§22.41.1ceterum temeritati consulis ac praepropero ingenio materiam etiam fortuna dedit, quod in prohibendis praedatoribus tumultuario proelio ac procursu magis militum quam ex praeparato aut iussu imperatorum orto haudquaquam par Poenis dimicatio fuit.
However, fortune also gave material to the consul's recklessness and over-hasty disposition, because in preventing the plunderers, in a tumultuous battle and a charge arising more from the impulse of the soldiers than from preparation or the order of the generals, the struggle was by no means equal for the Carthaginians.
§22.41.2ad mille et septingenti caesi non plus centum Romanorum sociorumque occisis.
About one thousand seven hundred were slain, with not more than a hundred of the Romans and allies killed.
ceterum victoribus effuse sequentibus metu insidiarum obstitit Paulus consul, cuius eo die — §22.41.3nam alternis imperitabant — imperium erat, Varrone indignante ac vociferante emissum hostem e manibus debellarique, ni cessatum foret, potuisse.
But as the victors were pursuing in a scattered manner, the consul Paulus, fearing an ambush, stood in their way; on that day his — for they held command on alternate days — was the supreme command, while Varro was indignant and crying out that the enemy had been let slip from their hands and that the war could have been finished if there had not been a hesitation.
Hannibal id damnum haud aegerrime pati; §22.41.4quin potius credere velut inescatam temeritatem ferocioris consulis ac novorum maxime militum esse.
Hannibal did not bear this loss very bitterly; nay, rather he believed that the recklessness of the fiercer consul and especially of the new soldiers had been, as it were, baited.
§22.41.5et omnia ei hostium haud secus quam sua nota erant: dissimiles discordesque imperitare, duas prope partes tironum militum in exercitu esse.
And all things of the enemy were known to him no otherwise than his own: that men unlike and discordant were commanding, and that nearly two-thirds of the army consisted of raw recruits.
§22.41.6itaque locum et tempus insidiis aptum se habere ratus, nocte proxima nihil praeter arma ferente secum milite §22.41.7castra plena omnis fortunae publicae privataeque relinquit transque proximos montis laeva pedites instructos condit, dextra equites, impedimenta per convallem mediam traducit, §22.41.8ut diripiendis velut desertis fuga dominorum castris occupatum impeditumque hostem opprimeret.
Therefore, thinking that he had a place and time suitable for an ambush, on the next night, with the soldiers carrying nothing with them except their arms, he left the camp full of all public and private wealth, and behind the nearest hills he hid the infantry drawn up on the left, the cavalry on the right, and led the baggage through the middle of the valley, so that he might crush the enemy, occupied and impeded in plundering the camp, which appeared as if deserted by the flight of its masters.
§22.41.9crebri relicti in castris ignes, ut fides fieret, dum ipse longius spatium fuga praeciperet, falsa imagine castrorum, sicut Fabium priore anno frustratus esset, tenere in locis consules voluisse.
Numerous fires were left in the camp so that belief might be created that he had wished to hold the consuls in their positions by the false appearance of a camp, just as he had frustrated Fabius the previous year, while he himself might gain a longer distance by flight.