was begun during the night.  They gave notice by a shout to the dictator’s legions that on that side also the decisive moment had arrived.  The AEquans were now preparing to prevent the works from being drawn around them, when, the battle being begun by the enemy from within, having turned their attention from those employed on the fortifications to those who were fighting on the inside, lest a sally should be made through the centre of their camp, they left the night free for the completion of the work, and continued the fight with the consul till daylight.  At daybreak they were now encompassed by the dictator’s works, and were scarcely able to maintain the fight against one army.  Then their lines were attacked by the army of Quinctius, which, immediately after completing its work, returned to arms.  Here a new engagement pressed on them:  the former one had in no wise slackened.  Then, as the danger that beset them on both sides pressed them hard, turning from fighting to entreaties, they implored the dictator on the one hand, the consul on the other, not to make the victory their total destruction, and to suffer them to depart without arms.  They were ordered by the consul to apply to the dictator:  he, incensed against them, added disgrace to defeat.  He gave orders that Gracchus Cloelius, their general, and the other leaders should be brought to him in chains, and that the town of Corbio should be evacuated; he added that he did not desire the lives of the AEquans:  that they were at liberty to depart; but that a confession might at last be wrung from them that their nation was defeated and subdued, they would have to pass under the yoke.  The yoke was formed of three spears, two fixed in the ground, and one tied across between the upper ends of them.  Under this yoke the dictator sent the AEquans.

The enemy’s camp, which was full of all their belongings—­for he had sent them out of the camp half naked—­having been taken, he distributed all the booty among his own soldiers only:  rebuking the consul’s army and the consul himself, he said:  “Soldiers, you shall not enjoy any portion of the spoil taken from that enemy to whom you yourselves nearly became a spoil:  and you, Lucius Minucius, until you begin to assume a spirit worthy of a consul, shall command these legions only as lieutenant.”  Minucius accordingly resigned his office of consul, and remained with the army, as he had been commanded.  But so meekly obedient were the minds of men at that time to authority combined with superior merit, that this army, remembering his kindness, rather than their own disgrace, both voted a golden crown of a pound weight to the dictator, and saluted him as their preserver when he set out.  The senate at Rome, convened by Quintus Fabius, prefect of the city, ordered Quinctius to enter the city in triumph, in the order of march in which he was coming.  The leaders of the enemy were led before his car:  the military standards were carried before him: