Hannibal defeated the Romans on first meeting them, and the Gauls flocked to his army. But of the elephants, which he had brought with such difficulty over the Rhone and the Alps, the cold of December killed all but one. But without them he met a large Roman army at Lake Trasimenus, and defeated it so utterly that but six thousand escaped. Rome, in alarm, chose a dictator, Fabius Maximus by name. This leader adopted a new method of warfare, which has ever since been famous as the "Fabian policy." This was the policy of avoiding battle and seeking to wear the enemy out, while harassing him at every opportunity. Fabius kept to the hills, followed and annoyed his great antagonist, yet steadily avoided being drawn into battle. For more than a year this continued, during all which time Fabius grew more and more unpopular at Rome. The waiting policy was not that which the Romans had hitherto employed, and they became more impatient as days and months passed without an effort to drive this eating ulcer from their plains. In time the discontent grew too strong to be ignored. A _man of business_, who was said to have begun life as a butcher's son, Varro by name, became the favorite leader of the populace, and was in time raised to the consulship. He enlisted a powerful army, ninety thousand strong, and marched away to the field of Cannae, where Hannibal was encamped, with the purpose of driving this Carthaginian wasp from the Italian fields. It was a dwarf contending with a giant. The vainglorious Varro gave Hannibal the opportunity for which he had long waited. The Roman army met with such a crushing defeat that its equal is scarcely known in history. Baffled, beaten, and surrounded by Hannibal's army, the Romans were cut down in thousands, no quarter being asked or given, till when the sun set scarce three thousand men were left alive and unhurt of Varro's hopeful host. Of Hannibal's army less than six thousand had fallen. Of the Roman forces more than eighty thousand paid the penalty of their leader's incompetence. Hannibal did not advance to Rome, which seemed to lie helpless before him. He doubtless had good reasons for not attempting to capture it. Maharbal, his cavalry general, said, "Let me advance with the horse, and do you follow; in four days from this time you shall sup in the Capitol." Hannibal, on the contrary, sent terms of peace to Rome. These the Romans, unconquerable in spirit despite their disaster, refused. He then marched to southern Italy and established his head-quarters in the rich city of Capua, which opened its gates to him, and which he promised to make the capital of all Italy.