The consul brought the message with him; it was the head of Hannibal's brother, which the Roman ordered to be thrown into the enemy's outposts, repaying in this way his great antagonist, who scorned to war with the dead, for the honourable burial which he had given to Paullus, Gracchus, and Marcellus.

Hannibal saw that his hopes had been in vain, and that all was over.

He abandoned Apulia and Lucania, even Metapontum, and retired with his troops to the land of the Bruttians, whose ports formed his only means of withdrawal from Italy.

By the energy of the Roman generals, and still more by a conjuncture of unexampled good fortune, a peril was averted from Rome, the greatness of which justified Hannibal's tenacious perseverance in Italy, and which fully bears comparison with the magnitude of the peril of Cannae.

The joy in Rome was boundless; business was resumed as in time of peace; every one felt that the danger of the war was surmounted.
Stagnation of the War in Italy Nevertheless the Romans were in no hurry to terminate the war.