asten to join him;" adding, that "he would act on the
defensive, and defer engaging in battle, until his arrival." The same
reason which made the consul wish to decline an action, induced
the Gauls, whose spirits were raised by the backwardness of their
antagonists, to bring it on as soon as possible, that they might
finish the affair before the two consuls should unite their forces.
However, during two days, they did nothing more than stand in
readiness for battle, if any should come out against them. On the
third, they advanced furiously to the rampart, and assaulted the camp
on every side at once. The consul immediately ordered his men to take
arms, and kept them quiet, under arms, for some time; both to add to
the foolish confidence of the enemy, and to arrange his troops at the
gates, through which each party was to sally out. The two legions were
ordered to march by the two principal gates; but, in the very pass of
the gates, the Gauls opposed them in such close bodies as to stop up
the way. The fight was maintained a long time in these narrow passes;
nor were their hands or swords much employed in the business, but
pushing with their shields and bodies, they pressed against each
other, the Romans struggling to force their standards beyond the
gates, the Gauls, to break into the camp, or, at least, to hinder the
Romans from issuing forth. However, neither party could make the least
impression on the other, until Quintus Victorius, a first centurion,
and Caius Atinius, a military tribune, the former of the second,
the latter of the fourth legion, had taken a course often tried in
desperate conflicts; snatching the standards from the officers who
carried them, and throwing them among the enemy. In the struggle to
recover the standards, the men of the second legion first made their
way out of the gate.

[Footnote 1: 397l. 17s. 6d.]

[Footnote 2: 17l. 8s. 9d.]

[Footnote 3: 17s. 5-1/2d.]

47. These were now fighting on the outside of the rampart, the fourth
legion still entangled in the gate, when a new alarm arose on the
opposite side of the camp. The Gauls had broke in by the Quaestorian
gate, and had slain the quaestor, Lucius Postumius, surnamed Tympanus,
with Marcus Atinius and Publius Sempronius, praefects of the allies,
who made an obstinate resistance; and also, near two hundred soldiers.
The camp in that part had been taken, when a cohort of those who are
called Extraordinaries, having been sent by the c