He was transported with joy "that he had conquered with that part of the forces with which the other consul had been defeated; that the spirits of the soldiers were restored and revived; that there was no one, except his colleague, who would wish an engagement delayed; and that he, suffering more from disease of mind than body, shuddered, through recollection of his wound, at arms and battle.

But others ought not to sink into decrepitude together with a sick man.

For why should there be any longer protraction or waste of time?
What third consul, what other army did they wait for?
The camp of the Carthaginians was in Italy, and almost in sight of the city.

It was not Sicily and Sardinia, which had been taken from them when vanquished, nor Spain on this side of the Iberus, that was their object, but that the Romans should be driven from the land of their fathers, and the soil in which they were born.

How deeply," he continued, "would our fathers groan, who were wont to wage war around the walls of Carthage, if they should see us their offspring, two consuls and two consular armies, trembling within our camps in the heart of Italy, while a Carthaginian had made himself master of all the country between the Alps and the Apennine!" Such discourses did he hold while sitting beside his sick colleague, and also at the head-quarters, almost in the manner of an harangue.