ter part of the darts which
were aimed at him?" Bandius admitted that he was the man, and
endeavoured to speak lightly of his wounds, but Marcellus went on:
"Then, as you bear about you such marks of your devotion to our cause,
why did you not at once come to me? Do you think us slow to requite
the valour of our friends, when it is honoured even by the enemy."
Having spoken to him thus courteously, he embraced him, and presented
him with a war-horse and five hundred silver drachmas.

XI. After this Bandius became the firmest partisan and ally of
Marcellus, and a terrible denouncer and assailant of the opposite
party. This was a numerous one; and their design was, when the Romans
should march out of the town against the enemy, to attack their
baggage. Marcellus, therefore, having marshalled his troops within
the city, brought the baggage to the gates, and by proclamation
forbade the people of Nola to approach the walls. Thus no force was
visible, and he induced Hannibal to march up to the city in disorderly
array, as he supposed that within it all was confusion. Then Marcellus
ordered the gate nearest him to be thrown open, and with the best
equipped of his cavalry charged out of it and fell upon the enemy hand
to hand. Presently the infantry poured out of another gate, running
with loud shouts; and while Hannibal was dividing his forces to deal
with them a third gate opened, and from it issued the remainder of the
army, and from all sides attacked the Carthaginians, who were
bewildered at the unexpectedness of the attack, and fought without
spirit against their immediate assailants, because of the others who
they saw would soon beset them.

There first did Hannibal's troops give way before the Romans, and were
chased with great loss into their camp. It is said that more than five
thousand perished, and that no more than five hundred Romans fell. But
Livy does not consider that a great defeat took place, or that so many
of the enemy fell, but he points out that Marcellus gained much glory
by that battle, and that the Roman people took courage after their
misfortunes, thinking that it was not against an unconquerable and
invulnerable foe that they were fighting, but one who could be made to
suffer as well as themselves.

XII. For this reason, as one of the consuls was dead, the people
called for Marcellus, though he was absent, to become his successor;
and in spite of the efforts of the government they put off the day