After proclaiming a suspension of all public business and completing the
enrolment of troops, Furius and Valerius proceeded to Satricum. Here the
Antiates had massed not only Volscian troops drawn from a new generation
soldiers. Camillus was already drawing up his men for battle when the centurions brought reports to him of the discouragement of his troops, the want of alacrity in arming themselves, and the hesitation and unwillingness with which they were marching out of camp. Men were even heard saying that “they were going to fight one against a hundred, and that such a multitude could hardly be withstood even if unarmed, much less now that they were in
arms.” He at once sprang on his horse, faced the line and, riding along the front, addressed his men “What is this gloom, soldiers, this extraordinary hesitation? Are you strangers to the enemy, or to me, or to yourselves? As for the enemy — what is he but the means through which you always prove your courage and win
renown? And as for you —not to mention the capture of Falerii and Veii and the slaughter of the Gaulish legions inside your captured City —have you not, under my leadership, enjoyed a triple triumph for a threefold victory over these very Volscians, as well as over the Aequi and over
Etruria? Or is it that you do not recognise me as your general because I have given the battle signal not as Dictator but as a consular tribune? I feel no craving for the highest authority over you, nor ought you to see in me anything beyond what I am in myself; the Dictatorship has never increased my spirits and energy, nor did my exile diminish
them. We are all of us, then, the same that we have ever been, and since we are bringing just the same qualities into this war that we have displayed in all former wars, let us look forward to the same result. As soon as you meet your foe, every one will do what he has been trained and accustomed to do; you will conquer, they will fly.”
Then, after sounding the charge, he sprang from his horse and, catching hold of the nearest standard-bearer, he hurried with him against the enemy, exclaiming at the same time: “On, soldier, with the standard!”
When they saw Camillus, weakened as he was by age, charging in person against the enemy, they all raised the battle-cry and rushed forward, shouting in all directions, “Follow the General!”
It is stated that by Camillus' orders the standard was flung into the enemy's lines in order to incite the men of the front rank to recover it.
It was in this quarter that the Antiates were first repulsed, and the panic spread through the front ranks as far as the reserves.
This was due not only to the efforts of the troops, stimulated as they were by the presence of Camillus, but also to the terror which his actual appearance inspired in the Volscians, to whom he was a special object of dread.
Thus, wherever be advanced he carried certain victory with him. This was especially evident in the Roman left, which was on the point of giving way, when, after flinging himself on his horse and armed with an infantry shield, he rode up to it and by simply showing himself and pointing to the rest of the line who were winning the day, restored the battle.
The action was now decided, but owing to the crowding together of the enemy their flight was impeded and the victorious soldiers grew weary of the prolonged slaughter of such an enormous number of fugitives. A sudden storm of rain and wind put an end to what had become a decisive victory more than a battle.
The signal was given to retire, and the night that followed brought the war to a close without any further exertions on the part of the Romans, for the Latins and Hernicans left the Volscians to their fate and started for home,
after obtaining a result correspondent to their evil counsels When the Volscians found themselves deserted by the men whom they had relied upon when they renewed hostilities, they abandoned their camp and shut themselves up in Satricum.
At first Camillus invested them with the usual siege works; but when he found that the sorties were made to impede his operations, he considered that the enemy did not possess sufficient courage to justify him in waiting for a victory of which there was only a distant prospect. After encouraging his soldiers by telling them not to wear themselves by protracted toil, as though they were attacking another Veii, for victory was already within their grasp, he planted scaling ladders all round the walls and took the place by storm. The Volscians flung away their arms and surrendered.
The general, however, had a more important object in view —Antium, the capital of the Volscians and the starting point of the last war.
Owing to its strength, the capture of that city could only be effected by a considerable quantity of siege apparatus, artillery, and war machines.