History of Rome

​While affairs at Capua were in this state, conflicting cares of gaining possession of the citadel of Tarentum and of retaining Capua pulled Hannibal in different directions.

​However, regard for Capua prevailed, upon which he saw the minds of all allies and enemies turned, as it was destined to be a proof of whatever outcome defection from the Romans might have.

​Therefore, leaving a great part of the baggage in the territory of the Bruttii, along with all the heavier armed troops, he hastened into Campania with chosen infantry and cavalry, as lightly equipped as he possibly could be to quicken the march. However, thirty-three elephants followed him as he went so rapidly.

​He encamped in a hidden valley behind Mount Tifata, which overlooks Capua. Upon his arrival, when he had taken the fort of Galatia by force after expelling its garrison, he turned his attention against those besieging Capua. ​And having sent messengers ahead to Capua to announce at what time he was going to attack the Roman camp, so that they too, prepared for a breakout, might pour forth from all the gates at the same time, he caused immense terror.

​For on one side he himself attacked, and on the other all the Campanians, cavalry and infantry, broke out, and with them the Carthaginian garrison, which Bostar and Hanno commanded.

​The Romans, as is typical in a crisis, so as not to leave any part undefended by rushing to a single point, divided their forces among themselves as follows:

​Appius Claudius was opposed to the Campanians, Fulvius to Hannibal; Gaius Nero the propraetor, with the cavalry of six legions, stationed himself on the road that leads to Suessula; Gaius Fulvius Flaccus the legate, with the allied cavalry, took his stand opposite the Volturnus river.

​The battle was not begun in the usual manner with shouting and clamor, but in addition to the extraordinary sound of men, horses, and armor, the non-combatant multitude of the Campanians, disposed along the walls, raised such a shout with the clashing of bronze, of the kind that is accustomed to be made in the silent night during an eclipse of the moon, that it distracted the minds even of the combatants.

​Appius easily kept the Campanians from the rampart; a greater force pressed Fulvius from the other side, namely Hannibal... ​and the Carthaginians were pressing. There the sixth legion gave ground; when it was repulsed, a cohort of Spaniards with three elephants made its way all the way to the rampart, and had broken through the middle of the Roman line, and was in an state of uncertain hope and danger, whether it should break through into the camp or be cut off from its own men.

​When Fulvius saw this panic of the legion and the danger to the camp, he exhorted Quintus Navius and other chief centurions to attack the enemy cohort fighting under the rampart: that the matter turned upon the utmost crisis;

​either a way had to be given to them, and they would burst into the camp with less effort than they had broken the dense line, or they must be destroyed under the rampart; nor would it be a matter of great struggle:

​that they were few and cut off from their own, and that the line which, while the Roman is panicked, seems broken, if it should turn itself on the enemy from both sides, would surround those in the middle in a two-fronted fight.

​When Navius received these words of the general, he snatched the standard of the second hastati from the standard-bearer and carried it against the enemy, threatening that he would throw it into their midst, unless the soldiers quickly followed him and took their part in the battle.

​He was of huge stature, and his armor distinguished him, and the standard raised on high had turned both citizens and enemies to the spectacle.

​But after he had now reached the standards of the Spaniards, then from all sides javelins were cast at him, and almost the entire line was turned against him alone; but neither the multitude of the enemy nor the force of the weapons could check the onset of that man.