er to call in aid against
them. But as soon as they beheld the Roman camp, they fiercely demanded
the signal each from his leader; they maintained that the Roman would
bring aid to the Campanian with the same fate with which the Campanian
had done to the Sidicinian. Valerius, having delayed for a few days in
slight skirmishes for the purpose of making trial of the enemy,
displayed the signal for battle, exhorting his men in few words "not to
let the new war or the new enemy terrify them. In proportion as they
should carry their arms to a greater distance from the city, the more
and more unwarlike should the nation prove to be against whom they
should proceed. That they should not estimate the valour of the Samnites
by the defeats of the Sidicinians and Campanians. Let the combatants be
of what kind they may be, that it was necessary that one side should be
vanquished. That as for the Campanians indeed, they were undoubtedly
vanquished more by circumstances flowing from excessive luxury and by
their own want of energy than by the bravery of the enemy. What were the
two successful wars of the Samnites, during so many ages, against so
many glorious exploits of the Roman people, who counted almost more
triumphs than years since the building of their city? who held subdued
by their arms all the states around them, the Sabines, Etruria, the
Latins, Hernicians, AEquans, Volscians, Auruncans? who eventually drove
by flight into the sea, and into their ships, the Gauls, after
slaughtering them in so many engagements? That soldiers ought both to
enter the field relying on their national military renown, and on their
own valour, and also to consider under whose command and auspices the
battle is to be fought; whether he be one which is to be listened to as
a pompous exhorter, bold merely in words, unacquainted with military
labours, or one who knows how to wield arms himself also, to advance
before the standards, and to show himself in the midst of the danger. My
acts, not my words merely, I wish you to follow; and to seek from me not
military orders only, but example also. It was not by intrigues merely,
nor by cabals usual among the nobles, but by this right hand, I procured
for myself three consulships, and the highest eulogies. There was a time
when this could be said; [no wonder,] for you were a patrician, and
sprung from the liberators of your country; and that family of yours had
the consulship the same year that the city had