anders, or in levying an
army; that they commonly observed either that arms and war were to be
for ever consigned to oblivion, and the yoke to be submitted to; or that
they must not yield to those, with whom they contended for empire,
either in valour, perseverance, or military discipline." The accounts
they brought were not unfounded; but neither the senate were so much
affected by the circumstance; and Caius Sempronius, to whom the province
fell by lot, relying on fortune, as if a most constant object, because
he was the leader of a victorious state against one frequently
vanquished, executed all his measures carelessly and remissly; so that
there was more of the Roman discipline in the Volscian than in the Roman
army. Success therefore, as on many other occasions, attended merit. In
the first battle, which was entered on by Sempronius without either
prudence or caution, they met, without their lines being strengthened by
reserves, or their cavalry being properly stationed. The shout was the
first presage which way the victory would incline; that raised by the
enemy was louder and more continued; that by the Romans, being
dissonant, uneven, and frequently repeated in a lifeless manner,
betrayed the prostration of their spirits. The enemy advancing the more
boldly on this account, pushed with their shields, brandished their
swords; on the other side the helmets drooped, as the men looked around,
and disconcerted they waver, and keep close to the main body. The
ensigns at one time standing their ground are deserted by their
supporters, at another time they retreat between their respective
companies. As yet there was no absolute flight, nor was there victory.
The Romans rather covered themselves than fought. The Volscians
advanced, pushed against their line, saw more of the enemy slain than
running away.

38. They now give way in every direction, the consul Sempronius in vain
chiding and exhorting them; neither his authority nor his dignity
availed any thing; and they would presently have turned their backs to
the enemy, had not Sextus Tempanius, a commander of a troop of horse,
with great presence of mind brought them support, when matters were now
desperate. When he called out aloud, "that the horsemen who wished for
the safety of the commonwealth should leap from their horses," the
horsemen of all the troops being moved, as if by the consul's orders, he
says, "unless this cohort by its arms can stop the progress of th