Chapter XXXIV: Book VIII: forms a prelude to the battle of Cannae, as related in the two

following books. The unreal device of Juno’s despatch of the nymph Anna to encourage Hannibal leads us back to the Dido story for a time.[1338] Then the narrative is resumed. The consuls have been changed, and Aemilius Paulus dreads the abyss to which the arrogance of his colleague Varro may lead. His arguments are stated in the debating manner of the schools,[1339] making brief ironical points one after another—“the impetuous consul fears that he might leave Rome’s ruin for another man’s consulate; it might be well to summon a consul from Carthage, for even a Carthaginian would not be so dangerous!” The catalogue of Italian warriors, extending to over 260 lines, gives a chance of introducing famous names. There is, for example, a Tullius, descended from King Tullus, and destined, as ancestor of Cicero, to give in later days a noble citizen to Ausonia: next follows a eulogy on the orator:

Beyond the Ganges heard and furthest Ind,
His voice will fill the earth, and frenzied war
Will bow before his lightning tongue, nor can
Descendants hope for equal fame in speech.[1340]

So too there is a Scaevola, a Sulla, Nero the Sabine, a Piso, a Galba, a Brutus and others. Among the men of North Italy those are not forgotten who come from Virgil’s birthplace,

The home of Muses, Mantua, upraised
By song Aonian to the stars, and peer
Of Homer’s minstrelsy.[1341]

In the description of the battle of Cannae, Silius’s aim is not historical accuracy, but epic embellishment. His true model, therefore, is not such brief narratives as those in Polybius (III. 115-116) or Livy (XXII. 47-49), but the manner of the _Iliad_ and the _Aeneid_, so that the account is expanded to fill nearly two books, IX and X; and is diversified by similes, divine interferences, Homeric slaughter, and episodes like the unwitting slaying of a father by a son. Though it be mythological, there is a grim suggestiveness in Charon’s rejoicing in the expectation of receiving the dead:

Glad on the pallid mere the Ferryman
Now cleared the thwarts for ghosts that were to come;[1342]

and the poet has a conception of Roman greatness in adversity:

Would that hereafter, Roman, thou mayst face
Fair fortune nobly as thou didst defeat.
Be this thy last disaster! May Heaven consent
Never to try if Trojan progeny
Can bear a war so dread! I pray thee, Rome,
That tremblest for thy destiny, to dry
Thy tears and to adore thy wounds that must
Bring thee renown unto eternity.
Greater at no time shalt thou ever be:
For soon the slippery pathway of success
Shall make thee hold misfortune but a name.[1343]

There is nobility in Hannibal’s character as drawn by Silius, when he decrees funeral honours to the fallen consul, Paulus, and muses over his body:

How great thou liest in death! For me thou art
More cause of triumph than those thousands slain.
When fate shall call, such death be Hannibal’s,
If Carthage be but safe;[1344]

and, later, in his address of almost envious farewell:

Go, glory of Ausonia, where needs
Must go the souls for valiant action crowned.
Thy fame is won by death illustrious.
For me, my toils are yet in Fortune’s hands:
I may not know the hazards that shall be.[1345]

The sorrow-stricken capital is again saved by Fabius, who wins a nation’s gratitude because he did not despair of the republic, though Silius unhappily uses the stilted expression, “he did not despair for the city of Laomedon’s descendants.”[1346] Indeed some twenty lines towards the close of the tenth book are full of indirect and far-fetched expressions.

Book XI brings Hannibal to Capua, where luxury begins its demoralizing work. The banquet has an obvious Virgilian basis. At Carthage the news of victory and the heap of rings from the fallen Romans fail to induce Hanno to join in the general plaudits for Hannibal. Instead, he advocates making terms with Rome, pleads war-weariness, and extols peace:

Peace is the best of blessings given to men
To know: and Peace alone is better than
Uncounted triumphs: Peace hath power to keep
Our safety and make equal citizens.

In Book XII, with the coming of spring, Hannibal stirs forth from Capua, like a serpent after hibernating. Henceforward his luck wanes, for the Romans win their first victory in the war. Among those celebrated for bravery is Ennius, whose poetry is eulogized. Hannibal appears outside Rome and rides round the walls to reconnoitre; but Jupiter checks his plans by raising storm after storm. It is a ludicrous see-saw of good and bad weather.