, riding far on among the enemy, they were
thrown into confusion by a certain new and strange manner of fighting.
For suddenly there came upon them a number, of the enemy that stood upon
chariots, and who, advancing against them with a great noise both of
horses' hoofs and of wheels, affrighted their horses. Thus there came
a sudden panic upon them in the very hour of their victory, and turning
their backs they fled headlong. Then the legions also were disordered,
many that stood in the front rank being cast to the ground and crushed,
both by their horsemen and by the chariots of the enemy. And when
the Gauls saw how the Romans gave way they pressed on, giving them no
breathing space nor time of recovery. Then cried the Consul Decius,
"Whither do ye fly? what hope have ye in flight?" And he strove to stay
them as they fled, and call them back into the battle. But when he saw
that he could avail nothing, so overwhelmed were they with fear, he
called aloud on the name of Publius Decius, his father, and said, "Why
do I delay any longer the fate that belongs to my race? This is
the privilege of my house, to be victims whereby the dangers of the
commonwealth may be expiated. Therefore I give myself, and together with
me the army of the enemy, to Mother Earth, and to the Gods of the dead."
When he had so spoken, he bade Marcus Livius, the high priest (on whom,
when he went into the battle, he had laid his commands that he should
never depart from his side), dictate the words by which he might devote
himself and the army of the enemy for the army of the Roman people. Then
he arrayed himself in the same manner and prayed the same words as his
father had done in the battle by Mount Vesuvius. To this he added these
words, "Lo! I carry before me terror and flight, slaughter and blood,
and the wrath of the Gods of heaven and of hell; with the curses of
death will I smite the standards, weapons, and armour of the enemy,
accomplishing in one and the same place my own destruction and the
destruction of the Gauls and of the Samnites." And when he had thus
cursed both himself and the enemy he spurred his horse into the lines of
the Gauls, where he saw them to be thickest, and so fell pierced through
with many spears.

After the death of Decius the Romans fought with such strength and
courage as seemed beyond the nature of men. For the Romans, when their
leader was dead (a thing that commonly is wont to be the cause of much
fear), stayed