1When the soldiers' spirits on both sides had been fired for the contest by these exhortations, the Romans bridge the Ticinus and set a fort on top to protect the bridge; 2the Carthaginian, while the enemy was busy with the work, sends Maharbal with a squadron of Numidians, five hundred horsemen, to lay waste the lands of the allies of the Roman people; 3he orders the Gauls to be spared as far as possible and the minds of their chiefs to be tempted to revolt. 3When the bridge was finished, the Roman army was led across into the territory of the Insubres and took up position five miles from Victumulae.
4There Hannibal had his camp; 4and having hastily recalled Maharbal and the cavalry, seeing that battle was imminent, and thinking that nothing could ever be said and urged enough to encourage his soldiers, he called them to an assembly and announced definite rewards in hope of which they were to fight: he would give them land in Italy, Africa or Spain, wherever each wished, free of tax for the man who received it and for his children; 5to anyone who preferred money to land he would make it good in silver; 6to those of the allies who wished to become Carthaginian citizens, he would give the right; 6for those who preferred to return home, he would take care that they would not wish to exchange their lot with that of any of their countrymen.
7To the slaves, too, who had followed their masters he offers freedom, and says he will give the masters two slaves in return for each. 8And so that they might know these promises would be kept, holding a lamb in his left hand and a flint in his right, he prayed to Jupiter and the other gods that, if he broke his word, they should slay him just as he had slain the lamb, and after the prayer he dashed in the animal's head with the stone. 9Then indeed all of them, as though each had received the gods' warrant for his hopes, and thinking that the only delay in winning what they hoped for was that they were not yet fighting, demand battle with one mind and one voice.