After descending from the Apennines Hannibal advanced towards Placentia, and after a ten miles' march formed camp. The following day he marched against the enemy with 12,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry. Sempronius had by this time returned from Rome, and he did not decline battle. [2] That day the two camps were three miles distant from each other; the following day they fought, and both sides exhibited the most determined courage, but the action was indecisive. [3] At the first encounter the Romans were so far superior that they not only conquered in the field, but followed the routed enemy to his camp and soon made an attack upon it. [4] Hannibal stationed a few men to defend the rampart and the gates, the rest he massed in the middle of the camp, and ordered them to be on the alert and wait for the signal to make a sortie. [5] It was now about three o'clock; the Romans were worn out with their fruitless efforts as there was no hope of carrying the camp, and the consul gave the signal to retire. [6] As soon as Hannibal heard it and saw that the fighting had slackened and that the enemy were retiring from the camp, he immediately launched his cavalry against them right and left, and sallied in person with the main strength of his infantry from the middle of the camp. [7] Seldom has there been a more equal fight, and few would have been rendered more memorable by the mutual destruction of both armies had the daylight allowed it to be sufficiently prolonged; as it was, night put an end to a conflict which had been maintained with such determined courage. [8] There was greater fury than bloodshed, and as the fighting had been almost equal on both sides, they separated with equal loss. [9] Not more than 600 infantry and half that number of cavalry fell on either side, but the Roman loss was out of proportion to their numbers; several members of the equestrian order and five military tribunes as well as three prefects of the allies were killed. Immediately after the battle Hannibal withdrew into Liguria, and Sempronius to Luca. [10] Whilst Hannibal was entering Liguria, two Roman quaestors who had been ambushed and captured, C. Fulvius and L. Lucretius, together with three military tribunes and five members of the equestrian order, most of them sons of senators, were given up to him by the Gauls in order that he might feel more confidence in their maintenance of peaceful relations, and their determination to give him active support.
