1Having lost many men and pack animals miserably, when he had at last emerged from the marshes, he pitches camp as soon as he could on dry ground, and learned for certain through scouts sent ahead that the Roman army was round the walls of Arretium. 2Next, by inquiry, he pursued with the utmost care the consul's plans and temper, the lie of the country and the roads, the resources for getting supplies, and all the other things it was useful to know. 3The region was among the most fertile in Italy, the Etruscan plains that lie between Faesulae and Arretium, rich in grain and cattle and plenty of everything; 4the consul was overbearing since his former consulship, and had too little reverence not only for the laws or the majesty of the senate but even for the gods.
4This rashness, implanted in his nature, fortune had fostered with prosperous success in civil and military affairs. 5So it was quite clear that, heeding neither gods nor men, he would do everything headstrongly and in too great haste; 5and so that he might be the more prone to his faults, the Carthaginian prepares to provoke and irritate him, and leaving the enemy on his left, making for Faesulae, he set off to plunder through the middle of the Etrurian countryside and displays to the consul from afar the greatest devastation he can with slaughter and burning. 7Flaminius, who would not have stayed quiet himself even had the enemy stayed quiet, then indeed, after he saw the property of the allies being carried off and driven away almost before his eyes, thinking it a disgrace to himself that the Carthaginian was now roaming through the middle of Italy and marching, with no one opposing him, to attack the very walls of Rome, while all the others in the council urged safe rather than showy measures — that his colleague should be waited for, so that with armies joined they might conduct the campaign with common spirit and counsel, and that meanwhile the enemy should be kept from unrestrained plundering by the cavalry and the light-armed auxiliaries — rushed in anger from the council and, having at once given the signal for march and for battle, said, 'No, let us sit before the walls of Arretium; 10for here is our fatherland, here our household gods.
10Let Hannibal, let slip from our hands, lay waste Italy completely and, ravaging and burning everything, reach the walls of Rome, and let us not move from here before the fathers summon Gaius Flaminius from Arretium, as once they summoned Camillus from Veii.' 11As he uttered these taunts and ordered the standards to be pulled up more quickly, and had himself leapt on his horse, the horse suddenly fell and threw the consul over its head. 12While all who were around were alarmed at this as a foul omen for beginning the enterprise, it is further reported that a standard cannot be pulled up, though the standard-bearer strains with all his might.
13Turning to the messenger, he said, 'Are you also bringing a letter from the senate, forbidding me to fight? 13Go, tell them to dig the standard out, if their hands have grown numb with fear for pulling it up.' 14Then the column began to advance, the leading officers, besides having disagreed with the plan, alarmed too by the double prodigy, while the common soldiers were glad at their general's boldness, since they looked at the hope itself rather than the grounds for hope.