“The Romans kept him out of southern Italy by using a scorched-Earth approach to create a barrier, and alas they never went back to fix it (no one has to the current day).”
Interesting. What are the signs? No villages? Fallow fields?
Probably erosion, but y’know, it’s been while since I’d read about it, and I’m at a loss as to where it was written. Probably in an *actual book* because I just went a-googlin’ and found little. Here’s the author of the strategy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabius_Maximus