92/115 The fight was maintained a long time in these narrow passes; nor were their hands or swords much employed in the business, but pushing with their shields and bodies, they pressed against each other, the Romans struggling to force their standards beyond the gates, the Gauls, to break into the camp, or, at least, to hinder the Romans from issuing forth. However, neither party could make the least impression on the other, until Quintus Victorius, a first centurion, and Caius Atinius, a military tribune, the former of the second, the latter of the fourth legion, had taken a course often tried in desperate conflicts; snatching the standards from the officers who carried them, and throwing them among the enemy. In the struggle to recover the standards, the men of the second legion first made their way out of the gate. |