23. Did a battle ensue? 24. What was wanting to insure the victory? 25. To whom did success incline? 26 What heroic resolution did Decius make? 27. In what way did he do this? 28. What followed? 29. What effect had this sacrifice on the hostile armies? SECTION II. U.C. 431. Absurd the fumed advice to Pyrrhus given, More praised than pander'd, specious, but unsound; Sooner that hero's sword the world had quell'd, Than reason, his ambition.--_Young_ 1. But a signal disgrace which the Romans sustained about this time, in their contest with the Samnites, made a pause in their usual good fortune, and turned the scale for a while in the enemy's favour.[1] 2. The senate having denied the Samnites peace, Pon'tius, their general, was resolved to gain by stratagem, what he had frequently lost by force. 3. Accordingly, leading his army into the neighbourhood of a defile, called Cau'dium, and taking possession of all its outlets, he sent ten of his soldiers, habited like shepherds, with directions to throw themselves into the way which the Romans were to march. 4. Exactly to his wishes, the Roman consul, Posthu'mius, met them, and taking them for what they appeared, demanded the route the Samnite army had taken: they, with seeming indifference, replied, that they were going to Luce'ria, a town in Apulia, and were then actually besieging it. 5 The Roman general, not suspecting the stratagem that was laid against him, marched directly by the shortest road, which lay through the defile, to relieve that city; and was not undeceived till he saw his army surrounded, and blocked up on every side.[2] 6. Pon'tius, thus having the Romans entirely in his power, first obliged the army to pass under the yoke, after having stript them of all but their under garments. He then stipulated, that they should wholly quit the territories of the Samnites, and that they should continue to live upon the terms of their former confederacy. 7. The Romans were constrained to submit to this ignominious treaty, and marched into Cap'ua disarmed, half naked, and burning with a desire of _retrieving_ their lost honour. 8. When the army arrived at Rome, the whole city was most sensibly affected at their shameful return; nothing but grief and resentment were to be seen, and the whole city was put into mourning.