Copulaverit

Cum Hannibale nihil eo anno rei gestum est. nam neque ipse se obtulit in tam recenti vulnere publico privatoque neque lacessierunt quietum Romani; tantam inesse vim etsi omnia alia circa eum ruerent in uno illo duce censebant. ac nescio an mirabilior adversis quam secundis rebus fuerit, quippe qui cum in hostium terra per annos tredecim, tam procul ab domo, varia fortuna bellum gereret, exercitu non suo civili sed mixto ex conluvione omnium gentium, quibus non lex, non mos, non lingua communis, alius habitus, alia vestis, alia arma, alii ritus, alia sacra, alii prope di essent, ita quodam uno vinculo copulaverit eos ut nulla nec inter ipsos nec adversus ducem seditio exstiterit, cum et pecunia saepe in stipendium et commeatus in hostium agro deesset, quorum inopia priore Punico bello multa infanda inter duces militesque commissa fuerant. post Hasdrubalis vero exercitum cum duce in quibus spes omnis reposita victoriae fuerat deletum cedendoque in angulum Bruttium cetera Italia concessum, cui non videatur mirabile nullum motum in castris factum?
(Livy 28.12.1-6)

With Hannibal there was no campaigning that year. For neither did he invite attack, owing to his very recent wound, a blow national as well as personal, nor did the Romans provoke him so long as he remained inactive; such power they believed to be present in that one commander, even though everything else round him crashed. And I am inclined to think he was more marvellous in adversity than in success. For here he was, carrying on war in the enemy’s land for thirteen years, so far from home with varying fortune, having an army not made up of his own citizens but a mixture of the offscourings of all nations, men who had in common no law, no custom, no language, differing from each other in bearing, in garb, in their arms, differing as to religious rites, sacred observances, one might almost say as to their gods. Yet he somehow bound them together by a single bond, so that no outbreak ensued among the men themselves nor any mutiny against their general. Yet in the enemy’s country both money to pay them and supplies were often wanting—deficiencies which in the previous Punic war had given rise to many unspeakable acts on the part of commanders and soldiers. Certainly after the destruction of Hasdrubal’s army with its commander—and on them he had rested all his hope of victory—, when by retiring into the remote land of the Bruttii he had given up the rest of Italy, who would not find it a marvel that there was no outbreak in his camp? (tr. Frank Gardner Moore)