1Hannibal came by a direct route through Umbria as far as Spoletium. 2Then, having thoroughly ravaged the countryside and begun to attack the town, he was driven back with great slaughter of his men, and guessing from the strength of a single colony, unsuccessfully attempted, how great a mass the city of Rome was, he turned his march aside into the Picene territory, which abounded not only in a supply of every 3kind of crop but was packed with plunder, which the men, greedy and in want, seized without restraint. 4There a standing camp was kept for several days, and the soldiers, worn out by winter marches, the road through the marshes, and a battle more successful in its outcome than light or easy, were refreshed.
5When enough rest had been given to men who delighted in plunder and pillage rather than in leisure or repose, he set out and ravages the territories of Praetutia and Hadria, then the Marsi, the Marrucini and the Paeligni, and the nearest part of Apulia around Arpi and Luceria. 6The consul Gnaeus Servilius, having fought minor engagements with the Gauls and stormed one obscure town, after he heard of the slaughter of his colleague and his army, now fearing for the walls of his fatherland, so as not to be absent in the final crisis, directed his march towards the city. 7Quintus Fabius Maximus, dictator for the second time, called the senate on the day he entered office, and beginning with the gods, when he had shown the fathers that the consul Gaius Flaminius had erred more through neglect of ceremonies and auspices than through rashness and ignorance, and that the gods themselves must be consulted as to what expiations there were for the gods' anger, he prevailed on them to have the decemvirs ordered to consult the Sibylline books, a thing not usually decreed except when hideous prodigies have been reported.
9Having inspected the books of fate, they reported to the fathers that the vow which had been made to Mars on account of this war had not been duly performed and must be performed afresh and on a larger scale; that great games must be vowed to Jupiter and temples to Venus Erycina and to Mens; that a supplication and lectisternium must be held; and that a sacred spring must be vowed, if the war went well and the republic remained in the same condition as it had been before the war. 11The senate, since the conduct of the war would occupy Fabius, orders the praetor Marcus Aemilius to see that all these things are done promptly, in accordance with the opinion of the college of pontiffs.