established themselves near Suessula, and had been laying waste the whole country, so that famine had raged for a good while in Capua. I cannot understand, why Hannibal, who now had got reinforcements, did not make every exertion to relieve Capua which the Romans had invested with a double entrenchment. He ought to have attacked them in their entrenchments, and driven them out. At the urgent request of the Campanians, he made in 541 an attempt, the meaning of which, however, is not to be accounted for by our history, and there are many contradictions in this undertaking. If we follow the most unpretending account, Hannibal attacked the Romans, but was not able to break through their lines: a few Numidians only got through, and opened a communication with the town. But this could not be followed up, and so he determined to make a diversion. Of the two conflicting statements as to which road he took, we are to consider that of Cœlius as the most improbable. The point in dispute is, whether he came before the Porta Collina from the north, through the country of the Pelignians, and on his retreat started from the Capena, or the reverse. The former account is the more worthy of belief; the other line would be too great a way round. This determination of his seems to have taken the Romans by surprise; so that there was hardly time enough for half of the troops from Capua to reach Rome by the Appian road before him,--he was some days march in advance,--although he moved along the arc of that chord by which they went, namely, across the Vulturnus, through the district of Cales towards Fregellæ, which was a very strong place. The people of Fregellæ, like brave men, had broken down the bridges over the Liris, and while he had to wait there till they were rebuilt, he wasted their country: he then marched by the Latin road, and through Tusculum, to the gates of Rome. But before his arrival, the consul Fulvius had come up by the Appian road, and was at the Porta Capena. Whilst Hannibal was already on the Esquiline, the former marched through the city by the Carinæ at the very nick of time, and by a sudden attack hindered the Carthaginian general from surprising the city on that spot. This was also what Hannibal had wished; but he had hoped that both the armies would be called away from Capua: the general, whom he had ordered either to relieve the place, or else carry off its population, must not have been able to do it. Hannibal encamped before the Porta Collina, on the Monte Pincio, beyond the low grounds of the gardens of Sallust. Here history again appears poetical. Twice did Hannibal march forth to offer battle to the Romans, who also went out against him; but both times a thunderstorm is said to have broken out just then, and when the two armies withdrew, the brightness of the sky returned. These _portenta_, we are told, convinced Hannibal that he could do nothing against Rome. Other stories sound very fine; but they likewise are idle tales.