They, struck[46] too with the novelty of the thing, in order to hear the Roman king harangue, crowded next to him.
The Roman legions, under arms, by concert surrounded them; a charge had been given to the centurions to execute their orders without delay.

Then Tullus begins as follows: "Romans, if ever before at any other time in any war there was (an occasion) on which you should return thanks, first to the immortal gods, next to your own valour, that occasion was yesterday's battle.

For the contest was not more with enemies than with the treachery and perfidy of allies, a contest which is more serious and more dangerous.

For that a false opinion may not influence you, the Albans retired to the mountains without my orders, nor was that my command, but a stratagem and the pretence of a command: that so your attention might not be drawn away from the fight, you being kept in ignorance that you were deserted, and that terror and dismay might be struck into the enemy, conceiving themselves to be surrounded on the rear.

Nor does that guilt, which I now state, extend to all the Albans.
They followed their leader; as you too would have done, if I had wished my army to make a move to any other point from thence.