1At first dark the camp was moved in silence; 1the oxen were driven some way ahead of the standards. 2When they came to the foot of the mountains and the narrow roads, the signal is at once given to set the horns alight and drive the herds up the mountains in front of them; 2and the very fear of the flame flaring from their heads, and the heat now reaching the quick at the roots of the horns, drove the oxen on as if goaded by madness. 3At this sudden scattering all the brushwood around seemed to be burning, just as if the woods and mountains had been set on fire, and the vain tossing of their heads, fanning the flames, gave the appearance of men running about in every direction.
4Those who had been posted to hold the crossing of the pass, when they saw some fires on the mountaintops and above themselves, thinking they had been surrounded, left their post; 4making for the highest ridges of the mountains, where the flames twinkled least thickly, as if that were the safest way, they nonetheless ran into some oxen that had strayed from their herds. 4And at first, when they saw them from afar, they stood still, thunderstruck at the marvel of creatures that seemed to breathe flames; 5then, when it became clear that the trick was a human one, thinking that there was an ambush, they took to flight in even greater panic.
6They ran into the enemy's light-armed troops as well; 6but the night, making the fear equal, kept both sides from starting a fight until daylight. 7Meanwhile Hannibal, having brought his whole column through the pass and overwhelmed some of the enemy in the pass itself, pitched camp in the territory of Allifae.