_Cneius Fulvius, proconsul, defeated by Hannibal and slain;
the consul, Claudius Marcellus, engages him with better
success. Hannibal, raising his camp, retires; Marcellus
pursues, and forces him to an engagement. They fight twice; in
the first battle, Hannibal gains the advantage; in the second,
Marcellus. Tarentum betrayed to Fabius Maximus, the consul.
Scipio engages with Hasdrubal, the son of Hamilcar, at
Baetula, in Spain, and defeats him. Among other prisoners, a
youth of royal race and exquisite beauty is taken; Scipio sets
him free, and sends him, enriched with magnificent presents,
to his uncle Masinissa. Marcellus and Quintus Crispinus,
consuls, drawn into an ambuscade by Hannibal; Marcellus is
slain, Crispinus escapes. Operations by Publius Sulpicius,
praetor, against Philip and the Achaeans. A census held;
the number of citizens found to amount to one hundred and
thirty-seven thousand one hundred and eight: from which it
appears how great a loss they had sustained by the number
of unsuccessful battles they had of late been engaged in.
Hasdrubal, who had crossed the Alps with a reinforcement for
Hannibal, defeated by the consuls, Marcus Livius and Claudius
Nero, and slain; with him fell fifty-six thousand men_.


1. Such was the state of affairs in Spain. In Italy, the consul
Marcellus, after regaining Salapia, which was betrayed into his hands,
took Maronea and Meles from the Samnites by force. As many as three
thousand of the soldiers of Hannibal, which were left as a garrison,
were here surprised and overpowered. The booty, and there was a
considerable quantity of it, was given up to the troops. Also, two
hundred and forty thousand pecks of wheat, with a hundred and ten