Book 34
46
The consul ordered his men instantly to seize their weapons, and for a few minutes kept them standing under arms, partly to encourage the unthinking confidence of the enemy and also to allow of his distributing the troops at the different gates from which each body was to make the sortie. The two legions were ordered to advance through the principal gates, but the Gauls blocked the exits in such dense masses that they could not emerge. The struggle went on for a long time in the confined space; it was not so much fighting with their right hands and swords as pushing with their shields and bodies, the Romans trying to force a way for their standards, the Gauls endeavouring to get into the camp, or at all events to keep the Romans from getting out. Neither the one side nor the other could make any advance until Q. Victorius, a centurion of the first rank, and C. Atilius, a military tribune, the former belonging to the second legion, the latter to the fourth, did what had often been tried in desperate struggles, and snatching the standards from the bearers flung them amongst the enemy. In their effort to recover the standards the men of the second legion were the first to force their way out of the camp.
