In the battle the men on each side were fighting on equal terms, when Hannibal ordered his elephants to be brought into the front rank and to attack the Roman lines.  Great tumult and disturbance was produced by this, but one of the tribunes, by name Flavius, seizing a standard, stood his ground, and struck the first elephant with the spiked end of the staff, till he forced him to turn back.  He then attacked the next one, and those that followed.  Marcellus, seeing this, ordered his cavalry to ride as fast as they could to the scene of the confusion and complete the rout of the enemy.  They charged briskly and pursued the flying Carthaginians, cutting them down up to their very camp.  Great havoc was wrought by the wounded elephants among them; and in all, over eight thousand are said to have perished.  Of the Roman force three thousand were killed, and almost all the survivors were wounded, which circumstance enabled Hannibal to leave his camp by night unmolested, and remove himself from the neighbourhood of Marcellus; for Marcellus could not pursue, because of the number of wounded, but marched in a leisurely manner towards Campania, and passed the summer at Sinuessa, recruiting the health of his soldiers.

XXVII.  Hannibal, after he had thus torn himself free from Marcellus, sent his army to plunder Italy as recklessly as though it were disbanded; and in Rome Marcellus was ill spoken of.  His enemies induced Publius Bibulus, a clever and violent partisan, to attack him.  This man frequently addressed assemblies of the people and urged them to transfer the command to another general, since “Marcellus,” he said, “after a little sparring with the enemy had gone to the hot baths to refresh himself as if after a gymnastic contest.”  Marcellus, hearing of this, left the army in charge of his legates, and went to Rome to clear his reputation from these slanders; but, in consequence of them he found that he was to undergo a trial.  A day was fixed; the people assembled in the Circus Flaminius; Bibulus rose and impeached him.  Marcellus spoke shortly and simply in his own defence, but the highest and noblest citizens spoke at great length in his praise, calling on the people not to show themselves by their vote worse judges of war than Hannibal, who was always as eager to avoid fighting with Marcellus, as he was to fight with other generals.  After these speeches had been delivered the accuser was proved to be so far wrong in his impeachment, that Marcellus was not only honourably acquitted, but actually elected consul for the fifth time.

XXVIII.  On assuming his office, he first put down an insurrectionary movement in Etruria, by visiting the various towns and using conciliatory language; after this, he wished to consecrate a temple, which he had built out of the spoils of Sicily, to Glory and Valour, but being prevented by the priests on the ground that two gods could not be included in one temple, he began to build another one, being very