ia they were joined by the
legions of Servilius that had marched down from Ariminum; and, at every
point, contingents of the allies poured in, until even the most timid
began to believe it impossible that disaster could befall, and grew
first confident, then defiant, then boastful.

To the mind of the dictator himself, however, came no such change. He
alone knew the danger, he alone knew the value of the force with which
he must meet it--soldiers in whose minds, despite all their present
spirit, lingered the tradition of defeat; raw levies not yet truly
confident of their officers or themselves, however much the sight of
their numbers and their brave show might blind them to the fact that
there was another side to the war.

And now rumours began to reach them of the enemy. He was at Praetutia,
at Hadriana, at Marrucina, at Frentana! He had set out toward Iapygia!
he had reached Luceria! and everywhere the country was a garden before
him and a desert behind. Only one gleam of light shone through the
darkness,--the Apulians submitted to ravage, but they refused to save
their lands by joining fortunes with the invaders.

At last came the day of trial. "The enemy was at hand." Scouts poured
in with news of foraging parties, of masses of troops on the march; and
at Aecae the dictator ordered the camp to be pitched and fortified in
the order that Roman discipline prescribed, with rampart and ditch and
stakes--a city in embryo.

Now it was that the boasters must stand by their boasts.

Scarcely had the morning broke, when the distant mist of the plain
seemed to sparkle with myriads of glittering points--seemed to thicken
and become dense with clouds of dust. Mingled noises came to the ears
of the waking legions,--the neighing of horses, the inarticulate murmur
of a multitude, the dull rumble of marching men, the ring of arms and
accoutrements.

Then came the order from the praetorium,--not to advance the standards,
but to man the rampart and to repel. Such was not the custom of
Rome--to refuse battle amid the ravaged lands of her allies. Had the
heart of the dictator grown cold? Forthwith the pale cheeks of the
boasters flushed again; lips that had been compressed, before the
terrors they had so rashly invoked, parted in wonder and complaint; the
mist rose, and the sun pierced through the settling dust. There stood
the enemy, drawn up in order of battle across the plain, and waiting;
too far away for the Roma