The History of Rome, Books 37 to the End: with the Epitomes and Fragments of the Lost BooksLivy
History
The History of Rome, Books 37 to the End: with the Epitomes and Fragments of the Lost Books
Livy
Rome -- History
20. Quintus Marcius, having completed the inquiries in his district,
prepared at length to proceed into the province of Liguria, for the
service of which he received a supply of three thousand Roman foot and
one hundred and fifty horse, with five thousand Latin foot and two
hundred horse. The same province, and the same numbers of horse and
foot, had been voted to his colleague, and they received the armies
which, during the preceding year, the consuls, Caius Flaminius and
Marcus Æmilius, had commanded. They were also ordered, by a decree of
the senate, to raise two new legions, and they demanded from the allies
and Latins twenty thousand foot and one thousand three hundred horse;
besides, they levied three thousand Roman foot and two hundred horse. It
was resolved that all this army, except the legions, should be led to
reinforce the army in Spain. The consuls, therefore, while they
themselves were engaged in the inquisitions, appointed Titus Mænius to
hold the levy. When the trials were finished, Quintus Marcius first
marched against the Apuan Ligurians. While he pursued these into very
remote fastnesses, which had always served them as lurking-places and
receptacles, he was surrounded in a disadvantageous position, a narrow
defile which the enemy had previously seized. Here four thousand
soldiers fell, and three standards of the second legion, with eleven
ensigns of the Latin allies, were taken; abundance of arms were likewise
lost, which were thrown away by the men in every direction, because they
impeded their flight through the woody paths. The Ligurians ceased to
pursue, sooner than the Romans to fly. As soon as the consul had
effected his escape out of the enemy’s territories, he disbanded the
troops, in the country of their friends, in order that the greatness of
the loss sustained might not appear. But he could not obliterate all
memorial of his misconduct; for the pass, from which the Ligurians put
him to flight, has been called the Marcian pass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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