1None of this was unknown to the Volsci, and they pressed on all the more, hoping that the Roman army would show the same spirit of contention against Appius as it had shown against the consul Fabius. 2But it was much more violent against Appius than against Fabius; 2for it was not merely unwilling to conquer, like Fabius' army, but willing to be conquered. 2Led out into battle, it made for the camp in shameful flight, and did not halt until it saw the Volsci advancing their standards against the fortifications and a hideous slaughter of the rear of the column. 3Then they were forced to fight, so that the enemy, already victorious, was driven back from the rampart, though it was clear enough that the Roman soldiers had only been unwilling to have the camp taken, and otherwise rejoiced in their own defeat and disgrace.
4When Appius' fierce spirit, not at all broken by these things, wished to rage still further and was calling an assembly, the legates and tribunes ran to him, warning him not to try to test everywhere an authority whose whole strength lay in the consent of those who obeyed. 5The soldiers were saying everywhere that they would not go to the assembly, and on all sides could be heard the voices of men demanding that the camp be moved out of Volscian territory. 5The victorious enemy had a little while before been almost at the gates and the rampart, and not merely a suspicion but the plain sight of a huge disaster was before their eyes.
6Overcome at last, since they would gain nothing but a delay of their punishment, he dismissed the assembly and ordered the march to be proclaimed for the following day, and at first light gave the signal for departure with a trumpet. 7Just as the column was unfolding from the camp, the Volsci, as though roused by the same signal, attack the rearmost. 7The uproar, carried from them to the front ranks, threw both standards and ranks into such confusion through panic that neither could orders be heard nor a line be drawn up. 7No one thought of anything but flight. 8In such a disordered column did they escape through heaps of bodies and arms that the enemy stopped pursuing before the Romans stopped fleeing.
9At last, when the soldiers had been gathered from their scattered flight, the consul, having followed his men in vain trying to call them back, pitched camp in peaceful territory; 9and summoning an assembly, he inveighed, not unjustly, against the army as a betrayer of military discipline and a deserter of the standards, asking man by man where his standards were, where his arms, and he had the soldiers who had lost their arms, the standard-bearers who had lost their standards, and besides these the centurions and double-pay men who had left their ranks, flogged with rods and beheaded with the axe; 11of the rest of the multitude every tenth man was chosen by lot for execution.