1When Hannibal saw that the Romans had been stirred rashly rather than carried away to the extreme of recklessness, he returned to camp, his trick having been uncovered to no purpose. 2There he could not stay many days for lack of grain, and new plans arose day by day not only among the soldiers, mixed as they were from the dregs of all nations, but even with the general himself. 3For when there had been first muttering, then open clamour from men demanding the pay that was owed them and complaining first of the price of corn, at last of hunger, and there was a rumour that the mercenaries, chiefly those of Spanish race, had formed a plan to desert, Hannibal himself too is said at times to have considered flight into Gaul, in such a way that he would leave all his infantry behind and dash off with the cavalry.
5Since these were the plans and this the state of feeling in the camp, he decided to move from there to the warmer parts of Apulia, and therefore earlier for harvests, and also because the farther he withdrew from the enemy, the harder desertion would be for fickle minds. 6He set out by night, after lighting fires in the same way and leaving a few tents for show, so that a fear of ambush equal to the earlier one might hold the Romans back. 7But when, after everything beyond the camp and across the mountains had been reconnoitred through the same Lucanian, Statilius, it was reported that the enemy column had been seen far off, then plans for pursuing it began to be discussed.
8Though each consul held the same opinion he had always held before, and almost everyone agreed with Varro, no one with Paulus except Servilius, the consul of the previous year, they set out on the view of the majority, with fate pressing them on, to make Cannae famous for a Roman disaster. 10Near this village Hannibal had pitched his camp with its back to the Volturnus, a wind which carries clouds of dust across plains parched with drought. 11This was very convenient for the camp itself, and was going to be especially beneficial when they drew up their battle line, since they themselves would have it behind them, the wind blowing only on their backs, and would be fighting an enemy blinded by the dust driven into his face.