a war.  For this reason, notwithstanding a just resentment irritated them, they determined that Gaul should be passed over for that year.  The dictator’s army was assigned to the consul; and they ordered such of the troops of Marcellus’s army as had fled from Cannae, to be transported into Sicily, to serve there as long as the war continued in Italy.  Thither, likewise, were ordered to be sent as unfit to serve with him, the weakest of the dictator’s troops, no time of service being appointed, but the legal number of campaigns.  The two legions in the city were voted to the other consul who should be elected in the room of Posthumius; and they resolved that he should be elected as soon as the auspices would permit.  Besides, two legions were immediately to be recalled from Sicily, out of which the consul, to whom the city legions fell, might take what number of men he should have occasion for.  The consul Caius Terentius Varro was continued in his command for one year, without lessening the army he had for the defence of Apulia.

26.  During these transactions and preparations in Italy, the war in Spain was prosecuted with no less vigour; but hitherto more favourably to the Romans.  The two generals had divided their troops, so that Cneius acted by land, and Publius by sea.  Hasdrubal, general of the Carthaginians, sufficiently trusting to neither branch of his forces, kept himself at a distance from the enemy, secured by the intervening space and the strength of his fortifications, until, after much solicitation, four thousand foot and five hundred horse were sent him out of Africa as a reinforcement.  At length, inspired with fresh hopes, he moved nearer the enemy; and himself also ordered a fleet to be equipped and prepared for the protection of the islands and sea-coasts.  In the very onset of renewing the war, he was greatly embarrassed by the desertion of the captains of his ships, who had ceased to entertain a sincere attachment towards the general and the Carthaginian cause, ever since they were severely reprimanded for abandoning the fleet in a cowardly manner at the Iberus.  These deserters had raised an insurrection among the Tartessians, and at their instigation some cities had revolted; they had even taken one by force.  The war was now turned from the Romans into that country, which he entered in a hostile manner, and resolved to attack Galbus, a distinguished general of the Tartessians, who with a powerful army kept close within his camp, before the walls of a city which had been captured but a few days before.  Accordingly, he sent his light-armed troops in advance to provoke the enemy to battle, and part of his infantry to ravage the country throughout in every direction, and to cut off stragglers.  There was a skirmish before the camp, at the same time that many were killed and put to flight in the fields.  But having by different routes returned to their camp, they so quickly shook off all fear, that they had courage not only to defend