two months after this, the consul Publius Cornelius fought a pitched battle with the army of the Boians with extraordinary success.  Valerius Antias affirms, that twenty-eight thousand of the enemy were slain, and three thousand four hundred taken, with a hundred and twenty-four military standards, one thousand two hundred and thirty horses, and two hundred and forty-seven waggons; and that of the conquerors there fell one thousand four hundred and eighty-four.  Though we may not entirely credit this writer with respect to the numbers, as in such exaggeration no writer is more extravagant, yet it is certain that the victory on this occasion was very complete; because the enemy’s camp was taken, while, immediately after the battle, the Boians surrendered themselves; and because a supplication was decreed by the senate on account of it, and victims of the greater kinds were sacrificed.  About the same time Marcus Fulvius Nobilior entered the city in ovation, returning from Farther Spain.  He carried with him twelve thousand pounds of silver, one hundred and thirty thousand silver denarii, and one hundred and twenty-seven pounds of gold.[1]

[Footnote 1:  This statement has been made before at the close of chapter 21, and is probably repeated here through inadvertence.]

39.  The consul, Publius Cornelius, having received hostages from the Boians, punished them so far as to appropriate almost one-half of their lands for the use of the Roman people, and into which they might afterwards, if they chose, send colonies.  Then returning home in full confidence of a triumph, he dismissed his troops, and ordered them to attend on the day of his triumph at Rome.  The next day after his arrival, he held a meeting of the senate, in the temple of Bellona, when he detailed to them the services he had performed, and demanded to ride through the city in triumph.  Publius Sempronius Blaesus, tribune of the people, advised, that “the honour of a triumph should not be refused to Scipio, but postponed.  Wars of the Ligurians,” he said, “were always united with wars of the Gauls; for these nations, lying so near, sent mutual assistance to each other.  If Publius Scipio, after subduing the Boians in battle, had either gone himself, with his victorious army, into the country of the Ligurians, or sent a part of his forces to Quintus Minucius, who was detained there, now the third year, by a war which was still undecided, that with the Ligurians might have been brought to an end:  instead of which, he had, in order to procure a full attendance on his triumph, brought home the troops, who might have performed most material services to the state; and might do so still, if the senate thought proper, by deferring this token of victory, to redeem that which had been omitted through eager haste for a triumph.  If they would order the consul to return with his legions into his province, and to give his assistance towards subduing the Ligurians, (for, unless these were reduced under the dominion and jurisdiction of the Roman people, neither would the Boians ever remain quiet,) there must be either peace or war with both.  When the Ligurians should be subdued, Publius Cornelius, in quality of proconsul, might triumph, a few months later, after the precedent of many, who did not attain that honour until the expiration of their office.”