10.29
From
this moment the battle could hardly have appeared to any man to be
dependent on human strength alone. After losing their leader, a thing which
generally demoralises an army, the Romans arrested their flight and
recommenced the struggle. The Gauls, especially those who were crowded
round the consul's body, were discharging their missiles aimlessly and
harmlessly as though bereft of their senses; some seemed paralysed,
incapable of either fight or flight. But, in the other army, the pontiff Livius,
to whom Decius had transferred his lictors and whom he had commissioned
to act as propraetor, announced in loud tones that the consul's death had
freed the Romans from all danger and given them the victory, the Gauls and
Samnites were made over to Tellus the Mother and the Dii Manes, Decius
was summoning and dragging down to himself the army which he had
devoted together with himself, there was terror everywhere among the
enemy, and the Furies were lashing them into madness. Whilst the battle was
thus being restored, L. Cornelius Scipio and C. Marcius were ordered by
Fabius to bring up the reserves from the rear to the support of his
colleagues. There they learnt the fate of P. Decius, and it was a powerful
encouragement to them to dare everything for the republic. The Gauls were
standing in close order covered by their shields, and a hand-to-hand fight
seemed no easy matter, but the staff officers gave orders for the javelins
which were lying on the ground between the two armies to be gathered up
and hurled at the enemy's shield wall. Although most of them stuck in their
shields and only a few penetrated their bodies, the closely massed ranks went
down, most of them falling without having received a wound, just as though
they had been struck by lightning. Such was the change that Fortune had
brought about in the Roman left wing.
On the right Fabius, as I have stated, was protracting the contest.
When he found that neither the battle-shout of the enemy, nor their onset,
nor the discharge of their missiles were as strong as they had been at the
beginning, he ordered the officers in command of the cavalry to take their
squadrons round to the side of the Samnite army, ready at a given signal to
deliver as fierce a flank attack as possible. The infantry were at the same
time to press steadily forwards and dislodge the enemy. When he saw that
they were offering no resistance, and were evidently worn out, he massed all
his support which he had kept in reserve for the supreme moment, and gave
the signal for a general charge of infantry and cavalry. The Samnites could
not face the onslaught and fled precipitately past the Gauls to their camp,
leaving their allies to fight as best they could. The Gauls were still standing
in close order behind their shield wall. Fabius, on hearing of his colleague's
death, ordered a squadron of Campanian horse, about 500 strong, to go out
of action and ride round to take the Gauls in the rear. The principes of the
third legion were ordered to follow, and, wherever they saw the enemy's line
disordered by the cavalry, to press home the attack and cut them down. He
vowed a temple and the spoils of the enemy to Jupiter Victor, and then
proceeded to the Samnite camp to which the whole crowd of panic-struck
fugitives was being driven. As they could not all get through the gates, those
outside tried to resist the Roman attack and a battle began close under the
rampart. It was here that Gellius Egnatius, the captain-general of the
Samnites, fell. Finally the Samnites were driven within their lines and the
camp was taken after a brief struggle. At the same time the Gauls were
attacked in the rear and overpowered; 25,000 of the enemy were killed in
that day's fighting and 8000 made prisoners. The victory was by no means a
bloodless one, for P. Decius lost 7000 killed and Fabius 1700. After sending
out a search party to find his colleague's body, Fabius had the spoils of the
enemy collected into a heap and burnt as a sacrifice to Jupiter Victor. The
consul's body could not be found that day as it was buried under a heap of
Gauls; it was discovered the next day and brought back to camp amidst the
tears of the soldiers. Fabius laid aside all other business in order to pay the
last rites to his dead colleague; the obsequies were conducted with every
mark of honour and the funeral oration sounded the well-deserved praises of
the deceased consul.