t of fifty ships for Marcus
Aemilius the praetor; and he himself, after the affairs of Sicily were
settled, sailing close along the coast of Italy with ten ships,
arrived at Ariminum, whence, setting out with his army for the river
Trebia, he joined his colleague.

52. Both the consuls and all the strength of Rome being now opposed to
Hannibal, made it sufficiently obvious that the Roman empire could
either be defended by those forces, or that there was no other hope
left. Yet the one consul being dispirited by the battle of the cavalry
and his own wound, wished operations to be deferred: the other having
his spirits unsubdued, and being therefore the more impetuous,
admitted no delay. The tract of country between the Trebia and the Po
was then inhabited by the Gauls, who, in this contest of two very
powerful states, by a doubtful neutrality, were evidently looking
forward to the favour of the conqueror. The Romans submitted to this
conduct of the Gauls with tolerable satisfaction, provided they did
not take any active part at all; but the Carthaginian bore it with
great discontent, giving out that he had come invited by the Gauls to
set them at liberty. On account of that resentment, and in order that
he might at the same time maintain his troops from the plunder, he
ordered two thousand foot and a thousand horse, chiefly Numidians,
with some Gauls intermixed, to lay waste all the country
straightforward as far as the banks of the Po. The Gauls, being in
want of assistance, though they had up to this time kept their
inclinations doubtful, are forced by the authors of the injury to turn
to some who would be their supporters; and having sent ambassadors to
the consul, they implore the aid of the Romans in behalf of a country
which was suffering for the too great fidelity of its inhabitants to
the Romans. Neither the cause nor the time of pleading it was
satisfactory to Cornelius; and the nation was suspected by him, both
on account of many treacherous actions, and though others might have
been forgotten through length of time, on account of the recent
perfidy of the Boii. Sempronius, on the contrary, thought that it
would be the strongest tie upon the fidelity of the allies, if those
were defended who first required support. Then, while his colleague
hesitated, he sends his own cavalry, with about a thousand spearmen on
foot in their company, to protect the Gallic territory beyond the
Trebia. These, when they had unexpe