History of Rome

​Fabius, when he returned to Rome, delivered a moderate speech both in the senate and when brought before the people, so that he seemed neither to exaggerate nor to diminish the rumor of the war, and in choosing another leader, he seemed to indulge the fear of others rather than to consult his own fear or the danger of the state.

​However, if they were to give him a helper in the war and a partner in command, how could he possibly forget the consul Publius Decius, whom he had experienced through so many joint consulships?

​He said that he wished no one of all to be joined with him more than Decius; and that with Publius Decius he would have enough forces, and the enemy would never be too many; but if his colleague preferred something else, they should at least give him Lucius Volumnius as a helper. The decision on all matters was ​left to Decius by the people, the senate, and by his colleague Fabius himself; and when Publius Decius showed that he was ready to set out either for Samnium or for Etruria, there was such great joy and congratulation that victory was anticipated in their minds, and a triumph, not war, seemed to have been decreed to the consuls.

​I find in some authors that Fabius and Decius set out for Etruria immediately upon entering their consulship, without any mention of the drawing of lots for the provinces or the disputes between the colleagues which I have described.

​There are those to whom it was not enough to describe even these disputes, but who added both Appius’s accusations against the absent Fabius to the people, and the praetor’s obstinacy against the consul when present, and another contention between the colleagues, with Decius striving that each should maintain the lot of his own province.

​The facts begin to agree from the time when both consuls set out for the war. However, before the consuls arrived in Etruria, the Senonian Gauls came to Clusium with a huge multitude, intending to attack the Roman legion and camp. Scipio, ​who was in command of the camp, thinking that the small number of his soldiers should be assisted by the nature of the place, drew up his battle line on a hill which was between the city and the camp.

​But, as in a sudden emergency, having insufficiently reconnoitered the path, he proceeded to the ridge, which the enemy, having attacked from another side, had already occupied. Thus the legion was cut down from behind and, while the enemy pressed from all sides, was surrounded.

​That the legion was there destroyed, so that not even a messenger survived, ​some authors relate; and that the rumor of this disaster was not brought to the consuls, who were now not far from Clusium, before the Gallic horsemen came into view, carrying the heads suspended from the breasts of their horses and fixed on their spears, and triumphing with their customary song.

​There are those who hand down that they were Umbrians, not Gauls, and that so great a disaster was not received, but that when the foragers with the lieutenant Lucius Manlius Torquatus were surrounded, Scipio the propraetor brought aid from the camp, and the victorious Umbrians, the battle being renewed, were defeated, and the captives and booty were taken from them.

​It is more like the truth, however, that this disaster was received from a Gallic enemy rather than an Umbrian, because, as often at other times, so in that year, the peculiar terror of a Gallic tumult held the state.

​Therefore, besides the fact that both consuls had set out for the war with four legions and a large body of Roman cavalry, and a thousand chosen Campanian horsemen sent to that war, and a larger army of the allies and the Latin name than of the Romans, ​two other armies were posted not far from the city, facing Etruria, one in the Faliscan territory, the other in the Vatican territory. Gnaeus Fulvius and Lucius Postumius Megellus, both propraetors, were ordered to keep permanent camps in those places.