Palisade and fosse

The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1 (of 2) primary

Polybius explains why both sides stay constrained: Romans fear Carthaginian cavalry and hold entrenchments, while Carthaginians can’t remain without cavalry or safely attack palisade-and-fosse defenses.

[Sidenote: Hannibal devastates the Campagna.] For Gnaeus Fulvius and Publius Sulpicius, having already enrolled one consular army, had bound the men with the usual oath to appear at Rome armed on that very day; and were also engaged on that day in drawing out the lists and testing the men for the other army:[325] whereby it so happened that a large number of men had been collected in Rome spontaneously in the very n…