camp across the fields with all the speed they could make.  When Cato saw the rout become general, he rode back to the second legion, which had been posted in reserve, and ordered the standards to be borne before it, and that it should advance in quick motion, and attack the camp of the enemy.  If any of them, through too much eagerness, pushed forward beyond his rank, he himself rode up and struck them with his javelin, and also ordered the tribunes and centurions to chastise them.  By this time the camp of the enemy was attacked, though the Romans were kept off from the works by stones, poles, and weapons of every sort.  But, on the arrival of the fresh legion, the assailants assumed new courage, and the enemy fought with redoubled fury in defence of their rampart.  The consul attentively examined every place himself, that he might break in at that quarter where he saw the weakest resistance.  At a gate on the left, he observed that the guard was thin, and thither he led the first-rank men and spearmen of the second legion.  The party posted at the gate were not able to withstand their assault; while the rest, seeing the enemy within the rampart, abandoned the defence of the camp, and threw away their standards and arms.  Great numbers were killed at the gates, being stopped in the narrow passages by the throng of their own men; and the soldiers of the second legion cut off the hindmost, while the rest were plundering the camp.  According to the account of Valerius Antias, there were above forty thousand of the enemy killed on that day.  Cato himself, who was certainly no disparager of his own merits, says that a great many were killed, but he specifies no number.

16.  The conduct of Cato on that day is judged deserving of commendation in three particulars.  First, in leading round his army so far from his camp and fleet, as to fight the battle in the very middle of the enemy, that his men might look for no safety but in their courage.  Secondly, in throwing the cohorts on the enemy’s rear.  Thirdly, in ordering the second legion, when all the rest were disordered by the eagerness of their pursuit, to advance at a full pace to the gate of the camp, in compact and regular order under their standards.  He delayed not to improve his victory; but having sounded a retreat, and brought back his men laden with spoil, he allowed them a few hours of the night for rest; and then led them out to ravage the country.  They spread their depredations the wider, as the enemy were dispersed in their flight; and this circumstance, no less than the defeat of the preceding day, obliged the Spaniards of Emporiae, and those of their neighbourhood, to make a submission.  Many also, belonging to other states, who had made their escape to Emporiae, surrendered; all of whom the consul received with kindness, and after refreshing them with victuals and wine, dismissed to their several homes.  He quickly decamped thence, and wherever the army proceeded on its march, he was