Battle progress
The Consul, amidst the general turmoil, showing himself alone to be calm enough, at least in this frightful situation, as the ranks are upset, each turning to a different cry, puts them in order as far as the moment and time permit. place, and, wherever he can go and make himself heard, exhorts the soldiers and invites them not to retreat, to fight; it is not indeed, he says, by wishes and prayers, but by courage and valor that one must come out of this; in the midst of armies, iron opens a way; the less one fears, the less danger one usually runs. But the noise, the tumult, made it impossible to hear advice and orders, and the soldiers were so far from recognizing their ensigns, their rank and their place, that they hardly thought of taking up their arms and preparing them to go. the fight, and that some let themselves be surprised, their weapons being for them a burden rather than a protection. In such darkness, the ears were used more than the eyes:it was the groans torn from wounds, the sound of blows striking bodies or armor, cries mingled with threat and fear, which made one turn towards them the faces and eyes of the Romans. Some, in fleeing, found themselves carried towards a group of combatants, and remained there; the others, returning to battle, were turned away by a troop of fugitives. At last, when they had rushed in vain from all sides, being hemmed in on the flank by the mountains and the lake, from the front and the back by the enemy army, when it appeared to them that their only hope of safety lay in their arm and in their iron each guided himself, encouraged himself in action, and out of it came an entirely new battle; not one of those pitched battles with principles, hastats and triaires, nor such that the antesignani fight in front of the ensigns and another line behind them, nor that the soldier remains in his legion, his cohort and his maniple:it was chance who grouped the combatants, the courage of each who gave him his place in the front ranks or the last; and so great was the ardor, so attentive the application to the fight, that the earthquake which largely ruined many cities of Italy, diverted torrents from their course, made the sea rise in the rivers and brought down mountains into huge landslides, none of the combatants noticed.