29. When Crispinus found that Hannibal had gone into Bruttium, he ordered Marcus Marcellus, a military tribune, to march the army, which his colleague had commanded, to Venusia. Having set out himself with his own legions for Capua, though scarcely able to endure the motion of the litter, from the severity of his wounds, he sent a letter to Rome stating the death of his colleague, and in how great danger he himself was. He said, "it was impossible for him to go to Rome to hold the election, both because he did not think he could bear the fatigue of the journey, and because he was anxious about Tarentum, lest Hannibal should direct his course thither from Bruttium. That it was expedient that commissioners should be sent to him, men of sound judgment, with whom he might communicate, when he pleased, respecting the commonwealth." The reading of this letter excited great grief for the death of one of the consuls, and apprehension for the safety of the other. They therefore sent Quintus Fabius the younger to Venusia to the army; and to the consul three commissioners, Sextus Julius Caesar, Lucius Licinius Pollio, and Lucius Cincius Alimentus, though but a few days before he had returned from Sicily. These were directed to convey a message to the consul, to the effect, that if he could not himself go to Rome to hold the election, he should nominate a dictator within the Roman territory for that purpose. If the consul should have gone to Tarentum, that it was the pleasure of the senate that Marcus Claudius, the praetor, should march off his legions to that quarter in which he could protect the greatest number of the cities of the allies. The same summer Marcus Valerius crossed over from Sicily into Africa with a fleet of a hundred ships, and making a descent near the city Clupea, devastated the country to a wide extent, scarcely meeting with a single person in arms. Afterwards the troops employed in making these depredations were hastily led back to their ships, and a report had suddenly reached them that a Carthaginian fleet was drawing near. It consisted of eighty-three ships. With these the Romans fought successfully, not far from the city Clupea, and after taking eighteen and putting the rest to flight, returned to Lilybaeum with a great deal of booty gained both by land and sea. The same summer also Philip gave assistance to the suppliant Achaeans. They were harassed by Machanidas, tyrant of the Lacedaemonians, with a war in their immediate neighbourhood; and the Aetolians, having passed over an army in ships through the strait which runs between Naupactus and Patrae, called by the neighbouring people Rhion, had devastated their country. It was reported also, that Attalus, king of Asia, would pass over into Europe, because the Aetolians, in their last council, had offered to him the office of chief magistrate of their nation.