with myself, to be immolated to Earth, and the infernal gods.”  Having thus said, he commanded Marcus Livius, a pontiff, whom, at his coming out to the field, he had charged not to stir from him, to dictate the form of words in which he was to devote himself, and the legions of the enemy, for the army of the Roman people, the Quirites.  He was accordingly devoted with the same imprecations, and in the same habit, in which his father, Publius Decius, had ordered himself to be devoted at the Veseris in the Latin war.  When, immediately after the solemn imprecation, he added, that “he drove before him dismay and flight, slaughter and blood, and the wrath of the gods celestial and infernal, that, with the contagious influence of the furies, the ministers of death, he would infect the standards, the weapons, and the armour of the enemy, and that the same spot should be that of his perdition, and that of the Gauls and Samnites.”  After uttering these execrations on himself and the foe, he spurred forward his horse, where he saw the line of the Gauls thickest, and, rushing upon the enemy’s weapons, met his death.

29.  Thenceforward the battle seemed to be fought with a degree of force scarcely human.  The Romans, on the loss of their general, a circumstance which, on other occasions, is wont to inspire terror, stopped their flight, and were anxious to begin the combat afresh.  The Gauls, and especially the multitude which encircled the consul’s body, as if deprived of reason, cast their javelins at random without execution, some became so stupid as not to think of either fighting or flying, while on the other side, Livius, the pontiff, to whom Decius had transferred his lictors, with orders to act as propraetor, cried out aloud, that “the Romans were victorious, being saved by the death of their consul.  That the Gauls and Samnites were now the victims of mother Earth and the infernal gods.  That Decius was summoning and dragging to himself the army devoted along with him, and that, among the enemy, all was full of dismay, and the vengeance of all the furies.”  While the soldiers were busy in restoring the fight, Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Caius Marcius, with some reserved troops from the rear, who had been sent by Quintus Fabius, the consul, to the support of his colleague, came up.  There the fate of Decius is ascertained, a powerful stimulus to brave every danger in the cause of the public.  Wherefore, when the Gauls stood in close order, with their shields formed into a fence before them, and but little prospect of success appeared from a close fight, the javelins, which lay scattered between the two lines, were, therefore, by order of the lieutenants-general, gathered up from the ground, and thrown against the enemy’s shields, and as most of them pierced the fence, the long pointed ones even into their bodies, their compact band was overthrown in such a manner, that a great many, who were unhurt, yet fell as if thunderstruck.  Such were the changes of fortune