Book 2
43
On learning of these events Marcius Rufus, the quaestor, who had been left in the camp by Curio, exhorts his men not to lose heart. They beg and beseech him to transport them back by sea to Sicily. Promising to do so, he bids the captains of the ships have all their boats drawn up on shore by the early evening. But so great was the general terror that some declared that the forces of Juba were close at hand, others that Varus was upon them with his legions and that already they saw the dust of their approach, though in reality nothing of the kind had happened; others suspected that the enemy’s fleet would quickly hurry up to the attack. And so, amid the universal panic, each took counsel for himself. Those who were in the fleet hastened to depart. Their flight instigated the captains of the merchant-ships; only a few boats gathered at the call of duty and the word of command. But on the closely packed shores so great was the struggle to be the first out of the multitude to embark that some of the boats were sunk by the weight of the crowd, and the rest in fear of this hesitated to approach nearer.
