On the Roman left, Decius was more aggressive. He charged with his infantry and also led his cavalry against the enemy cavalry. He and his men rode straight into the Samnite cavalry. As the horses rammed into each other, riders squeezed their thighs inwards to cushion the collision. Although stirrups had not been invented yet, the Romans did have a four horned saddle that gave a decent amount of stability. Still, you did not ride full speed at an enemy with your spear couched like a medieval knight in a joust. You might skewer your target, but surely you would be ejected off the back of your saddle as the horse continued forward and you did not. You let the horse do the ramming and then you commenced the poking. At this point a cavalry battle became a melee. Each rider found an opponent to duel with and prayed no one would attack their blind side. (Alexander the Great fought this way with his Companion cavalry. At the Battle of Granicus, he was almost killed when the brother of the man he was fighting with came from his other side and was about to cleave him when one of his friends severed the man’s arm. That battle had taken place just 39 years before Sentinum.) They jabbed with their spears. One target was their foe’s face. There is no evidence that these warriors stabbed their enemy’s horse. Although an easy way to put the man on the ground, the riders on both sides were from the nobility and unhorsing a man was considered dishonorable. Decius managed to push the enemy cavalry back twice. These attacks tend to prove the Roman cavalry was used to make shock charges that would result in a melee. It also shows that the Roman cavalry was not immune to the classic cavalry problem of chasing a defeated enemy cavalry, thus taking itself off the battlefield or riding into trouble. As Decius chased the opposing cavalry off the battle field, his cavalry was hit by a Gallic counterattack using their chariots. According to Livy, the chariots were pulled by cattle! “A number of the enemy, mounted on chariots and cars, made towards them with such a prodigious clatter from the trampling of the cattle and rolling of wheels, as affrighted the horses of the Romans, unaccustomed to such tumultuous operations. By this means the victorious cavalry were dispersed, through a panic, and men and horses, in their headlong flight, were tumbled promiscuously on the ground.” The chariots went on to disrupt the Roman infantry. Chariots were considered obsolete by this time in European history, but as a surprise weapon, they could cause chaos. This would have been the first time these Roman cavalrymen had encountered the vehicles. And the first time their horses had. (These were not the dreaded scythed chariots used by Darius against Alexander at the Battle of Gaugamela.) The Romans will encounter chariots again when Julius Caesar invades Britain.
With his men showing signs of wavering, Decius performed the devotion (as his father had done in the Battle of Vesuvius). He called out to his deceased father Publius Decius and proclaimed it was his destiny to “serve as expiatory victim to avert public disaster.” [Livy] It was a family thing, apparently. He had planned ahead and had a priest who he had ordered to stay by him throughout the battle. The priest took him through the checklist of things to do and say for a devotion. Decius finished the required prayer and added: “’I will drive before me fear and panic, blood and carnage. The wrath of the heavenly gods and the infernal gods will curse the standards, weapons and armor of the enemy, and in the same place as I die witness the destruction of the Gauls and Samnites.’” He then charged the Gauls and became a javelin-cushion, but his sacrifice refueled the Roman legionaries. Normally, loss of a consul would destroy the army’s spirit, but if they knew he had performed the devotion, then it had the opposite effect. The priest proclaimed that Decius’ act doomed the enemy to Hades. Along with that boost of morale came a unit led by Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Caius Marcius that had been sent by Fabius to help bolster the Decius’ legion. An added benefit of Decius’ action was the Gauls would have been aware of what a devotion was and upon hearing that the enemy commander had sacrificed his life to attain the favor of the gods, the Senone morale collapsed.
Meanwhile in Rulianus’ battle, “as soon as he perceived that neither the shout, nor the efforts of the enemy, nor the weapons which they threw, retained their former force,” Rullianus sent his cavalry to hit the Samnites on their flank. (I love that line from Livy. The man disrespects the Gallic war cry!) The pressure here and from the Roman infantry in the front caused the Samnites to flee the battlefield. The Gauls, now faced by the whole Roman army, put their shields over their heads to counter missile weapons. (Later, the Romans will adopt this tactic and call it a testudo.) The Romans approached from all sides. The legionaries gathered all the javelins lying around and pelted the turtle. Some of them found flesh and the Gallic formation was gradually whittled down. Imagine crouching under your shield, packed in with your mates. Exhausted from the fray. Trying to catch your breath. Rays of sunlight filter in from the shield ceiling, but that means there are openings for the Roman javelins. You can hear the missiles thudding on shields like large rain drops. Some of the spear heads penetrate through the shields to impale the owner in their head or shoulder. Men are screaming in pain. Warriors fall. This creates larger gaps for the pila. The fallen bodies are obstacles, but you know tripping means death. The Romans have the testudo surrounded and can stab at the men on the outside of the formation. There is nothing the Gauls can do. You can not surrender because putting your hands up in the middle of the testudo makes you an easy target, and even if the Romans accepted your plea, how are you going to get out of there? Livy mentions that “a great many, who were unhurt, yet fell as if thunderstruck.” If so, that was one hell of a devotion. It is unknown how long the Romans tortured the Senones before accepting their surrender en masse. Considering that these were the people who had sacked Rome, we can assume the legionaries did a lot of killing before showing mercy. Simultaneously, the Romans captured the Samnite camp and cut off the line of retreat for the Gauls. The battle ended in a decisive victory and Rullianus was awarded a triumph. (Sorry, Decius. There were no posthumous triumphs. But he did get a fabulous funeral.) Livy put the Roman dead at 8,700 (7,000 were Decius’ men) and the enemy at 25,000 and 8,000 captured.
- from The Scipios in Spain
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