Ab urbe condita

The vast host of the enemy, relying solely on their numbers and measuring the strength of each army merely by their eyes, went recklessly into the battle and as recklessly abandoned it.

Courageous enough in the battle shout, in discharging their weapons, in making the first charge, they were unable to stand the foot to foot fighting and the looks of their opponents, glowing with the ardour of battle.

Their front was driven in and the demoralisation extended to the supports; the charge of the cavalry produced fresh panic; the ranks were broken in many places, the whole army was in commotion and resembled a retreating wave. When each of them saw that as those in front fell he would be the next to be cut down, they turned and fled.

The Romans pressed hard upon them, and as long as the enemy defended themselves whilst retreating, it was the infantry to whom the task of pursuit fell. When they were seen to be throwing away their arms in all directions and dispersing over the field, the signal was given for the squadrons of cavalry to be launched against them, and these were instructed not to lose time by cutting down individual fugitives and to give the main body a chance of escaping.

It would be enough to check them by hurling missiles and galloping across their front, and generally terrifying them until the infantry could come up and regularly dispatch the enemy.

The flight and pursuit did not end till nightfall. The Volscian camp was taken and plundered on the same day, and all the booty, with the exception of the prisoners, was bestowed on the soldiers.

The majority of the captives belonged to the Hernici and Latins, not men of the plebeian class, who might have been regarded as only mercenaries, they were found to include some of the principal men of their fighting force, a clear proof that those States had formally assisted the enemy. Some were also recognised as belonging to Circeii and to the colony at Velitrae.

They were all sent to Rome and examined by the leaders of the senate; they gave them the same replies which they had made to the Dictator, and disclosed without any attempt at evasion the defection of their respective nations.

The[*](The Proceedings against Manlius.) Dictator kept his army permanently encamped, fully expecting that the senate would declare war against those peoples. A much greater trouble at home, however, necessitated his recall. The sedition which, owing to its ringleader's work, was exceptionally alarming, was gaining strength from day to day.

For to any one who looked at his motives, not only the speeches, but still more the conduct of M. Manlius, though ostensibly in the interest of the people, would have appeared revolutionary and dangerous.

When he saw a centurion, a distinguished soldier, led away as an adjudged debtor, he ran into the middle of the Forum with his crowd of supporters and laid his hand on him. After declaiming against the tyranny of patricians and the brutality of usurers and the wretched condition of the plebs he said:

“It was then in vain that I with this right hand saved the Capitol and Citadel if I have to see a fellow-citizen and a comrade in arms carried off to chains and slavery just as though he had been captured by the victorious Gauls.” Then, before all the people, he paid the sum due to the creditors, and after thus freeing the man by “copper and scales,” sent him home.

The released debtor appealed to gods and men to reward Manlius, his deliverer and the beneficial protector of the Roman plebs. A noisy crowd immediately surrounded him, and he increased the excitement by displaying the scars left by wounds he had received in the wars against Veii and the Gauls and in recent campaigns.

“Whilst,” he cried, “I was serving in the field and whilst I was trying to restore my desolated home,

I paid in interest an amount equal to many times the principal, but as the fresh interest always exceeded my capital, I was buried beneath the load of debt.

It is owing to M. Manlius that I can now look upon the light of day, the Forum, the faces of my fellow-citizens; from him I have received all the kindness which a parent can show to a child; to him I devote all that remains of my bodily powers, my blood, my life. In that one man is centred everything that binds me to my home, my country, and my country's gods.”

The plebs, wrought upon by this language, had now completely espoused this one man's cause, when another circumstance occurred, still more calculated to create universal confusion.