onger forces to encounter." On the breaking up of the council the
signal for battle was displayed, and the troops immediately led into
the field.

47. The Carthaginians were already standing before their camp in
battle-array. This circumstance delayed the battle: Hasdrubal, who
had advanced before the line with a few horsemen, remarked some old
shields among the enemy, which he had not seen before, and some horses
leaner than the rest their numbers also appeared greater than usual.
Suspecting therefore, what was really the case, he hastily sounded
a retreat, and sent a party to the river from which they got their
water, where some of them might be intercepted, and notice taken
whether there were perchance any there whose complexions were more
than ordinarily sun-burnt, as from a recent march. At the same time he
ordered a party to ride round the camp at a distance, and note whether
the rampart was extended in any part, and also observe whether the
signal sounded once or twice. Having received a report of all these
particulars, the fact of the camp's not being enlarged led him into
error. There were now two camps, as there were before the other consul
arrived, one belonging to Marcus Livius, the other to Lucius Porcius,
and to neither of them had any addition been made to give more room
for the tents. But the veteran general, who was accustomed to a Roman
enemy, was much struck by their reporting that the signal sounded once
in the praetor's camp, and twice in the consul's; there must therefore
be two consuls, and felt the most painful anxiety as to the manner
in which the other had got away from Hannibal. Least of all could he
suspect, what was really the case, that he had got away from Hannibal
by deceiving him to such an extent, as that he knew not where the
general was, and where the army whose camp stood opposite to his own.
Surely, he concluded, deterred by a defeat of no ordinary kind, he has
not dared to pursue him; and he began to entertain the most serious
fears that he had himself come too late with assistance, now that
affairs were desperate, and lest the same good fortune attended the
Roman arms in Italy which they had experienced in Spain. Sometimes
he imagined that his letter could not have reached him, and that, it
having been intercepted, the consul had hastened to overpower him.
Thus anxious and perplexed, having put out the fires, he issued a
signal at the first watch to collect the baggage in silence,