During the night Fabius fled to Rome, and by his father’s advice made his complaint of the dictator to the assembled senate; but while he was speaking, Papirius, who had followed him from the camp with the utmost rapidity, entered, and ordered his lictors to seize him. The senate implored; but he was inexorable: the elder Fabius then appealed to the people, before whom he enlarged on the cruelty of the dictator. Every heart beat in unison with that of the time-honoured father; but when Papirius showed the rigorous necessity of upholding military discipline, by which the state was maintained, all were silent, from conviction. At length the people and their tribunes united with Fabius and the senate in supplication, and the dictator, deeming his authority sufficiently vindicated, granted life to his master of the horse. Papirius, when he returned to his army, gave the Samnites a decisive defeat; and having divided the spoil among his soldiers to regain their favour, and granted a truce for a year to the enemy, on condition of their giving each soldier a garment and a year’s pay, he returned to Rome and triumphed. The events of the next year (323) are dubious; but in 322 the camp of the dictator, A. Cornelius Arvina, who had entered Samnium without sufficient caution, was surprised by a superior force of the enemy. The day closed before an attack could be made, and in the night the dictator, leaving a number of fires burning in the camp, led away his legions in silence. But the enemy were on the alert, and their cavalry hung on the retiring army, to slacken its pace. With daybreak the Samnite infantry came up, and the dictator, finding further retreat impossible, drew his forces up in order of battle. A desperate conflict commenced; during five hours neither side gave way an inch; the Samnite horse, seeing the baggage of the Romans but slightly guarded, made for it, and began to plunder: while thus engaged, they were fallen on and cut to pieces by the Roman horse, who then turned and assailed the now unprotected rear of the Samnite infantry. The dictator urged his legions to new exertions; the Samnites wavered, broke, and fled; their general and thousands fell, and thousands were made captives. [Sidenote: [322-321 B.C.]]