inactive in his camp above Suessula. Under such circumstances the Roman course was clear, viz. to push the siege of Capua with all their strength, and to prevent Hannibal from marching to its relief. The latter object should have been effected by entrenching several very strong positions on the road by which Hannibal must approach Capua, particularly the defile of the Caudine Forks through which an army coming from Beneventum must pass to enter the Campanian plain, and by appointing one army to oppose Hannibal's approach in these positions, while the other three armies carried on the siege. Hannibal's old camp on the summit of Mount Tifata should have been made very strong, and defended by a detachment of the besieging force, which should have been reinforced whenever it was known that Hannibal was approaching. The covering army would likewise, if either forced or turned by Hannibal, retire on that camp. With these dispositions, had Hannibal descended into the plain and attacked the besiegers, the army on Tifata would have descended on his flank or rear. It is inconceivable that the Roman generals should have taken no steps to prevent Hannibal from returning to his old camp on Tifata whenever it suited his purpose, But the history of these campaigns is very obscure, and although it is good practice for the military student to study the operations as related, and to remark on their faults, he cannot feel sure that the operations are correctly reported, and consequently that the faults were really committed at all.

4. Gracchus must have been very deficient in vigilance

and his light cavalry very useless, to permit a hostile army of 18,000 men to pass him and to gain his communications. His intelligence too must have been very defective that he did not even learn Hanno's departure from Lucania in time to follow him up and interrupt his foraging.

Napoleon says, if a general in command of an army is not well supplied with intelligence, it is because he is ignorant of his trade.

5. Hanno knew that Beneventum was hostile and that the garrison would immediately send word of his appearance to the consuls, He should therefore have pushed parties of light horse to a sufficient distance on the roads by which an enemy might approach, to enable him to be prepared for attack. Under no circumstances should he have been absent from his camp, or such a surprise have been possible as that which resulted in the destruction of his army and the capture of the supplies whereon depended the fate of Capua.

6. No reliance can be placed on this account. If the Roman generals allowed Hannibal to occupy his camp at Tifata and to enter Capua unmolested, it is little to their credit. They accepted battle two days later; why then did they not attack Hannibal in his march to enter the town?

7. It appears strange that Hannibal should have retired into a remote corner of Apulia just at the moment when the dispersion of the army of Gracchus, speedily followed by the destruction of two other Roman armies, must be supposed to have raised the spirit of his

own troops and proportionally depressed the Romans,— at the moment of Capua's greatest need which it must naturally be supposed he would have chosen to strike his hardest blows. Although we have no distinct statement of his motives we may imagine that some were furnished by the internal state of his army, and others are not difficult to discover.

There were still three Roman armies around Capua. Hannibal did not possess a single sea port town in Campania. His army, though always victorious must have been gradually diminishing, and sorely in need of reinforcements; desertions had taken place; he would have found it difficult to provision his army during the winter on Mount Tifata, as the country must have been ruined from having been so long the seat of war; and to have drawn its subsistence from Capua would have done that city more harm than his presence would have compensated.

A march to Capua at this time, since he could not remain there, would have been useless. The Romans would not have given him an opportunity to strike a damaging blow, and he must eventually have gone southwards, after having uselessly fatigued his troops.

He probably acted on a profound calculation of the chances, and knowing that Capua could sustain a long siege, placed his hopes for its relief principally on the arrival of reinforcements from Carthage which would have enabled him to take the offensive with effect; he therefore retired to the south, where he possessed the whole coast and would be in a position to receive the ex

pected reinforcements as well as to feed his present troops. And it is worthy of remark here that if Hasdrubal could have gone by sea to the south of Italy, in place of being obliged to march through Cisalpine Gaul, the accession of strength which his arrival would have brought to Hannibal would not only have enabled him to relieve Capua, but perhaps to reduce Rome to the very brink of ruin.

L 3

CHAP. VI.

NINTH CAMPAIGN.

THE consuls for the year were Cn. Fulvius, who had been prætor two years before (not that Cn. Fulvius who was defeated at Herdonea), and P. Sulpicius. They remained at Rome for some time to organise their troops, and eventually passed into Apulia with the two legions of liberated slaves which had dispersed at the death of Gracchus but had been re-assembled, and the two legions which had formed the city garrison during the preceding year. The late consuls Appius and Fulvius continued to direct the siege of Capua as proconsuls, and were ordered not to quit the place until it surrendered. Claudius Nero with his two legions continued at Capua under the orders of the consuls. Thus six legions were employed before that place.

The same forces continued to be employed in Etruria, in Cisalpine Gaul, Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia-the total number of legions maintained being twenty-five—the same as the preceding year.

At the commencement of this campaign no army was immediately opposed to Hannibal in Apulia, as it was thought urgent not to recall the troops from Etruria or Cisalpine Gaul. And in Sicily the siege of