capable of judging and advising than
himself. After some time, when they saw that the consul's pavilions
were being erected, and that some were getting ready the implements
for throwing up works, although they were sensible that it must appear
ridiculous the attempt to raise a fortification in their present
desperate condition, and when almost every hope was lost, would be an
object of necessity, yet, not to add a fault to their misfortunes,
they all, without being advised or ordered by any one, set earnestly
to work, and enclosed a camp with a rampart, close to the water, while
themselves, besides that the enemy heaped insolent taunts on them,
seemed with melancholy to acknowledge the apparent fruitlessness of
their toil and labour. The lieutenants-general and tribunes, without
being summoned to consultation, (for there was no room for either
consultation or remedy,) assembled round the dejected consul; while
the soldiers, crowding to the general's quarters, demanded from their
leaders that succour, which it was hardly in the power of the immortal
gods themselves to afford them.

3. Night came on them while lamenting their situation rather than
consulting, whilst they urged expedients, each according to his
temper; one crying out, "Let us go over those fences of the roads;"
others, "over the steeps; through the woods; any way, where arms can
be carried. Let us be but permitted to come to the enemy, whom we have
been used to conquer now near thirty years. All places will be level
and plain to a Roman, fighting against the perfidious Samnite."
Another would say, "Whither, or by what way can we go? Do we expect to
remove the mountains from their foundations? While these cliffs hang
over us, by what road will you reach the enemy? Whether armed or
unarmed, brave or dastardly, we are all, without distinction, captured
and vanquished. The enemy will not even show us a weapon by which we
might die with honour. He will finish the war without moving from his
seat." In such discourse, thinking of neither food nor rest, the night
was passed. Nor could the Samnites, though in circumstances so joyous,
instantly determine how to act: it was therefore universally agreed
that Herennius Pontius, father of the general, should be consulted by
letter. He was now grown feeble through age, and had withdrawn
himself, not only from all military, but also from all civil
occupations; yet, notwithstanding the decline of his bodily strength,
his