Coelius attributes the honour of saving the consul to a slave, by nation a Ligurian.

I indeed should rather wish that the account about the son was true, which also most authors have transmitted, and the report of which has generally obtained credit.
47.

This was the first battle with Hannibal; from which it clearly appeared that the Carthaginian was superior in cavalry; and on that account, that open plains, such as lie between the Po and the Alps, were not suited to the Romans for carrying on the war.

On the following night, therefore, the soldiers being ordered to prepare their baggage in silence, the camp broke up from the Ticinus, and they hastened to the Po, in order that the rafts by which the consul had formed a bridge over the river, being not yet loosened, he might lead his forces across without disturbance or pursuit of the enemy.

They arrived at Placentia before Hannibal had ascertained that they had set out from the Ticinus.