no regular succession of watches, no proper outposts.  Our shout at their gates, when heard, and the first assault, will carry their camp.  Then let that carnage be made among men, torpid with sleep, terrified at the unexpected tumult, and overpowered while lying defenceless in their beds, from which you were so grieved to be recalled yesterday.  I know that the measure appears to you a daring one; but in difficult and almost desperate circumstances the boldest counsels are always the safest.  For if when the critical moment has arrived, the opportunity of seizing which is of a fleeting nature, you delay ever so little, in vain do you seek for it afterwards when it has been neglected.  One army is near us; two more are not far off.  We have some hopes if we make an attack now; and you have already made trial of your own and their strength.  If we postpone the time and cease to be despised in consequence of the fame of yesterday’s irruption, there is danger lest all the generals and all the forces should unite.  Shall we be able then to withstand three generals and three armies, whom Cneius Scipio with his army unimpaired could not withstand?  As our generals have perished by dividing their forces, so the enemy may be overpowered while separated and divided.  There is no other mode of maintaining the war; let us, therefore, wait for nothing but the opportunity of the ensuing night.  Now depart, with the favour of the gods, and refresh yourselves, that, unfatigued and vigorous, you may burst into the enemy’s camp with the same spirit with which you have defended your own.”  This new enterprise, proposed by their new general, they received with joy; and the more daring it was the more it pleased them.  The remainder of the day was spent in getting their arms in readiness and recruiting their strength, the greater part of the night was given to rest, and at the fourth watch they were in motion.

39.  At a distance of six miles beyond their nearest camp lay other forces of the Carthaginians.  A deep valley, thickly planted with trees, intervened.  Near about the middle of this wood a Roman cohort and some cavalry were placed in concealment with Punic craft.  The communication between the two armies being thus cut off, the rest of the forces were marched in silence to the nearest body of the enemy; and as there were no outposts before the gates, and no guards on the rampart, they entered quite into the camp, as though it had been their own, no one any where opposing them.  The signals were then sounded and a shout raised.  Some put the enemy to the sword when half asleep; others threw fire upon the huts, which were covered in with dry straw; others blocked up the gates to intercept their escape.  The enemy, who were assailed at once with fire, shouting, and the sword, were in a manner bereaved of their senses, and could neither hear each other, nor take any measures for their security.  Unarmed, they fell into the midst of troops of armed men:  some hastened to