field with one of his colleagues, whose name was Torquatus, at the
head of a large army, in the prosecution of a very important war in
the interior of the country. The time arrived at length for a decisive
battle to be fought. Both armies were drawn up on the field, the
preparations were all made, and the battle was to be fought on the
following day. In the night, however, a vision appeared to each
consul, informing him that it had been decreed by fate that a
_general_ on one side and the _army_ on the other were to be destroyed
on the following day; and that, consequently, either of the consuls,
by sacrificing himself, might secure the destruction of the enemy. On
the other hand, if they were to take measures to save themselves, the
general on the other side would be killed, and on their side the
_army_ would be defeated and cut to pieces.

The two consuls, on conferring together upon the following morning,
immediately decided that either one or the other of them should die,
in order to secure victory to the arms of their country; and the
question at once arose, what method they should adopt to determine
which of them should be the sacrifice. At last it was agreed that they
would go into battle as usual, each in command of his own wing of the
army, and that the one whose wing should first begin to give way
should offer himself as the victim. The arrangements were made
accordingly, and the result proved that Decius was the one on whom the
dire duty of self-immolation was to devolve. The wing under his
command began to give way. He immediately resolved to fulfill his vow.
He summoned the high priest. He clothed himself in the garb of a
victim about to be offered in sacrifice. Then, with his military cloak
wrapped about his head, and standing upon a spear that had been
previously laid down upon the ground, he repeated in the proper form
words by which he devoted himself and the army of the enemy to the God
of Death, and then finally mounted upon his horse and drove furiously
in among the thickest of the enemy. Of course he was at once thrust
through with a hundred spears and javelins; and immediately afterward
the army of the enemy gave way on all hands, and the Romans swept the
field, completely victorious.

The power which was in this instance supernaturally granted to Decius
to secure the victory to the Roman arms, by sacrificing his own life
on the field of battle, afterward descended, it was supposed, as an
inher