and people formed themselves into one assembly, and with one voice
appointed Camillus dictator for the fifth time. He was now a very old
man, being near his eightieth year; but at this pressing crisis he made
none of his former excuses, but at once took the chief command and
levied an army for the war. As he knew that the chief power of the Gauls
lay in their swords, with which they dealt heavy blows on the heads and
shoulders of their enemy, without any skill in fence, he prepared for
most of his soldiers helmets made entirely of smooth iron, so that the
swords would either break or glance off them, while he also had brass
rims fitted to their shields, because the wood by itself could not
endure a blow. He also instructed the soldiers to use long pikes, and to
thrust them forward to receive the sword-cuts of the enemy.

XLI. When the Gauls were encamped on the banks of the Anio, near the
city, loaded with masses of plunder, Camillus led out his troops and
posted them in a glen from which many valleys branched out, so that the
greater part of the force was concealed, and that which was seen
appeared to be clinging in terror to the hilly ground. Camillus, wishing
to confirm the enemy in this idea, would not move to prevent the country
being plundered before his eyes, but palisaded his camp and remained
quiet within it, until he saw that the foraging parties of the Gauls
straggled in careless disorder, while those in the camp did nothing but
eat and drink. Then, sending forward his light troops before daybreak to
be ready to harass the Gauls and prevent their forming their ranks
properly as they came out of their camp, he marched the heavy-armed men
down into the plain at sunrise, a numerous and confident body, and not,
as the Gauls fancied, a few disheartened men.

The very fact of his commencing the attack dashed the courage of the
Gauls; next, the attacks of the light troops, before they had got into