History of Rome

​The news of this defeat excited a greater terror in Rome than the reality warranted.

​For just as if the army had been destroyed, a suspension of public business was proclaimed, guards were posted at the gates, watches were kept from street to street, and arms and missiles were accumulated on the walls.

​After all the younger men had been bound by the military oath, the dictator, being sent to the army, found everything more tranquil than he had hoped and arranged by the care of the master of the horse, the camp removed to a safer place, and the cohorts, ​which had lost their standards, left outside the rampart without tents, and the army eager for battle, that their disgrace might be the more speedily wiped out.

​Therefore, he immediately moved the camp from there into the territory of Rusellae.

​The enemy also followed them there; and although, from their successful action, they had the highest hopes even in an open contest of strength, they nevertheless also tried the enemy with ambushes, which they had happily experienced.

​The half-ruined roofs of a village, burned during the devastation of the lands, were not far from the Roman camp. There, armed men having been concealed, cattle were driven into the view of the Roman outpost, which the lieutenant Gnaeus Fulvius commanded.

​Since no one was moved from the Roman post by this decoy, one of the shepherds, having advanced right up to the fortifications, cried out to the others who were hesitantly driving the cattle from the ruins of the village, asking why they delayed, when they might drive them safely through the middle of the Roman camp.

​When certain Caerites interpreted these words to the lieutenant, and there was great indignation through all the maniples of the soldiers, who nevertheless did not dare to move without orders, he ordered those skilled in the language to pay attention to whether the speech of the shepherds was closer to a rustic or an urban tone.

​When they reported back that the sound of the language, the appearance of their bodies, and their cleanliness were more refined than became shepherds, he said: “Go then, and tell them to uncover the ambush they have laid in vain; the Roman knows everything, and can now no more be caught by guile than he can be conquered by arms.”

​When these words were heard and carried to those who had settled in ambush, they suddenly rose from their hiding places and brought their standards forward into a plain open to view from all sides.

​A larger battle line appeared to the lieutenant than could be sustained by his own outpost. Therefore, he hastily sent to the dictator to summon reinforcements; meanwhile, he himself sustained the attacks of the enemy.