Book 33
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The Boians, quite incapable of supporting the weariness of delay, dispersed everywhere to their villages and strongholds. Suddenly Marcellus crossed the Po and invaded the Comum territory, where the Insubres had induced the natives to take up arms and were now encamped. The Boian Gauls, full of confidence after the recent fight, joined battle with him while he was actually on the march, and at first attacked with such violence that they forced the front ranks to give way. Fearing that if they once began to give ground it might end in a complete repulse, Marcellus brought up a cohort of Marsians and launched all the troops of the Latin cavalry against the enemy. After they had by successive charges held up the determined onset of the Gauls the rest of the Roman line recovered its steadiness and resisted all attempts to break it. At last they took the offensive in a furious charge which the Gauls were unable to stand; they turned and fled in disorder. According to Valerius Antias over 40,000 men were killed in that battle, 801 standards captured, together with 732 wagons and a large number of gold chains. Claudius tells us that one of these, a very heavy one, was deposited as an offering in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol. The Gaulish camp was stormed and plundered on the same day as the battle took place, and a few days later the town of Comum was captured. Subsequently twenty-eight fortified places went over to the consul. It is a question amongst the various historians whether it was against the Boii or the Insubres that the consul marched in the first place, and whether he wiped out his unsuccessful action by a successful one afterwards or whether the victory at Comum was marred by his later disaster amongst the Boii.
