But both their resentment stimulated them more against the latter, who had taken from them the favourable opportunity of achieving their object, and also the proximity of the place, and the paucity of the enemy; and one time they would fain surround the hill on all sides with armed men, so as to cut off Decius from the consul; at another time they wished to open a passage, so that they may fall on them when they had descended into the defile.

Before they had determined on what they should do, night came on them.

Decius at first entertained a hope, that he would have to engage them from the higher ground, as they ascended against the steep; then surprise took possession of him, that they neither commenced the fight, nor if they were deterred from that by the unevenness of the ground, that they did not surround him with works and a circumvallation.

Then summoning the centurions to him, he said, "What ignorance of war and indolence is that?
or how did such men obtain a victory over the Sidicinians and Campanians?
You see that their battalions move to and fro, that sometimes they are collected to one spot, at other times they are drawn out.

As for work, no one attempts it, when we might by this time have been surrounded with a rampart.