The period from 541 to 545 is enlivened by a number of battles, in which Hannibal almost always had the best of it. From the tenth year of the struggle, he was in possession of the greatest part of Apulia, Samnium, and Lucania, and of the whole of Bruttium: here was the seat of the war in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth years. He defeated the proconsul Cn. Fulvius near Herdonia with considerable slaughter; from an ambush, he surprised the consuls, M. Claudius Marcellus, and T. Quinctius Crispinus: both of them died; the first, in the fight; the second afterwards, of his wounds. He took Arpi and Salapia (likewise an Apulian town); but the Romans recovered them again. Tarentum he gained after a three years’ siege, in which he displayed all the superiority of his genius. Every one of the Greek towns of Lower Italy had now gone over to him. Tarentum, which had fallen into his hands owing to the treachery of the inhabitants, was afterwards again betrayed to the Romans by the commander of the Bruttian garrison. The city was treated like one which had been taken by the sword: all its treasures were carried to Rome, and thenceforward Tarentum appears desolate, until C. Gracchus sent a colony thither. The Romans might have expected from the very beginning, that the Carthaginians, after the great successes of Hannibal, would send from Spain army upon army. It was not therefore on account of their small settlements there, but to prevent these from sending out new troops, that with incredible exertions they dispatched an army to Spain under the command of P. and Cn. Scipio (in the second year of the war, 535). These at first established themselves in Tarragona, and from thence they harassed the Carthaginians. After the battle of Cannæ already, it was intended that Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother, should set out for Italy with an army to support him; but the Scipios hindered this, and although in the beginning the rule of Carthage had been really popular, the fickleness of the Spaniards led them to join the Romans, when they saw that they were only used by the Carthaginians as tools to furnish numbers of men and supplies of money for the war. How these wars were conducted, is not to be clearly made out from Livy’s narration. It is surprising, but there seems to be no doubt of it, that the Romans advanced as far as Cordova; (for Illiturgis is surely the place of that name near Cordova, and not the other). This war is not worth a detailed description, as from the great distance of the scene of operations, according to Livy’s own opinion, who is here our only authority, all the accounts of it are anything but trustworthy.[27] We cannot even say for certain how long the two Scipios (_duo fulmina belli_ in Lucretius and others) carried it on. Livy mentions the eighth year; but if this were reckoned from the arrival of the Scipios in Spain, it would not tally with the one in which he places their death. But I am very much