their lips, retired to communicate his own joy to others, and became himself the centre of an anxious and inquiring group. When the officers had, with much difficulty, reached the senate house, and the crowd was with still greater difficulty put back from entering and mingling with the Conscript Fathers, the despatches of Livius and Nero were produced and read aloud. From the senate house the officers proceeded to the public assembly, where the despatches were read again; and then the senior officer, Lucius Veturius, gave in his own words a fuller detail of how went the fight. When he had done speaking to the people, an universal shout of rapture rent the air. The vast assembly then separated: some hastening to the temples to find in devotion a vent for the overflowing excitement of their hearts; others seeking their homes to gladden their wives and children with the good news, and to feast their own eyes with the sight of the loved ones, who now, at last, were safe from outrage and slaughter. The senate ordained a thanksgiving of three days for the great deliverance which had been vouchsafed to Rome; and throughout that period the temples were incessantly crowded with exulting worshippers; and the matrons, with their children round them, in their gayest attire, and with joyous aspects and voices, offered grateful praises to the immortal gods, as if all apprehension of evil were over, and the war were already ended. With the revival of confidence came also the revival of activity in traffic and commerce, and in all the busy intercourse of daily life. A numbing load was taken off each heart and brain, and once more men bought and sold, and formed their plans fleely, as had been done before the dire Carthaginians came into Italy. Hannibal was, certainly, still in the land; but all felt that his power to destroy was broken, and that the crisis of the war-fever was past. The Metaurus, indeed, had not only determined the event of the strife between Rome and Carthage, but it had ensured to Rome two centuries more of almost unchanged conquest. Hannibal did actually, with almost superhuman skill, retain his hold on Southern Italy for a few years longer, but the imperial city, and her allies, were no longer in danger from his arms; and, after Hannibal's downfall, the great military republic of the ancient world met in her career of conquest no other worthy competitor. Byron has termed Nero's march "unequalled," and, in the magnitude of its consequences, it is so. Viewed only as a military exploit, it remains unparalleled save by Marlborough's bold march from Flanders to the Danube, in the campaign of Blenheim, and perhaps also by the Archduke Charles's lateral march in 1796, by which he overwhelmed the French under Jourdain, and then, driving Moreau through the Black Forest and across the Rhine, for a while freed Germany from her invaders.