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to compleat the misfortune, a third army of Romans more considerable than the two former, was soon after entirely defeated. Scaurus, who commanded it, was made prisoner, and afterwards put to death; his two fons were slain, and more than four-score thousand of the Romans and their allies were left dead in the field. Last of all, two other generals, the consul Manlius, and the proconsul Caepio, to whom had been intrusted a fourth army already half vanquished with fear, and who were disunited and jealous of each other, were attacked near the Rhone, each of them in his camp, and entirely defeated.
Such repeated losses filled Rome with grief and terror; and many began to despair even of the safety of the state. In this melancholy conjuncture, minds less firm than those of these spirited Republicans, would doubtless, have suggested the imprudent measure of granting to the conquerors conditions capable of softening them: they would have given them at once the lands they had required, or perhaps have purchased their friendship with a sum of money. This dangerous policy would probably have ruined Rome in this exigence, as it did some ages after. The Gauls, the Germans, and the Scythians, poor and greedy nations, who gasped after
