Thus having gained time, they promptly sent ambassadors to the Roman praetor, Marcellus Claudius, who was at Casilinum with his army, and informed him what a critical situation Nola was in; that the fields were already in the possession of Hannibal and the Carthaginians, and that the city soon would be, unless succour were sent; that the senate, by conceding to the commons that they would revolt when they pleased, had caused them not to hasten too much to revolt.

Marcellus, after bestowing high commendations on the Nolans, urged them to protract the business till his arrival by means of the same pretences; in the mean time, to conceal what had passed between them, as well as all hope of succour from the Romans.

He himself marched from Casilinum to Calatia, and thence crossing the Vulturnus, and passing through the territories of Saticula and Trebula, pursuing his course along the mountains above Suessula, he arrived at Nola.
15.

On the approach of the Roman praetor, the Carthaginians retired from the territory of Nola and marched down to the sea close upon Naples, eager to get possession of a maritime town to which there would be a safe course for ships from Africa.

But hearing that Naples was held by a Roman prefect, Marcus Junius Silanus, who had been invited thither by the Neapolitans themselves, he left Naples as he had left Nola, and directed his course to Nuceria, which he at length starved into capitulation, after having besieged it for a considerable time, often by open force, and often by soliciting to no purpose sometimes the commons, at other times the nobles; agreeing that they should depart with single garments and without arms.