1The dictator, having taken over the consul's army from the legate Fulvius Flaccus, came through the Sabine country to Tibur, where he had proclaimed a day for the new soldiers to assemble. 2From there he went to Praeneste and by cross-roads came out onto the Latin Way, from which, having reconnoitred the routes with the greatest care, he leads towards the enemy, intending to commit himself to fortune nowhere except so far as necessity compelled. 3On the first day that he pitched camp in sight of the enemy, not far from Arpi, the Carthaginian made no delay in leading out his men into battle line and offering a chance to fight.
4But when he sees everything quiet among the enemy and their camp stirred by no commotion, taunting them indeed that the martial spirit of the Romans had at last been conquered, that the war was over and they had openly yielded the prize of valour and glory, he returned to his camp; 5but a silent anxiety came over his mind, that he would have to deal with a general in no way like Flaminius and Sempronius, and that the Romans, schooled at last by their misfortunes, had sought out a general equal to Hannibal. 6And the dictator's prudence, indeed, he feared at once; 6not yet having put his firmness to the test, he began to provoke and try his temper by frequently moving camp and ravaging the allies' lands before his eyes; 7and at one moment he would move out of sight with a rapid march, at another he would suddenly halt, hidden, at some bend of the road, in case he could catch him once he had come down onto level ground.
8Fabius led his column over high ground at a moderate distance from the enemy, so as neither to let him go nor to engage him. 8The soldiers were kept in camp except so far as necessary needs compelled; 8fodder and wood they sought neither in small parties nor scattered about; 9an outpost of cavalry and light infantry, organised and ready for sudden alarms, made everything safe for their own soldiers and dangerous for enemy plunderers who had scattered; 10the whole fortune of the war was not staked on a general engagement, and the small successes of light skirmishes, begun from a safe position with a retreat close at hand, were accustoming the soldiers, terrified by earlier disasters, at last to think less poorly now of either their courage or their fortune.
11But he found Hannibal no more hostile to such sound counsels than the master of the horse, who had nothing to hold him back from plunging the state into ruin except that he was subordinate in command. 11Headstrong and hasty in his counsels and unrestrained in his tongue, first among a few, then openly before the crowd, he called him sluggish instead of deliberate, timid instead of cautious, attaching to him the vices that border on virtues; and by running down his superior — the worst of arts, which has grown through the too prosperous success of many — he was exalting himself.