The opponents of Hannibal in the Carthaginian senate did not fail to appeal to the fact that not one Roman citizen or one Latin community had cast itself into the arms of Carthage.

This groundwork of the Roman power could only be broken up, like the Cyclopean walls, stone by stone.
Attitude of the Romans Such were the consequences of the day of Cannae, in which the flower of the soldiers and officers of the confederacy, a seventh of the whole number of Italians capable of bearing arms, perished.

It was a cruel but righteous punishment for the grave political errors with which not merely some foolish or miserable individuals, but the Roman people themselves, were justly chargeable.

A constitution adapted for a small country town was no longer suitable for a great power; it was simply impossible that the question as to the leadership of the armies of the city in such a war should be left year after year to be decided by the Pandora's box of the balloting-urn.

As a fundamental revision of the constitution, if practicable at all, could not at least be undertaken now, the practical superintendence of the war, and in particular the bestowal and prolongation of the command, should have been at once left to the only authority which was in a position to undertake it--the senate--and there should have been reserved for the comitia the mere formality of confirmation.