14.1
After this, Fabius laid down his office, and consuls were again appointed. The first of these maintained the style of warfare which Fabius had ordained. They avoided a pitched battle with Hannibal, but gave aid and succour to their allies, and prevented their falling away. But when Terentius Varro was elevated to the consulship, a man whose birth was obscure and whose life was conspicuous for servile flattery of the people and for rashness, it was clear that in his inexperience and temerity he would stake the entire issue upon the hazard of a single throw.
14.2
For he used to shout in the assemblies that the war would continue as long as the city employed men like Fabius as its generals; but that he himself would conquer the enemy the very day he saw them. And not only did he make such speeches, but he also assembled and enrolled a larger force than the Romans had ever employed against any enemy. Eighty-eight thousand men were arrayed for battle, to the great terror of Fabius and all sensible Romans. For they thought their city could not recover if she lost so many men in the prime of life.
14.3
Now, Paulus Aemilius was the colleague of Terentius, a man of experience in many wars, but not acceptable to the people, and crushed in spirit by a fine which they had imposed upon him. Therefore Fabius tried to rouse and encourage him to restrain the madness of his colleague, showing him that he must struggle to save his country not so much from Hannibal as from Terentius. The latter, he said, was eager to fight because he did not see where his strength lay; the former, because he saw his own weakness.
