History of Rome

​The Roman had shaken the enemy at the very first clash, when suddenly, the gates of Fidenae being thrown open, a new battle line burst forth, unheard of and unseen before that time:

​a huge multitude armed with fire and glowing all over with burning torches rushed at the enemy in a run as if inspired by fanatical madness, and the appearance of this unusual combat terrified the Romans for a moment.

​Then the dictator, having summoned the master of the horse and the cavalry, and then Quinctius from the mountains, stirring up the battle, himself ran to the left wing, which, more like a fire than a battle, had yielded in terror before the flames, and with a loud voice, ”Conquered by smoke,” he said, “driven from your place like a swarm of bees, will you yield to an unarmed enemy? Will you not extinguish the fires with the sword? Will you not, if you must fight with fire and not with weapons, each for his own part snatch away these very torches and throw them back against them?

​Come, mindful of the Roman name and the valor of your fathers and your own, turn this conflagration upon the enemy’s city and destroy Fidenae with its own flames, which you could not pacify with your benefits. The blood of your envoys and colonists and your devastated territories urge you to this.” At the dictator’s command, the entire line was moved.

​Some of the torches thrown were caught, others were snatched away by force; both lines were armed with fire.

​The master of the horse also himself innovated the cavalry fight. He ordered them to strip the bridles from the horses, and himself, the first to apply spurs, was carried on his unbridled horse into the midst of the fires, and the other excited horses bore their riders at a free run into the enemy.

​The dust kicked up and mixed with smoke took the light from the eyes of men and horses. That appearance, which had terrified the infantryman, did not terrify the horses at all. Therefore, the cavalry dealt a slaughter like a collapse wherever they penetrated.

​Then a new shout arose; when this had turned both lines, full of wonder, toward itself, the dictator exclaimed that the lieutenant Quinctius and his men had attacked the enemy from behind; he himself, renewing the shout, advanced the standards more fiercely.

​Since two lines and two different battles were pressing the surrounded Etruscans both from the front and from the rear, and there was no way of flight either back to the camp or to the mountains from where the new enemy had presented himself, and the horses free of bridles had scattered the cavalry everywhere, the greatest part of the Veientes in a rush sought the Tiber, while the surviving Fidenates directed their way to the city of Fidenae.

​Their flight carried the terrified men into the midst of slaughter; they were cut down on the banks; others, forced into the water, were carried away by the whirlpools; even those skilled in swimming were weighed down by weariness, wounds, and fear; few out of many swam across. The other column was carried through the camp into the city.

​The same impetus swept the pursuing Romans there also, especially Quinctius and those who had just descended from the mountains with him, soldiers freshest for the labor, because they had arrived at the very end of the battle.