of Sinuessa; the
Numidians caused destruction to a vast extent, but flight and
consternation through a still wider space. Yet not even the terror of
these things, when all around was consuming in the flames of war,
could shake the fidelity of the allies; for this manifest reason,
because they lived under a temperate and mild government: nor were
they unwilling to submit to those who were superior to them, which is
the only bond of fidelity.

14. But when the enemy's camp was pitched on the Vulturnus, and the
most delightful country in Italy was being consumed by fire, and the
farm-houses, on all hands, were smoking from the flames, whilst Fabius
led his troops along the heights of Mount Massicus, then the strife
had nearly been kindled anew, for they had been quiet for a few days,
because, as the army had marched quicker than usual, they had supposed
that the object of this haste was to save Campania from devastation;
but when they arrived at the extreme ridge of Mount Massicus, and the
enemy appeared under their eyes, burning the houses of the Falernian
territory, and of the settlers of Sinuessa, and no mention made of
battle, Minucius exclaims, "Are we come here to see our allies
butchered, and their property burned, as a spectacle to be enjoyed?
and if we are not moved with shame on account of any others, are we
not on account of these citizens, whom our fathers sent as settlers to
Sinuessa, that this frontier might be protected from the Samnite foe:
which now not the neighbouring Samnite wastes with fire, but a
Carthaginian foreigner, who has advanced even thus far from the
remotest limits of the world, through our dilatoriness and inactivity?
What! are we so degenerate from our ancestors as tamely to see that
coast filled with Numidian and Moorish foes, along which our fathers
considered it a disgrace to their government that the Carthaginian
fleets should cruise? We, who erewhile, indignant at the storming of
Saguntum, appealed not to men only, but to treaties and to gods,
behold Hannibal scaling the walls of a Roman colony unmoved. The smoke
from the flames of our farm-houses and lands comes into our eyes and
faces; our ears ring with the cries of our weeping allies, imploring
us to assist them oftener than the gods, while we here are leading our
troops, like a herd of cattle, through shady forests and lonely paths,
enveloped in clouds and woods. If Marcus Furius had resolved to
recover the city from the Gauls,