ia. After this several irruptions were made in all
directions; and those who sought the river were either swallowed up in
its eddies, or whilst they hesitated to enter it were cut off by the
enemy. Some, who had been scattered abroad through the country in
their flight, by following the traces of the retreating army, arrived
at Placentia; others, the fear of the enemy inspired with boldness to
enter the river, having crossed it, reached the camp. The rain mixed
with snow, and the intolerable severity of the cold, destroyed many
men and beasts of burden, and almost all the elephants. The river
Trebia was the termination of the Carthaginians' pursuit of the enemy;
and they returned to the camp so benumbed with cold, that they could
scarcely feel joy for the victory. On the following night, therefore,
though the guard of the camp and the principal part of the soldiers
that remained passed the Trebia on rafts, they either did not perceive
it, on account of the beating of the rain, or being unable to bestir
themselves, through their fatigue and wounds, pretended that they did
not perceive it; and the Carthaginians remaining quiet, the army was
silently led by the consul Scipio to Placentia, thence transported
across the Po to Cremona, lest one colony should be too much burdened
by the winter quarters of two armies.

57. Such terror on account of this disaster was carried to Rome, that
they believed that the enemy was already approaching the city with
hostile standards, and that they had neither hope nor aid by which
they might repel his attack from the gates and walls. One consul
having been defeated at the Ticinus, the other having been recalled
from Sicily, and now both consuls and their two consular armies having
been vanquished, what other commanders, what other legions were there
to be sent for? The consul Sempronius came to them whilst thus
dismayed, having passed at great risk through the cavalry of the
enemy, scattered in every direction in search of plunder, with
courage, rather than with any plan or hope of escaping, or of making
resistance if he should not escape it. Having held the assembly for
the election of the consuls, the only thing which was particularly
wanting at present, he returned to the winter quarters. Cneius
Servilius and Caius Flaminius were elected consuls. But not even the
winter quarters of the Romans were undisturbed, the Numidian horse
ranging at large, and where the ground was impracticable f