Rome After the Defeat of Cannae

After the defeat at Cannae, Roman commanders reverted to avoiding battle with Hannibal’s army, while harassing it and limiting its freedom of movement. At the same time, other Roman armies attacked disloyal cities and allies, too many in number for Hannibal to protect. In Sicily, Marcus Claudius Marcellus captured Syracuse in 213. Two years later, Capua fell, and the Roman commander then ordered the executions of the city’s leading citizens and sold much of the population into slavery. In 209, the Romans recaptured Tarentum too, sacked it, and enslaved its inhabitants. After this date, Hannibal and his depleted army were more or less confined to Bruttium in the extreme south of Italy.
In the midst of the war in Italy, Roman magistrates and the senate searched for signs of divine disfavor and for ways to bring better fortune to Rome. Livy’s history of these years is full of reports of freak storms and uncanny events in which the gods revealed their displeasure with Rome. In response, the Romans took great care to perform the traditional rites flawlessly, while increasing their scale and grandeur. Should this approach fail to appease the gods, they also made elaborate vows which promised unprecedented sacrifices in the event of Roman victory. In addition, officials and the senate sought to introduce new gods to the city and gain their protection. In 205, after a series of distressing portents, the senate consulted Roman priests and the Greek oracle at Delphi. Both recommended bringing the Great Mother (Magna Mater) from her sanctuary in Asia Minor to Rome. So, in the following year, the goddess’ cult image a black meteorite and some of her priests arrived in the city. However, the senate seems not to have realized what her worship entailed. The cult of the Magna Mater centered on self castrated priests, ecstatic rites, and wild singing and dancing. After its introduction, shocked Roman officials would act to isolate these priests from Roman citizens, and would enact laws preventing citizens from participating in the more disturbing forms of the cult. The war in Spain proved decisive. The Carthaginians had never gained a firm grip on most of Spain. Their power rested on the Phoenician and Punic colonies along the coasts and in the valley of the Baetis River (modern Guadalquivir), a region of towns and villages where they and their Phoenician predecessors had long been active. In the years before the outbreak of the war, Carthaginian commanders had expanded their influence northward along the narrow plain between the coast and the eastern edge of the great central.After the senate had passed these resolutions, the praetor consulted the college of pontifices, and Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, the pontifex maximus, gave his opinion that first of all the people should vote on the question of a “sacred spring,” since this could not be vowed against the wishes of the people.

The question was put to them thus: “Do you wish and instruct that this action be carried out as follows? If the Roman Republic and its people are preserved for the next five years in these wars that is, the Roman people’s war with the Carthaginian people, and the wars with the Gauls on this side of the Alpslet the Roman people offer as a sacrifice to Jupiter what the spring produces from the flocks of pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, whatever is not already consecrated, starting from the day determined by the senate and people.

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