Ab urbe condita

He rode along while saying this, and commanded the tribunes and centurions to open their ranks to allow passage for the cavalry. He had previously told Trebonius and Caedicius that when they saw him brandish his spear aloft they should launch the cavalry against the enemy with all the force they could.

His orders were carried out to the letter; the legionaries opened their ranks, the cavalry galloped through the open spaces, and with levelled spears charged the enemy's centre. Wherever they attacked they broke the ranks. Volumnius and Scipio followed up the cavalry charge and completed the discomfiture of the Samnites At last the dread of gods and men had yielded to a greater terror, the “linen cohorts” were routed;

those who had taken the oath and those who had not alike fled; the only thing they feared now was the enemy.

The bulk of the infantry who survived the actual battle were driven either into their camp or to Aquilonia, the nobility and cavalry fled to Bovianum. The cavalry were pursued by cavalry, the infantry by infantry; the wings of the Roman army separated, the right directed its course towards the Samnite camp, the left to the city of Aquilonia. The first success fell to Volumnius, who captured the Samnite camp.

Scipio met with a more sustained resistance at the city, not because the defeated foe showed more courage there, but because stone walls are more difficult to surmount than the rampart of a camp. They drove the defenders from their wails with showers of stones.