LIVIUS AND CLAUDIUS ENJOY A TRIUMPH
Hannibal had not discovered that the Consul had left Venusia before he
had returned.
As soon as the battle of Metaurus was over, Claudius had marched
back to his camp, carrying with him the head of Hasdrubal. This,
with cruelty unworthy of a conqueror, he ordered to be thrown into
Hannibal’s camp.
Two prisoners he also set free, that they might go to the Carthaginian
camp and tell how their comrades had been slain.
In this terrible way Hannibal first knew what had befallen his brother
and the army he had brought from Spain.
Claudius, before he marched to the camp of Livius had sent to Rome to
tell the Senate what he hoped to do. As the news of his hasty march
became known, the greatest anxiety was felt.
No one was able to work. The Forum, indeed, was crowded with people;
but they assembled, not to do business, but to talk of the desperate
action of the Consul, of the hopes and fears that clustered around his
deed.
After a time the women betook themselves to the temple, and spent the
hours in prayers to their gods, that now at length they would send
victory to Roman arms.
As hope was changing into fear, a messenger was seen spurring his horse
toward the city. When he rode in at the gates the people crowded round
him to try to gather his tidings.
Good! It seemed that the news was good. The face, the whole bearing of
the messenger proclaimed it so, yet the people were afraid to believe.
They had grown used to such evil tidings. How could they believe all at
once that the gods had at length sent them victory! Yet so it was.
The messenger made his way through the crowds to the Senate-house, and
then for a little while the people were left to their vague hopes and
fears.
At length the door of the Senate-house was opened, and down the steps
into the Forum stepped one of the senators, to tell the breathless
multitude that the tidings were good indeed. Hasdrubal was slain and
his army was destroyed.
Then at last the people believed, and a great shout rent the air, a
shout of triumph.
Public thanksgivings were at once ordained, to last for three days.
The people in their joy never stayed to think that Hannibal was still
alive, and in their land unconquered.
Hannibal, indeed, stayed in Italy four years longer, yet he fought no
more great battles there. The towns, too, that he had won were, one
after another, gradually reconquered by Rome.
After the defeat of Hasdrubal, Hannibal withdrew to Lacinium with his
troops. They remained loyal to their great leader in his misfortune as
in his prosperity.
Claudius and Livius, to whom the great victory was due, were both given
a triumph.
But as the battle had been fought in the province of which Livius had
charge, and as it was he who had commanded on the battlefield, he
entered the city on a triumphal car drawn by four horses, his army
marching in the procession, while Claudius rode on horseback by the
side of the car, and his army, being needed on the field, was not with
him.
But it was the Consul who rode on horseback at whom the people for the
most part gazed, and it was for him that the crowd cheered its loudest.
For the people knew that it was Claudius whose decision had made the
battle so complete a triumph.