at by what was done.  The dictator appeared before the people and publicly vowed to the gods a ver sacrum, that is, all the young which the next spring should produce, from the goats, the sheep, and the kine on every mountain, and plain, and river, and pasture within the bounds of Italy.  All these he swore that he would sacrifice, and moreover that he would exhibit musical and dramatic shows, and expend upon them the sum of three hundred and thirty-three sestertia, and three hundred and thirty-three denarii, and one-third of a denarius.  The sum total of this in our Greek money is eighty-three thousand five hundred and eighty-three drachmas and two obols.  What the particular virtue of this exact number may be it is hard to determine, unless it be on account of the value of the number three, which is by nature perfect, and the first of odd numbers, the first also of plurals, and containing within itself all the elements of the qualities of number.

[Footnote A:  Liv., xxii. 8, sq.]

V. Fabius, by teaching the people to rest their hopes on religion, made them view the future with a more cheerful heart.  For his own part, he trusted entirely to himself to win the victory, believing that Heaven grants men success according to the valour and conduct which they display.  He marched against Hannibal, not with any design of fighting him, but of wearing out his army by long delays, until he could, by his superior numbers and resources, deal with him easily.  With this object in view he always took care to secure himself from Hannibal’s cavalry, by occupying the mountains overhanging the Carthaginian camp, where he remained quiet as long as the enemy did, but when they moved he used to accompany them, showing himself at intervals upon the heights at such a distance as not to be forced to fight against his will, and yet, from the very slowness of his movements, making the enemy fear that at every moment he was about to attack.  By these dilatory manoeuvres he incurred general contempt, and was looked upon with disgust by his own soldiers, while the enemy, with the exception of one man, thought him utterly without warlike enterprise.  That man was Hannibal himself.  He alone perceived Fabius’s true generalship and thorough comprehension of the war, and saw that either he must by some means be brought to fight a battle, or else the Carthaginians were lost, if they could not make use of their superiority in arms, but were to be worn away and reduced in number and resources, in which they were already deficient.  He put in force every conceivable military stratagem and device, like a skilful wrestler when he tries to lay hold of his antagonist, and kept attacking Fabius, skirmishing round him, and drawing him from place to place, in his endeavours to make him quit his policy of caution.  But Fabius was convinced that he was right, and steadily declined battle.  His master of the horse, Minucius, who longed for