History of Rome

​The consuls set out from the city, first Spurius Carvilius, to whom the old legions, which Marcus Atilius, consul of the previous year, had left in the territory of Interamna, had been assigned.

​Setting out with them into Samnium, while the enemy, occupied with their superstitions, were holding secret councils, he took the town of Amiternum from the Samnites by force.

​About two thousand eight hundred men were slain there, and four thousand two hundred and seventy were captured.

​Papirius, with a newly enlisted army—for so it had been decreed—stormed the city of Duronia. He took fewer men than his colleague, but killed somewhat more; rich booty was acquired on both sides. From there, the consuls, having traversed Samnium, ​especially after devastating the territory of Atina, Carvilius arrived at Cominium, and Papirius at Aquilonia, where the main strength of the Samnites was.

​There, for some time, there was neither a cessation of arms nor active fighting; by provoking the quiet, yielding to those who resisted, and threatening rather than delivering battle, the day was consumed.

​Whatever was begun or broken off, the outcome of all things, even small ones, was reported daily. The other Roman camp, which was twenty miles away, and the plans of the absent colleague were involved in the conduct of all affairs; and Carvilius, as the crisis took a more critical turn, was more intent on Aquilonia than on Cominium, which he was besieging. Lucius Papirius, ​now sufficiently prepared in all respects for a conflict, sent a messenger to his colleague to say that he intended to engage with the enemy on the following day, if the auspices permitted;

​it was necessary that he too should attack Cominium with the greatest possible force, so that there would be no leisure for the Samnites to send reinforcements to Aquilonia.

​The messenger had the day for his journey; he returned at night, reporting that his colleague approved of the plans. Papirius, having dispatched the messenger, immediately held an assembly;

​he spoke much on the general nature of the war, much on the present equipment of the enemy, which was more in vain show than effective for the result:

​for crests did not inflict wounds, and the Roman javelin passed through painted and gilded shields, and a battle-line glittering with the whiteness of tunics would be stained with blood when the business was carried on with steel.

​Once before, a golden and silver battle-line of the Samnites had been utterly destroyed by his father, and those spoils had been more honorable to the victorious enemy than the arms themselves had been to them.

​It was granted perhaps to his name and family that generals should be opposed to the greatest efforts of the Samnites, and should bring back those spoils which were distinguished even for decorating public places.

​The immortal gods were present in anger on account of treaties so often sought and so often broken; and if there was any conjecture of the divine mind, they had never been more hostile to any army ​than to that which, defiled by a dreadful rite with the mingled slaughter of men and beasts, and devoted to the double wrath of the gods, fearing on one hand the gods who were witnesses of the treaties struck with the Romans, ​and on the other hand the curses of the oath taken against the treaties, had sworn unwillingly, hated the oath, and feared at one and the same time the gods, their citizens, and the enemy.