22.6
For
almost three hours the fighting went on; everywhere a desperate struggle
was kept up, but it raged with greater fierceness round the consul. He was
followed by the pick of his army, and wherever he saw his men hard pressed
and in difficulties he at once went to their help. Distinguished by his armour
he was the object of the enemy's fiercest attacks, which his comrades did
their utmost to repel, until an Insubrian horseman who knew the consul by
sight -his name was Ducarius -cried out to his countrymen, "Here is the
man who slew our legions and laid waste our city and our lands! I will offer
him in sacrifice to the shades of my foully murdered countrymen." Digging
spurs into his horse he charged into the dense masses of the enemy, and slew
an armour-bearer who threw himself in the way as he galloped up lance in
rest, and then plunged his lance into the consul; but the triarii protected the
body with their shields and prevented him from despoiling it. Then began a
general flight, neither lake nor mountain stopped the panic-stricken fugitives,
they rushed like blind men over cliff and defile, men and arms tumbled
pell-mell on one another. A large number, finding no avenue of escape, went
into the water up to their shoulders; some in their wild terror even attempted
to escape by swimming, an endless and hopeless task in that lake. Either
their spirits gave way and they were drowned, or else finding their efforts
fruitless, they regained with great difficulty the shallow water at the edge of
the lake and were butchered in all directions by the enemy's cavalry who had
ridden into the water. About 6000 men who had formed the head of the line
of march cut their way through the enemy and cleared the defile, quite
unconscious of all that had been going on behind them. They halted on some
rising ground, and listened to the shouting below and the clash of arms, but
were unable, owing to the fog, to see or find out what the fortunes of the
fight were. At last, when the battle was over and the sun's heat had dispelled
the fog, mountain and plain revealed in the clear light the disastrous
overthrow of the Roman army and showed only too plainly that all was lost.
Fearing lest they should be seen in the distance and cavalry be sent against
them, they hurriedly took up their standards and disappeared with all
possible speed. Maharbal pursued them through the night with the whole of
his mounted force, and on the morrow, as starvation, in addition to all their
other miseries, was threatening them, they surrendered to Maharbal, on
condition of being allowed to depart with one garment apiece. This promise
was kept with Punic faith by Hannibal, and he threw them all into chains.
