Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/91

 Under the consul Atilius Calatinus the same thing was done by a man whose name is variously reported. Some say he was called Laberius, and some Quintus Caedicius, but most give it as Calpurnius Flamma. This man, seeing that the army had entered a valley, the sides and all commanding parts of which the enemy had occuppied, asked and received from the consul three hundred soldiers. After exhorting these to save the army by their valour, he hastened to the centre of the valley. To crush him and his followers, the enemy descended from all quarters, but, being held in check in a long and fierce battle, they thus afforded the consul an opportunity to extricate his army.

When the army of the consul Quintus Minucius had marched down into a defile of Liguria, and the memory of the disaster of the Caudine Forks occurred to the minds of all, Minucius ordered the Numidian auxiliaries, who seemed of small account because of their own wild appearance and the ungainliness of their steeds, to ride up to the mouth of the defile which the enemy held. The enemy were at first on the alert against attack, and threw out patrols. But when the Numidians, in order to inspire still more contempt for themselves, purposely affected to fall from their horses and to engage in ridiculous antics, the barbarians, breaking ranks at the novel sight, gave themselves up completely to the enjoyment of the show. When the Numidians noticed this, they gradually drew nearer, and putting spurs to their horses, dashed through the lightly held line of the enemy. Then they set fire to the fields near by, so that it became necessary for the Ligurians to withdraw to defend their own territory, thereby releasing the Romans shut up at the pass.