History of Rome

​In the same year in Spain, the praetors Gaius Calpurnius and Lucius Quinctius, when at the beginning of spring they had joined in Baeturia their forces led out from their winter quarters , advanced into Carpetania, where the enemy’s camp was, prepared to wage war with common mind and purpose.

​Not far from the cities of Dipo and Toletum, a fight broke out among the foragers, and while aid was being brought to them from the camp on both sides, gradually all the forces were drawn out into line of battle.

​In that disorderly combat, both their own ground and their manner of fighting were in favor of the enemy. The two Roman armies were routed and driven back into their camp. The enemy did not press upon the panic-stricken. The Roman praetors, ​lest their camp should be attacked on the following day, withdrew their army in the silence of the next night at a quiet signal.

​At dawn, the Spaniards, having drawn up their line of battle, approached the rampart, and entering the camp, which was unexpectedly empty, having been abandoned during the nightly panic, they plundered it, and having returned to their own camp, remained quiet in their permanent stations for a few days.

​Up to five thousand of the Romans and allies were killed in the battle and the flight, with whose spoils the enemy armed themselves. From there they marched to the river Tagus.

​Meanwhile, the Roman praetors spent all that time in collecting auxiliary troops of Spaniards from the allied states, and in restoring the spirits of the soldiers from the terror of the defeat.

​When the forces were sufficiently satisfactory, and now the soldiers also were demanding the enemy in order to wipe out their previous disgrace, they pitched their camp twelve miles from the river Tagus.

​Starting thence at the third watch, they raised their standards and, marching in a square column, reached the bank of the Tagus at daybreak. Across the river, on a hill, was the enemy’s camp.

​Immediately, where the river exposed shallows in two places, Calpurnius on the right side and Quinctius on the left crossed their armies while the enemy remained quiet, wondering at their sudden arrival and consulting how he might have thrown confusion into them as they were trembling in the very passage of the river.

​Meanwhile, the Romans, having crossed all their baggage also and collected it in one place, since they now saw the enemy moving and there was no time to fortify a camp, drew up their line of battle.

​In the center were placed the fifth legion of Calpurnius and the eighth of Quinctius; this was the strength of the whole army. They had an open plain, free from fear of ambush, all the way to the enemy’s camp.