enates, thinking that a power too near to themselves
was growing to a height, resolve to make war, before their strength
should become as great as it was apparent it would be. An armed body of
young men being sent in, all the land is laid waste between the city and
Fidenae. Then turning to the left, because the Tiber confined them on the
right, they continue their depredations to the great consternation of
the peasantry. The sudden alarm reaching the city from the country,
served as the first announcement. Romulus, roused at this circumstance,
(for a war so near home could not admit of delay,) leads out his army:
he pitches his camp a mile from Fidenae. Having left there a small
garrison, marching out with all his forces, he commanded a party of his
soldiers to lie in ambush in a place [20]hidden by thick bushes which
were planted around. Then advancing with the greater part of the foot
and all the horse, and riding up to the very gates of the city in a
disorderly and menacing manner, he drew out the enemy, the very thing he
wanted. The same mode of fighting on the part of the cavalry likewise
made the cause of the flight, which was to be counterfeited, appear less
surprising: and when, the horse seeming irresolute, as if in
deliberation whether to fight or fly, the infantry also retreated, the
enemy suddenly rushed from the crowded gates, after they had made an
impression on the Roman line, are drawn on to the place of ambuscade in
their eagerness to press on and pursue. Upon this the Romans, rising
suddenly, attack the enemy's line in flank. The standards of those who
had been left behind on guard, advancing from the camp, further increase
the panic. The Fidenates, thus dismayed with terrors from so many
quarters, turn their backs almost before Romulus, and those who had
accompanied him on horseback, could wheel their horses round; and those
who a little before had pursued men pretending to fly, now ran back to
the town in much greater disorder, for their flight was in earnest. They
did not however get clear of the enemy: the Romans pressing on their
rear rush in as it were in one body before the gates could be shut
against them.

[Footnote 20: The original has undergone various changes here: my
version coincides with the reading, _locis circa densa obsita virgulta
obscuris_.]

15. The minds of the Veientes being excited by the contagious influence
of the Fidenatian war, both from the tie of consanguinity, for the
F