Ab urbe condita

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.