United States or Albania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But when day broke, and he saw the Romans in a strong position upon a steep hill, to which they had retired, he decided not to continue his attack upon them; but marching through Daunia and Bruttium he appeared at Rhegium so unexpectedly that he was within an ace of capturing the city, and did cut off all who were out in the country; and during this excursion captured a very large number of the Rhegini....
I should advise that it should be announced publicly that our army, having traversed the whole mountains of Bruttium without meeting with a foe, the objects of the expedition have been attained, and the enemy may now be considered as a mere mass of fugitives, whom it would be impossible to root out as long as they take refuge among their fastnesses; but that for the present the army will be placed in a cordon of camps round the foot of the mountains, by which means the fugitives will be starved into surrender.
To one was decreed Bruttium and Lucania, to act against Hannibal; to the other Gaul, to act against Hasdrubal, who, it was reported, was now approaching the Alps; and that he to whose lot Gaul fell should choose whichever he pleased of the two armies, one of which was in Gaul, the other in Etruria, and receive the city legions in addition; and that he to whose lot Bruttium fell, should, after enlisting fresh legions for the city, take the army of whichever of the consuls of the former year he pleased.
The people of Bruttium, Lucania, and Campania, who abhorred the name and religion of the Goths, embraced the specious excuse, that their ruined walls were incapable of defence: the soldiers paid a just equivalent for a plentiful market; and curiosity alone interrupted the peaceful occupations of the husbandman or artificer.
Hannibal ordered Hanno to pass with his army from Bruttium into Campania, and to take care that the Campanians were supplied with corn. Hanno, setting out from Bruttium with his army, and carefully avoiding the camp of the enemy and the consuls who were in Samnium, when he drew near to Beneventum, pitched his camp on an eminence three miles from the city.
But their numbers had swollen as they went, for the other fugitive bands among the hills were also driven south by the advance of the Romans, and it was a miscellaneous body of gladiators, escaped slaves, and malefactors, in all over five hundred strong, that crossed the mountains into Bruttium. There was a general wish among them that Beric should take the command of the whole.
The praetors elected were Marcus Junius Pennus, to whose lot the city jurisdiction fell, Marcus Valerius Falto, who received Bruttium, Marcus Fabius Buteo, who received Sardinia, and Publius Aelius Tubero, who received Sicily.
The bow and arrows of Hercules were preserved at Thurii, near Sybaris; the tomb of Philoctetes, who inherited these weapons of the hero, was at Macalla, in Bruttium, not far from Crotona, where Pythagoras had lived; the head of the Calydonian Boar was at Beneventum, east of Capua, and the Erymanthian Boar's tusks were at Cumæ, celebrated for its Sibyl; the armor of Diomede, one of the Trojan heroes, was at Luceria, in the vicinity of Cannæ; the cup of Ulysses and the tomb of Elpenor were at Circei, on the coast; the ships of Æneas and his Penates were at Lavinium, fifteen miles south of Rome; and the tomb of the hero himself was at a spot between Ardea and Lavinium, on the banks of the brook Numicius.
Once you are free you had best travel secretly and without haste to Bruttium. No folk are more secretive or more loyal than the herders and foresters of Bruttium.
Tell him also to be on his guard. There is a talk of an expedition on a large scale, to root out those who are gathered in the mountains of Bruttium. It is said that it is to be commanded by Caius Muro, who but a week ago returned from Syria." "Is it so?" Beric exclaimed. "I know him well, having lived in his house for years. I should be sorry indeed that we should meet as enemies.
Word Of The Day