text:  What then must have been the capacity of the general who could still the jealousies and overcome the animosities and give unity to the operations of a vast army composed of so many different tribes and people and mould them all into so perfect a form that for fifteen years that he remained in Italy after the first great defeats the consuls never once ventured to measure their strength with him in a pitched battle? If there is any thing more astonishing than another in the history of the Roman Republic it is the unconquerable spirit the persevering energy the invincible determination with which under every calamity and often in the very extremity of adverse fortune they combined to struggle for the superiority and at length attained it--not so much by conquering as by wearing out their adversaries