27. Æmilius, when no aid appeared in any quarter, believing that his couriers had been intercepted, resolved to wait no longer, but to make a trial of fortune by himself; and for this purpose, before the coming of the enemy, who now made their attacks with less briskness and vigour, he drew up his troops at the four gates, that, on a signal being given, might sally out from all sides at once. To four independent cohorts of auxiliaries, he added two others, and gave the command to Marcus Valerius, lieutenant-general, with orders to make his sally by the prætorian gate. At the right gate of the first cohort he formed the spearmen of the first legion, placing the first-rank men of the same legion in reserve: Marcus Servilius and Lucius Sulpicius, military tribunes, had the command of these. The third legion was drawn up opposite to the left gate of the first cohort, with this difference only, that here the first-rank men were posted in front, and the spearmen in reserve. Sextus Julius Cæsar and Lucius Aurelius Cotta, military tribunes, had the command of this legion. Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, lieutenant-general, with the right wing of the allies, was posted at the quæstorian gate: and two cohorts, with the veterans of the two legions, were ordered to stay within to guard the camp. The general himself went round by all the gates, haranguing the troops, and excited the wrath of the soldiers by all the incentives that he could use; at one time declaiming against the treachery of the enemy, who after suing for peace, and obtaining a truce, had come during the very time of that truce, in violation of the law of nations, to attack his camp; at another, setting before them what a shame it was that a Roman army should be besieged by Ligurians, people more properly styled robbers than a regular enemy. “With what face,” continued he, “if you make your way hence by the assistance of others, and not by your own valour, will any of you meet, I do not say those soldiers that conquered Hannibal, or Philip, or Antiochus, the greatest kings and generals of the present age, but those who often drove those very Ligurians before them, flying like cattle through pathless forests, and put them to the sword? What the Spaniards, the Gauls, the Macedonians, or Carthaginians, never dared to attempt, a Ligurian enemy dares: he marches up to the trenches of a Roman camp, unexpectedly besieges and assaults it; although, formerly, we, searching carefully the recesses of the forests, were with difficulty able to find them lurking in their hiding-places.” This was answered by a general clamour, “that it was no fault of the soldiers, as no one had given them the order to sally forth Let him but give the order, and he should soon be convinced, that both the Romans and the Ligurians were the same that ever they were.”