41.2
As soon
as the Roman army began to move towards the Timavus, the Histri took up
a position in concealment behind a hill and followed it while on the march,
carefully watching for every opportunity; nothing that happened on sea or
land escaped their notice. When they saw that only weak pickets were
posted in front of the camp and that between the camp and the sea there was
a crowd of unarmed traders busy with their traffic and without any
protection either on the land side or towards the sea, they made a
simultaneous attack on the pickets, the Placentian cohort and the maniples of
the second legion. Their movements were at first concealed by an early
morning fog. As this began to disperse under the warm rays of the sun, the
sunshine struggling fitfully through made everything, as it generally does,
look larger to the beholder. In this way the Romans were deceived, as the
hostile army appeared larger than it really was. The men from both the
pickets fled in a great tumult to the camp. The terror they spread here was
greater than the alarm in which they had fled, for they could not explain why
they had fled, nor could they give any answer to those who questioned them.
Shouts were heard from the gates, as there were no outposts there to make
any resistance, and the crowding together of the soldiers, who were falling
over each other in the fog, made it impossible to know whether the enemy
were inside the camp or not. One voice was heard amongst the cries, calling
"To the sea!" and this chance cry started by one individual resounded
everywhere throughout the camp. They began to run down to the sea, as
though acting under orders; at first in small bodies, some with arms, most of
them without; then in larger numbers, till at last nearly every man had gone,
including the consul himself. He was quite powerless to rally the fugitives;
his commands, his authority, his expostulations were all fruitless. The only
officer who remained was M. Licinius Strabo, a military tribune attached to
the second legion, who had left him with three maniples in their flight. The
Histri made their attack on the empty camp, and after finding no armed
resistance, came upon him as he was forming and encouraging his men in the
headquarters tent. The fight was a more stubborn one than might have been
expected from the fewness of the defenders, and did not come to an end until
the tribune and all round him had fallen. After overturning the headquarters
tent and plundering everything in it, the enemy went on to the quaestor's
tent, the forum, and the via quintana. Here they found an abundant supply of
everything laid out in readiness, and in the quaestor's tent couches arranged
for a meal. The chieftain lay down and began to feast himself; soon all the
others, oblivious of any armed enemy, did the same, and being unused to
such good fare, loaded themselves greedily with wine and food.
