Ab urbe condita

Here a quantity of missile weapons had been collected, far more than would be required for the men who had been brought there, and m addition there were large stones, some lying about as is usual in craggy places, others piled in heaps by the townsmen to use for the defence of the place.

When he had posted the Romans here and had pointed out to them a steep and narrow path leading up from the town, he said to them: “From this ascent even three armed men could keep back a multitude however large.

You are ten in number, and what is more you are Romans, and the bravest of them. You have the advantage of position and you will be helped by the night, which by its obscurity makes everything look more terrible. I will now spread panic everywhere; you devote yourselves to holding the citadel.”

Then he ran down and created as great a tumult as he possibly could, shouting: “To arms, citizens! Help, help! The citadel has been seized by the enemy, hasten to its defence!”

He kept up the alarm as he knocked at the doors of the principal men, he shouted it in the ears of all whom he met, of all who rushed out terror-struck into the streets. The panic which one man had started was carried by numbers through the city.

The magistrates hurriedly sent men up to the citadel to find out what had happened, and when they heard that it was held by an armed force, whose numbers were grossly exaggerated, they gave up all hopes of recovering it.

All quarters of the city were filled with fugitives; the gates were burst open by people who were only half awake and mostly without arms, and through one of these the Roman cohorts, roused by the shouting, rushed in and slew the frightened crowds who were thronging the streets.

Sora was already captured when in the early dawn the consul appeared and accepted the surrender of those whom Fortune had spared from the nocturnal massacre.

Amongst these two hundred and twenty-five were sent in chains to Rome as they were universally admitted to have been the instigators of the murder of the colonists and the revolt which followed. The rest of the population were left uninjured and a garrison was stationed in the town.

All those taken to Rome were scourged and beheaded to the great satisfaction of the plebs, who felt it to be a matter of supreme importance that those who had been sent out in such large numbers as colonists should be safe wherever they were.

After[*](Suppression of Movements in Ausonia, Campania, and Apulia.) leaving Sora the consuls extended the war to the cities and fields of Ausonia, for the whole country had become restless owing to the presence of the Samnites after the battle of Lautulae.