Second Punic War the middle between the Fabian tactics and the tactics suggested by Varro. In the campaign of 217 BC, Hannibal had failed to obtain a following among the Italics. In the spring of 216 BC, he took the initiative and seized the large supply depot at Cannae in the Apulian plain. The Roman Senate authorized the raising of double-sized armies by the consuls Varro and Aemilius Paullus, a force of 86,000 men, the largest in Roman history up to that point. The consuls Aemilius Paullus and Varro resolved to confront Hannibal and marched southward to Apulia. After a two-day march, they
Religion in ancient Rome salted flour) and wine, then placed in the fire on the altar for the offering; the technical verb for this action was "porricere". Human sacrifice in ancient Rome was rare but documented. After the Roman defeat at Cannae two Gauls and two Greeks were buried under the Forum Boarium, in a stone chamber "which had on a previous occasion [228 BC] also been polluted by human victims, a practice most repulsive to Roman feelings". Livy avoids the word "sacrifice" in connection with this bloodless human life-offering; Plutarch does not. The rite was apparently repeated in 113 BC, preparatory to an