What effect had this sacrifice on the hostile armies?
SECTION II.
U.C. 431.
Absurd the fumed advice to Pyrrhus given,
More praised than pander'd, specious, but unsound;
Sooner that hero's sword the world had quell'd,
Than reason, his ambition.--_Young_
1. But a signal disgrace which the Romans sustained about this time,
in their contest with the Samnites, made a pause in their usual good
fortune, and turned the scale for a while in the enemy's favour.[1] 2.
The senate having denied the Samnites peace, Pon'tius, their general,
was resolved to gain by stratagem, what he had frequently lost by
force. 3. Accordingly, leading his army into the neighbourhood of a
defile, called Cau'dium, and taking possession of all its outlets, he
sent ten of his soldiers, habited like shepherds, with directions to
throw themselves into the way which the Romans were to march. 4.
Exactly to his wishes, the Roman consul, Posthu'mius, met them, and
taking them for what they appeared, demanded the route the Samnite
army had taken: they, with seeming indifference, replied, that
they were going to Luce'ria, a town in Apulia, and were then actually
besieging it.
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