As Hannibal, who gained one and lost the other of the two battles which he fought the preceding year with Marcellus, would have equal grounds for hope and fear, should he encounter the same general again; so was he far from thinking himself a match for the two consuls together.

Directing his attention, therefore, wholly to his own peculiar arts, he looked out for an opportunity for planting an ambuscade.

Slight battles, however, were fought between the two camps with varying success.

But the consuls, thinking it probable that the summer would be spun out in engagements of this kind, and being of opinion that the siege of Locri might be going on notwithstanding, wrote to Lucius Cincius to pass over to Locri with his fleet from Sicily.

And that the walls might be besieged by land also, they ordered one half of the army, which formed the garrison of Tarentum, to be marched thither.