nor could it
(the army) however be subdued by any means; such a spirit of opposition
had they imbibed. They executed every measure slowly, indolently,
negligently, and with stubbornness: neither shame nor fear restrained
them. If he wished the army to move on with expedition, they designedly
went more slowly: if he came up to them to encourage them in their work,
they all relaxed the energy which they before exerted of their own
accord: when he was present they cast down their eyes, they silently
cursed him as he passed by; so that his mind, invulnerable to plebeian
hatred, was sometimes moved. All kind of harsh treatment being tried in
vain, he no longer held any intercourse with the soldiers; he said the
army was corrupted by the centurions; he sometimes gibingly called them
tribunes of the people and Voleros.

59. None of these circumstances were unknown to the Volscians, and they
pressed on with so much the more vigour, hoping that the Roman army
would entertain the same spirit of opposition against Appius, which they
had formerly entertained against the consul Fabius. But they were much
more violent against Appius than against Fabius. For they were not only
unwilling to conquer, like Fabius' army, but they wished to be
conquered. When led out to the field, they made for their camp in an
ignominious flight, nor did they stand their ground until they saw the
Volscians advancing to their fortifications, and making dreadful havoc
on the rear of their army. Then the obligation to fight was wrung from
them, in order that the victorious enemy should be dislodged from their
lines; yet it was sufficiently plain that the Roman soldiers were only
unwilling that their camp should be taken; some of them gloried in their
own defeat and disgrace. When the determined spirit of Appius, undaunted
by these things, wished to exercise severity still further, and he
summoned a meeting, the lieutenant-generals and tribunes flock around
him, advising him "that he would not determine on venturing a trial of
an authority, the entire strength of which lay in the acquiescence of
those who were to obey. That the soldiers generally refused to come to
the assembly, and that their clamours were heard in every direction
demanding that the camp should be removed from the Volscian territory.
That the victorious enemy were but a little time ago almost at the very
gates and rampart; and that not merely a suspicion, but a manifest
indication of a grie