1When the battle had been restored on one side, the consul Gnaeus Manlius was stirring up the fight no less vigorously on the other wing, where much the same fortune played out. 2For just as on the other wing they had followed Quintus Fabius, so on this the soldiers briskly followed the consul Manlius himself as he drove the enemy before him as if already routed, and when he was struck by a severe wound and withdrew from the line, believing him killed, they fell back; 3and they would have given ground, had not the other consul, riding at full gallop to that quarter with several troops of cavalry, shouting that his colleague was alive and that he himself was there victorious, having routed the other wing, held up the faltering situation.
4Manlius too presents himself in person to restore the line. 4The familiar faces of the two consuls fire the soldiers' spirits. 4At the same time the enemy line was already thinner, since, trusting in their abundant numbers, they had withdrawn their reserves and were sending them to attack the camp. 5An assault was made on it without much fighting, and while the enemy wasted time, more mindful of plunder than of battle, the Roman triarii, who had been unable to withstand the first onrush, sent messengers to the consuls to report how matters stood, massed together, returned to the general's tent and of their own accord renewed the fight themselves.
6And the consul Manlius, riding back to the camp, had posted soldiers at all the gates and closed the way out to the enemy. 6This desperate plight kindled madness rather than daring in the Tuscans. 6For when, rushing wherever hope showed a way out, they had several times made fruitless attacks, one band of young men makes for the consul himself, conspicuous by his armour. 7The first missiles were intercepted by those standing around him; 7then the violence could not be withstood. 7The consul falls, struck by a mortal wound, and all around him were routed. 8The Tuscans' daring grows; 8terror drives the Romans in panic through the whole camp, and it would have come to the worst, had not the legates snatched up the consul's body and opened one gate as a way out for the enemy.
9Through it they burst out; 9and as they went off in a disordered column they ran into the other, victorious consul. 9There again they were cut down and scattered in every direction. 9A splendid victory was won, though saddened by two such illustrious deaths. 10So when the senate voted a triumph, the consul replied that if an army could triumph without its general, he would readily allow it for its outstanding service in that war; 10for himself, with his family in mourning for the death of his brother Quintus Fabius, and the state half bereaved by the loss of one consul, he would not accept a laurel disfigured by public and private grief.
11The triumph declined was more glorious than any triumph celebrated; 11so true is it that glory spurned at the right moment sometimes returns more abundantly. 11He then held the two funerals one after the other, of his colleague and of his brother, delivering the eulogy for each himself, and while yielding his own praises to them he himself won the greatest share of them. 12And not forgetting the aim he had embraced at the beginning of his consulship, of reconciling the feelings of the plebs, he distributes the wounded soldiers among the senators to be cared for. 12The largest number were given to the Fabii, and nowhere were they treated with greater care.
12From then on the Fabii were popular, and won this by no means other than ones wholesome for the state.