and sleep:  on the following day, when it was light, the Roman army took up their position some considerable time before.  At length the Aequans also advanced.  The battle was hotly contested on both sides, because the Romans fought under the influence of resentment and hatred, while the Aequans were compelled by a consciousness of danger incurred by misconduct, and despair of any confidence being reposed in them hereafter, to venture and to have recourse to the most desperate efforts.  The Aequans, however, did not withstand the attack of the Roman troops, and when, having been defeated, they had retired to their own territories, the savage multitude, with feelings not at all more disposed to peace, began to rebuke their leaders:  that their fortunes had been intrusted to the hazard of a pitched battle, in which mode of fighting the Romans were superior.  That the Aequans were better adapted for depredations and incursions, and that several parties, acting in different directions, conducted wars with greater success than the unwieldy mass of a single army.

Accordingly, having left a guard over the camp, they marched out and attacked the Roman frontiers with such fury that they carried terror even to the city:  the fact that this was unexpected also caused more alarm, because it was least of all to be feared that an enemy, vanquished and almost besieged in their camp, should entertain thoughts of depredation:  and the peasants, rushing through the gates in a state of panic, cried out that it was not a mere raid, nor small parties of plunderers, but, exaggerating everything in their groundless fear, whole armies and legions of the enemy that were close at hand, and that they were hastening toward the city in hostile array.  Those who were nearest carried to others the reports heard from these, reports vague and on that account more groundless:  and the hurry and clamour of those calling to arms bore no distant resemblance to the panic that arises when a city has been taken by storm.  It so happened that the consul Quinctius had returned to Rome from Algidum:  this brought some relief to their terror; and, the tumult being calmed, after chiding them for their dread of a vanquished enemy, he set a guard on the gates.  Then a meeting of the senate was summoned, and a suspension of business proclaimed by their authority:  he himself, having set out to defend the frontiers, leaving behind Quintus Servilius as prefect of the city, found no enemy in the country.  Affairs were conducted with distinguished success by the other consul; who, having attacked the enemy, where he knew that they would arrive, laden with booty, and therefore marching with their army the more encumbered, caused their depredation to prove their destruction.  Few of the enemy escaped from the ambuscade; all the booty was recovered.  Thus the return of the consul Quinctius to the city put an end to the suspension of business, which lasted four days.  A census[4] was then held, and the