28.  However, although the victory was still undecided, fortune not having declared in favour of either party, yet the course of the fight was by no means similar on both right and left wings.  The Romans, under Fabius, rather repelled than offered assault, and the contest was protracted until very late in the day, for their general knew very well, that both Samnites and Gauls were furious in the first onset, so that, to withstand them would be sufficient.  It was known, too, that in a protracted contest the spirits of the Samnites gradually flagged, and even the bodies of the Gauls, remarkably ill able to bear labour and heat, became quite relaxed, and although, in their first efforts, they were more than men, yet in their last they were less than women.  He, therefore, reserved the strength of his men as unimpaired as possible, until the time when the enemy were the more likely to be worsted.  Decius, more impetuous, as being in the prime of life and full flow of spirits, exerted whatever force he had to the utmost in the first encounter, and thinking the infantry not sufficiently energetic, brought up the cavalry to the fight.  Putting himself at the head of a troop of young horsemen of distinguished bravery, he besought those youths, the flower of the army, to charge the enemy with him, [telling them] “they would reap a double share of glory, if the victory should commence on the left wing, and through their means.”  Twice they compelled the Gallic cavalry to give way.  At the second charge, when they advanced farther and were briskly engaged in the midst of the enemy’s squadrons, by a method of fighting new to them, they were thrown into dismay.  A number of the enemy, mounted on chariots and cars, made towards them with such a prodigious clatter from the trampling of the cattle and rolling of wheels, as affrighted the horses of the Romans, unaccustomed to such tumultuous operations.  By this means the victorious cavalry were dispersed, through a panic, and men and horses, in their headlong flight, were tumbled promiscuously on the ground.  Hence also the battalions of the legions were thrown into disorder, through the impetuosity of the horses, and of the carriages which they dragged through the ranks, many of the soldiers in the van were trodden or bruised to death, while the Gallic line, as soon as they saw their enemy in confusion, pursued the advantage, nor allowed them time to take breath or recover themselves.  Decius, calling aloud, “Whither were they flying, or what hope could they have in running away?” strove to stop them as they turned their backs, but finding that he could not, by any efforts, prevail on them to keep their posts, so thoroughly were they dismayed, he called on his father, Publius Decius, by name.  He said, “Why do I any longer defer the fate entailed on my family?  It is destined to our race, that we should serve as expiatory victims to avert the public danger.  I will now offer the legions of the enemy, together