ordered the shops to be closed throughout the city, and forbade any one to attend to any private affairs.  Then he commanded all who were of military age to attend under arms, in the Campus Martius, before sunset, with dressed provisions for five days and twelve stakes apiece:  those whose age rendered them unfit for active service were ordered to prepare victuals for the soldiers near them, while the latter were getting their arms ready, and procuring stakes.  Accordingly, the young men ran in all directions to procure the stakes; they took them whatever was nearest to each:  no one was prevented from doing so:  all attended readily according to the dictator’s order.  Then, the troops being drawn up, not more suitably for a march than for an engagement, should occasion require it, the dictator himself marched at the head of the legions, the master of the horse at the head of his cavalry.  In both bodies such exhortations were delivered as circumstances required:  that they should quicken their pace; that there was need of despatch, that they might reach the enemy by night; that the consul and the Roman army were besieged; that they had now been shut up for three days; that it was uncertain what each day or night might bring with it; that the issues of the most important affairs often depended on a moment of time.  The soldiers, to please their leaders, exclaimed among themselves:  “Standard-bearer, hasten; follow, soldier.”  At midnight they reached Algidum:  and, as soon as they perceived that they were near the enemy, they halted.

There the dictator, riding about, and having observe as far as could be ascertained by night, what the extent of the camp was, and what was its nature, commanded the tribunes of the soldiers to order the baggage to be thrown into one place, and that the soldiers with their arms and bundles of stakes should return to their ranks.  His orders were executed.  Then, with the regularity which they had observed on the march, he drew the entire army in a long column around the enemy’s camp, and directed that, when the signal was given, they should all raise a shout, and that, on the shout being raised, each man should throw up a trench before his post, and fix his palisade.  The orders being issued, the signal followed:  the soldiers carried out their instructions; the shout echoed around the enemy:  it then passed beyond the camp of the enemy, and reached that of the consul:  in the one it occasioned panic, in the other great joy.  The Romans, observing to each other with exultation that this was the shout of their countrymen, and that aid was at hand, took the initiative, and from their watch-guards and outposts dismayed the enemy.  The consul declared that there must be no delay; that by that shouts not only their arrival was intimated, but that hostilities were already begun by their friends; and that it would be a wonder if the enemy’s camp were not attacked on the farther side.  He therefore ordered his men to take up arms and follow him.  The battle