A brief council was held, in which, firmly resisting the proposal of the new-comers to murder their captive, and disperse in small bodies among the hills, Aulus Fulvius and Caius Crispus determined on dividing their men into two parties. The first of these, commanded by the smith, and consisting of two-thirds of their whole force, was destined to press forward as rapidly as possible; while Fulvius, with the second, should make a charge down hill upon the pursuers, by which it was hoped that they might be so effectually checked and alarmed as to give up the pursuit. No time was lost in the execution, a second horse was attached to the _cisium_, for they had many sumpter animals along with them, and several spare chargers; and so much speed did they make, that Crispus had reached the summit of the ridge and commenced the descent before the pursuers had come up with Fulvius and the rear. There is a little hollow midway the ascent, which is thickly set with evergreen oaks, and hollies, and in the centre of this hollow, the road makes a turn almost at right angles. Behind the corner of the wood, which entirely concealed them from any persons coming up the hill, Aulus drew up his men in double lines, and as the band, whom he suspected to be in pursuit of him, came into the open space, in loose array, and with their horses blown and weary, he charged upon them with a fierce shout, and threw them into disorder in a moment. Nothing could indicate more clearly, the utter recklessness of the Catilinarian party, and the cheap estimate at which they held human life, than the perfect unconcern with which they set upon a party of men, whose identity with those whom they feared was so entirely unproved. Nothing, at the same time, could indicate more clearly, the fury and uncalculating valor which had grown up among them, nurtured by the strange policy of Catiline, during a peace of eighteen years’ duration. Eighteen men, for, Aulus Fulvius included, they numbered no more, set fiercely upon a force of nearly three times their number, with no advantage of arms or accoutrement, or even of discipline, for although all old soldiers, these men had not, for years, been accustomed to act together, nor were any of them personally acquainted with the young leader, who for the first time commanded them. The one link which held them together, was welded out of crime and desperation. Each man knew that his neighbor, as well as himself, must win or die—there was no compromise, no half-way measure that could by any possibility preserve them. And therefore as one man they charged, as one man they struck, and death followed every blow. At their first onset, with horses comparatively fresh, against the blown chargers and disordered mass of their pursuers, they were entirely successful. Above a dozen of their opponents went down horse and man, and the remainder were driven scattering along the slope, nearly to the foot of the declivity.