Fabius returned to Rome to preside as dictator at their religious ceremonies the tribunes of the people inveighed so bitterly against him in their publick harangues, that he refrained from coming to their assemblies.—Even what he spoke in the senate met with a very indifferent reception, especially when he extolled the conduct and abilities of Hannibal, and enumerated the repeated defeats they had received for the two last years through the rashness and incapacity of their own commanders.—When Fabius returned to the camp he received a much more mortifying proof of their displeasure. For they raised Minucius to an equality with him in the command, an act for which there had been no precedent since the first erection of the dictatorial office.—Nor did their enmity to Fabius subside until after the fatal defeat at Cannæ. For the worthless Varro obtained not only the consulship, but what is still more extraordinary, even the confidence of the greater part of the senate, and almost the whole army by railing at Fabius and Fabian measures, and out boasting Minucius. I have showed above from Polybius what trust the majority of the senate reposed in Varro. But I cannot omit a remarkable instance, which Livy gives us, of the absurd and fatal partiality of the military men to Varro, in opposition to Æmilius, who avowedly followed the advice of Fabius.—In a council of war, says that historian, held a little before the battle of Cannæ, when each consul persisted firmly in his former opinion; Æmilius adhering to Fabius’s plan for avoiding fighting; Varro to his resolution of engaging the enemy immediately; Servilius one of the consuls of the former year was the only one who joined Æmilius, the rest declared for Varro. [354] Above eighty thousand, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. [355] Polyb. lib. 3. p. 370. [356] Liv. lib. 22. p. 242. [357] Polyb. lib. 6. p. 688.