21.56
Maddened with pain and terror, they
were beginning to rush wildly on their own men, when Hannibal ordered
them to be driven away to the left wing against the auxiliary Gauls on the
Roman right. There they instantly produced unmistakable panic and flight,
and the Romans had fresh cause for .alarm when they saw their auxiliaries
routed. They now stood fighting in a square, and about 10,000 of them,
unable to escape in any other direction, forced their way through the centre
of the African troops and the auxiliary Gauls who supported them and
inflicted an immense loss on the enemy. They were prevented by the river
from returning to their camp, and the rain made it impossible for them to
judge where they could best go to the assistance of their comrades, so they
marched away straight to Placentia. Then desperate attempts to escape were
made on all sides; some who made for the river were swept away by the
current or caught by the enemy while hesitating to cross; others, scattered
over the fields in flight, followed the track of the main retreat and sought
Placentia; others, fearing the enemy more than the river, crossed it and
reached their camp. The driving sleet and the intolerable cold caused the
death of many men and baggage animals, and nearly all the elephants
perished. The Carthaginians stopped their pursuit at the banks of the Trebia
and returned to their camp so benumbed with cold that they hardly felt any
joy in their victory. In the night the men who had guarded the camp, and the
rest of the soldiers, mostly wounded, crossed the Trebia on rafts without any
interference from the Carthaginians, either because the roaring of the storm
prevented them from hearing or because they were unable to move through
weariness and wounds and pretended that they heard nothing. Whilst the
Carthaginians were keeping quiet, Scipio led his army to Placentia and
thence across the Po to Cremona, in order that one colony might not be
burdened with providing winter quarters for the two armies.
