Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
The Insubrians, Caenomanians, and Boians, having been joined by the Salyans, Ilvatians, and other Ligurian states, and putting themselves under the command of Hamilcar, a Carthaginian, who, having been in the army of Hasdrubal, had remained in those parts, had fallen upon Placentia; and, after plundering the city, and, in their rage, burning a great part of it, leaving scarcely two thousand men among the flames and ruins, passed the Po, and advanced to plunder Cremona.
"The fortune of Hannibal was then consolidated; more than 60,000 Boians, Insubrians, and Ligures flocked in a few days to his standards, and raised his forces to 100,000 men.
There is a doubt among writers, whether the consul led his legions first against the Boians, or against the Insubrians; so as to determine, whether the successful battle obliterated the disgrace of the defeat, or whether the victory obtained at Comum was tarnished by the disaster incurred among the Boii.
If Publius Scipio, after subduing the Boians in battle, had either gone himself, with his victorious army, into the country of the Ligurians, or sent a part of his forces to Quintus Minucius, who was detained there, now the third year, by a war which was still undecided, that with the Ligurians might have been brought to an end: instead of which, he had, in order to procure a full attendance on his triumph, brought home the troops, who might have performed most material services to the state; and might do so still, if the senate thought proper, by deferring this token of victory, to redeem that which had been omitted through eager haste for a triumph.
Next the Boians and Lingonians, having made their way over through the Penine pass, all the tract between the Po and the Alps being occupied, crossed the Po on rafts, and drove out of the country not only the Etrurians, but the Umbrians also: they confined themselves however within the Apennines.
But since the dispersion of the colonies of Cremona and Placentia since the defeat of L. Manlius in the forest of Mutina, the Boians and Insubrians, satisfied at having recovered their independence with their own forces, cared little to compromise themselves for the advantage of strangers, whose appearance and numbers inspired them with but slight confidence."
But there was another circumstance, of much greater magnitude: he had slain in battle so great a number of Gauls, that no commander, before him, ever met in the field so many thousands, at least of the Boians. Out of fifty thousand men, more than one-half were killed, and many thousands made prisoners; so that the Boians had now remaining only old men and boys.
The consul, Publius Cornelius, having received hostages from the Boians, punished them so far as to appropriate almost one-half of their lands for the use of the Roman people, and into which they might afterwards, if they chose, send colonies. Then returning home in full confidence of a triumph, he dismissed his troops, and ordered them to attend on the day of his triumph at Rome.
That he to whom Spain fell should carry with him two legions, five thousand of the Latin confederates, and five hundred horse; together with a fleet of twenty ships of war. That the other consul should raise two legions; for these would be sufficient to maintain tranquillity in the province of Gaul, as the spirits of the Insubrians and Boians had been broken the year before."
The other consul, to whom Italy fell, was ordered to carry on the war with the Boians, with whichever he should choose of the two armies commanded by the consuls of the last year; and to send the other to Rome; and these were ordered to be the city legions, and ready to march to whatever place the senate should direct.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking