1After that a rest of no long duration was given to the soldiers, while the cold was unbearable; 2and at the first uncertain signs of spring he set out from winter quarters and led them into Etruria, intending to win that people too, like the Gauls and Ligurians, either by force or by consent. 3As he was crossing the Apennines, so fierce a storm fell upon him that it almost surpassed the horrors of the Alps. 3Since rain mixed with wind was driving right into their faces, at first they halted, because either they had to let go of their arms or, if they struggled against it, they were whirled round and dashed to the ground; 4then, when it began to stop their breath and would not let them breathe in and out, they turned their backs to the wind and sat down for a while.
5Then indeed the sky roared with a huge din and amid fearful crashes lightning flashed; 5robbed of hearing and sight, all were numb with fear. 6At last, when the rain had spent itself and the force of the wind had become all the fiercer for it, it seemed necessary to pitch camp in the very place where they had been caught. 7But that was, as it were, the beginning of their toil all over again: for they could neither spread out nor set up anything, nor did what had been set up stay in place, as the wind tore and snatched everything away. 8And soon, when the water lifted by the wind had frozen above the icy ridges of the mountains, it hurled down so much snowy hail that the men abandoned everything and threw themselves down, buried rather than sheltered by their coverings; 8and so severe a cold followed that, when each man wished to raise and lift himself out of that pitiful heap of men and beasts, for a long time he could not, because with their sinews stiff and numb they could scarcely bend their limbs.
10Then, when at last by moving about they began to stir and recover their spirits, and fires began to be made in a few places, each man in his helplessness reached out for help from others. 11For two days they stayed in that place as if besieged. 11Many men, many pack animals, and also seven of the elephants that had survived the battle fought at the Trebia, perished.