51.  The consul having dismissed Hiero with the royal fleet, and left the praetor to defend the coast of Sicily, passed over himself from Lilybaeum to the island Melita, which was held in possession by the Carthaginians.  On his arrival, Hamilcar, the son of Gisgo, the commander of the garrison, with little less than two thousand soldiers, together with the town and the island, are delivered up to him:  thence, after a few days, he returned to Lilybaeum, and the prisoners taken, both by the consul and the praetor, excepting those illustrious for their rank, were publicly sold.  When the consul considered that Sicily was sufficiently safe on that side, he crossed over to the islands of Vulcan, because there was a report that the Carthaginian fleet was stationed there:  but not one of the enemy was discovered about those islands.  They had already, as it happened, passed over to ravage the coast of Italy, and having laid waste the territory of Vibo, were also threatening the city.  The descent made by the enemy on the Vibonensian territory is announced to the consul as he was returning to Sicily:  and letters were delivered to him which had been sent by the senate, about the passage of Hannibal into Italy, commanding him as soon as possible to bring assistance to his colleague.  Perplexed with having so many anxieties at once, he immediately sent his army, embarked in the fleet, by the upper sea to Ariminum; he assigned the defence of the territory of Vibo, and the sea-coast of Italy, to Sextus Pomponius, his lieutenant-general, with twenty-five ships of war:  he made up a fleet of fifty ships for Marcus Aemilius the praetor; and he himself, after the affairs of Sicily were settled, sailing close along the coast of Italy with ten ships, arrived at Ariminum, whence, setting out with his army for the river Trebia, he joined his colleague.

52.  Both the consuls and all the strength of Rome being now opposed to Hannibal, made it sufficiently obvious that the Roman empire could either be defended by those forces, or that there was no other hope left.  Yet the one consul being dispirited by the battle of the cavalry and his own wound, wished operations to be deferred:  the other having his spirits unsubdued, and being therefore the more impetuous, admitted no delay.  The tract of country between the Trebia and the Po was then inhabited by the Gauls, who, in this contest of two very powerful states, by a doubtful neutrality, were evidently looking forward to the favour of the conqueror.  The Romans submitted to this conduct of the Gauls with tolerable satisfaction, provided they did not take any active part at all; but the Carthaginian bore it with great discontent, giving out that he had come invited by the Gauls to set them at liberty.  On account of that resentment, and in order that he might at the same time maintain his troops from the plunder, he ordered two thousand foot and a thousand horse, chiefly Numidians, with some Gauls intermixed, to lay waste all the country