HKB
Latins and Hernicans, and the colony of Antium were ordered to supply Quinctius with troops hurriedly raised-such was the name (subitarii) that they gave to auxiliaries raised for sudden emergencies.
During those days many manoeuvres and many attacks were carried out on both sides, because the enemy, having the advantage in numbers, attempted to harass the Roman forces by attacking them on many sides, as not likely to prove sufficient to meet all attacks. While the camp was being besieged, at the same time part of the army was sent to devastate Roman territory, and to make an attempt upon the city itself, should fortune favour. Lucius Valerius was left to guard the city: the consul Postumius was sent to prevent the plundering of the frontiers. There was no abatement in any quarter either of vigilance or activity; watches were stationed in the city, outposts before the gates, and guards along the walls: and a cessation of business was observed for several days, as was necessary amid such general confusion. In the meantime the consul Furius, after he had at first passively endured the siege in his camp, sallied forth through the main gate[7] against the enemy when off their guard; and though he might have pursued them, he stopped through apprehension, that an attack might be made on the camp from the other side. The lieutenant Furius (he was also the consul's brother) was carried away too far in pursuit: nor did he, in his eagerness to follow them up, observe eitherhis own party returning, or the attack of the enemy on his rear: being thus shut out, having repeatedly made many unavailing efforts to force his way to the camp, he fell, fighting bravely. In like manner the consul, turning about to renew the fight, on being informed that his brother was surrounded, rushing into the thick of the fight rashly rather than with sufficient caution, was wounded, and with difficulty rescued by those around him. This both damped the courage of his own men, and increased the boldness of the enemy; who, being encouraged by the death of the lieutenant, and by the consul's wound, could not afterward have been withstood by any force, as the Romans, having been driven into their camp, were again being besieged, being a match for them neither in hopes nor in strength, and the very existence of the state would have been imperilled, had not Titus Quinctius come to their relief with foreign troops, the Latin and Hernican army. He attacked the Aequans on their rear while their attention was fixed on the Roman camp, and while they were insultingly displaying the head of the lieutenant: and, a sally being made at the same time from the camp at a signal given by himself from a distance, he surrounded a large force of the enemy. Of the Aequans in Roman territory the slaughter was less, their flight more disorderly. As they straggled in different directions, driving their plunder before them, Postumius attacked them in several places, where he had posted bodies of troops in advantageous positions. They, while straying about and pursuing their flight in great disorder, fell in with the victorious Quinctius as he was returning with the wounded consul. Then the consular army by its distinguished bravery amply avenged the consul's wound, and the death of the lieutenant and the slaughter of the cohorts; heavy losses were both inflicted and received on both sides during those days. In a matter of such antiquity it is difficult to state, so as to inspire conviction, the exact number of those who fought or fell: Antias Valerius, however, ventures to give an estimate of the numbers: that in the Hernican territory there fell five thousand eight hundred Romans; that of the predatory parties of the Aequans, who strayed through the Roman frontiers for the purpose of plundering, two thousand four hundred were slain by the consul Aulus Postumius; that the rest of the body which fell in with Quinctius while driving its booty before them, by no means got off with a loss equally small: of these he asserts that four thousand, and by way of stating the number exactly, two hundred and thirty were slain. After their return to Rome, the cessation of business was abandoned. The sky seemed to be all ablaze with fire; and other prodigies either actually presented themselves before men's eyes, or exhibited imaginary appearances to their affrighted minds. To avert these terrors, a solemn festival for three days was proclaimed, during which all the shrines were filled with a crowd of men and women, earnestly imploring the favour of the gods. After this the Latin and Hernican cohorts were sent back to their respective homes, after they had been thanked by the senate for their spirited conduct in war. The thousand soldiers from Antium were dismissed almost with disgrace, because they had come after the battle too late to render assistance.