age to bear arms. [9] Fifty thousand had already died in
the defence of their country; and the twenty-three legions which were
employed in the different camps of Italy, Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, and
Spain, required about one hundred thousand men. But there still remained
an equal number in Rome, and the adjacent territory, who were animated
by the same intrepid courage; and every citizen was trained, from his
earliest youth, in the discipline and exercises of a soldier. Hannibal
was astonished by the constancy of the senate, who, without raising
the siege of Capua, or recalling their scattered forces, expected his
approach. He encamped on the banks of the Anio, at the distance of three
miles from the city; and he was soon informed, that the ground on which
he had pitched his tent, was sold for an adequate price at a public
auction; [911] and that a body of troops was dismissed by an opposite
road, to reenforce the legions of Spain. [10] He led his Africans to the
gates of Rome, where he found three armies in order of battle, prepared
to receive him; but Hannibal dreaded the event of a combat, from
which he could not hope to escape, unless he destroyed the last of his
enemies; and his speedy retreat confessed the invincible courage of the
Romans.

[Footnote 7: The march and retreat of Hannibal are described by Livy,
l. xxvi. c. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; and the reader is made a spectator of the
interesting scene.]

[Footnote 8: These comparisons were used by Cyneas, the counsellor of
Pyrrhus, after his return from his embassy, in which he had diligently
studied the discipline and manners of Rome. See Plutarch in Pyrrho. tom.
ii. p. 459.]

[Footnote 9: In the three census which were made of the Roman people,
about the time of the second Punic war, the numbers stand as follows,
(see Livy, Epitom. l. xx. Hist. l. xxvii. 36. xxix. 37:) 270,213,
137,108 214,000. The fall of the second, and the rise of the third,
appears so enormous, that several critics, notwithstanding the unanimity
of the Mss., have suspected some corruption of the text of Livy. (See
Drakenborch ad xxvii. 36, and Beaufort, Republique Romaine, tom. i. p.
325.) They did not consider that the second census was taken only at
Rome, and that the numbers were diminished, not only by the death, but
likewise by the absence, of many soldiers. In the third census, Livy
expressly affirms, that the legions were mustered by the care of
particular commissaries. From the number