Ab urbe condita

He then gave the signal for battle. Just as they were taking up their position, a deserter brought word that 20 cohorts of the Samnites, comprising about 400 men each, had gone to Cominium.

He instantly despatched a message to his colleague in case he should not be aware of this movement, and ordered the standards to be advanced more rapidly. He had already posted the reserves in their respective positions and told off an officer to take command of each detach- ment.

The right wing of the main army he entrusted to L. Volumnius, the left to L. Scipio, and two other members of his staff, C. Caedicius and T. Trebonius, were placed in command of the cavalry. He gave orders for Spurius Nautius to remove the pack-saddles from the mules and to take them together with three of the auxiliary cohorts by a circuitous route to some rising ground visible from the battlefield, where during

the pro- gress of the fight he was to attract attention by raising as great a cloud of dust as possible. While the consul was busy with these arrangements an alterca- tion began between the pullarii about the omens which had been observed in the morning. Some of the Roman Cavalry overheard it and thought it of sufficient importance to justify them in reporting to Spurius Papirius, the consul's nephew, that the omens were being called in question.

This young man, born in an age when men were not yet taught to despise the gods, inquired into the matter in order to make quite sure that what he was reporting was true and then laid it before the consul.

He thanked him for the trouble be had taken and bade him have no fears. “But,” he continued, “if the man who is watching the omens makes a false report, he brings down the divine wrath on his own head.

As far as I am concerned, I have received the formal intimation that the chickens ate eagerly, there could be no more favourable omen for the Roman people and army.” He then issued instructions to the centurions to place the pullarius in front of the fighting line.

The standards of the Samnites were now advancing, followed by the army in gorgeous array; even to their enemies they presented a magnificent sight. Before the battle-shout was raised or the lines closed a chance javelin struck the pullarius and he fell in front of the standards.

When this was reported to the consul he remarked, “The gods are taking their part in the battle, the guilty man has met with his punishment.” While the consul was speaking a crow in front of him gave a loud and distinct caw. The consul welcomed the augury and declared that the gods had never more plainly manifested their presence in human affairs. He then ordered the charge to be sounded and the battle-shout to be raised.

A savagely fought contest ensued. The two sides were, however, animated by very different feelings. The Romans went into battle eager for the fray, confident of victory, exasperated against the enemy and thirsting for his blood. The Samnites were, most of them, dragged in against their will by sheer compulsion and the terrors of religion, and they adopted defensive rather than aggressive tactics.

Accustomed as they had been for so many years to defeat, they would not have sustained even the first shout and charge of the Romans had not a still more awful object of fear possessed their minds and stayed them from flight.

They had before their eyes all that paraphernalia of the secret rite —the armed priests, the slaughtered remains of men and beasts scattered about indiscriminately, the altars sprinkled with the blood of the victims and of their murdered countrymen, the awful imprecations, the frightful curses which they had invoked on their family and race —these were the chains which bound them so that they could not flee.

They dreaded their own countrymen more than the enemy. The Romans pressed on from both wings and from the centre and cut down men who were paralysed by fear of gods and men. Only a feeble resistance could be offered by those who were only kept from flight by fear.

The carnage had almost extended to the second line where the standards were stationed when there appeared in the side distance a cloud of dust as though raised by the tread of an immense army. It was Sp. Nautius —some say Octavius Maecius —the commander of the auxiliary cohorts.

They raised a dust out of all proportion to their numbers, for the camp-followers mounted upon the mules were dragging leafy boughs along the ground. At first the arms and standards gradually became visible through the beclouded light, and then a loftier and thicker Cloud of dust gave the appearance of cavalry closing the column.