Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
as Pindar says. Marcellus rode forth with his colleague Crispinus and
his son, who was military tribune, in all two hundred and twenty
horsemen. Of these none were Romans; they were Etruscans, with the
exception of twenty men from Fregellæ, who had given constant proofs
of their courage and devotion to Marcellus. On the overhanging crest
of the woody hill, a man, unseen by the Romans, was watching their
army. He signalled to the men in ambush what was going on, so that
they permitted Marcellus to ride close to them, and then suddenly
burst out upon him, and surrounding his little force on all sides,
struck and threw their darts, pursued such as ran away, and fought
with those who stood their ground. These were the twenty Fregellans.
The Etruscans at the outset ran away panic-stricken; but these men
forming together defended the consuls until Crispinus, struck by two
darts, galloped away, and Marcellus was pierced through the side with
a lance. Then even the few survivors of the Fregellans left him lying
there, and snatching up his son, who was wounded, made their way back
to the camp. The loss amounted to little over forty killed, and five
lictors and eighteen horsemen taken. Crispinus, after a few days, died
of his wounds. Such a misfortune as this, losing both consuls in one
battle, never before befel the Romans.
XXX. Hannibal heard of the fate of all the rest with indifference, but
when he was told that Marcellus had fallen he himself hastened to the
place, and stood for a long time beside the corpse, admiring its
strength and beauty. He made no boastful speech, and showed no joy in
his countenance, as a man who had slain a troublesome and dangerous
enemy, but, wondering at the strangeness of his ending, he drew the
ring from the dead man's finger, and had the corpse decently attired
and burned. The relics he gathered into a silver urn, upon which he
placed a golden crown, and sent it to Marcellus's son. But on the way
some Numidians fell in with the party who were escorting the urn, and
while they tried to take it away and the others struggled to retain
it, the bones were scattered on the ground. Hannibal, on hearing of
this, said, "Nothing can be done against the will of heaven." He
ordered the Numidians to be punished, but took no further thought
about collecting or sending away the relics of Marcellus, concluding
that some god had decreed the strange death and strange lack of burial
which had befallen him. This is the story related by Cornelius Nepos
and Valerius Maximus, but Livy and Augustus Cæsar declare that the urn
was brought to his son, and that it was splendidly buried. Besides
his monuments at Rome there was a gymnasium at Katana in Sicily which
bore his name, and statues and votive tablets from the plunder of
Syracuse were set tip in Samothrace in the temple of the gods called
Kabeiri, and in Lindus (in Rhodes) in the temple of Athena.
On his statue there, according to Poseidonius, these verses are
written:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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