erentius Varro,
younger both in years and in mind, eager, impatient for action.

Caius Flaminius had opposed Fabius before. He had been elected a tribune
of the people--one of those magistrates appointed at the time of
Coriolanus to speak for them. He was a man of great ability and warm
enthusiasm, a man with more imagination than Fabius. He was as truly
devoted to his country, but to his mind the greatness of Rome depended
not only on conquest and fine laws and honesty and honour in its leading
citizens. These were all good things. But there was another question to
ask. Were the ordinary common people happy? Fifteen years before
Hannibal's invasion, Flaminius had brought in a Bill intended to help
the poorer Romans by making land settlements for small cultivators in
the north. Fabius and most of the old patricians were hot against this.
Fabius said to give land to the poor people of Rome encouraged men who
could find work in the city but did not take the trouble. They would not
cultivate the land if they got it: they would sell it and come back for
more. Flaminius denied this. There were men in numbers, he said, men who
had served in the armies, who wanted to work but could not do it because
they could not get land. To put more men on the land would enrich the
whole country. His law was finally carried. Another work done by
Flaminius stands to this day as a memorial of him. It, too, shows the
imagination of the man. This is the Via Flaminia, a magnificent road
that ran right across the Apennine Mountains from sea to sea. It took
twenty years to build, but when built it stood for centuries, useful in
time of war, even more useful in time of peace.

Flaminius, already popular on account of these achievements, dreamed of
doing yet more striking things as a soldier. This was his danger. In the
year after the battle of the Trebia he was put in command of one of the
two new Roman armies. He was all for a bold policy and believed that he
could defeat Hannibal and thus add military glory to himself. He did not
know Hannibal. Hannibal, however, had made it his business to know his
enemies; he did know what Flaminius was like and used that knowledge for
his undoing. Flaminius's views and character are given by Livy.

_Flaminius before Trasimene_

Flaminius would not have refrained from action even if his enemy
had been inactive; but when the lands of the allies were harried
almost before his eyes, he thought it a pe