disorder there as prevailed in their front:  and that, thus assailed on both sides, thirty-five thousand of them were slain, five thousand seven hundred taken prisoners, among whom was Hamilcar, a Carthaginian general, who had been the cause of the war; and that a hundred and thirty military standards and above two hundred waggons were taken.  On this, the towns of the Gauls, which had joined in the revolt of the Insubrians, surrendered to the Romans.

31.  The other consul, Minucius, had at first traversed the territories of the Boians, with wide-spread ravaging parties; but afterwards, when that people left the Insubrians, and came home to defend their own property, he kept his men within their camp, expecting to come to a regular engagement with the enemy.  Nor would the Boians have declined a battle, if their spirits had not been depressed by hearing of the defeat of the Insubrians.  Upon this, deserting their commander and their camp, they dispersed themselves through the several towns, each wishing to take care of his own effects.  Thus they changed the enemy’s method of carrying on the war:  for, no longer hoping to decide the matter by a single battle, he began again to lay waste the lands, burn the houses, and storm the villages.  At this time, Clastidium was burned, and the legions were led thence against the Ilvatian Ligurians, who alone refused to submit.  That state, also, on learning that the Insubrians had been defeated in battle, and the Boians so terrified that they had not dared to try the fortune of an engagement, made a submission.  Letters from the consuls, containing accounts of their successes, came from Gaul to Rome at the same time.  Marcus Sergius, city praetor, read them in the senate, and afterwards, by direction of the fathers, in an assembly of the people; on which a supplication, of four days’ continuance, was decreed.

32.  It was by this time winter; and while Titus Quinctius, after the reduction of Elatia, had his winter quarters distributed in Phocis and Locris, a violent dissension broke out at Opus.  One faction invited to their assistance the Aetolians who were nearest at hand; the other, the Romans.  The Aetolians arrived first; but the other party, which was the more powerful, refused them admittance, and, despatching a courier to the Roman general, held the city until his arrival.  The citadel was possessed by a garrison belonging to the king, and they could not be prevailed on to retire from thence, either by the threats of the people of Opus, or by the authority of the Roman consul’s commands.  What prevented their being immediately attacked was, the arrival of an envoy from the king, to solicit the appointing of a time and place for a conference.  This was granted to the king with great reluctance; not that Quinctius did not wish to see war concluded under his own auspices, partly by arms, and partly by negotiation:  for he knew not, yet, whether one of the new consuls would be sent out as his successor, or whether he should