brought their shields out with them, and then rushed upon the enemy.  The exertion made in the fight was greater than could be expected from the smallness of the number.  The bodies of the Romans were most exposed to the javelins, with which, as they were thrown on all sides from higher ground into a deep valley, they were transfixed.  The Carthaginians seeing Gracchus now bereft of support, endeavoured to take him alive; but he having descried his Lucanian host among the enemy, rushed with such fury into their dense body that it became impossible to save his life without a great loss.  Mago immediately sent his corpse to Hannibal, ordering it to be placed, with the fasces which were taken at the same time, before the tribunal of the general.  This is the true account; Gracchus fell in Lucania, near the place called the Old Plains.

17.  There are some who have put forth an account, stating, that when in the territory of Beneventum, near the river Calor, having gone out from his camp with his lictors and three servants, for the purpose of bathing, he was slain while naked and unarmed, and endeavouring to defend himself with the stones which the river brought down, by a party of the enemy which happened to be concealed among the osiers which grew upon the banks.  Others state, that having gone out five hundred paces from the camp, at the instance of the aruspices, in order to expiate the prodigies before mentioned on unpolluted ground, he was cut off by two troops of Numidians who happened to be lying in ambush there.  So different are the accounts respecting the place and manner of the death of so illustrious and distinguished a man.  Various also are the accounts of the funeral of Gracchus.  Some say that he was buried by his own friends in the Roman camp; others relate, and this is the more generally received account, that a funeral pile was erected by Hannibal, in the entrance of the Carthaginian camp; that the troops under arms performed evolutions, with the dances of the Spaniards, and motions of the arms and body, which were customary with the several nations; while Hannibal himself celebrated his obsequies with every mark of respect, both in word and deed.  Such is the account of those who assert that the affair occurred in Lucania.  If you are disposed to credit the statement of those who relate that he was slain at the river Calor, the enemy got possession only of the head of Gracchus; which being brought to Hannibal, he immediately despatched Carthalo to convey it into the Roman camp to Cneius Cornelius, the quaestor, who buried the general in the camp, the Beneventans joining the army in the celebration.