ng time, and the same had been done in several quarters, the camp
was now captured on all sides; the Romans were cut to pieces on all
hands, the few by the many, the dispirited by the victorious. A great
number of the men, however, having fled for refuge into the
neighbouring woods, effected their escape to the camp of Publius
Scipio, which Titus Fonteius commanded. Some authors relate that
Cneius Scipio was slain on the eminence on the first assault of the
enemy; others that he escaped with a few attendants to a castle near
the camp; this, they say, was surrounded with fire, by which means the
doors which they could not force were consumed; that it was thus
taken, and all within, together with the general himself, put to
death. Cneius Scipio was slain in the eighth year after his arrival in
Spain, and on the twenty-ninth day after the death of his brother. At
Rome the grief occasioned by their death was not more intense than
that which was felt throughout Spain. The sorrow of the citizens,
however, was partly distracted by the loss of the armies, the
alienation of the province, and the public disaster, while in Spain
they mourned and regretted the generals themselves, Cneius, however,
the more, because he had been longer in command of them, had first
engaged their affections, and first exhibited a specimen of Roman
justice and forbearance.

37. When it seemed that the Roman armies were annihilated, and Spain
lost, one man recovered this desperate state of affairs. There was in
the army one Lucius Marcius, the son of Septimus, a Roman knight, an
enterprising youth, and possessing a mind and genius far superior to
the condition in which he had been born. To his high talents had been
added the discipline of Cneius Scipio, under which he had been
thoroughly instructed during a course of so many years in all the
qualifications of a soldier. This man, having collected the troops
which had been dispersed in the flight, and drafted some from the
garrisons, had formed an army not to be despised, and united it with
Titus Tonteius, the lieutenant-general of Publius Scipio. But so
transcendent was the Roman knight in authority and honour among the
troops, that when, after fortifying a camp on this side of the Iberus,
it had been resolved that a general of the two armies should be
elected in an assembly of the soldiers, relieving each other in the
guard of the rampart, and in keeping the outposts until every one had
given his vote