APPENDIX. 209
having lost many of her best and most experi- enced soldiers, remained in panic and great con- fusion: nor could any thing have occurred more Beasonable to them than the command devolving on such a general as Fabius, who, by his extreme caution and moderation, kept the enemy at Lay; nor could any occasion have been more hap- py for such a mode of procedure; and that it was his natural disposition so to act appeared afterwards, when Scipio, being anxious to lead his army into Africa, there to give a decisive and terminating stroke to the war, Fabius strongly opposed and ably argued against it; being unable to change his natural disposition, which was rather to adopt old measures under the difficulties he ex- perienced, than to search out for new ones of whose extent he had no knowledge; but if Fabius had been followed, Hannibal would have conti- nued in Italy; and the reason is obvious:―he did not consider the times were changed, and that the manner of warfare was to be changed with them; and, had Fabius at that time been king of Rome, he must have been overthrown, as not know- ing how to form his counsels according to the changes of the times. But in that commonwealth there were men of great bravery, and experienced commanders of very different habits and humours.; and it so happened, that, as Fabius was always ready in times pregnant with the greatest diffi-
