Tom Holland

So what he does is to walk around Rome.

He kind of greets people in a totally measured manner.

state of mind, as though nothing particularly awful has happened, as though it's just a normal day.

He stops the women from staging their displays of mourning.

He forbids all these public meetings in which people are kind of venting their fear and distress.

And he puts guards on the city walls and particularly on the city gates.

And they are there not really to guard against Hannibal, but to stop anyone attempting to flee.

And what he also does and the Senate does is to consult the Sibylline books.

And the Sibylline books are very ancient collections of Greek writings.

You consult them when Rome is in particularly terrible straits.

It's a kind of an awful moment of ritual when this is done.

They consult the books and the books say, you must entomb alive a Gaul and a Greek.

And this is terrible news for the Romans because the Romans do not engage in human sacrifice.

And it's one of the things that marks them out as a civilized people.

But they're not going to disobey the Sibylline books.

And so this is what they do.

They take them to the cattle market, the Forum Boarium.

And they wore this Greek and this gaul up.

And this is an indicator to the Romans, to everyone in Italy, and to the Carthaginians that they are going to carry on the fight.

Yeah.