22.42
As it
grew light the pickets were seen to have been withdrawn, then on
approaching nearer the unusual silence created surprise. When it was
definitely learnt that the camp was empty the men rushed in a body to the
commanders' quarters with the news that the enemy had fled in such haste
that they left the tents standing, and to secure greater secrecy for their flight
had also left numerous fires burning. Then a loud shout arose demanding
that the order should be given to advance, and that the men should be led in
pursuit, and that the camp should be plundered forthwith. The one consul
behaved as though he were one of the clamorous crowd; the other, Paulus,
repeatedly asserted the need of caution and circumspection. At last, unable
to deal with the mutinous crowd and its leader in any other way, he sent
Marius Statilius with his troop of Lucanian horse to reconnoitre. When he
had ridden up to the gates of the camp he ordered his men to halt outside the
lines, he himself with two of his troopers entered the camp and after a
careful and thorough examination he brought back word that there was
certainly a trick somewhere, the fires were left on the side of the camp which
fronted the Romans, the tents were standing open with all the valuables
exposed to view, in some parts he had seen silver lying about on the paths as
though it had been put there for plunder. So far from deterring the soldiers
from satisfying their greed, as it was intended to do, this report only inflamed
it, and a shout arose that if the signal was not given they would go on
without their generals. There was no lack of a general, however, for Varro
instantly gave the signal to advance. Paulus, who was hanging back, received
a report from the keeper of the sacred chickens that they had not given a
favourable omen, and he ordered the report to be at once carried to his
colleague as he was just marching out of the camp gates. Varro was very
much annoyed, but the recollection of the disaster which overtook Flaminius
and the naval defeat which the consul Claudius sustained in the first Punic
war made him afraid of acting in an irreligious spirit. It seemed as though the
gods themselves on that day delayed, if they did actually do away, the fatal
doom which was impending over the Romans. For it so happened that whilst
the soldiers were ignoring the consul's order for the standards to be carried
back into camp, two slaves, one belonging to a trooper from Formiae, the
other to one from Sidicinum, who had been captured with the foraging
parties when Servilius and Atilius were in command, had that day escaped to
their former masters. They were taken before the consul and told him that
the whole of Hannibal's army was lying behind the nearest hills. The
opportune arrival of these men restored the authority of the consuls, though
one of them in his desire to be popular had weakened his authority by his
unscrupulous connivance at breaches of discipline.
