History of Rome

​All things that had to be done at Rome having been dispatched, the consuls set out for the war.

​Fulvius went ahead first to Capua; Fabius followed a few days later, who both in person entreated his colleague and by letter Marcellus to detain Hannibal in as active a war as possible while he himself was besieging Tarentum:

​if that city were taken from the enemy, who was now driven on all sides and had neither a place to stand nor anything reliable to look back to, there would not even be a reason for him to delay in Italy.

​He also sent a messenger to Regium, to the commander of the garrison which had been stationed there by the consul Laevinus against the Bruttians, consisting of eight thousand men, the greatest part brought over from Sicily from Agathyrna, as has been said before, men accustomed to live by plunder;

​to these had been added deserters of the Bruttians from the same place, equal both in audacity and in the necessities for daring anything.

​He ordered this band to be led first to ravage the Bruttian territory, and then to besiege the city of Caulonia. Having executed the orders not only with alacrity but even with greed, and having plundered and routed the cultivators of the land, they were besieging the city with the utmost force.

​Marcellus, both excited by the consul’s letter and because he had so persuaded himself that no Roman general was so equal to Hannibal as himself, as soon as there was plenty of forage in the fields, set out from winter quarters and met Hannibal at Canusium.

​The Carthaginian was soliciting the Canusians to a defection; but when he heard that Marcellus was approaching, he moved his camp from there. The country was open, without any hiding places for an ambush; therefore he began to retreat from there into woody places.

​Marcellus pressed on his tracks and pitched camp close to his camp, and as soon as the work was completed, he immediately led his legions out into line of battle. Hannibal, offering light skirmishes by his cavalry and the javelin throwers of the infantry in troops, did not think the hazard of a general battle necessary. He was, however, drawn into that very contest which he was avoiding.

​Marcellus overtook him on flat and open ground as he had gone ahead during the night; and as he was pitching his camp, Marcellus prevented his builders from their works by fighting them from all sides. Thus the standards were joined and they fought with all their forces, and, as night was now pressing on, they parted on equal terms. The camps, separated by a small space, were hastily fortified before night.

​On the following day at first light, Marcellus led his forces out into line of battle; nor did Hannibal decline the contest, having encouraged his soldiers with many words to remember Trasumene and Cannae and crush the insolence of the enemy:

​the enemy was pressing and pushing them, not allowing them to make their journey in quiet, nor to pitch camp, nor to breathe or look around; daily, at the same time as the rising sun, the Roman line of battle was to be seen in the fields: if he should depart not without bloodshed from one battle, ​he would fight more quietly and calmly thereafter. Excited by these exhortations, and at the same time weary of the insolence of the enemy daily pressing and provoking them, they entered the battle fiercely. They fought for more than two hours.

​Thereupon, the right wing of the Romans and the extraordinary cohorts began to give way. When Marcellus saw this, he brought the eighteenth legion into the front line.

​While some gave way in panic and others came up slowly, the whole line of battle was thrown into confusion, then completely routed, and fear overcoming shame, they turned their backs.

​There fell in the battle and the flight up to two thousand seven hundred citizens and allies; among them four Roman centurions, two military tribunes, Marcus Licinius and Marcus Helvius.

​Four military standards were lost from the wing which first fled, and two from the legion which had succeeded the retreating allies.