were posted in the citadel, in the Capitol, upon the walls around the city, and also on the Alban mount, and the fort of Aesula.  During this confusion, intelligence was brought that Quintus Fulvius, the proconsul, had set out from Capua with an army; when the senate decreed that Quintus Fulvius should have equal authority with the consuls, lest on entering the city his power should cease.  Hannibal, having most destructively ravaged the Fregellan territory, on account of the bridge having been broken down, came into the territory of the Lavici, passing through those of Frusino, Ferentinum, and Anagnia; thence passing through Algidum he directed his course to Tusculum; but not being received within the walls, he went down to the right below Tusculum to Gabii; and marching his army down thence into the territory of the Pupinian tribe, he pitched his camp eight miles from the city.  The nearer the enemy came, the greater was the number of fugitives slain by the Numidians who preceded him, and the greater the number of prisoners made of every rank and age.

10.  During this confusion, Fulvius Flaccus entered the city with his troops through the Capuan gate, passed through the midst of the city, and through Carinae, to Esquiliae; and going out thence, pitched his camp between the Esquiline and Colline gates.  The plebeian aediles brought a supply of provisions there.  The consuls and the senate came to the camp, and a consultation was held on the state of the republic.  It was resolved that the consuls should encamp in the neighbourhood of the Colline and Esquiline gates; that Caius Calpurnius, the city praetor, should have the command of the Capitol and the citadel; and that a full senate should be continually assembled in the forum, in case it should be necessary to consult them amidst such sudden emergencies.  Meanwhile, Hannibal advanced his camp to the Anio, three miles from the city, and fixing his position there, he advanced with two thousand horse from the Colline gate as far as the temple of Hercules, and riding up, took as near a view as he could of the walls and site of the city.  Flaccus, indignant that he should do this so freely, and so much at his ease, sent out a party of cavalry, with orders to displace and drive back to their camp the cavalry of the enemy.  After the fight had begun, the consuls ordered the Numidian deserters who were on the Aventine, to the number of twelve hundred, to march through the midst of the city to the Esquiliae, judging that no troops were better calculated to fight among the hollows, the garden walls, and tombs, or in the enclosed roads which were on all sides.  But some persons, seeing them from the citadel and Capitol as they filed off on horseback down the Publician hill, cried out that the Aventine was taken.  This circumstance occasioned such confusion and terror, that if the Carthaginian camp had not been without the city, the whole multitude, such was their alarm, would have rushed out.