The Samnites had sent off twenty cohorts to the relief of Cominium; their spirits were depressed, but they kept their ground, till a great cloud of dust, as if raised by an army, was seen on one side. For the consul had sent off before the action Sp. Nautius, with the mules and their drivers, and some cohorts of the allies, with directions to advance during the engagement, raising all the dust they could. Nautius now came in view, the horseboys having boughs in their hands, which they dragged along the ground; and the arms and banners appearing through the dust, made both Romans and Samnites think that an army was approaching. The consul then gave the sign for the horse to charge; the Samnites broke and fled, some to Aquilonia, some to Bovianum. The number of their slain is said to have been 30,340, and 3870 men and 97 banners were captured. Aquilonia and Cominium were both taken on the same day. Carvilius then led his army into Etruria; his colleague remained in Samnium, ravaging the country, till the falling of the snow obliged him to leave it for the winter. [Sidenote: [293-290 B.C.]] In the next campaign (292), the Samnite general C. Pontius gave the Roman consul Q. Fabius Gurges, son of the great Fabius, a complete defeat. A strong party in the senate, the enemies of the Fabian house, were for depriving the consul of his command; but the people yielded to the prayers of his father, who implored them to spare him this disgrace in his old age; and he himself went into Samnium as legate to his son. At a place whose name is unknown the battle was fought, which decided the fate of Samnium. Fabius gained the victory by his usual tactics, of keeping his reserve for the proper time. The Samnites had twenty thousand slain and four thousand taken, among whom was their great general C. Pontius. In the triumph of Fabius Gurges, his renowned father humbly followed his car on horseback; and C. Pontius was led in bonds, and then, to Rome’s disgrace, beheaded. Q. Fabius Maximus, one of the greatest men that Rome ever produced, died, it is probable, shortly afterwards. The Samnite War, which had lasted with little intermission for nine-and-forty years, was now terminated by a peace, of the exact terms of which we are not informed (290). The Sabines, who, after a cessation of 150 years, foolishly took up arms against Rome, were easily reduced by the consul M. Curius Dentatus, and a large quantity of their land was taken from them. Much larger assignments than the usual seven jugera might now be made, but Curius deemed it unwise to pass that limit; and when the people murmured, he replied that he was a pernicious citizen whom the land which sufficed to support him did not satisfy. He refused for himself five hundred jugera and a house at Tifata which the senate offered him, and contented himself with a farm of seven jugera in the Sabine country.