20.
And by this time Quintus Marcius, having completed the investigation in his district, was preparing to set out against the Ligurians, who composed his province, having received three thousand Roman infantry and one hundred and fifty cavalry and five thousand infantry and two hundred cavalry of the allies of the Latin confederacy as reinforcements.
[
2]
The same province and the same numbers
[p. 277]of infantry and cavalry had been decreed to his
1 colleague as well. They received the armies which Gaius Flaminius and Marcus Aemilius had commanded as consuls the preceding year.
[
3]
Besides, they were directed, under the decree of the senate, to enlist two new legions, and they called upon the allies of the Latin confederacy for twenty thousand infantry and eight hundred cavalry, and they enlisted three thousand Roman infantry and two hundred cavalry.
2
[
4]
All this army, except the legions, it was resolved to send to reinforce the army in Spain. Accordingly the consuls, while they were themselves busy with the investigations, placed Titus Maenius in charge of conducting the levy.
[
5]
When the investigations were completed, Quintus Marcius set out before his colleague against the Ligurian Apuani.
[
6]
While he was following them into a retired glade, which had always been their secret retreat and hiding-place, he was surrounded on unfavourable ground in a narrow pass which had been occupied in advance.
[
7]
Four thousand soldiers were lost and three standards of the second legion and eleven ensigns
3 of the allies of the Latin confederacy fell into the hands of the enemy, as well as many weapons which were thrown away everywhere because they hindered the flight along the paths in the forest.
[
8]
The Ligurians desisted from their pursuit before the Romans stopped their flight.
[
9]
As soon as the consul got free of the enemy's country, that it might not be seen how great was the loss, he disbanded the army in a peaceful region.
[
10]
He could not, however, erase the record of his defeat; for the glade from
[p. 279]which the Ligurians had driven him was called
4 “Marcius.”
5