1Meanwhile no more news had been carried into Italy, to Rome, by the envoys of the Massiliots than that Hannibal had crossed the Ebro, when, just as if he had already crossed the Alps, the Boii, having stirred up the Insubres, revolted, not so much from their old anger against the Roman people as because they resented the recent planting of the colonies of Placentia and Cremona on Gallic land around the Po. 3And so, suddenly seizing arms and making an attack on that very land, they caused such terror and confusion that not only the country people but the Roman land commissioners themselves, who had come to assign the land, Gaius Lutatius, Gaius Servilius and Marcus Annius, distrusting the walls of Placentia, fled to Mutina.
4The name of Lutatius is not in doubt; 4instead of Annius and Servilius some annals have Manius Acilius and Gaius Herennius, others Publius Cornelius Asina and Gaius Papirius Maso. 5It is also doubtful whether envoys sent to the Boii to remonstrate were maltreated, or whether the attack was made on the commissioners as they were measuring out the land. 6When they were being besieged at Mutina, and the nation, unskilled in the arts of attacking cities and at the same time very sluggish at military works, was sitting idly before the untouched walls, a pretence began to be made of negotiating peace, and the envoys, called out to a parley by the Gaulish chiefs, are seized, not only against the law of nations but in violation of the pledge which had been given for that occasion, the Gauls declaring that they would not release them unless their own hostages were returned to them.
8When this news about the envoys had been brought, and Mutina and its garrison were in danger, the praetor Lucius Manlius, burning with anger, leads his army in loose order towards Mutina. 9At that time there were woods around the road, most of the land being uncultivated. 9There, having set out without reconnoitring, he plunges into an ambush, and with great slaughter of his men he barely made his way out into open plains. 10There a camp was fortified, and, because the Gauls lacked the confidence to attack it, the soldiers' spirits were restored, although it was well established that about five hundred had fallen. 11Then the march was begun afresh, and as long as the column was being led through open country, no enemy appeared; 12when the woods were entered again, then, attacking the rear amid great alarm and panic on all sides, they killed seven hundred soldiers and took six standards.
13There was an end of terrifying for the Gauls and of fearing for the Romans as soon as they got out of the pathless and tangled forest. 13Then, easily protecting their column in open country, the Romans hastened to Tannetum, a village near the Po. 14There they protected themselves with a temporary fortification, with supplies brought by the river, and with the help also of the Brixian Gauls against the multitude of the enemy which grew day by day.