The front ranks of the Latins were thrown into disorder, the Romans thrust their spears into their faces, and in this way killed the main support of their army. They went on without being touched through the remaining companies as though through a crowd of unarmed men, and they marked their advance with such a slaughter that they left hardly a fourth part of the enemy.
The Samnites, too, who were drawn up close to the lowest spurs of the mountain, were threatening the Latins on their flank, and so adding to their demoralisation.
The chief credit for that successful battle was given by all, Romans and allies alike, to the two consuls —one of whom had diverted on to himself alone all the dangers that threatened from the gods supernal and the gods infernal, whilst the other had shown such consummate generalship in the battle itself that the Roman and Latin historians who have left an account of it, are quite agreed that whichever side had had T. Manlius as their commander must have won the victory.
After their flight the Latins took refuge in Menturnae. Their camp was captured after the battle, and many were killed there, mostly Campanians.
The body of Decius was not found that day, as night overtook those who were searching for it, the next day it was discovered, buried beneath a heap of javelins and with an immense number of the enemy lying round it.
His obsequies were conducted by his colleague in a manner befitting that glorious death. I ought to add here that a consul or Dictator or praetor, when he devotes the legions of the enemy, need not necessarily devote himself but may select any one he chooses out of a legion that has been regularly enrolled.
If the man who has been so devoted is killed, all is considered to have been duly performed. If he is not killed, an image of the man, seven feet high at least, must be buried in the earth, and a victim slain as an expiatory sacrifice; on the spot, where such an image has been buried, no Roman magistrate must ever set his foot.
If, as in the case of Decius, the commander devotes himself but survives the battle, he can no longer discharge any religious function, either on his own account or on behalf of the State. He has the right to devote his arms, either by offering a sacrifice or otherwise, to Vulcan or to any other deity.
The spear on which the consul stands, when repeating the formula of
devotion, must not pass into the enemy's hands; should this happen a
Although the memory of every traditional custom relating to either human or divine things has been lost through our abandonment of the old religion of our fathers in favour of foreign novelties, I thought it not alien from my subject to record these regulations in the very words in which they have been handed down.
In some authors I find it stated that it was only after the battle was
over that the Samnites who had been waiting to see the result came to support the Romans.
Assistance was also coming to the Latins from Lanuvium whilst time was being wasted in deliberation, but whilst they were starting and a part of their column was already on the march, news came of the defeat of the Latins. They faced about and re-entered their city and it is stated that Milionius, their praetor, remarked that for that very short march they would have to pay a heavy price to Rome.
Those of the Latins who survived the battle retreated by many different routes, and gradually assembled in the city of Vescia.
Here the leaders met to discuss the situation, and Numisius assured them that both armies had really experienced the same fortune and an equal amount of bloodshed; the Romans enjoyed no more than the name of victory, in every other respect they were as good as defeated.
The headquarters of both consuls were polluted with blood; the one had murdered his son, the other had devoted himself to death; their whole army was massacred, their hastati and principes killed; the companies both in front of and behind the standards had suffered enormous losses; the triarii in the end saved the situation.
The Latin troops, it was true, were equally cut up, but Latium and the Volsci could supply reinforcements more quickly than Rome.
If, therefore, they approved, he would at once call out the fighting men from the Latin and Volscian peoples and march back with an army to Capua, and would take the Romans unawares; a battle was the last thing they were expecting.
He despatched misleading letters throughout Latium and the Volscian country, those who had not been engaged in the battle being the more ready to believe what he said, and a hastilylevied body of militia, drawn from all quarters, was got together.
This army was met by the consul at Trifanum, a place between Sinuessa and Menturnae. Without waiting even to choose the sites for their camps, the two armies piled their baggage, fought and finished the war, for the Latins were so utterly worsted