§27.49.1elephanti plures ab ipsis rectoribus quam ab hoste interfecti.
More elephants were killed by their own drivers than by the enemy.
fabrile scalprum cum malleo habebant; id, ubi saevire beluae ac ruere in suos coeperant, magister inter aures positum, ipso in articulo, quo iungitur capiti cervix, quanto maximo poterat ictu adigebat.
They had a craftsman's chisel with a mallet; when the beasts began to grow wild and rush upon their own men, the driver, placing it between the ears, at the very joint where the neck is joined to the head, would drive it in with as great a blow as he could possibly deliver.
§27.49.2ea celerrima via mortis in tantae molis belua inventa erat, ubi regenti? imperium sprevissent, primusque id Hasdrubal instituerat, dux cum saepe alias memorabilis, tum illa praecipue pugna.
This was found to be the speediest way of death for a beast of such great bulk, when they had rejected the command of the one guiding them; and Hasdrubal was the first to introduce this, a general memorable on many other occasions, but especially in that battle.
§27.49.3ille pugnantes hortando pariterque obeundo pericula sustinuit, ille fessos abnuentesque taedio et labore nunc precando nunc castigando accendit; ille fugientes revocavit omissamque pugnam aliquot locis restituit; §27.49.4postremo, cum haud dubie fortuna hostium esset, ne superstes tanto exercitui suum nomen secuto esset, concitato equo se in cohortem Romanam inmisit.
He sustained those who were fighting by encouraging them and equally by facing dangers; he inflamed the exhausted and those refusing out of weariness and labor, now by entreating, now by chastising them; he recalled the fleeing and restored the abandoned fight in several places; finally, when the fortune of battle was undoubtedly the enemy's, so that he might not survive such a great army that had followed his name, having spurred his horse, he threw himself into a Roman cohort.
ibi, ut patre Hamilcare et Hannibale fratre dignum erat, pugnans cecidit.
There, as was worthy of his father Hamilcar and his brother Hannibal, he fell fighting.
§27.49.5numquam eo bello una acie tantum hostium interfectum est, redditaque aequa Cannensi clades vel ducis vel exercitus interitu videbatur.
Never in that war were so many enemies slain in a single battle, and the disaster of Cannae seemed to be repaid equally by the destruction of either the general or the army.
§27.49.6quinquaginta sex milia hostium occisa, capta quinque milia et quadringenti; magna praeda alia cum omnis generis, tum auri etiam argentique.
Fifty-six thousand of the enemy were slain, five thousand four hundred captured; other great booty of all kinds, and also of gold and silver.
§27.49.7civium etiam Romanorum, qui capti apud hostes erant, supra quattuor milia capitum recepta.
More than four thousand Roman citizens who had been captured by the enemy were also recovered.
id solacii fuit pro amissis eo proelio militibus.
This was a consolation for the soldiers lost in that battle.
nam haudquaquam incruenta victoria fuit: octo ferme milia Romanorum sociorumque occisa; §27.49.8adeoque etiam victores sanguinis caedisque ceperat satietas, ut postero die, cum esset nuntiatum Livio consuli Gallos Cisalpinos Liguresque, qui aut proelio non adfuissent aut inter caedem effugissent, uno agmine abire sine certo duce, sine signis, sine ordine ullo aut imperio; si una equitum ala mittatur, posse omnes deleri: §27.49.9“supersint” inquit “aliqui nuntii et hostium cladis et nostrae virtutis. ”
For the victory was by no means bloodless: nearly eight thousand Romans and allies were slain; and such a satiety of blood and slaughter had seized even the victors that on the following day, when it was reported to the consul Livius that the Cisalpine Gauls and Ligurians, who had either not been present at the battle or had escaped during the slaughter, were departing in a single column without any certain leader, without standards, without any order or command, and that if a single wing of cavalry were sent, they could all be destroyed, "Let some messengers remain," he said, "both of the enemy's ruin and of our valor."