nd perilous suspense, whether to force their way into the camp, or be
cut off from their own army. When Fulvius saw the disorder of the
legion, and the danger the camp was in, he exhorted Quintus Navius,
and the other principal centurions, to charge the cohort of the enemy
which was fighting under the rampart; he said, "that the state of
things was most critical; that either they must retire before them, in
which case they would burst into the camp with less difficulty than
they had experienced in breaking through a dense line of troops, or
they must cut them to pieces under the rampart: nor would it require a
great effort; for they were few, and cut off from their own troops,
and if the line which appeared broken, now while the Romans were
dispirited, should turn upon the enemy on both sides, they would
become enclosed in the midst, and exposed to a twofold attack."
Navius, on hearing these words of the general, snatched the standard
of the second company of spearmen from the standard-bearer, and
advanced with it against the enemy, threatening that he would throw it
into the midst of them unless the soldiers promptly followed him and
took part in the fight. He was of gigantic stature, and his arms set
him off; the standard also, raised aloft, attracted the gaze both of
his countrymen and the enemy. When, however, he had reached the
standards of the Spaniards, javelins were poured upon him from all
sides, and almost the whole line was turned against him; but neither
the number of his enemies nor the force of the weapons could repel the
onset of this hero.

6. Marcus Atilius, the lieutenant-general, also caused the standard of
the first company of principes of the same legion to be borne against
a cohort of the Spaniards. Lucius Portius Licinus and Titus Popilius,
the lieutenant-generals, who had the command of the camp, fought
valiantly in defence of the rampart, and slew the elephants while in
the very act of crossing it. The carcasses of these filling up the
ditch, afforded a passage for the enemy as effectually as if earth had
been thrown in, or a bridge erected over it; and a horrid carnage took
place amid the carcasses of the elephants which lay prostrate. On the
other side of the camp, the Campanians, with the Carthaginian
garrison, had by this time been repulsed, and the battle was carried
on immediately under the gate of Capua leading to Vulturnus. Nor did
the armed men contribute so much in resisting the Romans