History of Rome

​Envoys of the Tectosages came to the consul at the permanent camp at Ancyra, requesting that he should not move his camp before he had spoken with their kings:

​stating that no terms of peace would not be preferable to war for them. The time was set for the following day, and a place was chosen which seemed most middle between the camp of the Gauls and Ancyra.

​When the consul had come there at the appointed time with a guard of five hundred cavalry, and having seen no Gaul there, had returned to the camp, the same envoys returned, ​excusing themselves on the ground that the kings could not come because a religious obstacle had presented itself; they said that the leading men of the nation, through whom the business could equally be transacted, would come.

​The consul said that he also would send Attalus. They came to this conference from both sides. When Attalus had brought three hundred cavalry for the sake of a guard, ​terms of peace were proposed; because an end to the matter could not be put in the absence of the leaders, it was agreed that the consul and the kings should meet in that place on the following day.

​The delaying tactics of the Gauls aimed at this: first, to waste time until they could convey their property, which they did not want to endanger, with their wives and children across the river Halys; secondly, because they were laying an ambush for the consul himself, who was too little cautious against the fraud of a conference.

​For that purpose they chose one thousand cavalry of proven boldness from the whole number; and the fraud would have succeeded, had not fortune stood for the law of nations, for the violation of which a plan had been formed.

​The Roman foragers and wood-gatherers were led into that part in which the conference was to be; the tribunes thinking that it would be safer, because they would have the consul’s guard itself as an outpost opposed to the enemy;

​yet they placed another outpost of their own, of six hundred cavalry, closer to the camp.

​The consul, as Attalus asserted that the kings would come and the matter could be transacted, set out from the camp, and when he had advanced about five miles with the same guard of cavalry as before, and was not far from the appointed place, suddenly sees the Gauls coming with hostile onset on urged horses.

​He drew up his line, and having ordered the cavalry to ready their weapons and minds, at first steadily received the beginning of the fight and did not yield; then, when the multitude pressed heavily, he began to yield gradually, with the ranks of the squadrons not at all confused;

​finally, when there was now more danger in delay than protection in preserving the ranks, everyone everywhere poured into flight. Then indeed the Gauls pressed upon the scattered men and cut them down; and a large part would have been overwhelmed, had not the outpost of the foragers, the six hundred cavalry, run to meet them.

​These, having heard from afar the fearful shout of their men, and having readied their weapons and horses, received the ruined battle fresh.

​And so fortune was instantly turned, and the terror was turned from the vanquished to the victors. And at the first onset the Gauls were routed, and the foragers rushed together from the fields, and from all sides the enemy met the Gauls, so that they did not have even a safe or easy flight, because the Romans with fresh horses were pursuing the weary ones.

​Few therefore escaped; no one was captured; a much greater part paid the penalty of the violated faith of the conference with death. The Romans, their minds burning with anger, on the following day reached the enemy with all their forces.