History of Rome

​There were other forces of the Carthaginians beyond the nearest camp, at a distance of six miles. A hollow valley lay between, thick with trees. In almost the middle of this forest, a Roman cohort and cavalry were hidden by Carthaginian artifice.

​The road in between being thus intercepted, the rest of the forces were led in a silent column to the nearest enemy, and, since there was no outpost before the gates nor guards on the rampart, they penetrated as if into their own camp, with no one resisting anywhere.

​Then they sound the signals and a shout is raised. Some slaughter the half-asleep enemy, some throw fire upon the huts covered with dry straw, some occupy the gates to cut off escape.

​The fire, the shouting, and the slaughter, all at the same time, did not allow the enemy, as if deprived of their senses, either to hear or to foresee anything.

​Unarmed men fell in among the crowds of armed men. Some rushed to the gates, others, their ways being blocked, leaped over the rampart.

​And as each one escaped, they fled immediately to the other camp, where they were surrounded and slain to a man by the cohort and cavalry rushing out from their hiding place.

​Although, even if anyone had escaped from that slaughter, the run from the captured nearer camp to the other camp was made so rapidly by the Romans that a messenger of the disaster could not arrive beforehand.

​There indeed, as they were further away from the enemy, and because some had dispersed around dawn to forage, gather wood, and plunder, they found everything even more neglected and loose: only arms placed at the outposts, the soldiers unarmed, either sitting or lying on the ground, or walking about before the rampart and the gates.

​With these men so secure and relaxed, the Romans, still warm from the recent battle and fierce with victory, entered the fight. And so, resistance could by no means be made at the gates. Inside the gates, a fierce battle arose, a rush being made from the whole camp at the first shout and tumult.

​And it would have held out for a long time, had not the bloody shields of the Romans, being seen, cast a proof of the other disaster upon the Carthaginians and thrown panic among them.

​This terror turned all into flight; and pouring out where there was a path, except those whom the slaughter oppressed, they were stripped of their camp. Thus by night and by day, two camps of the enemy were captured under the leadership of L. Marcius.

​Claudius, who translated the Acilian annals from Greek into the Latin language, is the authority that about thirty-seven thousand of the enemy were slain, about one thousand eight hundred and thirty captured, and immense booty obtained;

​and that in it there was a silver shield of one hundred and thirty-seven pounds in weight with the image of Hasdrubal Barca.

​Valerius Antias records that only one camp, that of Mago, was captured, seven thousand of the enemy slain; and that in another battle, fought in a sally against Hasdrubal, ten thousand were killed and four thousand three hundred and thirty captured.

​Piso writes that five thousand men were slain from ambush when Mago was in scattered pursuit of our retreating men.

​Among all, the name of the commander Marcius is great. And to his true glory they also add miracles: that a flame poured from his head while he was speaking, without his own awareness, to the great terror of the surrounding soldiers;

​and that a monument of his victory over the Carthaginians, called the Marcian shield with the image of Hasdrubal, was in the temple until the burning of the Capitol.

​Thereafter, affairs in Spain were quiet for some time, since both sides, after receiving and inflicting such great disasters in turn, hesitated to risk the sum of things.