Fabius Defers Battle
When Hannibal learnt that Fabius had arrived, he
note
determined to terrify the enemy by promptly attacking. He
therefore led out his army, approached the
Roman camp, and there drew up his men
in order of battle; but when he had waited some time,
and nobody came out to attack him, he drew off and
retired to his own camp. For Fabius, having made up
his mind to incur no danger and not to risk a battle, but to
make the safety of his men his first and greatest object, kept
resolutely to this purpose. At first he was despised for it, and
gave rise to scandalous insinuations that he was an utter
coward and dared not face an engagement: but in course of
time he compelled everybody to confess and allow that it was
impossible for any one to have acted, in the existing circumstances, with greater discretion and prudence. And it was not
long before facts testified to the wisdom of his policy. Nor
was it wonderful that it was so. For the forces of his
opponents had been trained from their earliest youth without
intermission in war; had a general who had grown up with
them and from childhood had been instructed in the arts of
the camp; had won many battles in Iberia, and twice running
had beaten the Romans and their allies: and, what was more
than all, had thoroughly made up their minds that their one
hope of safety was in victory. In every respect the circumstances of the Roman army were the exact opposite of these;
and therefore, their manifest inferiority making it impossible
for Fabius to offer the enemy battle, he fell back upon those
resources in which the Romans had the advantage of the
enemy; clung to them; and conducted the war by their means:
and they were—an inexhaustible supply of provisions and of
men.
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