IX, 6.--After Marcellus left Sicily, Hannibal sent a troop of cavalry there and the Carthaginians despatched another. They won several battles and acquired some cities. And if the praetor Cornelius Dolabella had not come upon the scene, they would have subjugated all Sicily. Capua was at this time taken by the Romans. It availed nothing that Hannibal marched upon Rome in order to draw away from Capua the forces besieging it, although he traversed Latium, came to the Tiber, and laid waste the suburbs of the city. The people of Rome were frightened, but still they voted that one of the consuls[31] should remain at Capua while the other defended them. It was Claudius who remained at Capua, for he had been wounded: Flaccus hastened to Rome. [Footnote 31: Possibly an error on the part of Zonaras for _proconsuls_.] Hannibal kept making raids all the time before their eyes and doing a great amount of harm, but for some time they were satisfied to preserve their possessions within the walls. When, however, he reached the point of assaulting the city and their armies at once, they risked the proverbial cast of the die and made a sortie. They were already engaged in skirmishing when [Sidenote: (FRAG. 56^33?)] AN EXTRAORDINARY STORM ACCOMPANIED BY AN INCONCEIVABLY STRONG WIND AS WELL AS THUNDER, HAIL, AND LIGHTNING, BROKE FROM A CLEAR SKY, so that both were glad enough to flee as if by mutual consent back to the place from which they had set out. They were just laying aside their arms when the sky became clear. Although Hannibal concluded that the event mentioned, coming as it did precisely at the moment of conflict, had not occurred without divine ordering, yet he did not desist from his siege operations and even attempted again on a subsequent occasion to force the issue. But when the same phenomena were met for the second time, he became terrified. What added to his alarm was that the enemy though in so great danger did not withdraw from Capua and were getting ready to send both soldiers and a praetor into Spain, and that being in need of funds they sold the spot where he was encamped, which was a piece of public property. In despair he retired, often crying aloud, "Oh, Cannae, Cannae!" And he no longer showed a disposition to render aid to Capua.