in particular the bestowal and prolongation of the command, should have been at once left to the only authority which was in a position to undertake it—­the senate—­and there should have been reserved for the comitia the mere formality of confirmation.  The brilliant successes of the Scipios in the difficult arena of Spanish warfare showed what might in this way be achieved.  But political demagogism, which was already gnawing at the aristocratic foundations of the constitution, had seized on the management of the Italian war.  The absurd accusation, that the nobles were conspiring with the enemy without, had made an impression on the “people.”  The saviours to whom political superstition looked for deliverance, Gaius Flaminius and Gaius Varro, both “new men” and friends of the people of the purest dye, had accordingly been empowered by the multitude itself to execute the plans of operations which, amidst the approbation of that multitude, they had unfolded in the Forum; and the results were the battles on the Trasimene lake and at Cannae.  Duty required that the senate, which now of course understood its task better than when it recalled half the army of Regulus from Africa, should take into its hands the management of affairs, and should oppose such mischievous proceedings; but when the first of those two defeats had for the moment placed the rudder in its hands, it too had hardly acted in a manner unbiassed by the interests of party.  Little as Quintus Fabius may be compared with these Roman Cleons, he had yet conducted the war not as a mere military leader, but had adhered to his rigid attitude of defence specially as the political opponent of Gaius Flaminius; and in the treatment of the quarrel with his subordinate, had done what he could to exasperate at a time when unity was needed.  The consequence was, first, that the most important instrument which the wisdom of their ancestors had placed in the hands of the senate just for such cases—­the dictatorship—­broke down in his hands; and, secondly—­at least indirectly—­the battle of Cannae.  But the headlong fall of the Roman power was owing not to the fault of Quintus Fabius or Gaius Varro, but to the distrust between the government and the governed—­to the variance between the senate and the burgesses.  If the deliverance and revival of the state were still possible, the work had to begin at home with the re-establishment of unity and of confidence.  To have perceived this and, what is of more importance, to have done it, and done it with an abstinence from all recriminations however just, constitutes the glorious and imperishable honour of the Roman senate.  When Varro—­alone of all the generals who had command in the battle —­returned to Rome, and the Roman senators met him at the gate and thanked him that he had not despaired of the salvation of his country, this was no empty phraseology veiling the disaster under sounding words, nor was it bitter mockery over a poor wretch; it was the conclusion