HKB
to please their leaders, exclaimed among themselves: "Standard-bearer, hasten; follow, soldier." At midnight they reached Algidum: and, as soon as they perceived that they were near the enemy, they halted.
There the dictator, riding about, and having observe as far as could be ascertained by night, what the extent of the camp was, and what was its nature, commanded the tribunes of the soldiers to order the baggage to be thrown into one place, and that the soldiers with their arms and bundles of stakes should return to their ranks. His orders were executed. Then, with the regularity which they had observed on the march, he drew the entire army in a long column around the enemy's camp, and directed that, when the signal was given, they should all raise a shout, and that, on the shout being raised, each man should throw up a trench before his post, and fix his palisade. The orders being issued, the signal followed: the soldiers carried out their instructions; the shout echoed around the enemy: it then passed beyond the camp of the enemy, and reached that of the consul: in the one it occasioned panic, in the other great joy. The Romans, observing to each other with exultation that this was the shout of their countrymen, and that aid was at hand, took the initiative, and from their watch-guards and outposts dismayed the enemy. The consul declared that there must be no delay; that by that shouts not only their arrival was intimated, but that hostilities were already begun by their friends; and that it would be a wonder if the enemy's camp were not attacked on the farther side. He therefore ordered his men to take up arms and follow him. The battle was begun during the night. They gave notice by a shout to the dictator's legions that on that side also the decisive moment had arrived. The AEquans were now preparing to prevent the works from being drawn around them, when, the battle being begun by the enemy from within, having turned their attention from those employed on the fortifications to those who were fighting on the inside, lest a sally should be made through the centre of their camp, they left the night free for the completion of the work, and continued the fight with the consul till daylight. At daybreak they were now encompassed by the dictator's works, and were scarcely able to maintain the fight against one army. Then their lines were attacked by the army of Quinctius, which, immediately after completing its work, returned to arms. Here a new engagement pressed on them: the former one had in no wise slackened. Then, as the danger that beset them on both sides pressed them hard, turning from fighting to entreaties, they implored the dictator on the one hand, the consul on the other, not to make the victory their total destruction, and to suffer them to depart without arms. They were ordered by the consul to apply to the dictator: he, incensed against them, added disgrace to defeat. He gave orders that Gracchus Cloelius, their general, and the other leaders should be brought to him in chains, and that the town of Corbio should be evacuated; he added that he did not desire the lives of the Æquans: that they were at liberty to depart; but that a confession might at last be wrung from them that their nation was defeated and subdued, they would have to pass under the yoke. The yoke was formed of three spears, two fixed in the ground, and one tied across between the upper ends of them. Under this yoke the dictator sent the Æquans.