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On the second day after leaving the neighbourhood of Geronium the Romans encamped at a distance of six miles from the Carthaginians. Here the usual difference of opinion at once arose between the Roman consuls, who commanded the army on alternate days.
Hannibal now came down into the fertile country of Apulia, and determined to winter there. He took by storm the town of Geronium, where he stored his supplies and placed his sick in shelter, while his army occupied an intrenched camp which he formed outside the town.
Carrying the provisions in bundles they made for the mountains, and after three days' journey reached without interruption or adventure the camp of Hannibal. He was still lying in his intrenched camp near Geronium. The Roman army was as before watching him at a short distance off.
When the consuls, employing sufficient diligence in exploring the road in pursuit of the Carthaginian, had arrived at Cannae, where they had the enemy in the sight of them, having divided their forces, they fortify two camps with nearly the same interval as before, at Geronium.
This important place was but fifty miles by the shortest route across the plain from Geronium; but the Romans were unable to follow directly across the plain, for at this time the Carthaginians greatly outnumbered them in cavalry, and they would, therefore, have to take the road round the foot of the mountains, which was nearly seventy miles long; and yet, by some unaccountable blunder, they neglected to place a sufficient guard over their great magazines at Cannae to defend them for even a few days against a sudden attack.
For a time Hannibal had the greatest difficulty in resisting the assault of the Romans; but at last a body of four thousand of the foragers, who had beaten off the Roman cavalry and made their way into Geronium, came out to his support, and the Romans retired.
"Not of Spain," interrupted Sergius, as the narrator caught his breath. "Tell me of Italy, of Hannibal and Fabius. Have the standards opposed each other?" "They say Hannibal is in winter quarters at Geronium, and the consuls watch him," began Agathocles, in more subdued tones. "Tell me of Fabius.
Hannibal, seeing the energy which Minucius had displayed, fell back to his old camp near Geronium, and Minucius at once occupied the position which he had vacated. The partial success of Minucius enabled the party in Rome who had long been discontented with the waiting tactics of Fabius to make a fresh attack upon his policy, and Minucius was now raised to an equal rank with Fabius.
Hannibal resolved at once to take advantage of the change, and to tempt the Romans to attack him by occupying a hill which lay about halfway between the camp of Minucius and Geronium.
He was destined to command the fleet and to guard the southern coasts of Italy, while another praetor, Lucius Postumius, with one legion, was in Cisalpine Gaul keeping down the tribes friendly to Carthage. But before the new consuls arrived to take the command of the army Hannibal had moved from Geronium. The great Roman magazine of Apulia was at Cannae, a town near the river Aulidus.
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