bia is quite clear. If
Placentia lay on the right bank of the Trebia where it falls into the
Po, and if the battle was fought on the left bank, while the Roman
encampment was pitched upon the right--both of which points have been
disputed, but are nevertheless indisputable--the Roman soldiers must
certainly have passed the Trebia in order to gain Placentia as well
as to gain the camp. But those who crossed to the camp must have made
their way through the disorganized portions of their own army and
through the corps of the enemy that had gone round to their rear,
and must then have crossed the river almost in hand-to-hand combat
with the enemy. On the other hand the passage near Placentia was
accomplished after the pursuit had slackened; the corps was several
miles distant from the field of battle, and had arrived within reach
of a Roman fortress; it may even have been the case, although it
cannot be proved, that a bridge led over the Trebia at that point,
and that the -tete de pont- on the other bank was occupied by the
garrison of Placentia. It is evident that the first passage was
just as difficult as the second was easy, and therefore with good
reason Polybius, military judge as he was, merely says of the corps
of 10,000, that in close columns it cut its way to Placentia (iii. 74,
6), without mentioning the passage of the river which in this case
was unattended with difficulty.

The erroneousness of the view of Livy, which transfers the Phoenician
camp to the right, the Roman to the left bank of the Trebia, has
lately been repeatedly pointed out. We may only further mention,
that the site of Clastidium, near the modern Casteggio, has now been
established by inscriptions (Orelli-Henzen, 5117).

2. III. III. The Celts Attacked in Their Own Land

3. The date of the battle, 23rd June according to the uncorrected
calendar, must, according to the rectified calendar, fall somewhere
in April, since Quintus Fabius resigned his dictatorship, after six
months, in the middle of autumn (Lav. xxii. 31, 7; 32, i), and must
therefore have entered upon it about the beginning of May. The
confusion of the calendar (p. 117) in Rome was even at this period
very great.

4. The inscription of the gift devoted by the new dictator on account
of his victory at Gerunium to Hercules Victor-- -Hercolei sacrom M.
Minuci(us) C. f. dictator vovit- --was found in the year 1862 at Rome,
near S. Lorenzo.

5. III. III. Northern Italy