At length, some of the guards became so irritated, that they volunteered into the cold-stream, and plunged into the icy river. There happened to be at the moment a fall of snow, which was taken by the wind into the faces of the soldiers, who, nevertheless, fought with bravery, though in appearance they seemed to exhibit a mass of white feathers. The Romans, though nearly frozen to death, were not only cool and collected, but eagerly sought, in the hope of warming themselves, the heat of the battle. They were, however, completely beaten, and retired to Placentia, from which the Consuls, with much self-complacency, sent to Rome an account of the battle, in which they attributed to the wind the blow they had sustained, and, plausibly suggesting the ice as the cause of their failure, they endeavoured to slip out of it. Hannibal determined to pass the winter as quietly as he could, but he appears, according to the authorities,[50] to have indulged in a little masquerading, for the purpose of deceiving the Cisalpine Gauls, who more than once conspired to kill him. He would frequently change his dress; and he appears to have had a large assortment of wigs, in one or other of which he was accustomed to disguise himself. Sometimes he would appear in hair of the richest brown, and at other times it was of the reddest dye; so that the people were puzzled to understand how the same head could, on one day, appear covered with the luxuriant chestnut, and on another day, disfigured with an untidy bunch of carrots. On one occasion, when a conspiracy against him was ripe, he came to the council with a limping gait, and thus saved himself from a much more serious hobble. [Illustration: Hannibal disguising himself.] In the spring of the next year, the Consul, C. Flaminius, was sent to Ariminum with an army, and Hannibal started for Etruria. This expedition--if expedition is the proper term for an affair so extremely slow--lasted three days and three nights; the soldiers proceeding through marsh and morass, through thick and thin, to the end of their journey. The Spaniards went first, who picked their way, followed by the Gauls, who stuck in the mud, and were spurred on by the swords of the Numidians, who followed. All the horses were knocked up, and Hannibal, to whom all the glory of the march has been given, endured the least of the fatigue, for, while the common soldiers were wading through the mud, their chief was elevated on the back of the only surviving elephant.