The History of Rome, Books 37 to the End with the Epitomes and Fragments of the Lost Books. Livy

in turn, rage inflames their courage; so when they are wounded at a distance, with light weapons from unknown hands, and have no object on which they can rush in their blind fury, they rush forward at random, like wounded wild beasts, often upon their own party. Their wounds were more conspicuous because they always fight naked, and their bodies are large and white, since they are never stripped except in battle; thus more blood was poured from their large persons, and the cuts appeared the more shocking, while the whiteness of their skins offered a stronger contrast to the black blood. But they were not much moved by open wounds. Sometimes they even cut off the skin, when the wound was more broad than deep, thinking that in this condition they fought with the greater glory. But when the point of an arrow or a ball, sinking deep in the flesh, tormented them, with a wound small in appearance, and the weapon did not come forth although they used every effort to extract it, then they fell into fits of phrensy and shame, at being destroyed by so small a hurt; and dashing themselves on the ground, they lay scattered over the place. Some rushing against the enemy were overwhelmed with darts; and when any of them came near, they were slain by the swords of the light infantry. A soldier of this description carries a shield three feet long, and, in his right hand, javelins, which he throws at a distance. He is begirt with a Spanish sword, and when he must fight in close encounter, having shifted his spears into his left hand, he draws it. There were few of the Gauls now left; and these, seeing themselves overpowered by the light infantry, and the battalions of the legions advancing, fled in confusion to the camp, now full of tumult and dismay, as the women, children, and others unfit to bear arms, were all crowded together there. The hills, thus abandoned by the enemy, were seized by the victorious Romans.

      22 At this juncture, Lucius Manlius and Caius Helvius, having marched up as high as the sloping hills allowed them to do, after they came to insuperable steeps, turned towards that side of the mountain which alone had a practicable ascent; and began, as if by concert, to follow the consul’s party at a moderate distance; being driven by necessity to adopt the plan, now, which would have been the best at the beginning. For in such disadvantageous ground reserves have often been of the utmost use; for instance, should the first line happen to be repulsed, the second may both cover their retreat, and, being fresh, succeed to their place in the fight. The consul, as soon as the vanguard of the legions reached the hills taken by the light infantry, ordered the troops to halt and take breath; at the same time he showed them the bodies of the Gauls spread about the hills, asking them, “Since the light troops had fought such a battle, what might be expected from the legions, from a regular army, and from the spirit of the bravest soldiers? They ought certainly to take the camp into which the enemy had been driven in confusion by the light infantry.” He then orders the light infantry to go forward, who, while the army halted, had not spent their time in idleness, but in gathering weapons about the hills, that there might be a sufficient supply of missiles. They now approached the camp. The Gauls, lest their fortifications might not give them sufficient protection, had posted themselves, in arms, on the outside of the rampart. Then being overwhelmed with weapons of every description, since in proportion as they were more numerous and crowded together, the less likely were the weapons to fall between them without effect, they were driven in an instant within their trenches, leaving only strong guards at the entrances of the gates. Against the crowd that fled into the camp a vast quantity of missile weapons was discharged, and the shouts, intermixed with lamentations of the women and children, showed that great numbers were wounded. The first line of the legions hurled their javelins against those who were posted to guard the gate; these, however, were not wounded, but most of them, having their shields pierced through, were entangled and fastened together, nor did they longer withstand the attack.

      23 The gates being now open, a flight of the Gauls in every direction from the camp took place before the victors could burst in. They rushed on blindly through passable and impassable places; no craggy cliffs, nor even perpendicular rocks, stopped them; they feared nothing but the enemy. Great numbers, therefore, falling down precipices of vast height, were either maimed or killed. The consul, taking possession of the camp, restrained the soldiers from plunder and booty; he orders every one to pursue with his utmost speed, to press on the enemy, and to increase their panic while they were in dismay. The other party, under Lucius Manlius, now came up. These he did not suffer to enter the camp, but sent them forward in the pursuit, and followed shortly in person, after committing the guard of the prisoners to some military tribunes: for he thought that the war would be finished, if in that consternation the greatest possible number should be slain or taken prisoners. After the consul’s departure, Caius Helvius arrived, with the third division: he was not able to prevent their sacking the camp; and, by a most unjust dispensation, the booty fell into the hands of men who had not had any concern in the action. The cavalry stood for a long time ignorant of the fight, and of the success of their army. At last, they also, as far as they could ascend the hills on horseback, pursuing the Gauls, (who were now dispersed round the foot of the mountain,) either killed or made prisoners of them. The number of the slain could not easily be ascertained because the flight and slaughter were widely extended through all the windings of the mountains; and a great number fell from impassable cliffs into cavities of prodigious depth; others were killed in the woods and thickets. Claudius, who mentions two battles on Mount Olympus, asserts, that forty-thousand fell in them; yet Valerius Antias, who is generally addicted to great exaggeration on the point of numbers, says, not more than ten thousand. The number of prisoners undoubtedly amounted to forty thousand, because the Gauls had dragged along with them a crowd of people of all descriptions and of all ages, like men removing to another country, rather than going out to war. The consul, having burnt the arms of the enemy collected in one heap, then ordered all to bring together the rest of the booty, and either sold that portion which was to be applied to the use of the public, or distributed the remainder among the soldiers, taking care that the shares should be as just as possible. They were all praised in a public assembly, and presented with gifts each according to his merit; Attalus was distinguished above all, with the general approbation of the rest. For not only were the courage and activity of that young prince conspicuous in undergoing dangers and fatigue, but also the modesty of his deportment.

      24 The war with the Tectosagians remained still in its original state. The consul, marching against them, arrived, on the third day, at Ancyra, a city remarkable in those parts, from which the enemy were but a little more than ten miles distant. While his camp lay there, a memorable action was performed by a female. Among many other captives, the wife of the Gallic chieftain Ortiagon, a woman of exquisite beauty, was strictly guarded, and a centurion, possessing the lust and avarice usual among military men, commanded this guard. He, first, endeavoured to learn her sentiments; but, finding that she abhorred the thought of voluntary prostitution, he offered violence to her person, which by the decree of fortune was his slave. Afterwards, in order to soothe her indignation at the insult, he gives the lady hope of a return to her friends; and not even that gratuitously, like a lover. He stipulated for a certain weight of gold, but, being unwilling to have any of his countrymen privy to it, he gave her leave to send any one of the prisoners, whom she chose, as a messenger to her friends. He appointed a spot near the river, to which two of this woman’s friends, and not more, were to come with the gold in the night following, to receive her. It happened that among the prisoners under the same guard was a servant of the lady; the centurion, as soon as it grew dark, conveyed this messenger beyond the advanced posts. Her friends came to the place at the appointed time, likewise the centurion with his prisoner. Here, on their producing the gold, which mounted to an Attic talent, for he had stipulated for that sum the lady in her own language ordered them to draw their swords, and kill the centurion, while he was weighing the gold. She herself, bearing wrapped up in her garment the head of the slain centurion, detached from the trunk, reached her husband Ortiagon, who had fled home from Olympus. And before she would embrace him, she threw down the centurion’s head at his feet; and on his asking, with astonishment, whose head it was, and what was the meaning of such a proceeding, so unaccountable in a female, she acknowledged to her husband the injury committed on her person, and the vengeance she had taken for the forcible violation of her chastity. She maintained to the last, as it is said, by the purity and strictness of the rest of her life, the glory of this achievement, so honourable to her sex.

      25 Envoys from the Tectosagians met the consul at Ancyra, entreating him not to decamp until he had held a conference with their kings; that any conditions of peace were in their opinion