his soldiers to bind a torch or faggot of dry wood to their horns, and at night at a given signal to set them on fire, and drive the animals towards the narrow outlet near the enemy’s camp.  While this was being done, he got the remainder of the troops under arms and led them slowly forward.  The cattle, while the flame was moderate, and burned only the wood, walked steadily forward towards the mountain side, astonishing the shepherds on the mountain, who thought that it must be an army, marching in one great column, carrying torches.  But when their horns were burned to the quick, causing them considerable pain, the beasts, now scorched by the fire from one another as they shook their heads, set off in wild career over the mountains, with their foreheads and tails blazing, setting fire to a great part of the wood through which they passed.  The Romans watching the pass were terribly scared at the sight; for the flames looked like torches carried by men running, and they fell into great confusion and alarm, thinking that they were surrounded, and about to be attacked on all sides by the enemy.  They dared not remain at their post, but abandoned the pass, and made for the main body.  At that moment Hannibal’s light troops took possession of the heights commanding the outlet, and the main army marched safely through, loaded with plunder.

VII.  It happened that while it was yet night Fabius perceived the trick; for some of the oxen in their flight had fallen into the hands of the Romans; but, fearing to fall into an ambuscade in the darkness, he kept his men quiet under arms.  When day broke he pursued and attacked the rearguard, which led to many confused skirmishes in the rough ground, and produced great confusion, till Hannibal sent back his practised Spanish mountaineers from the head of his column.  These men, being light and active, attacked the heavily-armed Roman infantry and beat off Fabius’ attack with very considerable loss.  Now Fabius’s unpopularity reached its highest pitch, and he was regarded with scorn and contempt.  He had, they said, determined to refrain from a pitched battle, meaning to overcome Hannibal by superior generalship, and he had been defeated in that too.  And Hannibal himself, wishing to increase the dislike which the Romans felt for him, though he burned and ravaged every other part of Italy, forbade his men to touch Fabius’s own estates, and even placed a guard to see that no damage was done to them.  This was reported at Rome, greatly to his discredit; and the tribunes of the people brought all kinds of false accusations against him in public harangues, instigated chiefly by Metilius, who was not Fabius’s personal enemy, but being a relative of Minucius, the Master of the Horse, thought that he was pressing the interests of the latter by giving currency to all these scandalous reports about Fabius.  He was also disliked by the Senate because of the terms which he had arranged with Hannibal about the exchange of prisoners.