array, stood fast. And now there came tidings to Fabius how that
his colleague was dead; and when he heard them he bade the Companion
Knights, being a company of about five hundred horsemen, leave the line
and fall upon the Gauls in the rear; with whom went also a part of
the third legion, to fall upon the enemy wherever their line should be
broken by the horsemen. And he himself, having first vowed a temple and
all the spoils of victory to Jupiter the Conqueror, marched to the camp
of the Samnites. Then again was there a battle, for the multitude of
them that fled was so great that they could not enter by the gates, so
that they fought perforce. Then Egnatius, captain of the host of the
Samnites, was slain. And in no great space of time the Samnites were
driven within the ramparts and the camp also was taken. The Gauls also,
being surrounded on all sides, could withstand the Romans no more. That
day there fell five and twenty thousand of the enemy, and eight thousand
were taken alive. Nor did the Romans escape without damage, for in the
army of Decius were slain seven thousand and in the army of Fabius one
thousand seven hundred. Fabius, having first sent men to search for the
body of his colleague, gathered together in a great heap all the spoils
of the enemy, and offered them for a burnt offering to Jupiter the
Conqueror. On the morrow they found the body of Decius, covered with
dead bodies of the Gauls, and brought it back to the camp amidst much
weeping of the soldiers. And Fabius made for him as great a funeral as
he could prepare.

CHAPTER XVII. ~~ THE STORY OF THE PASSES OF CAUDIUM.

In the four hundred and thirty-third year after the building of the city
there was war between the Romans and the Samnites. Now there is in the
land of the Samnites a certain pass which men call the Pass of Caudium.
Near to this the captain of the host of the Samnites, a man very skilful
in war, Caius Pontius by name, pitched his camp, hiding it from sight as
much as might be. This done he sent twelve soldiers, clad as shepherds,
to Calatia, in which place he knew the Consuls to be with the army of
the Romans. He commanded these men that they should feed their flocks
not far from the camp of the Romans, one in one place and another in
another, and that when the plunderers should fall upon them and take
them they should tell all of them the same tale, that the legions of the
Samnites were in Apulia, laying siege to the town of