At length the cavalry began to ask each other somewhat bitterly, “What was left for them to do if after failing to repulse the enemy when mounted they could make no impression on them whilst fighting on foot. What third mode of fighting were they looking for?
Why had they dashed forward so eagerly in front of the standards to fight in a position which was not their proper one?” Urged on by these mutual reproaches, they raised their battle shout again and pressed forward. Slowly they compelled the enemy to give ground, then they drove them back more rapidly, and at last fairly routed them.
It is not easy to say what gave the advantage where the two sides were so evenly matched, unless it be that the Fortune which ever watches over each nation had the power to raise and to depress their courage.
The Romans followed up the fleeing Hernici as far as their camp; but they abstained from attacking it, as it was late in the day. They offered sacrifices the next morning for a long time without obtaining any favourable omen, and this prevented the Dictator from giving the signal for attack before noon; the fight consequently went on into the night.
The next day they found the camp abandoned; the Hernici had fled and left some of their wounded behind. The people of Signium saw the main body of the fugitives streaming past their walls with their standards few and far between, and sallying out to attack them they scattered them in headlong flight over the fields.
The victory was anything but a bloodless one for the Romans; they lost a quarter of their whole force, and by no means the smallest loss fell on the cavalry, a considerable number of whom perished.
The consuls for the following year were C. Sulpicius and C. Licinius Calvus. They resumed operations against the Hernici, and invaded their territory, but did not find the enemy in the open. They attacked and captured Ferentinum, a Hernican city; but as they were returning home the Tiburtines closed their gates against them.
There had previously been numerous complaints made on both sides, but this last provocation finally decided the Romans, in case the Fetials failed to get redress, to declare war against the Tiburtines.
It is generally understood that T. Quinctius Pennus was the Dictator and Ser. Cornelius Maluginensis the Master of the horse. According to Licinius Macer, the Dictator was nominated by the consul Licinius.
His colleague, Sulpicius, was anxious to get the elections over before he departed for the war, in the hope of being himself re-elected, if he were on the spot, and Licinius determined to thwart his colleague's self-seeking ambition.
Licinius Macer's desire to appropriate the credit of this to his house (the Licinii) lessens the weight of his authority. As I find no mention of this in the older annalists, I am more inclined to believe that it was the prospect of a Gaulish war which was the immediate cause why a Dictator was nominated.
At all events it was in this year that the Gauls formed their camp by
the Salarian road, three miles from the City at the bridge across the
Anio. In
He marched out of the City with an immense army and fixed his camp on this side the Anio. Each side had left the bridge between them intact, as its destruction might have been thought due to fears of an attack.
There were frequent skirmishes for the possession of the bridge; as these were indecisive, the question was left unsettled. A Gaul of extraordinary stature strode forward on to the unoccupied bridge, and shouting as loudly as he could, cried: “Let the bravest man that Rome possesses come out and fight me, that we two may decide which people is the superior in war.”