venture an engagement in defence of it.  When all places were completely ravaged with fire and sword, the consul quitted the enemy’s lands, and marched towards Mutina, in a careless manner, as through a pacific population.  The Boians, when they learned that the enemy had withdrawn beyond their frontiers, followed him as secretly as possible, watching an opportunity for an ambuscade; and, having gone by his camp in the night, took possession of a defile through which the Romans were to pass.  But as they were not able to effect this with sufficient secrecy, the consul, who usually began his march late in the night, now waited until day, lest, in the disorderly fight likely to ensue, darkness might increase the confusion; and though he did not stir before it was light, yet he sent forward a troop of horse to explore the country.  When intelligence was brought by them of the number and situation of the enemy, he ordered the baggage to be heaped together in the centre, and the veterans to throw up a rampart round it; and then, with the rest of the army in order of battle, he advanced towards the enemy.  The Gauls did the same, when they found that their stratagem was detected, and that they were to engage in a fair and regular battle, where success must depend on valour alone.

5.  The battle began about the second hour.  The left brigade of the allies, and the Extraordinaries, fought in the first line, and were commanded by two lieutenant-generals of consular dignity, Marcus Marcellus and Tiberius Sempronius, who had been consul the year before.  The present consul was sometimes employed in the front of the line, sometimes in keeping back the legions in reserve, that they might not, through eagerness for fighting, come up to the attack until the signal was given.  He ordered the two Minucii, Quintus and Publius, military tribunes, to lead off the cavalry on the legions into open ground, at some distance from the line; and “when he should give them the signal, to charge the enemy through the clear space.”  While he was thus employed, a message came from Tiberius Sempronius Longus, that the Extraordinaries could not support the onset of the Gauls; that great numbers had already fallen; and that partly through weariness, partly through fear, the ardour of the survivors was much abated.  He recommended it therefore to the consul, if he thought proper, to send up one or other of the two legions, before the army suffered disgrace.  The second legion was accordingly sent, and the Extraordinaries were ordered to retire.  By the legion coming up, with its men fresh, and the ranks complete in their numbers, the fight was renewed with vigour.  The left wing was withdrawn out of the action, and the right took its place in the van.  The intense heat of the sun discomposed the Gauls, whose bodies were very ill qualified to endure it:  nevertheless, keeping their ranks close, and leaning sometimes on each other, sometimes on their bucklers, they withstood the attack of the