d on the rest not only to retain their
arms, but to come to an immediate engagement. They fell upon Fabius
while he was fortifying his camp. When the consul saw them rushing
impetuously towards his rampart, he called off his men from the work,
and drew them up in the best manner which the nature of the place and
the time allowed; encouraging them by displaying, in honourable and
just terms, the glory which they had acquired, as well in Etruria as
in Samnium, he bade them finish this insignificant appendage to the
Etrurian war, and take vengeance for the impious expressions in which
these people had threatened to attack the city of Rome. Such was the
alacrity of the soldiers on hearing this, that, raising the shout
spontaneously, they interrupted the general's discourse, and, without
waiting for orders, advanced, with the sound of all the trumpets and
cornets, in full speed against the enemy. They made their attack not
as on men, or at least men in arms, but, what must appear wonderful in
the relation, began by snatching the standards out of the hands which
held them; and then, the standard-bearers themselves were dragged to
the consul, and the armed soldiers transferred from the one line to
the other; and wherever resistance was any where made, the business
was performed, not so much with swords, as with their shields, with
the bosses of which, and thrusts of their elbows, they bore down the
foe. The prisoners were more numerous than the slain, and through the
whole line the Umbrians called on each other, with one voice, to lay
down their arms. Thus a surrender was made in the midst of action, by
the first promoters of the war; and on the next and following days,
the other states of the Umbrians also surrendered. The Ocriculans were
admitted to a treaty of friendship on giving security.

42. Fabius, successful in a war allotted to another, led back his army
into his own province. And as, in the preceding year, the people had,
in consideration of his services so successfully performed, re-elected
him to the consulship, so now the senate, from the same motive,
notwithstanding a warm opposition made by Appius, prolonged his
command for the year following, in which Appius Claudius and Lucius
Volumnius were consuls. In some annals I find, that Appius, still
holding the office of censor, declared himself a candidate for the
consulship, and that his election was stopped by a protest of Lucius
Furius, plebeian tribune, until he