The Romans, fired with hatred, gratified that feeling both with deeds and words, calling the Fidenatian impious, the Veientian robbers, truce-breakers, stained with the horrid murder of ambassadors, sprinkled with the blood of their own brother-colonists, treacherous allies, and dastardly enemies.
33.

In the very first onset they had made an impression on the enemy; when on a sudden, the gates of Fidenae flying open, a strange sort of army sallies forth, unheard of and unseen before that time.

An immense multitude armed with fire and all blazing with fire-brands, as if urged on by fanatical rage, rush on the enemy: and the form of this unusual mode of fighting frightened the Romans for the moment.

Then the dictator, having called to him the master of the horse and the cavalry, and also Quintius from the mountains animating the fight, hastens himself to the left wing, which, more nearly resembling a conflagration than a battle, had from terror given way to the flames, and exclaims with a loud voice, "Vanquished by smoke, driven from your ground as if a swarm of bees, will ye yield to an unarmed enemy?
will ye not extinguish the fires with the sword?
or if it is with fire, not with weapons, we are to fight, will ye not, each in his post, snatch those brands, and hurl them on them?
Come, mindful of the Roman name, of the valour of your fathers, and of your own, turn this conflagration against the city of your enemy, and destroy Fidenae by its own flames, which ye could not reclaim by your kindness.

The blood of your ambassadors and colonists and the desolation of your frontiers suggest this." At the command of the dictator the whole line advanced; the firebrands that were discharged are partly caught up; others are wrested by force: the armies on either side are now armed with fire.