Certainty, however, begins to appear from the time when both consuls set out for the campaign.

Now, before the consuls arrived in Etruria, the Senonian Gauls came in a vast body to Clusium, to attack the Roman legion and the camp.

Scipio, who commanded the camp, wishing to remedy the deficiency of his numbers by an advantage in the ground, led his men up a hill, which stood between the camp and the city but having, in his haste, neglected to examine the place, he reached near the summit, which he found already possessed by the enemy, who had ascended on the other side.

The legion was consequently attacked on the rear, and surrounded in the middle, when the enemy pressed it on all sides.

Some writers say, that the whole were cut off, so that not one survived to give an account of it, and that no information of the misfortune reached the consuls, who were, at the time, not far from Clusium, until the Gallic horsemen came within sight, carrying the heads of the slain, some hanging before their horses' breasts, others on the points of their spears, and expressing their triumph in songs according to their custom.