| Quotation |
Nam, quamvis apud Messanam strenuissimi suae gentis milites essent, qui, ab urbe progredientes, in congressu Graecos plurimum collidebant, tamen, Graecis cedentibus, nostris congrediendi locus patuit: Messanenses, nostrorum strenuitate nondum experta, primo quidem acriter instare coeperunt. At, ubi vident se plus solito vexari, quasi novae gentis militiam abhorrentes, terga praebuerunt nostris, usque ad proximum urbis, extremis quoque cedentibus. |
| Translation |
For the the most valiant soldiers among the people of Messina had sallied forth and met the Greeks in a great battle, and the Greeks had retreated, leaving the battlefield to our men. The inhabitants of Messina had not yet experienced the valour [strenuitas] of our men, and to begin with they put up a fierce resistance. But when they saw that they were being attacked unusually fiercely, then, as though shrinking from the warlike nature of this new people, they turned their backs to our men and fled to the immediate neighbourhood of the city, yielding up the areas further away |
