noon
Liberated by their success in this atrocious scheme , from that apprehension , they now pushed forward rapidly , and reached the station at Baccanæ , in a wooded gorge between a range of low hills , and a clear lake , at about nine in the morning , of our time , or the third hour by Roman computation . Here they obtained a fresh horse for the vehicle which carried Julia , and tarrying so long only as to swallow a draught of wine , they pressed onward through a steep defile along which the road wound among wooded crags toward Sutrium . At this place , which was a city of some note , they were joined by forty or fifty partisans , well armed and mounted on good horses , all veteran soldiers who had been settled on the confiscated estates of his enemies by the great usurper Sylla , and thenceforth feeling themselves strong enough to overawe any opposition they might meet on the way , they journeyed at a slower rate in perfect confidence of success , numbering now not less than sixty well-equipped Cavaliers . Before noon , they were thirty miles distant from Rome , and had reached the bottom of a long and almost precipitous ascent where the road , scorning any divergence to the right or left , scaled the abrupt heights of a craggy hill , known at the present day as the Monte Soriano , the ancient name of which has not descended to these times . Scarcely however had they reached the first pitch of the hill , in loose and straggling order , when the rearmost rider , came spurring furiously to the head of the column , and announced to Aulus Fulvius , that they were pursued by a body of men , nearly equal to themselves in number , who were coming up at a rate so rapid , as made it certain that they would be overtaken , encumbered as they were with the wheeled carriage conveying the hapless Julia . A brief council was held , in which , firmly resisting the proposal of the new-comers to murder their captive , and disperse in small bodies among the hills , Aulus Fulvius and Caius Crispus determined on dividing their men into two parties . The first of these , commanded by the smith , and consisting of two-thirds of their whole force , was destined to press forward as rapidly as possible ; while Fulvius , with the second , should make a charge down hill upon the pursuers , by which it was hoped that they might be so effectually checked and alarmed as to give up the pursuit .