no THE WONDER-BOOK OF HORSES 



The dictator, Aulus Postumius Albinus, 

 hastened to go out and give battle to the enemy 

 on their own ground. Every able-bodied man 

 in Rome was with him — some fully armed, but 

 many with only such weapons as they could 

 snatch up from among their working tools — 

 scythes, axes, pitchforks, flails, and the like. No- 

 body was left to defend the walls except the small 

 boys and the decrepit old men, under the com- 

 mand of a noble ancestor of mine named Sem- 

 pronius Atratinus. They might almost as well 

 have been left without defenders, but then, of 

 course, nobody intended that the enemy should 

 ever come so near to the city. 



All this space in front of us, on the right of the 

 great roadway which we call the Via Sacra, was 

 at that time open ground. It was used as a pas- 

 ture for the cows and the geese, and the children 

 from the hills on either side often went out there 

 to play. Over there, where now stands the temple 

 of Castor and Pollux, was a gushing spring of 

 clear, cold water, surrounded by a pond where 

 the cattle came in the heat of the day, and the 

 barelegged boys fished for minnows and sailed 

 their tiny boats. 



Well, two days had passed since the Roman 



