At about the same time, when the news of this victory reached Rome the Gauls were expected, and though it was against the law that the same Consul should be elected twice in ten years, the Romans, altering the constitution, without the trouble of revision, suspended the law for the purpose of securing the services of Q. Fabius.
He was re-elected with his colleague Decius Mus, and before setting out for battle, they consulted the augurs, who evinced their usual readiness to interpret the omens in the most favourable manner. On coming to the fortified camp of Appius Claudius, Fabius found the soldiers collecting wood, to form a stockade, which drew from him the remark, "It is not by cutting sticks you can succeed, but by showing a bold front to the enemy." The soldiers, animated by his words--which, to say the truth, do not appear to have anything particularly invigorating about them--were suddenly roused into lions, after having been in a lamb-like or sheepish condition, and instead of cutting any more wood, or pulling up the trunks of trees, began to pluck up a proper spirit. The Romans had now about 90,000 troops in the field, if we adopt the round numbers handed down to us, which do not always square with probability; but the historians wisely provide, as far as possible, for any deficiency that may arise in the course of the various cuttings to pieces, annihilations, and other contingencies which are at one time or other the alleged fate of nearly every army. The vast necessity for a surplus that may be boldly dealt with, can perhaps be understood from a circumstance recorded with reference to a legion led by L. Scipio. It had been stationed near Camerinum, and had in an engagement with the foe been cut to pieces without having been missed; nor was the loss discovered until their own countrymen recognised their heads carried on the lances of the advancing enemy. When the fact thus frightfully stared them in the face, the countenances of the Romans fell with sympathy at the fate of their comrades, which it must be confessed presented some very horrid features.