When at last after much
trouble it was found among the heaps of arms and corpses, they were
overjoyed, and with a shout assailed those of the enemy who still
resisted. At length the three thousand picked men were all slain
fighting in their ranks. A great slaughter took place among the others
as they fled, so that the plain and the skirts of the hills were covered
with corpses, and the stream of the river Leukus ran red with blood even
on the day after the battle; for, indeed, it is said that more than
twenty-five thousand men perished. Of the Romans there fell a hundred,
according to Poseidonius, but Nasica says only eighty.
XXII. This battle, fraught with such important issues, was decided in a
remarkably short time; beginning to fight at the ninth hour, the Romans
were victorious before the tenth. The remainder of the day was occupied
in pursuit, which being pressed for some fifteen (English) miles, it was
late before they returned to their camp. All the officers on their
return were met by their servants with torches, and conducted with songs
of triumph to their tents, which were illuminated and wreathed with ivy
and laurel; but the general himself was deeply dejected. The youngest of
the two sons who were serving under him--his own favourite, the noblest
of all his children in character--was nowhere to be found; and it was
feared that, being high-spirited and generous, though but a boy in
years, he must have become mixed up with the enemy, and so perished.
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