Ab urbe condita

menacing mood, he started with all possible speed for the camp. He was unable, however, to reach it before news arrived of his approach, for messengers had started from

the City in advance of him, bringing word that the Dictator was coming bent on vengeance, and almost every other word he uttered was in praise of T Manlius.[*](Papirius was evidently hoping to take T. Manlius for his model and re-enact the scene described in chap. vii.)

Fabius immediately summoned his troops to assembly, and appealed to them to show the same courage with which they had defended the republic from a brave and determined foe in protecting from the unrestrained ferocity of the Dictator the man under whose auspices and generalship they had been victorious.

He was coming, maddened by jealousy, exasperated at another man's merits and good fortune, furious because the republic had triumphed in his absence. If it were in his power to change the fortune of the day, he would rather that victory rested with the Samnites than with the Romans.

He kept talking about the contempt of orders as though the reason why he forbade all fighting were not precisely the same as that which makes him vexed now that we have fought.