is seen at the same time a body of troops on the eminence over the glen.  Hastening back, then, they proceed to retrace the road by which they had entered; they found that also shut up by such another fence, and men in arms.  Then, without orders, they halted; amazement took possession of their minds, and a strange kind of numbness seized their limbs:  they then remained a long time motionless and silent, each looking to the other, as if each thought the other more 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 mind retained its full vigour.  When he heard