At the fourth milestone from Cremona glittered the standards of two legions, the Italica and the Rapax, which had been advanced as far as that point during the success achieved by the first movement of their cavalry. But when fortune changed, they would not open their ranks, nor receive the fugitives, nor advance and themselves attack an enemy now exhausted by so protracted a pursuit and conflict. Vanquished by accident, these men had never in their success valued their general as much as they now in disaster felt his absence. The victorious cavalry charged the wavering line; the tribune Vipstanus Messalla followed with the auxiliary troops from Mœsia, whom, though hurriedly brought up, long service had made as good soldiers as the legionaries. The horse and foot, thus mixed together, broke through the line of the legions. The near neighbourhood of the fortifications of Cremona, while it gave more hope of escape, diminished the vigour of their resistance.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. 1873. reprinted 1942.
