gh the whole route, afforded a necessary
bed for temporary repose to those seeking any place which was not
under water. Hannibal himself, riding on the only remaining elephant,
to be the higher from the water, contracted a disorder in his eyes, at
first from the unwholesomeness of the vernal air, which is attended
with transitions from heat to cold; and at length from watching,
nocturnal damps, the marshy atmosphere disordering his head, and
because he had neither opportunity nor leisure for remedies, loses one
of them.

3. Many men and cattle having been lost thus wretchedly, when at
length he had emerged from the marshes, he pitched his camp as soon as
he could on dry ground. And here he received information, through the
scouts sent in advance, that the Roman army was round the walls of
Arretium. Next the plans and temper of the consul, the situation of
the country, the roads, the sources from which provisions might be
obtained, and whatever else it was useful to know; all these things he
ascertained by the most diligent inquiry. The country was among the
most fertile of Italy, the plain of Etruria, between Faesulae and
Arretium, abundant in its supply of corn, cattle, and every other
requisite. The consul was haughty from his former consulship, and felt
no proper degree of reverence not only for the laws and the majesty of
the fathers, but even for the gods. This temerity, inherent in his
nature, fortune had fostered by a career of prosperity and success in
civil and military affairs. Thus it was sufficiently evident that,
heedless of gods and men, he would act in all cases with presumption
and precipitation; and, that he might fall the more readily into the
errors natural to him, the Carthaginian begins to fret and irritate
him; and leaving the enemy on his left, he takes the road to Faesulae,
and marching through the centre of Etruria, with intent to plunder, he
exhibits to the consul, in the distance, the greatest devastation he
could with fires and slaughters. Flaminius, who would not have rested
even if the enemy had remained quiet; then, indeed, when he saw the
property of the allies driven and carried away almost before his eyes,
considering that it reflected disgrace upon him that the Carthaginian
now roaming at large through the heart of Italy, and marching without
resistance to storm the very walls of Rome, though every other person
in the council advised safe rather than showy measures, urging that he
sho