sometimes prosperous, sometimes adverse, which occupied men's
thoughts, not even the citadel of Tarentum was forgotten. Marcus
Ogulnius and Publius Aquillius went into Etruria as commissioners to
buy up corn to be conveyed to Tarentum; and one thousand men out of
the city troops, an equal number of Romans and allies, were sent to
the same place, together with the corn, for its protection.

4. The summer was now on the close, and the time for the election of
consuls drew nigh; but a letter from Marcellus, in which he stated,
that it would not be for the interest of the state that he should
depart a single step from Hannibal, whom he was severely pressing
while retreating before him and evading an engagement, had excited
anxiety, lest they must either recall the consul from the war at that
time when he was most actively employed, or consuls should not be
appointed for the year. The best course appeared to be to recall in
preference the consul Valerius from Sicily, although he was out of
Italy. A letter was sent to him by Lucius Manlius, the city praetor,
by order of the senate, together with the letter of Marcus Marcellus,
the consul, that he might learn from it what reason the senate had for
recalling him from his province rather than his colleague. Much about
this time ambassadors came to Rome from king Syphax with accounts of
the successful battles which he had fought with the Carthaginians.
They assured the senate that there was no people to whom the king
was more hostile than the Carthaginians, and none to whom he was
more friendly than the Romans. They said, that "he had before sent
ambassadors into Spain, to Cneius and Publius Cornelius, the Roman
generals, but that he was now desirous to solicit the friendship of
the Romans, as it were, from the fountain-head itself." The senate not
only returned a gracious answer to the ambassadors, but also sent
as ambassadors to the king, with presents, Lucius Genucius, Publius