no active warfare could be going on in Campania. Latin garrisons had probably wintered there to repel plundering parties of the Samnites; and the Latin army would march thither as soon as the season for military operations arrived, to renew their invasion of Samnium. No expectation seems to have been entertained that their proposal of an equal union would be answered by an immediate declaration of war. Certain it is that the breach of the old alliance was far more to be charged on the Romans than on them; for the Romans had deserted them in the midst of a war jointly undertaken by the two nations, and had made peace with the common enemy; and the Campanians, who had originally joined the alliance to obtain protection against the Samnites, had no choice but to follow the Latins, as from them alone was that protection now to be hoped for. But the opportunity was tempting, and the Romans, tak ing advantage of the earliness of the season, when the Latins might scarcely be prepared for active operations, hastily declared war, and dispatched both consuls with two consular armies, not by the direct road into Campania by Tarracina or by the Liras, but by a circuitous route at the back of their enemies' country, through the territory of the Marsians and Pelignians into Samnium. There the consuls were joined by the Samnite army; and their combined forces then descended from the mountains of Samnium, and encamped in presence of the enemy on the plain of Capua, with a retreat open into the country of the Samnites on their rear, but with the whole army and territory of the hostile confederacy interposed between them and Rome.

While the Romans and Latins lay here over against each other, the consuls issued an order strictly forbidding all irregular skirmishing, or single encounters with the enemy. They wished to prevent the confusion which might arise in chance combats between two parties alike in arms and in language: perhaps also they wished to stop all intercourse with the Latins, lest the enemy should discover their real strength, or lest old feelings of kindness should revive in the soldiers' minds, and they should begin to ask whether they had any sufficient grounds of quarrel. It was on this occasion that T. Manlius, the consul's son, was challenged by Geminus Metius, of TuscuJum, and, heedless of the order of the generals, he accepted the challenge and slew

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his antagonist. The young man returned in triumph to the camp, and laid his spoils at his father's feet; but the consul, turning away from him, immediately summoned the soldiers to the prætorium, and ordered his son to be beheaded before them. All were struck with horror at the sight, and the younger soldiers, from a natural sympathy with youth and courage, regarded the consul with abhorrence to the latest hour of his life; but fear and respect were mingled with their abhorrence, and strict obedience, enforced by so dreadful an example, was felt by all to be indispensable.

The stories which we are obliged to follow, shifting their scene as rapidly and unconnectedly as our old drama, transport the two armies without a word of explanation from the neighborhood of Capua to the foot of Mount Vesuvius, where, on the road which led to Veseris, according to their own way of expressing it, the decisive battle was fought.

He who had been present at the last council held by the Roman generals before they parted to take their respective stations in the line, might have seen that having planned for the coming battle all that skill and ability could devise, they were ready to dare all that the most heroic courage could do or suffer: the aruspices had been consulted as to the import of the signs given by the entrails of the sacrifice; their answer had been made known to the principal officers of the army; and with it the determination of the consuls, that, on whichever side of the battle the Romans should first begin to give ground, the consul who commanded in that quarter should forthwith devote himself, and the hosts of the enemy with himself, to the gods of death and to the grave: for fate," said they," requires the sacrifice of a general from one party, and of an army from the other; one of us, therefore, will be the general that shall perish, that the army which is to perish also may not be ours, but the army of the Latins."

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We have seen that the arms and tactics of both armies were precisely similar. In each there were two grand divisions, the first forming the ordinary line of battle, and the second the reserve; the latter being, in point of numbers, considerably the strongest. The first division, however, was subdivided into two equal parts, the first of which, known by the name of the Hastati, consisted of light and heavy armed soldiers, in

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the proportion of one-third of the former to two-thirds of the latter; the second part, called the Principes, contained the flower of the whole army, all heavy-armed men, in the vigour of their age, and most perfectiy and splendidly accoutred. The reserve, forming in itself a complete army, contained a three-fold subdivision; one-third of it was composed of veteran heavy-armed soldiers, the Triarii; another third of light-armed, Rorarii; and the remainder were mere su pernumeraries, Accensi, who were destined to supply the places of those who should have fallen in the first line, or to act with the reserve in cases of the last extremity. These divisions being the same in both armies, the generals on either side knew precisely the force and nature of the enemy's reserve, and could calculate the movements of their own accordingly.

The Roman and Latin legions were opposed to each other. The Samnites and Hernicans, who formed one wing of the Roman army, must in like manner have been opposed to the nations of their own or of a kindred stock, the Campanians, Sidicinians, and Volscians. Of the Roman line itself, the legions on the right were commanded by Titus Manlius, those on the left by Publius Decius.

The battle began with the encounter of the hastati, who formed on each side, as we have seen, the first division of the first line. Consisting both of light and heavy-armed soldiers, they closed with each other with levelled pikes, amidst showers of darts from their light-armed men, who either skirm ished in the intervals between the maniples of the pikemen. or, sheltered behind them, threw their missiles over the heads of their comrades into the line of the enemy.

In this conflict the right wing of the Latins prevailed, and the Roman hastati of the left wing fell back in disorder upon the principes, who formed what may be called the main battle.

Decius then called aloud for M. Valerius, the pontifex maximus. "The gods," he said, "must help us now," and he bade the pontifex dictate to him the form of words in which he was to devote himself and the legions of the enemy to the gods of death. It should be remembered that, to Decius, as one of the commons, all the ceremonies of the Roman religion were an unknown mystery. The pontifex bade him take his consular toga, and wrap it around his head, putting out his hand from under it to hold

it to his face, and to set his feet upon a javelin, and so to utter the set of words which he should dictate. When they had been duly spoken, the consul sent his lictors to his colleague, to say that he had devoted himself to death for the deliverance of the Roman army. Then, with his toga wrapped around his body, after the fashion adopted in sacrifices to the gods, he sprung upon his horse, armed at all points, plunged amidst the ranks of the enemy, and was slain. Such an example of self-devotion in a general, is in all cases inspiriting; but the Romans beheld in this not only the heroic valour of Decius, but the certain devotion of their enemies to the vengeance of the gods: what was due from themselves to the powers of death, Decius had paid for them; so, like men freed from a burden, they rushed on with light and cheerful hearts, as if appointed to certain victory.

The Latins too understood the meaning of Decius' death, when they saw his dress and heard his words of devotion; and no doubt it produced on their minds something of dismay. But soon recovering, the main battles on both sides closed in fierce onset; and though the light troops of the Roman reserve were also brought into action, and skirmished amongst the maniples of the hastati and principes, yet victory seemed disposed to favor the Latins.

In this extremity Manlius, well knowing that in a contest so equal the last reserve brought into the field on either side would inevitably decide the day, still kept back the veterans of his second line, and called forward only his accensi or supernumeraries, whom for this very purpose he had, contrary to the usual custom, furnished with complete arms. The Latins mistook these for the veterans, or triarii, and thinking that the last reserve of the Romans was now engaged, they instantly brought up their own. The Romans struggled valiantly, but at last were beginning to give way, when, at a signal given, the real reserve of the Roman veterans started forwards, advanced through the intervals of the wavering line in front of them, and with loud cheers charged upon the enemy. Such a shock at such a moment, was irresistible; they broke through the whole army of the Latins almost without loss; the battle became a butchery, and according to the usual results of engagements fought hand to hand, where a broken army can neither