It has well been said that the greatest masters of the art of
war, from Scipio to Napoleon, have concurred in homage to his genius.
The other hero, and the successful one, in the great struggle, was
Publius Cornelius Scipio, who was born in that year when the temple of
Janus was closed, of a family that for a series of generations had been
noted in Roman history, and was to continue illustrious for generations
to come.
Another among the many men of note who came into prominence during the
second war with Carthage was Quintus Fabius Maximus, a descendant of
that Rullus who in the Sabine wars brought the names Fabius and Maximus
into prominence. His life is given by Plutarch under the name Fabius,
and he is remembered as the originator of the policy of delay in war,
as our dictionaries tell us, because his plan was to worry his enemy,
rather than risk a pitched battle with him. On this account the Romans
called him _Cunctator_, which meant delayer, or one who is slow
though safe, not rash. He was called also _Ovicula_, or the lamb,
on account of his mild temper, and _Verrucosus_, because he had a
wart on his upper lip (_Verruca_, a wart).
The second Punic war was not so much a struggle between Carthage and
Rome, as a war entered into by Hannibal and carried on by him against
the Roman republic in spite of the opposition of his own people; and
this fact makes the strength of his character appear in the strongest
light.
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