§28.30.1per idem tempus ad Baetim fluvium Hanno, praefectus Magonis, missus a Gadibus cum parva manu Afrorum, mercede Hispanos sollicitando ad quattuor milia iuvenum armavit. §28.30.2castris deinde exutus ab L. Marcio, maxima parte militum inter tumultum captorum castrorum, quibusdam etiam in fuga amissis, palatos persequente equite, cum paucis ipse effugit. §28.30.3dum haec ad Baetim fluvium geruntur Laelius interim freto in Oceanum evectus ad Carteiam classe accessit.
Around the same time, near the Baetis River, Hanno, the prefect of Mago, having been sent from Gades with a small band of Africans, armed about four thousand young men by soliciting the Hispania-natives with pay. Having then been driven out of his camp by Lucius Marcius, with the greatest part of his soldiers captured during the confusion of the camp's capture, and some also lost in flight while the cavalry pursued those who were scattered, he himself escaped with a few men. While these things were being done near the Baetis River, Laelius meanwhile, having sailed through the strait into the Ocean, arrived with his fleet at Carteia.
urbs ea in ora Oceani sita est, ubi primum e faucibus angustis panditur mare. §28.30.4Gades sine certamine per proditionem recipiendi, ultro qui eam rem pollicerentur in castra Romana venientibus, spes, sicut ante dictum est, fuerat.
That city is situated on the coast of the Ocean, where first the sea opens up from the narrow throat of the strait. There had been hope, as was said before, of recovering Gades without a contest through treachery, since those who spontaneously promised that service were coming into the Roman camp.
sed patefacta inmatura proditio est, conprensosque omnes Mago Adherbali praetori Carthaginem devehendos tradit. §28.30.5Adherbal coniuratis in quinqueremem inpositis, praemissaque ea, quia tardior quam triremis erat, ipse cum octo triremibus modico intervallo sequitur. §28.30.6iam fretum intrabat quinqueremis, cum Laelius et ipse in quinqueremi e portu Carteiae sequentibus septem triremibus evectus in Adherbalem ac triremes invehitur, quinqueremem satis credens deprensam rapido in freto in adversum aestum reciprocari non posse. §28.30.7Poenus in re subita parumper incertus trepidavit, utrum quinqueremem sequeretur, an in hostes rostra converteret. §28.30.8ipsa cunctatio facultatem detractandae pugnae ademit; iam enim sub ictu teli erant, et undique instabant hostes.
But the premature treachery was disclosed, and Mago handed over all those who had been arrested to Adherbal the praetor, to be carried to Carthage. Adherbal, having placed the conspirators on board a quinquereme and sent it ahead because it was slower than a trireme, followed himself with eight triremes at a moderate interval. The quinquereme was already entering the strait, when Laelius himself, having sailed out in a quinquereme from the port of Carteia with seven triremes following, bore down upon Adherbal and his triremes, fully believing that a quinquereme caught in the rapid strait against an adverse tide could not turn back. The Carthaginian, hesitant for a moment in the sudden emergency, was in a flutter whether to follow the quinquereme or to turn his prows against the enemy. This hesitation itself took away the opportunity of avoiding a battle; for they were already within missile range, and the enemy was pressing on them from all sides.
aestus quoque arbitrium moderandi naves ademerat. neque erat navali pugna similis, quippe ubi nihil voluntarium, nihil artis aut consilii esset. §28.30.9una natura freti aestusque, totius certaminis potens, suis, alienis navibus nequiquam remigio in contrarium tendentes invehebat; et fugientem navem videres vertice retro intortam victoribus inlatam, et sequentem, si in contrarium tractum incidisset maris, fugientis modo sese avertentem. §28.30.10iam in ipsa pugna haec, cum infesta rostro peteret hostium navem, obliqua ipsa ictum alterius rostri accipiebat; illa, cum transversa obiceretur hosti, repente intorta in proram circumagebatur. §28.30.11cum inter triremes fortuna regente anceps proelium misceretur, quinqueremis Romana seu pondere tenacior, seu pluribus remorum ordinibus scindentibus vertices cum facilius regeretur, duas triremes suppressit, unius praelata impetu lateris alterius remos detersit; §28.30.12ceterasque, quas indepta esset, mulcasset, ni cum reliquis quinque navibus Adherbal velis in Africam transmisisset.
The tide, too, had taken away the power of controlling the ships; nor was it like a naval battle, since there was nothing voluntary, nothing of skill or strategy in it. The single nature of the strait and the tide, ruling the entire conflict, carried along both friendly and hostile ships, despite their rowing in vain in the opposite direction; and you might see a fleeing ship spun backward by a whirlpool and carried into the victors, and a pursuing ship, if it fell into an opposite current of the sea, turning away in the manner of a fleeing one. Already in the battle itself these things occurred: while a ship was seeking an enemy ship with a hostile prow, it would itself receive the blow of another prow on its side; another, when presented broadside to the enemy, would be suddenly spun around and turned on its prow. While an undecided battle was being waged among the triremes with fortune ruling, the Roman quinquereme, whether because it was steadier from its weight or was more easily managed because of more banks of oars cleaving the whirlpools, sank two triremes, and by the force of its onset as it swept past, stripped off the oars of one side of another; and it would have shattered the remaining ones, which it might have caught, had Adherbal not crossed over with sails to Africa with the remaining five ships.