By the one you have saved our lives, and
by the other you have taught us our duty, for we have been disgracefully
defeated by Hannibal, but beneficially and honourably by you. I call you
my excellent father, having no more honourable appellation to bestow,
since I owe a greater debt of gratitude to you than to him who begot me.
To him I merely owe my single life, but to you I owe not only that but
the lives of all my men." After these words he embraced Fabius, and the
soldiers followed his example, embracing and kissing one another, so
that the camp was full of joy and of most blessed tears.
XIV. After this, Fabius laid down his office, and consuls were again
elected. Those who were first elected followed the defensive policy of
Fabius, avoiding pitched battles with Hannibal, but reinforcing the
allies and preventing defections. But when Terentius Varro was made
consul, a man of low birth, but notorious for his rash temper and his
popularity with the people, he made no secret, in his inexperience and
self-confidence, of his intention of risking everything on one cast. He
was always reiterating in his public speeches that under such generals
as Fabius the war made no progress, whereas he would conquer the enemy
the first day he saw him. By means of these boastful speeches he
enrolled as soldiers such a multitude as the Romans had never before had
at their disposal in any war, for there collected for the battle
eighty-eight thousand men.
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