[11]
When Hannibal saw the Plestine marsh and the mountain overhanging it, and Centenius between them guarding the passage, he inquired of the guides whether there was any way around. When they said there was no path but that the whole region was rugged and precipitous, he, nevertheless, sent a body of light-armed troops, under the command of Maharbal, to explore the district and pass around the mountain by night. When he judged that they had reached their destination he attacked Centenius in front. While the engagement was in progress, Maharbal was seen pushing forward strenuously on the summit above, where he raised a shout. The Romans thus surrounded took to flight, and there was a great slaughter among them, 3000 being killed and 800 taken prisoners. The remainder escaped with difficulty. When this news reached the city they feared lest Hannibal should march against them at once. They collected stones upon the walls, and the old men armed themselves. Being in want of arms they took down from the temples those that had been hung there as trophies of former wars, and, as was customary in times of great danger, they chose a dictator, Fabius Maximus being selected.
Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.