great parties were so amazed with fear that they ran two opposite ways,
the one to the same place from which the other had fled.--[Tacit, Annal.,
i. 63.]--Sometimes it adds wings to the heels, as in the two first:
sometimes it nails them to the ground, and fetters them from moving; as
we read of the Emperor Theophilus, who, in a battle he lost against the
Agarenes, was so astonished and stupefied that he had no power to fly--

"Adeo pavor etiam auxilia formidat"

["So much does fear dread even the means of safety."--Quint.
Curt., ii. II.]

--till such time as Manuel, one of the principal commanders of his army,
having jogged and shaked him so as to rouse him out of his trance, said
to him, "Sir, if you will not follow me, I will kill you; for it is
better you should lose your life than, by being taken, lose your empire."
--[Zonaras, lib. iii.]--But fear does then manifest its utmost power
when it throws us upon a valiant despair, having before deprived us of
all sense both of duty and honour. In the first pitched battle the
Romans lost against Hannibal, under the Consul Sempronius, a body of ten
thousand foot, that had taken fright, seeing no other escape for their
cowardice, went and threw themselves headlong upon the great battalion of
the enemies, which with marvellous force and fury they charged through
and through, and routed with a very great slaughter of the Carthaginians,
thus purchasing an ignominious flight at the same price they might have
gained a glorious victory.--[Livy, xxi. 56.]

The thing in the world I am most afraid of is fear, that passion alone,
in the trouble of it, exceeding all other accidents. What affliction
could be greater or more just than that of Pompey's friends, who, in his
ship, were spectators of that horrible murder? Yet so it was, that the
fear of the Egyptian vessels they saw coming to board them, possessed
them with so great alarm that it is observed they thought of nothing but
calling upon the mariners to make haste, and by force of oars to escape
away, till being arrived at Tyre, and delivered from fear, they had
leisure to turn their thoughts to the loss of their captain, and to give
vent to those tears and lamentations that the other more potent passion
had till then suspended.

"Tum pavor sapientiam omnem mihiex animo expectorat."

["Then fear drove out all intelligence from my mind."--Ennius, ap.
Cicero, Tusc., iv. 8.