Summary of Book XXIII
THE Campanians revolted to Hannibal. Mago, who was sent to Carthage to report the victory at Cannae, poured out before the entrance of the Senate House golden rings taken from bodies of the slain; and the tradition is that there were more than a peck of them. After that report Hanno, one of the Carthaginian nobles, tried to persuade the Carthaginian senate to sue for peace from the Roman people. And he did not carry it through, since the Barca faction protested loudly. Claudius Marcellus, a praetor, fought with success at Nola, making a sally from the city against Hannibal. Casilinum, beset by the Carthaginians, suffered so much from starvation that the besieged ate thongs, hides stripped off from shields, and rats. They lived on nuts sent down the river Volturnus by the Romans. The senate was recruited by one hundred and ninety-seven men from the equestrian order. Lucius Postumius, the praetor, was slain with his army by the Gauls. Gnaeus and Publius Scipio defeated Hasdrubal in Spain and made Spain their own. The remnant of the army of Cannae was relegated to Sicily, not to leave it except after the end of the war. Sempronius Gracchus, the consul, utterly defeated the Campanians. Claudius Marcellus, a praetor, routed and worsted Hannibal's army in battle at Nola, and was the first to give the Romans, exhausted by so many disasters, a better hope for the war. An alliance was formed between Philip, king of Macedonia, and Hannibal. The book also contains the successes gained over the Carthaginians by Publius and Gnaeus Scipio in Spain and by Titus Manlius, the praetor, in Sardinia. Hasdrubal, the general, and Mago and Hanno were captured by them. The army of Hannibal lived in such indulgence in winter quarters as to be weakened in body and spirit.
