Case of Metellus.
"Deliberate!" said Scipio; "this is not a case for deliberation, but for action.
Draw your swords and follow me." So saying, he pressed forward at the head of the party to the quarters of Metellus. They marched boldly into the apartment where he and his friends were in consultation. Scipio held up his sword, and in a very solemn manner pronounced an oath, binding himself not to abandon his country in this the hour of her distress, nor to allow any other Roman citizen to abandon her. If he should be guilty of such treason, he called upon Jupiter, by the most dreadful imprecations, to destroy him utterly, house, family, fortune, soul, and body.
Metellus yields.
"And now, Metellus, I call upon you," said he, "and all who are with you, to take the same oath. You must do it, otherwise you have got to defend yourselves against these swords of ours, as well as those of the Carthaginians." Metellus and his party yielded. Nor was it wholly to fear that they yielded. It was to the influence of hope quite as much as to that of fear. The courage, the energy, and the martial ardor which Scipio's conduct evinced awakened a similar spirit in them, and made them hope again that possibly their country might yet be saved.
Consternation at Rome.
The news of the awful defeat and destruction of the Roman army flew swiftly to Rome, and produced universal consternation. The whole city was in an uproar.
There were soldiers in the army from almost every family, so that every woman
and child throughout the city was distracted by the double agitation of inconsolable grief at the death of their husband or their father, slain in the battle, and of terrible fear that Hannibal and his raging followers were about to burst in through the gates of the city to murder them. The streets of the city, and especially the Forum, were thronged with vast crowds of men, women, and children, who filled the air with loud lamentations, and with cries of terror and despair.
The senate adjourns.
The magistrates were not able to restore order. The senate actually adjourned, that the members of it might go about the city, and use their influence and their power to produce silence at least, if they could not restore composure. The streets were finally cleared. The women and children were ordered to remain at
home. Armed patrols were put on guard to prevent tumultuous assemblies forming. Men were sent off on horseback on the road to Canusium and Cannæ,
to get more accurate intelligence, and then the senate assembled again, and began to consider, with as much of calmness as they could command, what was
to be done.
Hannibal refuses to march to Rome.
Hannibal makes his head-quarters at Capua.
The panic at Rome was, however, in some measure, a false alarm, for Hannibal,
contrary to the expectation of all Italy, did not go to Rome. His generals urged him very strongly to do so. Nothing could prevent, they said, his gaining immediate possession of the city. But Hannibal refused to do this. Rome was strongly fortified, and had an immense population. His army, too, was much weakened by the battle of Cannæ, and he seems to have thought it most prudent
not to attempt the reduction of Rome until he should have received re-enforcements from home. It was now so late in the season that he could not expect such re-enforcements immediately, and he accordingly determined to select some place more accessible than Rome and make it his head-quarters for
the winter. He decided in favor of Capua, which was a large and powerful city
one or two hundred miles southeast of Rome.
Hannibal, in fact, conceived the design of retaining possession of Italy and of
making Capua the capital of the country, leaving Rome to itself, to decline, as under such circumstances it inevitably must, to the rank of a second city. Perhaps he was tired of the fatigues and hazards of war, and having narrowly escaped ruin before the battle of Cannæ, he now resolved that he would not rashly incur
any new dangers. It was a great question with him whether he should go forward
to Rome, or attempt to build up a new capital of his own at Capua. The question
which of these two he ought to have done was a matter of great debate then, and
it has been discussed a great deal by military men in every age since his day.
Right or wrong, Hannibal decided to establish his own capital at Capua, and to
leave Rome, for the present, undisturbed.
Hannibal sends Mago to Carthage.
He, however, sent immediately to Carthage for re-enforcements. The messenger
whom he sent was one of his generals named Mago. Mago made the best of his
way to Carthage with his tidings of victory and his bushel of rings, collected, as has been already said, from the field of Cannæ. The city of Carthage was greatly excited by the news which he brought. The friends and patrons of Hannibal were
elated with enthusiasm and pride, and they taunted and reproached his enemies
with the opposition to him they had manifested when he was originally appointed to the command of the army of Spain.
Mago's speech.
The bag of rings.
Mago met the Carthaginian senate, and in a very spirited and eloquent speech he
told them how many glorious battles Hannibal had fought, and how many victories he had won. He had contended with the greatest generals that the Romans could bring against him, and had conquered them all. He had slain, he
said, in all, over two hundred thousand men. All Italy was now subject to his power; Capua was his capital, and Rome had fallen. He concluded by saying that
