31. When the Roman prætor thought that, by his inactivity for so many days, he had created in the Celtiberians a firm persuasion that he would not be first in any movement, he ordered Lucius Acilius, with the left wing of allies and six thousand provincial auxiliaries, to make the circuit of a mountain behind the enemy, and as soon as he should hear the shout, to pour down from them on their camp. This party, to avoid being seen, set out in the night. At the dawn of day Flaccus sent Caius Scribonius, a præfect of the allies, with the allied cavalry of the left wing, to the enemy’s rampart; when the Celtiberians, observing that they approached nearer, and were also more numerous than usual, all their cavalry poured forth from the camp, and at the same time the signal is given to the infantry to sally forth. Scribonius, according to his instructions, no sooner heard the neighing of the enemy’s cavalry than he wheeled about and retreated to the camp, on which they pursued with the more violence. First the cavalry, and in a short time the line of infantry, came up, confidently expecting that they should be able to assault the camp before night, and they were five hundred paces, not more, from the rampart. Flaccus, therefore, thinking that they were now drawn far enough from their camp, to hinder them from giving it any succour, as he had his troops already formed within the works, burst out from three sides at once; and at the same time raised the shout, not only to inspire ardour for the fight, but also that the party on the mountain might hear it. Nor did these make any delay, but, according to their orders, poured down on the camp, where five thousand men, not more, were left to guard it, and when the smallness of their numbers, the multitude of the assailants and the unexpectedness of the affair, had struck terror into them, the camp was taken almost without a struggle. Acilius set fire to that part of the camp which was most exposed to the view of the combatants.