determined in that battle to win back the affection. of the
which had been alienated through many political contests.
DTI. The battle-line was formed;neither the Veientines nor the legions of Etruria declined the contest. They were almost certain that the Romans would no more fight with. them than they fought with the 2Equi, and they did not despair 00 something still more serious happening, conside IQering the state irritation they were in and the double oppo rtunity which now presented itself.21 Things took a very different course, for in no us war had the Romans gone into action with more grim: determination, so exasperated were they by the insults of the enemy and the procrastination. of the consuls. The Etruscans had scarcely tune to form their ranks when, after the javelins had in the first confusion been flung at random rather than thrown regularly, the combatants came to a hand-to-hand encounter with swords, the most desperate kind of fighting. Amongst the foremost were the Fabii, who set a splendid example for their countrymen to behold. Quintus Fabius---the one who had keen consul two years previously-charged, regardless of danger, the massed Veientines, and whilst he was engaged with vast numbers of’the enemy, a Tuscan of vast strength anal splendidly armed plunged his sword into his breast, and as he drew it out Fabius fell forward on the wound. felt the fall of this one man, and the Romans were give ground, when M. Fabius, the consul, sprang over the bodyas it lay, and holding up his buckler, shouted, Is this what youswore, soldiers, that you would go back to camp as fugitives?Are you more afraid of 'this cowardly foe than of Jupiter andMars, by whom you swore? I, who did not swear, will eithergo back victorious, or will fall fighting by you, Quintus Fabius."Then Caeso Fabius, the consul of the previous year, said to the
“Is it by words like these, my brother, that you think
make them fight ?y } r孕e gods, by whom they swore, willY . , r .-I w.-, ,
our duty as chiefs, ii we are to De worthy of the x ab fan
The Greek stands ready in the workroom; the English is served. Both faces will read together.
The History of Rome, Livy — translated by Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912
Apparatus shelf + pinned Wikisource — Livy, The History of Rome (Rev. Canon Roberts translation, Everyman's Library) · Rev. Canon Roberts, Everyman's Library (J. M. Dent & Sons / E. P. Dutton), first issue 1912; six volumes
license: public-domain (the Roberts translation's Everyman first issue is 1912, pre-1930; Wikisource dates the translation 1905 — either way decades inside the US public domain; digital-door text carries no additional rights)