The senate also took measures, at the instance of Quintus Fabius Maximus, to effect a reconciliation between them.

For the enmity between them was notorious; and in the case of Livius his misfortunes rendered it more inveterate and acrimonious, as he considered that in that situation he had been treated with contempt.

He was, therefore, the more inexorable, and said, "that there was no need of a reconciliation, for that they would use greater diligence and activity in every thing they did for fear lest they should give their colleague, who was an enemy, an opportunity of advancing himself at their expense." However, the authority of the senate prevailed; and, laying aside their private differences, they conducted the affairs of the state in friendship and unanimity.

Their provinces were not districts bordering upon each other, as in former years, but quite separate, in the remotest confines of Italy.

To one was decreed Bruttium and Lucania, to act against Hannibal; to the other Gaul, to act against Hasdrubal, who, it was reported, was now approaching the Alps; and that he to whose lot Gaul fell should choose whichever he pleased of the two armies, one of which was in Gaul, the other in Etruria, and receive the city legions in addition; and that he to whose lot Bruttium fell, should, after enlisting fresh legions for the city, take the army of whichever of the consuls of the former year he pleased.