Thereupon the infantry forces engaged, the Barbarians holding their pikes before them at full length, and endeavouring, by locking their shields together, to keep their line of battle intact; while the Romans threw down their javelins, drew their swords, and sought to dash the pikes aside, that they might get at their enemies as soon as possible, in the fury that possessed them. For they saw drawn up in front of the enemy fifteen thousand slaves, whom the king’s generals had set free by proclamation in the cities and enrolled among the men-at-arms. And a certain Roman centurion is reported to have said that it was only at the Saturnalia, The festival of Saturn, a time of general license and mirth, when masters treated their slaves as equals. so far as he knew, that slaves participated in the general license.