1Having come down from the Apennines, he moved his camp back towards Placentia and, having advanced about ten miles, encamped. 1The next day he leads twelve thousand infantry and five thousand cavalry against the enemy; 2nor did the consul Sempronius, for he had now returned from Rome, refuse battle. 2And on that day there were three miles between the two camps; 3the next day they fought with great spirit and with varying result. 3At the first clash the Roman side was so far superior that they not only won in the battle line but pursued the routed enemy into their camp, and soon were even assaulting the camp. 4Hannibal posted a few defenders on the rampart and at the gates and withdrew the rest, packed together, into the middle of the camp, and orders them to wait, alert, for the signal to break out.
5It was now about the ninth hour of the day when the Roman, having wearied his soldiers to no purpose, since there was no hope of taking the camp, gave the signal for retreat. 6As soon as Hannibal learned of this and saw that the fighting had slackened and that they had withdrawn from the camp, he at once sent out the cavalry on the right and left against the enemy, and himself burst out from the middle of the camp with the core of his infantry. 7Seldom would any battle have been more savage or more notable for the losses of both sides, if the daylight had allowed it to stretch over a long space: night broke off a battle kindled with immense spirit.
8So the clash was fiercer than the slaughter, and just as the fight had been nearly equal, so they parted with equal loss. 9On neither side did more than six hundred infantry fall, and half that number of cavalry; 9but the loss to the Romans was greater than the number would suggest, because several of the equestrian order, five military tribunes and three prefects of the allies were killed. 10After this battle Hannibal withdrew among the Ligurians, Sempronius to Luca. 10As Hannibal came among the Ligurians, two Roman quaestors, Gaius Fulvius and Lucius Lucretius, who had been seized by treachery, are handed over to him, along with two military tribunes and five of the equestrian order, mostly sons of senators, so that he might believe the more firmly that peace and alliance with them would be secure.