History of Rome

​When the year had come round, the war was henceforth conducted by the dictator Q. Fabius; the new consuls, like their predecessors, remained at Rome; Fabius came with a reinforcement to Saticula to receive the army from Aemilius.

​For neither had the Samnites remained at Plistica, but, having summoned new soldiers from home and relying on their numbers, they had pitched their camp in the same place as before, and by provoking the Romans to battle, they were trying to draw them away from the siege.

​All the more intently did the dictator, turning toward the enemy’s walls, carry on only that war with which he was besieging the city; he acted with more security regarding the Samnites, merely opposing outposts so that no force might be brought against the camp.

​All the more fiercely did the Samnites ride up to the rampart and allow no rest. And when the enemy was now almost at the gates of the camp, the master of the horse Q. Aulius Cerretanus, without consulting the dictator at all, rode out with all the squadrons of horse in a great tumult and drove back the enemy.

​Then, in a kind of fight that was by no means persistent, fortune so exercised her power that she produced notable disasters on both sides and the famous deaths of the leaders themselves.

​First, the Samnite commander, taking it ill that he was routed and put to flight from the place where he had ridden up so fiercely, renewed the battle by entreating and encouraging his horsemen;

​against him, as he was stirring up the fight, conspicuous among his own men, the Roman master of the horse, with spear couched, so spurred his horse that with a single blow he threw him down lifeless from his horse. Nor, as usually happens, was the multitude more dismayed than provoked at the fall of their leader;

​all who were around threw their weapons at Aulius, who had rashly charged through the enemy’s squadrons;

​the gods gave to his brother the chief honor of avenging the slain Samnite commander. He, full of grief and rage, slaughtered the victorious master of the horse who had been dragged from his horse, and the Samnites were not far from getting possession of his body also, because he had fallen among the enemy’s squadrons.

​But immediately the Romans dismounted, and the Samnites were forced to do the same. And a sudden line of battle engaged in a pedestrian fight around the bodies of the leaders, in which the Roman was undoubtedly superior; and the victors carried back the recovered body of Aulius to the camp with joy mixed with grief. The Samnites, having lost their leader ​and having tried their strength through the cavalry combat, abandoned Saticula, which they thought was being defended in vain, and returned to the siege of Plistica; and within a few days the Roman got possession of Saticula by surrender, and the Samnite of Plistica by force.