Other consequences of defeat
Hannibal came straight across Umbria to Spoleto. As, after having completely ravaged his territory, he was, in attempting to attack the city, repulsed with great loss, imagining, from the forces of the single colony against which he had just failed, the enormous power from Rome he turned to the territory of Picenum, not only abounding in produce of every kind, but full of booty which his greedy and miserable soldiers carried off as they dispersed. He remained there for a few days in barracks, where his troops took comfort, tested by the winter marches, the crossing of the marshes, and combats happier by their outcome than light or easy. After having given enough rest to these men who liked spoils and ravages better than leisure and rest, he set out, plundered the territories of the Praetutii and Hadria, then the Marses, the Marrucini and the Paeligni, and, around of Arpi and Luceria, nearby Apulia. (6) Consul Cneius Servilius, after light combat with the Gauls and the capture of a little-known place, hearing of the death of his colleague and the massacre of the army, and already fearing for the walls of the fatherland, to afraid of finding himself far from it in such a critical situation, headed for Rome.
Quintus Fabius Maximus, dictator for the second time, the day he assumed office, having, in the senate, which he had convoked, begun by occupying himself with the gods, and showing that the neglect of ceremonies and auspices had been, in the consul Caius Flaminius, a fault more serious than his imprudence and his ignorance, and that, on the means of allaying the anger of the gods, it was necessary to consult the gods themselves, obtained, what one generally decrees only At the announcement of appalling prodigies, the order given to the decemvirs to consult the Sibylline books. Having looked at these books of fate, they reported to the senators that the vow made to Mars for this war, which had not been fulfilled according to the rites, was to be fulfilled again and with greater magnitude; that it was necessary to dedicate great games to Jupiter, and a temple to Venus Erycine and to Intelligence, to make supplications and a lectisterne, and to dedicate a sacred spring in case we had victory, and where the republic would remain as it is. she was before the war. The senate, Fabius being taken by the cares of the war, orders, by decision of the college of the pontiffs, the praetor Marcus Aemilius to see to the prompt execution of all these measures.