Hannibal is, there is the head and principal stress of the war, for you profess, that your motive in crossing over into Africa is to draw Hannibal thither.  Whether, therefore, here or there, it is with Hannibal that you will have to contend.  Will you then, I pray, have more power in Africa and alone, or here, with your own and your colleague’s army united?  Is not the great difference which this makes proved to you even by the recent precedent of Claudius and Livius, the consuls?  What! will Hannibal, who has now for a long time been unavailingly soliciting succours from home, be rendered more powerful in men and arms when occupying the remotest corner of the Bruttian territory, or when near to Carthage and supported by all Africa?  What sort of policy is that of yours, to prefer fighting where your own forces will be diminished by one half, and the enemy’s greatly augmented, to encountering the enemy when you will have two armies against one, and that wearied with so many battles, and so protracted and laborious a service?  Consider how far this policy of yours corresponds with that of your parent.  He, setting out in his consulship for Spain, returned from his province into Italy, that he might meet Hannibal on his descent from the Alps; while you are going to leave Italy when Hannibal is there, not because you consider such a course beneficial to the state, but because you think it will redound to your own honour and glory; acting in the same manner as you did when leaving your province and your army without the sanction of a law, without a decree of the senate, you, a general of the Roman people, intrusted to two ships the fortune of the commonwealth and the majesty of the empire, which were then hazarded in your person.  In my estimation, conscript fathers, Publius Cornelius was elected consul for the service of the state and of us, and not to forward his own individual interest; and the armies were enlisted for the protection of the city and of Italy, and not for the consuls, like kings, to carry into whatever part of the world they please from motives of vanity.”

43.  Fabius having made a strong impression on a large portion of the senate, and especially those advanced in years, by this speech, which was adapted to the occasion, and also by his authority and his long-established reputation for prudence; and those who approved of the counsel of this old man being more numerous than those who commended the hot spirit of the young one; Scipio is reported thus to have spoken:  “Even Quintus Fabius himself has observed, conscript fathers, in the commencement of his speech, that in the opinion he gave a feeling of jealousy might be suspected.  And though I dare not myself charge so great a man with harbouring that feeling, yet, whether it is owing to a defect in his language, or to the fact, that suspicion has certainly not been removed.  For he has so magnified his own honours and the fame of his exploits, in order to do away with the imputation of envy, that it would