The Romans, though not braver than the Greeks, were more fortunate in their military career than the stayers of the march of Persia.  Like the Greeks, they had but few young generals of much reputation.  Most of their conquests, and, indeed, the salvation of their country, were the work of old leaders.  The grand crisis of Rome was in the years that followed the arrival of Hannibal in Italy; and the two men who did most to baffle the invader were Fabius and Marcellus, who were called, respectively, Rome’s shield and sword.  They were both old men, though Marcellus may have been looked upon as young in comparison with Fabius, who was upward of seventy, and who, eight years after his memorable pro-dictatorship, retook Tarentum and baffled Hannibal.  The old Lingerer was, at eighty, too clever, slow as they thought him at Rome, to be “taken in” by Hannibal, who had prepared a nice trap for him, into which he would not walk.  Marcellus was about fifty-two when he was pitted against the victor of Cannae, and he met him on various occasions, and sometimes with striking success.  At the age of fifty-six he took Syracuse, after one of the most memorable of sieges, in which he had Archimedes for an opponent.  At sixty he was killed in a skirmish, leaving the most brilliant military name of the republican times, so highly are valor and energy rated, though in the higher qualities of generalship he was inferior to men whose names are hardly known.  Undoubtedly, Mommsen is right when he says that Rome was saved by the Roman system, and not by the labors of this man or that; but it is something for a country to have men who know how to work under its system, and in accordance with its requirements; and such men were Fabius and Marcellus, the latter old enough to be Hannibal’s father, while the former was the contemporary of his grandfather.

The turning point in the Second Punic War was the siege of Capua by the Romans.  That siege Hannibal sought by all means in his power to raise, well knowing, that, if the Campanian city should fall, he could never hope to become master of Italy.  He marched to Rome in the expectation of compelling the besiegers to hasten to its defence; but without effect.  Two old Romans commanded the beleaguering army, and while one of them, Q. Fulvius, hastened home with a small force, the other, Appius Claudius, carried on the siege.  Hannibal had to retreat, and Capua fell, the effect of the tenacity with which ancient generals held on to their prey.  Had they been less firm, the course of history would have been changed.  At a later period of the war, Rome was saved from great danger, if not from destruction, by the victory of the Metaurus, won by M. Livius Salinator and C. Claudius Nero.  Nero was an elderly man, having been conspicuous for some years, and the consular age being forty.  His colleague was a very old man, having been consul before the war began, and having long lived in retirement, because he had been unjustly treated.  The Romans