Among whom, Hegeas, the commander of the cavalry, fell when pursuing the retreating enemy too eagerly.

The sight of the walls, which were not favourable to a besieging force, deterred the Carthaginian from storming the city.
2.

Thence he turned his course to Capua, which was wantoning under a long course of prosperity, and the indulgence of fortune: amid the general corruption, however, the most conspicuous feature was the extravagance of the commons, who exercised their liberty without limit.

Pacuvius Calavius had rendered the senate subservient to himself and the commons, at once a noble and popular man, but who had acquired his influence by dishonourable intrigues.

Happening to hold the chief magistracy during the year in which the defeat at the Trasimenus occurred, and thinking that the commons, who had long felt the most violent hostility to the senate, would attempt some desperate measure, should an opportunity for effecting a change present itself; and if Hannibal should come into that quarter with his victorious army, would murder the senators and deliver Capua to the Carthaginians; as he desired to rule in a state preserved rather than subverted (for though depraved he was not utterly abandoned), and as he felt convinced that no state could be preserved if bereaved of its public council, he adopted a plan by which he might preserve the senate and render it subject to himself and the commons.