History of Rome

​The dictator, having received the consul’s army from the legate Fulvius Flaccus, came through the Sabine territory to Tibur, where he had appointed a day for the new soldiers to assemble.

​From there he marched to Praeneste, and, striking across country into the Latin Way, led his army toward the enemy after having reconnoitered the routes with the utmost care, determined not to commit himself to fortune in any place, except so far as necessity should compel him.

​On the very first day he pitched his camp in sight of the enemy, not far from Arpi, nor was there any delay on the part of the Carthaginian in leading out his forces into line of battle and offering an opportunity of fighting.

​But when he saw that all was quiet among the enemy and that their camp was not moved by any tumult, he returned to his camp, taunting them indeed that the warlike spirit of the Romans was at last broken, that the war was over, and that they had openly yielded in point of valor and glory;

​yet a silent anxiety came over his mind, because he would have to do with a commander by no means like Flaminius and Sempronius, and that the Romans, having at last been taught by their disasters, had sought a general equal to Hannibal.

​And indeed he immediately feared the prudence of the dictator; though, not having yet experienced his constancy, he began to provoke and try his temper by frequently moving his camp and laying waste the lands of the allies before his eyes;

​and at one time he would march away rapidly out of sight, at another time he would suddenly halt in ambush at some bend of the road, if he might surprise him descending into the plain.

​Fabius led his army along the high grounds at a moderate distance from the enemy, so that he neither lost sight of him nor engaged him. The soldiers were kept within the camp, except so far as necessary duties required; foraging and wood-gathering were not performed by a few, nor in a scattered manner;

​a picket of cavalry and light-armed troops, stationed and drawn up against sudden alarms, rendered everything safe for their own soldiers and dangerous for the scattered plunderers of the enemy;

​nor was the supreme issue committed to a general hazard, and the small successes of slight skirmishes, begun from a safe position with a retreat close at hand, accustomed the soldiers, who had been terrified by their former defeats, at last to be less dissatisfied with either their own valor or fortune.

​But he did not find Hannibal a more bitter enemy to such wise counsels than the master of the horse, who had no other obstacle to plunging the state into ruin than that he was unequal to the supreme command. Impetuous and headlong in his counsels, and unrestrained in his language, he at first among a few, and then openly among the common soldiers, began to call him sluggish instead of deliberate, ​and cowardly instead of cautious, attributing to him the vices that border on virtues, and sought to exalt himself by depressing his superior—a most mischievous practice which has grown through the overly prosperous success of many.