nd flight,
slaughter and blood, and the wrath of the gods celestial and infernal,
that, with the contagious influence of the furies, the ministers of
death, he would infect the standards, the weapons, and the armour of
the enemy, and that the same spot should be that of his perdition, and
that of the Gauls and Samnites." After uttering these execrations on
himself and the foe, he spurred forward his horse, where he saw the
line of the Gauls thickest, and, rushing upon the enemy's weapons, met
his death.

29. Thenceforward the battle seemed to be fought with a degree of
force scarcely human. The Romans, on the loss of their general, a
circumstance which, on other occasions, is wont to inspire terror,
stopped their flight, and were anxious to begin the combat afresh. The
Gauls, and especially the multitude which encircled the consul's body,
as if deprived of reason, cast their javelins at random without
execution, some became so stupid as not to think of either fighting or
flying, while on the other side, Livius, the pontiff, to whom Decius
had transferred his lictors, with orders to act as propraetor, cried
out aloud, that "the Romans were victorious, being saved by the death
of their consul. That the Gauls and Samnites were now the victims of
mother Earth and the infernal gods. That Decius was summoning and
dragging to himself the army devoted along with him, and that, among
the enemy, all was full of dismay, and the vengeance of all the
furies." While the soldiers were busy in restoring the fight, Lucius
Cornelius Scipio and Caius Marcius, with some reserved troops from the
rear, who had been sent by Quintus Fabius, the consul, to the support
of his colleague, came up. There the fate of Decius is ascertained, a
powerful stimulus to brave every danger in the cause of the public.
Wherefore, when the Gauls stood in close order, with their shields
formed into a fence before them, and but little prospect of success
appeared from a close fight, the javelins, which lay scattered between
the two lines, were, therefore, by order of the lieutenants-general,
gathered up from the ground, and thrown against the enemy's shields,
and as most of them pierced the fence, the long pointed ones even into
their bodies, their compact band was overthrown in such a manner, that
a great many, who were unhurt, yet fell as if thunderstruck. Such were
the changes of fortune on the left wing of the Romans; on the right,
Fabius had at first protra