inducted into office, and were thus put jointly into possession
of a vast power, to wield which with any efficiency and success would
seem to require union and harmony in those who held it, and yet
AEmilius and Varro were inveterate and implacable political foes. It
was often so in the Roman government. The consulship was a
double-headed monster, which spent half its strength in bitter
contests waged between its members.

The Romans determined now to make an effectual effort to rid
themselves of their foe. They raised an enormous army. It consisted of
eight legions. The Roman legion was an army of itself. It contained
ordinarily four thousand foot soldiers, and a troop of three hundred
horsemen. It was very unusual to have more than two or three legions
in the field at a time. The Romans, however, on this occasion,
increased the number of the legions, and also augmented their size, so
that they contained, each, five thousand infantry and four hundred
cavalry. They were determined to make a great and last effort to
defend their city, and save the commonwealth from ruin. AEmilius and
Varro prepared to take command of this great force, with very strong
determinations to make it the means of Hannibal's destruction.

The characters of the two commanders, however, as well as their
political connections, were very dissimilar, and they soon began to
manifest a very different spirit, and to assume a very different air
and bearing, each from the other. AEmilius was a friend of Fabius, and
approved of his policy. Varro was for greater promptness and decision.
He made great promises, and spoke with the utmost confidence of being
able to annihilate Hannibal at a blow. He condemned the policy of
Fabius in attempting to wear out the enemy by delays. He said it was a
plan of the aristocratic party to protract the war, in order to put
themselves in high offices, and perpetuate their importance and
influence. The war might have been ended long ago, he said; and he
would promise the people that he would now end it, without fail, the
very day that he came in sight of Hannibal.

As for AEmilius, he assumed a very different tone. He was surprised, he
said, that any man could pretend to decide before he had even left the
city, and while he was, of course, entirely ignorant, both of the
condition of their own army, and of the position, and designs, and
strength of the enemy, how soon and under what circumstances it would
be wise to give him