the consul,
having his left arm well nigh transfixed with a javelin, whilst he
exposed himself incautiously in the van, had retired for a short time
from the field. And now, by the delay, the victory was on the point of
being relinquished, when the consul, having had his wound tied up,
riding back to the van, cries out, "Soldiers, why do you stand? You have
not to do with a Latin or Sabine enemy, whom, when you have vanquished
by your arms, from an enemy you may make an ally; against brutes we have
drawn our swords. Their blood must be drawn or ours given to them. You
have repulsed them from your camp, you have driven them headlong down
the valley, you stand on the prostrated bodies of your foes. Fill the
plains with the same carnage as you have filled the mountains; do not
wait till they fly, you standing still; your standards must be advanced,
you must proceed against the enemy." Roused again by these
exhortations, they drive back from their ground the foremost companies
of the Gauls, and by forming wedges, they break through the centre of
their body. By these means, the enemy being disunited, as being now
without regular command, or subordination of officers, they turn their
violence against their own; and being dispersed through the plains, and
carried beyond their own camp in their precipitate flight, they make for
the citadel of Alba, which met their eyes as the most elevated among
hills of equal altitude. The consul, not pursuing them beyond the camp,
because the wound weakened him, and he was unwilling to expose his
wearied army to hills occupied by the enemy, bestowed the entire plunder
of the camp on the soldiers, and led back his army, victorious and
enriched with the Gallic spoils, to Rome. The consul's wound occasioned
a delay of the triumph, and the same cause made the senate wish for a
dictator, that there might be some one who, the consuls being both sick,
should hold the elections. Lucius Furius Camillus being nominated
dictator, Publius Cornelius Scipio being attached as master of the
horse, restored to the patricians their former possession of the
consulship. He himself being, for that service, elected consul, had
Appius Claudius Crassus named as his colleague.

25. Before the new consuls entered on their office, a triumph was
celebrated by Popillius over the Gauls amid the great applause of the
commons; and they, in a low voice, frequently asked one another, whether
any one was dissatisfied with a p