While engaged in an unimportant reconnaissance in the district of Venusia, both consuls were suddenly attacked by a division of African cavalry.

Marcellus maintained the unequal struggle--as he had fought forty years before against Hamilcar and fourteen years before at Clastidium--till he sank dying from his horse; Crispinus escaped, but died of his wounds received in the conflict (546).
Pressure of the War It was now the eleventh year of the war.

The danger which some years before had threatened the very existence of the state seemed to have vanished; but all the more the Romans felt the heavy burden--a burden pressing more severely year after year--of the endless war.

The finances of the state suffered beyond measure.

After the battle of Cannae (538) a special bank-commission (-tres viri mensarii-) had been appointed, composed of men held in the highest esteem, to form a permanent and circumspect board of superintendence for the public finances in these difficult times.