As there were no signs of assistance coming anywhere, Aemilius supposed that his mounted messengers had been intercepted, and felt that he ought not any longer to delay trying what Fortune had in store for him single-handed. [2] The enemy's attacks showed less spirit and force, and before their next assault he drew up his army at the four gates in order that on the signal being given they might make a simultaneous sortie on all sides. [3] To the four praetorian cohorts he added two others with M. Valerius, one of his staff officers, in command, and gave them orders to sally from the praetorian gate. [4] At the southern gate he posted the hastati of the first legion; the principes of this legion being in reserve. M. Servilius and L. Sulpicius, both military tribunes, were in command of these. [5] The third legion was similarly drawn up at the north gate, with this difference that the principes formed the front, the hastati the reserve. [6] The military tribunes Sextius Julius Caesar and L. Aurelius Cotta were in command of this legion. Q. Fulvius Flaccus, a staff officer, was posted with the right division of allied troops at the quaestorian gate. [7] Two cohorts and the triarii of the two legions were ordered to remain and guard the camp. The general visited all the gates to harangue his men and whet their rage against the enemy by everything that could exasperate them. [8] He spoke bitterly of the treachery of the enemy who, after suing for peace and being allowed a suspension of arms, had come [9??] to attack the camp while the armistice was actually in force, in violation of all international law. He pointed out what a disgrace it was for a Roman army to be hemmed in by [10??] Ligurians, who could be more truly described as a horde of robbers than as a regular enemy. [11] "If," he continued, "you get out of this with the help of others, and not by your own courage, with what face will any of you meet-I do not say the soldiers who defeated Hannibal, Philip or Antiochus, the greatest generals and monarchs of our time, but-those who have so often pursued and cut to pieces these very Ligurians as they fled like frightened cattle through their pathless forests? [12] What the Spaniards, the Gauls, the Macedonians, the Carthaginians did not dare to do, this the Ligurian is doing today; he comes up to the Roman rampart and actually surrounds and attacks our camp. [13] And yet, formerly, it was hard to discover him after a close search as he lurked in his trackless hiding-places!" His words were met by a unanimous shout of approval from the soldiers. [14] It was no fault of theirs, they said; no one had given the signal for a sortie; let him give the signal now, he would soon learn that the Romans and the Ligurians were the same that they had always been.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
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