1There the dictator, after riding round and observing, as far as could be seen by night, what the extent and shape of the camp was, ordered the military tribunes to have the packs thrown together in one heap and the soldiers return to their ranks with their arms and stakes. 1His orders were carried out. 1Then, in the order they had kept on the march, he surrounds the enemy's camp with his whole army in a long column and orders that, when the signal was given, all should raise a shout, and, the shout raised, each man should dig a trench in front of himself and throw up a rampart.
3The order given, the signal followed. 3The soldiers carry out their orders. 3The shout echoes round the enemy; 3then it passes over the enemy's camp and reaches the consul's camp; 4in one place it causes panic, in the other great joy. 4The Romans, congratulating one another that it was the shout of fellow-citizens and that help was at hand, take the initiative in alarming the enemy from their posts and watches. 5The consul says there must be no delay: that shout signified not only their arrival but that their comrades had begun the action; 5and it would be a wonder if the enemy's camp were not already being assaulted on its outer side.
6So he orders his men to take up arms and follow him. 6Battle was joined by night; 6with a shout they signal to the dictator's legions that on that side too the issue had come to the crisis. 7The Aequi were already preparing to prevent the works being drawn around them, when, as battle was begun by the enemy within, they turned inwards from the builders of the works to those fighting, lest a sally be made through the middle of their camp, and left the night free for the work; 7and the fight with the consul went on until daylight. 8At first light they were already walled in by the dictator, and were scarcely holding out in the fight against one army.
8Then their rampart is attacked by the army of Quinctius, which had returned to arms at once on finishing the work. 8Here a new battle was pressing upon them; 8the earlier one had in no way slackened. 9Then, with danger pressing on two sides, they turned from fighting to entreaties, and begged the dictator on one side and the consul on the other not to make their victory consist in a massacre, but to let them depart from there unarmed. 9They were told by the consul to go to the dictator; 9he in his anger added disgrace: he orders Gracchus Cloelius, their leader, and the other chief men to be brought to him in chains, and the town of Corbio to be evacuated.
10He had no need, he said, of the blood of the Aequi; 10they might go; 10but, so that an admission might at last be wrung from them that their nation was subdued and tamed, they would go under the yoke. 11A yoke is made of three spears, two fixed in the ground and one tied across on top of them. 11Under this yoke the dictator sent the Aequi.