ce, being near, they might, if any commotion
should open them an opportunity, snatch Capua out of the hands of the
Romans. To the same place the consuls repaired with a powerful army.
They both held back for some time, on the different sides of the
defiles, the roads being dangerous to either party. Then the Samnites,
making a short circuit through an open tract, marched down their
troops into level ground in the Campanian plains, and there the
hostile camps first came within view of each other. Trial of their
strength in slight skirmishes was made on both sides, more frequently
between the horse than the foot; and the Romans were no way
dissatisfied either at the issue of these, or at the delay by which
they protracted the war. The Samnite generals, on the contrary,
considered that their battalions were becoming weakened daily by small
losses, and the general vigour abated by prolonging the war. They
therefore marched into the field, disposing their cavalry on both
wings, with orders to give more heedful attention to the camp behind
than to the battle; for that the line of infantry would be able to
provide for their own safety. The consuls took post, Sulpicius on the
right wing, Poetelius on the left. The right wing was stretched out
wider than usual, where the Samnites also stood formed in thin ranks,
either with design of turning the flank of the enemy, or to avoid
being themselves surrounded. On the left, besides that they were
formed in more compact order, an addition was made to their strength,
by a sudden act of the consul Poetelius; for the subsidiary cohorts,
which were usually reserved for the exigencies of a tedious fight, he
brought up immediately to the front, and, in the first onset, pushed
the enemy with the whole of his force. The Samnite line of infantry
giving way, their cavalry advanced to support them; and as they were
charging in an oblique direction between the two lines, the Roman
horse, coming up at full speed, disordered their battalions and ranks
of infantry and cavalry, so as to oblige the whole line on that side
to give ground. The left wing had not only the presence of Poetelius
to animate them, but that of Sulpicius likewise; who, on the shout
being first raised in that quarter, rode thither from his own
division, which had not yet engaged. When he saw victory no longer
doubtful there, he returned to his own post with twelve hundred men,
but found the state of things there very different; th