turned their backs, and all gave themselves up to disorderly flight.  The first place they halted at was the foot of the hills, where they endeavoured to recall the soldiers to their ranks, the Romans hesitating to advance their line up the opposite steep; but afterwards, when they saw them push on briskly, renewing their flight, they were driven into their camp in extreme alarm.  Nor were the Romans far from the rampart; and such was their impetuosity, that they would have taken their camp had not so violent a shower of rain suddenly poured down, while, as is usually the case, the solar rays darted with the greatest intensity between the clouds surcharged with water, that the victors with difficulty returned to their camp.  Some were even deterred, by superstition, from making any further attempts that day.  Though night and the rain invited the Carthaginians to take necessary rest, yet, as their fears and the danger would not allow them to delay, as it was expected that the enemy would assault their camp as soon as it was light, they raised their rampart by stones collected from the neighbouring valleys around them on all sides, with the determination to defend themselves by works, since there was but little protection in their arms.  But the desertion of their allies made it appear safer to fly than stay.  Attanes, prince of the Turdetani, began this revolt; he deserted at the head of a numerous band of his countrymen.  Then two fortified towns, together with their garrisons, were delivered up by their praefects to the Romans.  And, lest the evil should spread more widely, now that the disposition to revolt from the Carthaginians had evinced itself in one instance, Hasdrubal decamped during the silence of the ensuing night.

16.  The troops in the outposts having brought word, as soon as it was light, that the enemy had departed, Scipio, despatching his cavalry in advance, ordered the army to move forward; and so rapidly were they led, that had they directly followed the track of the fugitives, they would certainly have overtaken them; but they trusted to the report of their guides, that there was a shorter cut to the river Baetis, where they might attack them while crossing it.  Hasdrubal, being precluded from passing the river, turned his course to the ocean; and they now advanced in disorder and in the manner of fugitives, so that the Roman legions were left considerably behind.  The cavalry and light-armed, attacking sometimes their rear, and sometimes their flank, harassed and delayed them; and as they were obliged to halt, in consequence of these frequent annoyances, and engaged sometimes the cavalry, at other times the skirmishers and the auxiliary infantry, the legions came up.  After this it was no longer a fight, but a butchering as of cattle, till the general himself, who was the first to run away, made his escape to the neighbouring hills with about six thousand men half armed; the rest were slain or made prisoners.  The Carthaginians hastily