e and people, were his objects;
but afterwards, the report of the Punic war with which Italy was being
desolated for now ten years, had convinced them that the Alps were
only a passage, and that two very powerful nations, separated from
each other by a vast tract of sea and land, were contending for empire
and power. These were the causes which opened the Alps to Hasdrubal.
But the advantage which he gained by the celerity of his march he
lost by his delay at Placentia, while he carried on a fruitless siege,
rather than an assault. He had supposed that it would be easy to take
by storm a town situated on a plain; and the celebrity of the colony
induced him to believe that by destroying it he should strike great
terror into the rest. This siege not only impeded his own progress,
but had the effect of restraining Hannibal, who was just on the point
of quitting his winter quarters, after hearing of his passage, which
was so much quicker than he expected; for he not only revolved in his
mind how tedious was the siege of towns, but also how ineffectual was
his attempt upon that same colony, when returning victorious from the
Trebia.

40. The consuls, on departing from the city in different directions,
had drawn the attention of the public, as it were, to two wars at
once, while they called to mind the disasters which Hannibal's first
coming had brought upon Italy, and at the same time, tortured with
anxiety, asked themselves what deities would be so propitious to the
city and empire as that the commonwealth should be victorious in both
quarters at once. Hitherto they had been enabled to hold out to the
present time by compensating for their misfortunes by their successes.
When the Roman power was laid prostrate at the Trasimenus and at
Cannae in Italy, their successes in Spain had raised it up from its
fallen condition. Afterwards, when in Spain one disaster after another
had in a great measure destroyed two armies, with the loss of two
distinguished generals, the many successes in Italy and Sicily had,
as it were, afforded a haven for the shattered state; and the mere
interval of space, as one war was going on in the remotest quarter
of the world, gave them time to recover their breath. Whereas now two
wars were received into Italy; two generals of the highest renown were
besetting the Roman city; while the whole weight of the danger and
the entire burden pressed upon one point. Whichever of these generals
should be first