their ground; then made advances, pushed closely on the enemy, and having forced them to give way, drove them back, without suffering their first terror to abate.  They soon beat them out beyond the gate and the rampart, but not daring to pursue them, because the darkness of the weather made them apprehend an ambush, and content with having cleared the camp, they retired within the rampart, having killed about three hundred of the enemy.  Of the Romans, including the first advanced guard and the watchmen, and those who were surprised at the quaestor’s quarters, two hundred and thirty perished.  This not unsuccessful piece of boldness raised the spirits of the Samnites so high, that they not only did not suffer the Romans to march forward into their country, but even to procure forage from their lands; and the foragers were obliged to go back into the quiet country of Sora.  News of these events being conveyed to Rome, with circumstances of alarm magnified beyond the truth, obliged Lucius Postumius, the consul, though scarcely recovered from his illness, to set out for the army.  However, before his departure, having issued a proclamation that his troops should assemble at Sora, he dedicated the temple of Victory, for the building of which he had provided, when curule aedile, out of the money arising from fines; and, joining the army, he advanced from Sora towards Samnium, to the camp of his colleague.  The Samnites, despairing of being able to make head against the two armies, retreated from thence, on which the consuls, separating, proceeded by different routes to lay waste the enemy’s lands and besiege their towns.

34.  Postumius attempted to make himself master of Milionia, at first by storm and an assault; but these not succeeding, he carried his approaches to the walls, and thus gained an entrance into the place.  The fight was continued in all parts of the city from the fourth hour until near the eighth, the result being a long time uncertain:  the Romans at last gained possession of the town.  Three thousand two hundred of the Samnites were killed, four thousand seven hundred taken, besides the other booty.  From thence the legions were conducted to Ferentinum, out of which the inhabitants had, during the night, retired in silence through the opposite gate, with all their effects which could be either carried or driven.  The consul, on his arrival, approached the walls with the same order and circumspection, as if he were to meet an opposition here equal to what he had experienced at Milionia.  Then, perceiving a dead silence in the city, and neither arms nor men on the towers and ramparts, he restrains the soldiers, who were eager to mount the deserted fortifications, lest they might fall into a snare.  He ordered two divisions of the confederate Latin horse to ride round the walls, and explore every particular.  These horsemen observed one gate, and, at a little distance, another on the same side, standing wide open, and on the roads leading from these every mark