In the very next year after this, the consul Calatinus, making for Camerina, a city of Sicily, rashly led his army into a defile which the forces of the Carthaginians had long since blocked.
1 Anno ab hoc proximo Calatinus consul Camerinam Siciliae urbem petens temere in angustias deduxit exercitum, quas Poenorum copiae iam dudum praestruxerant.
When he had no means whatever either of resisting or of escaping, he was delivered by the valour and efforts of Calpurnius Flamma, who, with a picked band of three hundred men, seized a hillock held by the enemy and, by fighting, turned all the Carthaginians upon himself, until the Roman army could pass through the beset defile with no enemy pressing upon it.
2 cui cum omnino nulla uel obsistendi uel euadendi facultas esset, Calpurni Flammae uirtute et opera liberatus est, qui lecta trecentorum uirorum manu insessum ab hostibus tumulum occupauit et in se Poenos omnes pugnando conuertit, donec Romanus exercitus obsessas angustias hoste non urguente transiret.
All three hundred were slain in that fight; Calpurnius alone, though pierced with many wounds and covered with corpses, escaped.
3 caesi sunt in eo bello omnes trecenti, solus Calpurnius quamuis multis confossus uulneribus et cadaueribus obtectus euasit.
Hannibal the elder, again placed in command of the fleet by the Carthaginians, engaged the Romans unsuccessfully in a naval battle and was defeated; and when a mutiny arose in his army, he was overwhelmed with stones and perished.
4 Hannibal senior a Carthaginiensibus iterum classi praepositus, infeliciter cum Romanis nauali proelio congressus et uictus, ab exercitu suo seditione orta lapidibus coopertus interiit.
The consul Atilius ranged over Lipara and Melita, famous islands off Sicily, and laid them waste.
5 Atilius consul Liparam Melitamque insulas Siciliae nobiles peruagatus euertit.
The consuls, ordered to carry the war over into Africa, made for Sicily with 330 ships. Hamilcar, the general of the Carthaginians, and Hanno, the commander of the fleet, came to meet them. When the naval battle was joined, the Carthaginians were put to flight and lost sixty-four ships.
6 consules, in Africam iussi transferre bellum, cum trecentis triginta nauibus Siciliam petiuerunt: quibus Hamilcar Poenorum imperator et Hanno classi praefectus occurrit. conserto nauali proelio Carthaginienses in fugam uersi sexaginta et quattuor naues perdiderunt.
The victorious consuls crossed over into Africa, and received first of all the city of Clupea in surrender.
7 uictores consules in Africam transuecti sunt primamque omnium Clipeam urbem in deditionem receperunt.
Thence, making for Carthage, they plundered three hundred fortresses or more, and carried their hostile standards all around Carthage.
8 inde Carthaginem petentes trecenta aut eo amplius castella populati sunt, infesta Carthagini signa circumtulerunt.
The consul Manlius, departing from Africa with the victorious fleet, brought back to Rome twenty-seven thousand captives together with enormous spoils.
9 Manlius consul Africa cum uictrici classe decedens septem et uiginti milia captiuorum cum ingentibus spoliis Romam reuexit.
Regulus, to whom the Carthaginian war had fallen by lot, while marching with his army pitched camp not far from the river Bagradas. There, when a serpent of amazing size was devouring very many of the soldiers as they went down to the river from the need to draw water, Regulus set out with his army to overcome the beast.
10 Regulus, bellum Carthaginiense sortitus, iter cum exercitu faciens haud procul a flumine Bagrada castra constituit: ubi cum plurimos militum aquandi necessitate ad flumen descendentes serpens mirae magnitudinis deuoraret, Regulus ad expugnandam bestiam cum exercitu profectus est.
But the javelins achieved nothing against its back, and every blow of the missiles was in vain, for they slid off the horrible lattice of its scales as off the sloping testudo of shields, and in marvellous fashion were repelled by the body itself so that they did not harm the body; and when, moreover, he saw a great multitude crushed by its bite, trampled by its onset, and even killed by its pestilential breath, he ordered ballistae to be brought up, by which a stone such as is used against walls was hurled against its spine and loosened the framework of its whole body.
11 sed nihil in tergo eius proficientibus iaculis atque omni telorum ictu inrito, quae per horrendam squamarum cratem quasi per obliquam scutorum testudinem labebantur mirumque in modum, ne corpus laederent, ipso corpore pellebantur, cum insuper magnam multitudinem morsu conminui, impetu proteri, halitu etiam pestifero exanimari uideret, ballistas deferri imperauit, per quas murale saxum spinae eius incussum conpagem totius corporis soluit.
For the nature of the serpent is such that, though it seems to lack feet, it is nevertheless so equipped with ribs and scales, which it has arranged in even order from the top of the throat to the bottom of the belly, that it supports itself on its scales as on claws and on its ribs as on legs.
12 talis siquidem est natura serpentis, ut, cum pedibus carere uideatur, costis tamen et squamis, quas a summo gutture usque ad imam aluum parili modo dispositas habet, ita instruitur, ut squamis quasi unguibus, costis quasi cruribus innitatur.
For it does not, like the worm, which has no rigid spine, accomplish its motion straight ahead by stretching out step by step the parts of its little body once they are contracted, and contracting them once they are stretched; rather, straining in alternate efforts, it carries its winding sides round, so that along the outer curve of the spine it extends the rigid line of its ribs, and, where the ribs are by nature most upright, it fixes the claws of its scales; and doing this by turns and swiftly, it not only glides over level ground but also climbs slopes, equipped with as many footholds as it has ribs.
13 non enim ut uermis, cui spinae rigor non est, et in directum corpusculi sui partes gradatim porrigendo contractas, contrahendo porrectas motum explicat, sed alternis intenta conatibus latera sinuosa circumfert, ut per exteriorem spinae curuaturam rigentem costarum aciem tendat, costis autem natura ad summum rectis squamarum ungulas figat; quod uicissim et celeriter agendo non solum plana perlabitur, sed etiam conuexa conscendit, tot uestigiis instructa quot costis.
The consequence of this is that if it is struck by any blow in any part of the body from the belly up to the head, it is rendered disabled and cannot move along; because wherever that blow falls it breaks the spine, by which the feet of the ribs and the movements of the body were worked. Hence this serpent too, which had so long withstood so many javelins unwounded, gave way, disabled, at the blow of a single stone, and soon, surrounded with missiles, was easily overpowered.
14 huius itaque rei causa est, ut, si in qualibet corporis parte ab aluo usque ad caput ictu aliquo conlidatur, debilis reddita cursum habere non possit; quia ubicumque ille ictus inciderit spinam soluit, per quam costarum pedes et motus corporis agebantur. unde etiam haec serpens, quae tamdiu tot iaculis inuulnerabilis obstitit, ad unius saxi ictum debilis cessit ac mox circumuenta telis facile oppressa est.
Its skin was carried to Rome — they say that it was 120 feet in length — and for some time it was a wonder to all.
15 corium autem eius Romam deuectum - quod fuisse centum uiginti pedum spatio ferunt - aliquamdiu cunctis miraculo fuit.
Regulus waged a most savage war against three generals, namely the two Hasdrubals and Hamilcar, who had been summoned from Sicily; in it seventeen thousand Carthaginians were slain and five thousand captured, eighteen elephants were led away, and eighty-two towns surrendered to the Romans.
16 Regulus aduersum tres imperatores, id est Hasdrubales duos et accitum ex Sicilia Hamilcarem, atrocissimum bellum gessit, in quo caesa sunt Carthaginiensium decem et septem milia, capta autem quinque milia, decem et octo elephanti abducti, oppida octoginta et duo in deditionem cessere Romanis.