[Footnote 32: By comparing other authors the names Alinius and Plautius are found to be the corruptions of some copyists for Dasius and Blattius.]
This was the state of Carthaginian interests in Italy. Not even Sicily retained its friendliness for them, but submitted to the consul Lævinus. The leader of the Carthaginians in Sicily was Hanno, and Muttines was a member of his staff. The latter had been with Hannibal formerly and owing to the latter's jealousy of his great deeds of valor had been sent into Sicily. When there also he made a brilliant record as commander of the cavalry, he incurred the jealousy of Hanno as well, and as a consequence was deprived of his command. Deeply grieved at this he joined the Romans. First he accomplished the betrayal of Agrigentum for them and then he helped them in reducing other places, so that the whole of Sicily came again under their sway without any great labor.
[Sidenote: B.C. 209 (_a.u._ 545)] IX, 8.--Fabius and Flaccus subdued among other cities Tarentum, which Hannibal was holding. They gave orders to a body of men to overrun Bruttium in order that Hannibal might leave Tarentum and come to its assistance. When this had happened, Flaccus kept watch of Hannibal while Fabius by night assailed Tarentum with ships and infantry at once and captured the city by means of his assault aided by betrayal. Hannibal, enraged at the trick, was eager to find some scheme for paying Fabius back. So he sent him a letter, purporting to be from the dwellers in Metapontum, looking to a betrayal of the city; for he hoped that Fabius would advance carelessly in that direction and that he might set a trap for him on the way. But the Roman leader suspected the truth of the case and by comparing the writing with the letter which Hannibal had once written to the Tarentini, he detected the plot from the similarity of the two.
Scipio for the first part of the time, however much he may have longed to avenge his father and uncle and however much he yearned for glory in the war, nevertheless showed no haste on account of the multitude of his opponents. But after he ascertained that they were passing the winter at a considerable distance, he disregarded them and marched upon Carthage,--the Spanish town. Moreover no one gained the slightest knowledge of his march till he had come close to Carthage itself. And by much exertion he took the city.