under guard; nevertheless, holding the citadel, he was not driven out, and he kept it until the Tarentines came under Roman power again. This man was vexed that Fabius received the honor, and once, carried away before the senate by envy and rivalry, he said that it was not Fabius but he himself who was responsible for the capture of Tarentum. Fabius laughed and said, "You speak the truth — for if you had not lost the city, I would never have retaken it."
The Romans, for their part, treated Fabius with splendid honor in other respects, and elected his son Fabius consul. When the son had taken up the office and was managing some matter connected with the war, the father — whether because of old age and weakness, or to test his son — mounted a horse and approached through the crowd of those meeting and standing about him. The young man, catching sight of him from a distance, would not tolerate it, and sending an attendant ordered his father to dismount and come to him on foot, if indeed he had some need of the magistracy.
The order vexed the others present, and they looked toward Fabius in silence, as one suffering unworthily of his reputation; but he himself, leaping down quickly, hastened toward his son at more than a walking pace, and embracing and greeting him said, "Well done, my son — you think and act rightly, understanding whom you command and how great is the office you have taken up. This is how we and our ancestors made Rome great, always placing our country's good ahead of parents and children alike."
It is said, indeed, that Fabius's great-grandfather, when he had attained the greatest glory and power among the Romans, was consul five times himself and celebrated the most illustrious triumphs from the greatest wars, yet when his son was consul he went out to the war with him as a legate; and in the triumph, while the son rode in on the four-horse chariot, the father, mounted on horseback, followed along with the rest, exulting that, being and being called the greatest of the citizens, and master of his son, he nonetheless placed himself after the law and the magistrate. But indeed that man was admired not only for these reasons.
It happened that Fabius's son died; and the loss he bore with great moderation, as a sensible man and a good father should — but the eulogy which relatives customarily deliver at the funerals of the eminent, he delivered himself, standing in the forum, and having written the speech, published it.
When Cornelius Scipio, sent to Iberia, had driven out the Carthaginians, prevailing in many battles, and had won over for the Romans very many peoples and great cities and splendid successes, he returned home with goodwill and glory such as no other man possessed. Made consul, and perceiving that the people demanded and expected some great action from him,
he considered it far too old-fashioned and old-mannish simply to go on grappling with Hannibal there in Italy; instead he intended at once to fill Carthage itself and Libya with arms and armies, to ravage them, and to shift the war there from Italy — and toward this he stirred up the people with his whole passion. At this point Fabius, driving the city into every kind of fear, as being carried by a foolish and young man into the utmost and greatest danger,
sparing neither word nor deed that seemed likely to turn the citizens away, persuaded the senate; but to the people it seemed that out of envy he was laying hold of Scipio while he was prospering, and was afraid that, if the man accomplished something great and splendid and either ended the war altogether or drove it out of Italy, he himself would appear idle and soft for not having finished the war in so long a time.
It seems that Fabius set out at first to oppose the plan out of a great deal of caution and foresight, fearing the danger as being great; but somehow he strained himself further and was carried on farther by a certain rivalry and love of honor, in his effort to hinder Scipio's rise — he who also persuaded Crassus, Scipio's fellow consul, not to yield the command nor give way, but himself, if he thought fit, to cross over against the Carthaginians; and he did not allow money to be given for the war.
So Scipio, being forced to raise money for himself, collected it from the cities of Etruria which were privately well disposed toward him and glad to oblige. As for Crassus, his own nature, which was not contentious but gentle, kept him at home, along with the divine law, since he held the greatest priesthood.
So again, meeting Scipio by another route, Fabius kept hindering and holding back the young men who were eager to campaign with him, crying out in the senate and the assemblies that Scipio was not merely running away from Hannibal himself, but was also sailing off with the remaining force taken from Italy, leading the young men on with false hopes and persuading them to abandon parents, wives, and city, at whose very gates the undefeated enemy sat in triumph. And indeed, saying this, he frightened the Romans,
and they voted that he use only the forces in Sicily, and take with him three hundred of those who had served with him in Iberia, men he trusted. This, then, is how Fabius seems to have conducted himself in keeping with his own nature. But when Scipio had crossed into Libya, and reports at once reached Rome of wonderful deeds and achievements astonishing in their scale and splendor, and, bearing out the rumors, much booty followed,
and the king of the Numidians was taken captive, and two camps were burned at a single stroke, with the destruction of many men and, along with them, many weapons and horses consumed in the flames, and embassies were sent to Hannibal from the Carthaginians, calling and begging him to abandon those unfulfilled hopes and come home to their aid,
while in Rome everyone had Scipio's name on their lips for his successes, Fabius demanded that a successor be sent to Scipio, having no other pretext than to say what is still remembered — that it is dangerous to entrust such great affairs to the fortune of one man, for it is hard for the same man always to be fortunate. By this he already offended many, as a man difficult and malicious, or else grown altogether timid and despairing through old age, and more terrified of Hannibal than was reasonable.
For not even after Scipio had sailed off with his forces from Italy did he allow the citizens' joy and confidence to remain undisturbed and steady; instead he said that then, above all, affairs stood in perilous danger for the city as it rushed toward the utmost risk — for Hannibal, in his view, would strike at them with even greater force once in Libya before Carthage, and an army would meet Scipio still warm with the blood of many commanders-in-chief, dictators, and consuls; so that the city was thrown into turmoil again by these words, and thought that, now that the war had shifted to Libya, the danger had come nearer to Rome.
But Scipio, not long after, both defeating Hannibal himself decisively in battle and casting down his pride, and trampling upon Carthage as it fell before him, gave the citizens a joy greater than all their hopes, and truly "set upright again the leadership that had been shaken by so great a swell." Fabius Maximus, however, did not live long enough to see the end of the war, nor did he hear of Hannibal's defeat, nor did he live to see his country's great and secure good fortune; instead, around the time Hannibal departed from Italy, he fell ill and died.
Now the Thebans buried Epaminondas at public expense, because of the poverty the man left behind — for nothing, they say, was found in his house at his death except an iron spit. But the Romans did not bury Fabius at public expense; rather, each private citizen contributed the smallest of coins toward him, not because of any lack of funds to provide for it, but as burying a father of the people — and his death received an honor and glory fitting to his life.