Ab urbe condita

supremacy. These reports were anything but groundless, but not only did the senate treat them with comparative indifference, but C. Sempronius, to whom that field of operations had fallen, imagined that as he was leading the troops of a victorious people against those whom they had vanquished, the fortune of war could never

change. Trusting to this, he displayed such rashness and negligence in all his measures that there was more of the Roman discipline in the Volscian army than there was in the Roman army

itself. As often happens, fortune waited upon desert. In the very first battle Sempronius made his dispositions without plan or forethought, the fighting line was not strengthened by reserves, nor were the cavalry placed in a suitable

position. The war-cries were the first indication as to how the action was going; that of the enemy was more animated and sustained; on the side of the Romans the irregular, intermittent shout, growing feebler at each repetition, betrayed their waning

courage. Hearing this, the enemy attacked with greater vigour, pushed with their shields and brandished their swords. On the other side their helmets drooped as the men looked round for supports; men wavered and faltered and crowded together for mutual protection; at one moment the standards while holding their ground were abandoned by the front rank, the next they retreated between their respective