the very
freed-women should, according to their means, contribute money from
which a present might be made to Feronia. When these things were done,
the decemviri sacrificed with the larger victims in the forum at
Ardea. Lastly, it being now the month of December, a sacrifice was
made at the temple of Saturn at Rome, and a lectisternium ordered, in
which senators prepared the couch and a public banquet. Proclamation
was made through the city, that the Saturnalia should be kept for a
day and a night; and the people were commanded to account that day as
a holiday, and observe it for ever.

2. While the consul employs himself at Rome in appeasing the gods and
holding the levy, Hannibal, setting out from his winter quarters,
because it was reported that the consul Flaminius had now arrived at
Arretium, although a longer but more commodious route was pointed out
to him, takes the nearer road through a marsh where the Arno had, more
than usual, overflowed its banks. He ordered the Spaniards and
Africans (in these lay the strength of his veteran army) to lead,
their own baggage being intermixed with them, lest, being compelled to
halt any where, they should want what might be necessary for their
use: the Gauls he ordered to go next, that they might form the middle
of the marching body; the cavalry to march in the rear: next, Mago
with the light-armed Numidians to keep the army together, particularly
coercing the Gauls, if, fatigued with exertion and the length of the
march, as that nation is wanting in vigour for such exertions, they
should fall away or halt. The van still followed the standards
wherever the guides did but lead them, through the exceeding deep and
almost fathomless eddies of the river, nearly swallowed up in mud, and
plunging themselves in. The Gauls could neither support themselves
when fallen, nor raise themselves from the eddies. Nor did they
sustain their bodies with spirit, nor their minds with hope; some
scarce dragging on their wearied limbs; others dying where they had
once fallen, their spirits being subdued with fatigue, among the
beasts which themselves also lay prostrate in every place. But chiefly
watching wore them out, endured now for four days and three nights.
When, the water covering every place, not a dry spot could be found
where they might stretch their weary bodies, they laid themselves down
upon their baggage, thrown in heaps into the waters. Piles of beasts,
which lay every where throu