XXIV. Next he proceeded against Hannibal; and whereas nearly all the other consuls and generals, after the disaster at Cannæ had thought of nothing but avoiding battles with him, and no one had dared to measure himself with him in the field, he adopted the opposite course, arguing that while they fancied that they were wearing out Hannibal's army they did not perceive that Italy was being consumed by it. Fabius, he urged, thought too much of safety, and by his policy of waiting, Rome, already drooping under its burdens, would at the end of the war perish as well as Hannibal. He was, he said, like those timid surgeons who shrink from using decisive remedies, and who mistake the sinking strength of the patient for the abatement of disease. His first act was to take some important Samnite towns which had revolted. Here he found great stores of corn and money, and took three thousand of Hannibal's soldiers who were there as garrison. Next, when Hannibal defeated and killed Cnæus Fulvius, the proconsul in Apulia, with a loss of eleven military tribunes and the greater part of his army, Marcellus sent despatches to Rome, bidding the citizens be of good courage, for he was already on the march, and would abate Hannibal's exultation. Livy tells us that these despatches when read did not diminish the grief of the Romans, but added to their fear, as they reflected that the risk they were about to run was so much more serious than the defeat they had sustained, as Marcellus was superior to Fulvius.