← Library

Ab Urbe Condita, books 8-10 - 10

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 1 sections

1. 1

   Book X IN the consulship of Lucius Genucius and Servius Cornelius there was in general a respite from foreign wars. colonies were established at Sora and Alba. six thousand settlers were enrolled for Alba, in the Aequian country. Sora had belonged to the territory of the Volsci, but the Samnites had got possession of it; to this place were sent four thousand men. in this year also the Arpinates and Trebulani were granted citizenship. The Frusinates were mulcted in one —third of their land, because it was discovered that they had tampered with the Hernici; the ringleaders of the conspiracy, after the consuls, at the instance of the senate, had conducted an investigation, were scourged and beheaded. nevertheless , that their year might not go by without any war whatever, the consuls made a little expedition into Umbria, because of a report that armed men issuing from a certain cave were making raids upon the farms. The soldiers carried their standards into the cave, and there in the murk received many wounds, particularly from stones that were thrown at them; until, having found the other mouth of the cavern —for there was a way of going through it —they heaped up faggots at both openings and set them afire. in this way about two thousand armed men perished in the cave from the smoke and heat, for they finally rushed into the very flames in their efforts to escape. when Marcus Livius Denter and Marcus Aemilius were consuls, the Aequi resumed hostilities. indignant that a colony had been established, like a citadel, within their borders, they attacked it with great fury. they were beaten off by the colonists themselves, but occasioned such dismay at Rome —since it was scarce to be believed that the Aequi when in so weakened a condition should have begun a war relying solely on their own resources —that a dictator was appointed to cope with the outbreak, in the person of Gaius Junius Bubulcus. setting out with Marcus Titinius, his master of the horse, he reduced the Aequi to submission at the first encounter, and having returned in triumph to the City eight days later, dedicated as dictator the temple of Safety which he had vowed as consul and for which as censor he had let the contract. during the same year a Greek fleet commanded by Cleonymus the Lacedaemonian put in to the shores of Italy and seized the city of Thuriae in the country of the Sallentini. The consul Aemilius was dispatched against this enemy, whom he routed in a single engagement and drove to his ships. Thuriae was restored to its old inhabitants, and peace was established in the Sallentine territory. i find in some annals that Junius Bubulcus the dictator was sent among the Sallentini, and that Cleonymus withdrew from Italy before it became necessary to fight the Romans. rounding then the promontory of Brundisium, he was swept on by the winds in the mid gulf of the Adriatic, and dreading the harbourless coasts of Italy on his left and on his right the Illyrians, Liburnians, and Histrians, —savage tribes and notorious most of them for their piracies —kept straight on until he reached the coasts of the Veneti. having sent a small party ashore to explore the country, and learning that it was a narrow beach that extended in front of them, on crossing which one found behind it lagoons which were flooded by the tides; that not far off level fields could be made out, and that hills were seen rising beyond them, and that a river of great depth —the Mediacus —debouched there, into which they could bring round their ships to a safe anchorage —having learned all this, I say, he ordered the fleet to sail in and make its way up stream. but the channel would not admit the heaviest ships, and the multitude of armed men, passing over into the lighter vessels, kept on till they came to thickly inhabited fields; for three maritime villages of the Patavini were situated there along the river —bank. disembarking there they left a small body of men to defend the boats, burnt the houses, made spoil of men and cattle, and, lured on by the sweets of pillage, advanced to a greater and greater distance from their ships. when word of these events was brought to the Patavians, whom the vicinity of the Gauls kept always under arms, they divided their young men into two divisions. one of these marched into the region where the scattered marauding was reported; the other, taking a different road, to avoid falling in with any of the marauders, proceeded to the place where the ships were moored, fourteen miles from the town. The latter party, slaying the guards, who were unaware of their approach, made a rush for the ships, and the terrified sailors were forced to get them over to the other side of the stream. onland , too, the battle waged against the straggling plunderers was equally successful, and when the Greeks would have fled back to their station, the Veneti stood in their way. thus the enemy were caught between two parties and were cut to pieces. some of them, being taken prisoners, told how the fleet and King Cleonymus were three miles off. thereupon the captives were consigned to the next village for safe —keeping, and armed men filling the river boats —suitably constructed with flat bottoms, to enable them to cross the shallow lagoons —and others manning the craft they had captured from the invaders, they descended upon the fleet and surrounded the unwieldy ships; which, being more fearful of the unknown waters than of the enemy, and more bent on escaping to the deep sea than on resisting, they pursued clear to the river's mouth, and having captured some of them and burnt them, after they had been run aground in the confusion, returned victorious. Cleonymus sailed off with barely a fifth part of his ships intact. in no quarter of the Adriatic had his attempts succeeded. there are many now living in Patavium who have seen the beaks of the ships and the spoils of the Laconians which were fastened up in the old temple of Juno. in commemoration of the naval battle a contest of ships is held regularly, on the anniversary of the engagement, in the river that flows through the town. a treaty was entered into at Rome this year with the Vestini, who solicited friendship. thereafter there were alarms in several quarters. it was reported that Etruria was up in arms, in consequence of an outbreak that had its origin in dissensions at Arretium, where a movement was begun to drive out the Cilnii —a very powerful family —because of the envy occasioned by their wealth. at the same time the Marsi forcibly resisted the confiscation of their land, where the colony of Carscoli had been planted with an enrolment of four thousand men. in view, therefore, of these tumults, Marcus Valerius Maximus was appointed dictator and named Marcus Aemilius Paulus to be his master of the horse. this I choose rather to believe than that Quintus Fabius, at his time of life and after the offices he had held, was made subordinate to Valerius; but I would not deny that the error might have originated in the surname of Maximus. —Setting out with his army, the dictator overthrew the Marsi in a single battle; then shutting them up in their walled cities, he captured Milionia, Plestina, and Fresilia, in the course of a few days, and having fined the Marsi in a part of their territory, renewed the treaty with them. The campaign was then directed against the Etruscans; the dictator having set out for Rome, to take the auspices over again, the master of the horse went out to forage, and being ambushed, lost a number of standards and was driven back into his camp, with a shameful rout and slaughter of his soldiers. —This discomfiture is very unlikely to have befallen Fabius, not only because if in any quality he came up to his surname, he assuredly did so in the glory of a soldier, but also because, remembering the severity of Papirius, he could never have been brought to engage in battle without the orders of the dictator. The news of this reverse gave rise in Rome to a greater alarm than the situation warranted. for , as though the army had been destroyed, a cessation of legal business was proclaimed, guards were called into service at the gates, and night —watches in the several streets, arms and missiles being heaped upon the walls. after summoning all of military age to take the oath, the dictator was dispatched to the army, and there found everything more tranquil than he had expected and reduced to order by the careful measures of the master of the horse. The camp had been withdrawn to a safer site, the cohorts that had lost their standards had been left outside the rampart without tents, and the army was eager for battle, that it might the sooner wipe out its disgrace. accordingly he advanced without delay into the district of Rusellae. to this place the enemy followed him; and although in consequence of their success they had every confidence in their ability to cope with the Romans even in the open field, yet they also attempted an ambuscade, which they had successfully essayed before. not far from the Roman camp stood the half —ruined buildings of a village which had been burned when the country was laid waste. concealing armed men in these ruins, they drove out some cattle in full sight of a Roman outpost, which was under the command of the lieutenant Gnaeus Fulvius. but when this tempting bait failed to lure any of the Romans from their post, one of the shepherds came up under the very works and called out to the others, who were hesitating to drive out their flock from amongst the tumble —down buildings, asking why they were so slow, for they could safely drive them through the midst of the Roman camp. some men from Caere interpreted these words to the lieutenant, and great was the indignation aroused through all the maniples of soldiers; yet they dared not stir without the orders of their leader, who commanded those familiar with the language to mark whether the shepherds' speech were more like that of rustics or of city —folk. on their reporting that in accent, in carriage, and in complexion they were too refined for shepherds, go then, said he, and bid them uncover the ambuscade they have laid in vain; for the Romans know all, and can now no more be entrapped than they can be conquered by force of arms. These words were no sooner heard and repeated to those who lay in ambush than they suddenly all rose up from their hiding —places and advanced in martial array into the plain which was spread open to the view on every side. their army seemed to the lieutenant to be greater than his own detachment could withstand, and he therefore sent in all haste to the dictator to summon help, in the meantime resisting by himself the enemy's charges. on receiving his message the dictator bade advance the standards, and commanded his men to arm and follow them. but everything was almost sooner done than ordered; standards and arms were hurriedly caught up, and the soldiers could hardly be restrained from pushing forward at a run. it was not anger alone that spurred them on, as they thought of the defeat they had recently sustained, but the shouts, as well, that fell faster on their hearing as the fight waxed more hot. so they urged one another forward and exhorted the standard —bearers to a faster pace. but the more haste the dictator saw them make, the more earnest was he to hold them in, and commanded them to slow down their march. The Etruscans, on the contrary, having been called out at the beginning of the battle, had taken the field with all their troops. one messenger after another informed the dictator that all the Etruscan legions were engaged and that his own men could hold out no longer; and looking down from the higher ground, he could see for himself the perilous situation of his people. still , feeling fairly confident that his lieutenant was capable, even then, of maintaining the fight, and that he was himself not too far off to rescue him from danger, he desired the enemy to become completely exhausted, that he might fall upon them with undiminished vigour when their strength was spent. yet although the Romans advanced but slowly, they had now but a little space to charge in, especially the horse. in the van were the standards of the legions, lest the enemy should be apprehensive of any concealed or rapid movement; but the dictator had left intervals between the files of the infantry, to allow ample room for the horses to go through. The legionaries gave a cheer, and simultaneously the horsemen were let loose and with a free course galloped straight upon the enemy, who were not prepared to resist a shock of cavalry and were overwhelmed with a sudden panic. and so, though the help had nearly come too late for men who were already well —nigh surrounded, yet they were now all given a respite, and the battle was taken over by fresh troops —a battle of no long duration nor of doubtful issue. The routed enemy fled back to their camp, and when the Roman standard —bearers pressed in after them, they gave way and huddled up together in the farthest part of the enclosure. The narrow gates became choked with fugitives and a great part of them climbed upon the mound and palisade, in hopes that from that elevation they might be able either to defend themselves, or to climb over somewhere and escape. it chanced that in a certain place the mound had not been solidly rammed down, and this, overburdened with the weight of those who stood upon it, slid over into the trench. by that opening —crying out that the gods were providing them a means of flight —they saved themselves, but more got away without their arms than with them. in this battle the might of the Etruscans was broken for the second time. by promising a year's pay for the soldiers, with two months' corn, they obtained permission from the dictator to send envoys to Rome to negotiate a peace. Peace was denied them, but they were granted a truce of two years. The dictator returned to Rome and triumphed. —I find historians who say that Etruria was pacified by the dictator without any memorable battle, only by settling the dissensions of the Arretini and reconciling the Cilnian family with the plebs. —Marcus. Valerius resigned as dictator, to enter immediately upon the consulship. some authors have recorded that he was elected without seeking the office, indeed without even being present, and that the election was presided over by an interrex; this only is not disputed, that he held the consulship in company with Apuleius Pansa. during their year of administration the foreign relations of the state were fairly peaceful: the Etruscans were kept quiet by their failure in war and by the truce; the Samnites, tamed by the defeats of many years, had not wearied as yet of the new covenant. at Rome also the relief afforded by the emigration of large numbers to the colonies had quieted the commons Nevertheless, that tranquillity might not be found everywhere, the plebeian tribunes Quintus and Gnaeus Ogulnius stirred up a quarrel among the first men of the state, both patrician and plebeian. they had sought in every quarter occasions for maligning the Fathers to the plebs; and having tried everything else in vain, they set on foot a project by which they might inflame, not the lowest of the rabble, but the very leaders of the plebs —the commones, namely, who had enjoyed consulships and triumphs, an who lacked nothing but priesthoods, which were not yet open to all, to complete their list of honours. The Ogulnii accordingly proposed a law, that whereas there were then four augurs and four pontiffs and it was desired to augment the number of priests, four pontiffs and five augurs should be added, and should all be taken from the plebs. —How this college could have been reduced to four augurs, unless by the death of two, I cannot discover; since it is a settled principle amongst the augurs that their number should be uneven, to the end that the three ancient tribes, the Ramnes, Titienses and Luceres, should each have its augur, or else —if a larger number should be needed —that they should increase the priests in the same proportion; as in fact they were increased when five were added to the four, and, making up the number of nine, gave each tribe three. —But since they were to be added from the plebs, the patricians were as distressed by the proposal as they had been when they saw the consulship thrown open. they pretended that' the gods were more concerned than they themselves were: the gods would see to it that their rites should not be contaminated; for their own part they only hoped that no disaster might come upon the state. they made, however, no great struggle, accustomed as they now were to being worsted in contests of this kind; and they beheld their adversaries no longer reaching out after great honours which they had formerly scarce any hopes of attaining, but in full possession of all the things for which they had striven with dubious prospects of success —repeated consulships, censorships, and triumphs. there is said, however, to have been a vigorous discussion as to the passage or rejection of the bill, in which Appius Claudius and Publius Decius Mus were the principal speakers. after they had brought up nearly the same arguments concerning the rights of patricians and plebeians as had formerly been employed in behalf of and against the Licinian Law, when the plebeians sought access to the consulship, it is related that Decius evoked the image of his father as he had been seen by many who were then present in the assembly, wearing his toga with the Gabine cincture, and standing over his weapon, as he had done when offering himself a sacrifice for the Roman People and the legions. Publius Decius the consul had on that occasion seemed to the immortal gods an oblation no less pure and holy than if his colleague Titus Manlius had been offered up; could not then this same Publius Decius —he asked —have been duly chosen to solemnize the public sacrifices of the Roman People? or was it to be feared that the gods would hearken less readily to the speaker's prayers than to those of Appius Claudius? did Appius perform with more devotion the rites of domestic religion, and worship the gods more scrupulously than he did himself? who was there that repented him of the vows that had been uttered in the state's behalf by so many plebeian consuls and so many dictators, either on going to their armies or in the midst of their campaigns? let them enumerate the generals of those years that had elapsed since campaigns were first conducted under the leadership and auspices of plebeians; let them enumerate the triumphs; even on the score of their nobility, the plebeians had now nothing to regret. he felt quite sure that if suddenly some war should arise, the senate and the Roman People would rest their hopes no more on patrician than on plebeian generals. since this is so, he proceeded, "what god or man can deem it inappropriate that those heroes whom you have honoured with curule chairs, with the purple —bordered robe, with the tunic adorned with palms, and with the embroidered toga, the triumphal crown and the laurel wreath, whose houses you have made conspicuous amongst the rest with the spoils of your enemies which you have fastened to their walls, —who, I say, can object if such men add thereto the insignia of the pontiffs and the augurs? may the man who, decked with the robes of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, has been borne through the City in a gilded chariot and has mounted the Capitol —may that man not be seen with chalice and crook, when, covering his head, he offers up the victim, or receives an augury from the Citadel? if men shall read with equanimity, in the inscription that accompanies his portrait, of consulship, censorship, and triumph, will their eyes be unable to endure the brightness, if you add to these the augurate or pontificate? for my own part —under Heaven's favour be it spoken —I trust that we are now, thanks to the Roman People, in a position to reflect upon the priesthoods —in consequence of our recognized fitness for office —no less credit than we shall receive from them, and to seek, more for the service of the gods than for ourselves, that those whom we worship privately we may also worship in the name of the state. but why have I been reasoning hitherto as if the patrician claim on the priesthoods were intact, and we were not already in possession of the one supremely honourable priesthood? we see that plebeians are members of the Ten charged with the sacred rites, interpreters of the Sibylline oracles and the destinies of this people, the same being also overseers of Apollo's ritual and of other ceremonies. and yet the patricians were in no way wronged at the time when the two commissioners in charge of sacred rites were increased in number on account of the plebeians; and our brave and vigorous tribune, in proposing at the present time to add five augurs' places and four pontiffs', to which plebeians may be named, has not desired to oust you patricians, Appius, from your places, but that men of the plebs may help you in the administration also of divine affairs, even as they help you in other and human matters, to the measure of their strength. blush not, Appius, to have a colleague in the priesthood whom you might have had in the censorship or consulship. it is quite as possible that he should be dictator and you his master of the horse as that it should be the other way about. a Sabine immigrant, the first of your house to be ennobled —call him Attius Clausus or Appius Claudius, as you will —was admitted to their number by the patricians of that olden time: be not too proud to admit us into the number of the priests. we bring many distinctions with us, aye, every one of those same distinctions that have made you so high and mighty. Lucius Sextius was the first plebeian consul, Gaius Licinius Stolo the first master of the horse; Gaius Marcius Rutulus the first dictator and censor, Quintus Publilius Philo the first praetor. from you we have heard always the same song —that the auspices belong to you, that you alone are of noble birth, that you alone have the full imperium and right to divination, both at home and in the field. but the authority and divination of plebeian and patrician have prospered in equal measure until now, and so they shall do in the future. pray , has it ever been wafted to your ears that those who were first appointed to be patricians were not beings descended from celestial regions, but were such as could name their fathers —were free —born men, that is, and nothing more? i can already name a consul for my father, and my son will presently be able to name one for his grandfather. in truth the matter is simply, Quirites, that we must always be first denied, and yet have our way in the end. a struggle is all that the patricians ask: they care not what may be the outcome of the struggle. i hold that this law —and may good come of it and favour and prosperity, to yourselves and to the state! —should be ordered, as proposed. The people straightway commanded the tribes to be called, and it seemed that the measure would be accepted; nevertheless it was put off for that day on account of a veto. on the following day the tribunes were cowed and the law was passed with acclamation. to be pontiffs were chosen the advocate of the law, Publius Decius Mus, with Publius Sempronius Sophus, Gaius Marcius Rutulus, and Marcus Livius Denter; the five augurs were likewise of the plebs, Gaius Genucius, Publius Aelius Paetus, Marcus Minucius Faesus, Gaius Marcius, and Titus Publilius. thus the number of pontiffs became eight and of augurs nine. in the same year Marcus Valerius the consul proposed a law of appeal with stricter sanctions. this was the third time since the expulsion of the kings that such a law had been introduced, by the same family in every instance. The reason for renewing it more than once was, I think, simply this, that the wealth of a few carried more power than the liberty of the plebs. yet the Porcian law alone seems to have been passed to protect the persons of the citizens, imposing, as it did, a heavy penalty if anyone should scourge or put to death a Roman citizen. The Valerian law, having forbidden that he who had appealed should be scourged with rods or beheaded, merely provided that if anyone should disregard these injunctions it should be deemed a wicked act. this seemed, I suppose, a sufficiently strong sanction of the law, so modest were men in those days; at the present time one would hardly utter such a threat in earnest. The same consul conducted an insignificant campaign against the rebellious Aequi, who retained nothing of their ancient fortune but a warlike spirit. Apuleius , the other consul, laid siege to the town of Nequinum in Umbria. it was a steep place and on one side precipitous —the site is now occupied by Narnia —and could be captured neither by assault nor by siege operations. The enterprise was therefore still unfinished when Marcus Fulvius Paetus and Titus Manlius Torquatus, the new consuls, took it over. Licinius Macer and Tubero declare that all the centuries were for naming Quintus Fabius consul for this year, though he was not a candidate, but that Fabius himself urged them to defer his consulship to a year when there was more fighting; just then he would be of greater service to the state if invested with an urban magistracy. and so, neither dissembling what he had in mind nor yet seeking it, he was elected curule aedile, with Lucius Papirius Cursor. i have been unable to put this down for certain, because Piso, one of the older annalists, states that the curule aediles for that year were Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, the son of Gnaeus, and Spurius Carvilius Maximus, the son of Quintus. i fancy that this surname occasioned an error in regard to the aediles, and that a story afterwards grew up in harmony with the error, from a confusion of the aedilician with the consular elections. this year witnessed also the closing of the lustrum, by the censors Publius Sempronius Sophus and Publius Sulpicius Saverrio, and two tribes were added —the Aniensis and the Terentina. so much for affairs at Rome. meantime , at the town of Nequinum, while the siege dragged slowly on, two of the townsmen, whose dwellings abutted on the wall, dug a tunnel and made their way in secret to the Roman outposts. thence they were conducted to the consul, whom they assured of their readiness to admit a party of soldiers within the fortifications and the walls. it was not thought wise to spurn this offer, nor yet rashly to confide in it. in company with one of these men —the other being held as a hostage —two scouts were sent through the tunnel; the result of their investigation was satisfactory, and three hundred armed men, with the renegade as guide, effected an entrance by night into the city and seized the nearest gate. once this had been broken down, the Roman consul and his army captured the place without a struggle. thus Nequinum came under the sway of the Roman People. a colony was sent there to make head against the Umbrians, and was given the name of Narnia from the river Nar. The army, enriched with spoil, marched back to Rome. The Etruscans planned to go to war that year in violation of the truce; but while they were busy with this project an enormous army of Gauls invaded their borders and diverted them for a little while from their purpose. afterwards , putting their trust in money, of which they had great store, they endeavoured to convert the Gauls from enemies into friends, to the end that, uniting the Gallic army with their own, they might fight the Romans. The barbarians made no objection to an alliance: it was only a question of price. when this had been agreed upon and received, and the Etruscans, having completed the rest of their preparations for the war, bade their new allies follow them, the Gauls demurred. they had made no bargain, they said, for a war with Rome; whatever they had received had been. in consideration of their not devastating the Etruscan territory and molesting its inhabitants; nevertheless they would take the field, if the Etruscans were bent on having them, but on one condition only —that the Etruscans admit them to a share in their land, where they might settle at last in a permanent home. many councils of the peoples of Etruria were held to consider this offer, but nothing could be resolved upon, not so much from a reluctance to see their territory lessened as because everyone shrank from having men of so savage a race for neighbours. so the Gauls were dismissed, and departed with a vast sum of money, acquired without any toil or risk. The Romans were alarmed by the rumour of a Gallic rising in addition to a war with the Etruscans, and lost no time in concluding a treaty with the people of Picenum. The command in Etruria fell by lot to Titus Manlius the consul. he had barely entered the territory of the enemy, and was exercising with the cavalry, when, in wheeling his horse about after a swift gallop, he was thrown and ere long breathed his last, for the third day following the accident saw the end of the consul's life. taking this as an omen of the war, and declaring that the gods had begun hostilities in their behalf, the Etruscans plucked up courage. it was sad news to the Romans; not only could they ill spare the man, but his death occurred at an embarrassing moment. The Fathers would have ordered the nomination of a dictator had not the election held to choose a substitute for the consul fallen out in accordance with the wishes of the leaders. Marcus Valerius was the choice of all the centuries for consul. it was he whom the senate had intended to have named as dictator, and they now commanded him to proceed forthwith to the legions in Etruria. his arrival so damped the ardour of the Etruscans that none ventured outside their fortifications, and their own fear was like a besieging host. nor could the new consul entice them into giving battle by wasting their lands and firing their buildings, though the smoke was rising on every side from the conflagration not only of farm —houses but of many villages as well. while this war was prolonged beyond anticipation, another war —justly dreaded by reason of the many losses which the parties to it had inflicted on each other —was beginning to be talked of in consequence of information given by the Picentes, Rome's new allies. The Samnites, they said, were looking to arms and a renewal of hostilities, and had solicited their help. The Picentes were thanked, and the senate's anxiety was diverted, in great measure, from Etruria to the Samnites. The citizens were also concerned at the dearness of provisions, and would have experienced the direst need, as those writers have recorded who are pleased to represent Fabius Maximus as having been aedile in that year, if that heroic man, who had on many occasions managed military undertakings, had not at this juncture shown himself equally expert in the administration of the market and the purchase and importation of corn. in this year —for no cause assigned —there befell an interregnum. The interreges were Appius Claudius, and afterwards Publius Sulpicius. The latter held a consular election, and announced that the choice had fallen on Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Gnaeus Fulvius. in the beginning of this year Lucanian envoys came to the new consuls to complain that the Samnites, since they had been unable by offering inducements to entice them into an armed alliance, had invaded their territories with a hostile army and by warring on them were obliging them to go to war. The people of Lucania, they said, had on a former occasion strayed all too far from the path of duty, but were now so resolute as to deem it better to endure and suffer anything than ever again to offend the Romans. they besought the Fathers both to take the Lucanians under their protection and to defend them from the violence and oppression of the Samnites. though their having gone to war with the Etruscans was necessarily a pledge of loyalty to the Romans, yet they were none the less ready to give hostages. discussion in the senate was soon over. every opinion was for entering into a treaty with Lucania and demanding satisfaction of the Samnites. The Lucanians received a friendly answer, and the league was formed. fetials were then sent to command the Samnites to leave the country belonging to Rome's allies, and withdraw their army from the territory of Lucania. they were met on the way by messengers, whom the Samnites had dispatched to warn them that if they went before any Samnite council they would not depart unscathed. when these things were known at Rome, the senate advised and the people voted a declaration of war against the Samnites. The consuls divided the commands between them, Scipio getting Etruria and Fulvius the Samnites, and set out for their respective wars. Scipio looked forward to a slow campaign like that of the previous year, but was met near Volaterrae by the enemy drawn up in column. The fighting, which lasted for the best part of a day, was attended with heavy losses on both sides; and night came on while it was yet uncertain to which nation victory had been vouchsafed. The morning showed who was victor and who vanquished, for in the silence of the night the Etruscans had decamped. The Romans marched out into line of battle; and when they saw that the enemy by his retreat had conceded their superiority, they advanced and possessed themselves of the camp, which was unoccupied and contained much booty, for it had been a permanent post and had been hurriedly abandoned. Scipio then led his troops back into the Faliscan territory, and having left his baggage with a small guard in Falerii, set out with his army in light marching order to ravage the territory of the enemy. The whole country was laid waste with fire and sword and booty was brought in from all directions. not only was the soil left bare for the enemy, but even strongholds and villages were burned. The consul stopped short of attacking the walled towns, into which the frightened Etruscans had fled for refuge. The other consul, Gnaeus Fulvius, fought a famous battle in Samnium, near Bovianum, and gained a victory that was by no means doubtful. he then attacked and captured Bovianum, and not long afterwards Aufidena. a colony was founded in that same year at Carseoli in the land of the Aequicoli. The consul Fulvius triumphed over the Samnites. as the consular elections drew near, a rumour arose that the Etruscans and the Samnites were levying huge forces; it was said that in all their councils the leaders of the Etruscans were openly censured for not having brought the Gauls into the war, on whatever terms; and the Samnite magistrates were attacked for having confronted the Romans with an army raised to oppose a Lucanian foe; thus their enemies were girding themselves for war, in their own might and the might of their allies, and they would have to contend with them on far from even terms. this danger, though illustrious men were candidates for the consulship, made everyone tum to Quintus Fabius Maximus, who was not a candidate, in the first place, and who, when he saw the direction of the people's wishes, actually refused to stand. why must they trouble him, he asked, who was an old man now and had done with toil and the rewards of toil? neither his body nor his mind retained their vigour undiminished, and he feared Fortune herself, lest some god might deem that she had already been too kind to him and more constant than human beings were meant to find her. he himself had risen to the glory of his elders, and he rejoiced to see others growing up to the measure of his own. there was no lack of great offices in Rome for the bravest men, nor of brave men for the offices. such moderation but intensified the well —merited enthusiasm of his friends; and Fabius, thinking that it would have to be restrained by respect for the laws, bade read aloud the statute which prohibited the re —election of the same man to the consulship within ten years. whereupon there was such a clamouring that the law could scarce be heard, and the tribunes of the plebs declared that it should be no impediment, for they would propose to the people that he be granted a dispensation from the laws. Fabius , for his part, stoutly persisted in his refusal. what , in that case, he demanded, was the good of making laws, when their very makers broke them? The laws were no longer in control, but were themselves controlled. nevertheless the people proceeded to the election, and every century, as it was summoned within, in no uncertain terms named Fabius consul. then at last, overborne by the consent of all the citizens, may Heaven, he said, "approve, Quirites, of what you are doing and propose to do. for the rest, since you are bound to have your way with me, grant me a favour in the matter of my colleague and make consul with me Publius Decius, a man whose friendliness I have experienced in the fellowship of office, a man worthy of you and worthy of his sire. "The recommendation seemed a reasonable one. all the remaining centuries voted for Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius. in that year many men were prosecuted by the aediles on the charge of possessing more land than the law allowed. hardly anybody was acquitted, and exorbitant greed was sharply curbed. while the new consuls, Quintus Fabius Maximus (in his fourth term) and Publius Decius Mus (in his third), were laying plans together how one should take the field against the Samnites, and the other against the Etruscans, and were considering what forces would suffice for these respective provinces and which of them was the better suited to the one command and which to the other, there came deputies from Sutrium and Nepete and Falerii, with the news that the nations of Etruria were counselling together how they might sue for peace, and thus diverted upon Samnium the whole burden of war. when the consuls set out, in order to lessen the difficulty of getting supplies and to keep the enemy uncertain where the attack would come, Fabius marched into Samnium by way of Sora, Decius through the territory of the Sidicini. arrived at the borders of the enemy, each spread his army over a wide front and pillaged. yet they scouted more widely than they pillaged, and the enemy were therefore unable to surprise them near Tifernum, where they had drawn their forces up in a secluded valley, and were preparing to assail the Romans from above, once they should have entered it. removing the baggage to a place of safety and appointing a small force to guard it, Fabius warned his troops that a struggle was at hand, and forming them into a hollow square, led them up towards the place where the enemy lay, as I have said, concealed. balked of their surprise attack, the Samnites —since it must ultimately come to an open trial of strength —likewise preferred to fight a regular engagement. they accordingly descended to level ground, and committed their cause to Fortune, with courage greater than their hopes. however , whether owing to their having assembled the fighting strength of all the Samnite nations, or because a contest on which everything was staked heightened their valour, they occasioned some perturbation amongst the Romans, even in an open battle. when Fabius saw that the enemy were nowhere giving way, he ordered Maximus his son and Marcus Valerius —military tribunes with whom he had hurried to the front —to go to the horsemen and tell them that if they remembered ever an occasion when the state had been helped by the horse, now was the time for them to exert their strength to preserve untarnished the glory of that body: in the struggle of infantry the enemy were yielding not an inch; no hope remained save in a charge of cavalry. addressing each of the young men by name, lie loaded them now with praise and now with promises. but since it was conceivable that even their prowess might prove to be inadequate, he thought proper to resort to strategy, if strength should not achieve his purpose. so he ordered Scipio, his lieutenant, to withdraw the hastati of the first legion from the battle and conduct them, as secretly as possible, by a circuitous route to the nearest mountains; they were then, concealing their ascent from observation, to climb the heights and suddenly show themselves on the enemy's rear. The cavalry, led by the tribunes, occasioned hardly more confusion in their enemies than in their friends, as they rode out unexpectedly in front of the standards. The Samnite line held firm against their galloping squadrons, and could at no point be forced back or broken, and the cavalry, finding their attack abortive, retired behind the lines and left the battle. this gave the enemy a fresh access of spirits; and the front ranks would have been incapable of sustaining so long a struggle and the increasing violence with which the enemy's confidence inspired him, had not the second line, by the consul's order, come up to relieve them. their fresh strength halted the Samnites, who were now pressing forward; and catching sight just at this juncture of our detachments descending from the mountains, and hearing the cheer they gave, the enemy was filled with terror of worse things than actually threatened him; for Fabius shouted that his colleague Decius was approaching, and the soldiers themselves in their joy and eagerness cried out that the other consul was at hand —that the legions were at hand; and this mistake, occurring in a good hour for the Romans, filled the Samnites with fear and bewilderment, for they dreaded nothing so much as that the other army, fresh and entire, might overwhelm them in their exhausted state. The slaughter was less than is usual in so great a victory, for the enemy scattered far and wide in their flight. three thousand four hundred were slain; about eight hundred and thirty were made prisoners, and twenty —three standards were taken. The Apulians would have joined the Samnites before the battle had not Publius Decius the consul encamped over against them at Maleventum, and then drawn them into an engagement and defeated them. in this instance also the rout was greater than the slaughter: two thousand Apulians were killed, and Decius, scorning such an enemy, led his legions into Samnium. there the two consular armies, overrunning the land in different directions, had laid all waste within four months' time. there were forty —five places in Samnium where Decius had encamped; the other consul had encamped in eighty —six. nor did they leave behind them only the traces of their ramparts and their trenches, but other much more conspicuous memorials, in the havoc and devastation of the country round about. Fabius also captured the city of Cimetra. in this siege two thousand nine hundred men —at —arms were taken and some nine hundred and thirty were slain fighting. after this he set out for Rome for the election, which he made haste to call. The centuries that voted first were all naming Quintus Fabius for consul, when Appius Claudius, who was a candidate for that post and a pushing and ambitious man, but no more eager to gain the honour for himself than to have the patricians recover two consular places, exerted his own strength and that of the whole nobility to induce them to elect him as Fabius's colleague. Fabius would not have it so, raising virtually the same objections he had raised in the previous year. The nobles all thronged about his seat, and besought him to lift up the consulship out of the plebeian mire and restore both to the office and to the aristocratic families their old —time dignity. obtaining silence, Fabius soothed their excited feelings with a temperate speech, in which he said that he would have done as they desired and have received the names of two patricians, if he had seen another than himself being made consul; as it was, he would not entertain his own name at an election, for to do so would violate the laws and establish a most evil precedent. so Lucius Volumnius, a plebeian, was returned, together with Appius Claudius, with whom he had also been paired in an earlier consulship. The nobles taunted Fabius with having avoided Appius Claudius for a colleague, as a man clearly his superior in eloquence and statecraft. The election over, the old consuls were bidden to carry on the war in Samnium, having received an extension of their command for six months. so in the following year likewise —the consulship of Lucius Volumnius and Appius Claudius —Publius Decius, who had been left behind in Samnium, when consul, by his colleague, ceased not as proconsul to lay waste the farms, until finally he forced the army of the Samnites —which would nowhere risk a battle —to withdraw from the country. they retreated into Etruria, and thinking that what they had often tried in vain to bring about by means of embassies they might with so great a body of armed men and the menace which would be added to their entreaties accomplish more effectually, called for a council of the Etruscan leaders. on its assembling, they pointed out for how many years they had been fighting with the Romans for their liberty. they had made every effort, they said, if haply they might of their own strength bear up under so great a war; and had also —but to little purpose —made trial of the help of neighbouring nations. unable to sustain the war, they had sought peace of the Roman People; but had renewed hostilities, because peace with servitude was harder to endure than war with liberty. their sole remaining hope lay in the Etruscans, whom they knew for the richest nation of Italy, in arms, in men, and in money; a nation, too, that marched with the Gauls, men born amid the clash of arms and possessing not only an instinctive love of fighting but a feeling of enmity to the Roman People, whose defeat at their hands and ransom for gold they were wont to relate with no idle boast. if the Etruscans had the spirit that once had animated Porsinna and their forefathers, there was no reason why they should not expel the Romans from all the country north of the Tiber, and compel them to fight, not for an intolerable sovereignty over Italy, but for their own existence. here was a Samnite army, provided with arms and pay, and ready to follow on the instant, though they should lead it to the assault of Rome itself. while they were thus boasting and intriguing in Etruria, the Roman invasion was distressing their countrymen at home. for Publius Decius, having ascertained through scouts that the Samnite army had departed, summoned a council, and said, why do we range about the countryside, bringing war to this, that, and the other village? why do we not assail cities and walled towns? there is no longer any army defending Samnium; they have withdrawn beyond their borders, sentenced to banishment by their own decree. with their unanimous approval he led them to the assault of Murgantia, a strong city; and such was the ardour of the troops, by reason both of affection for their general and the hopes that they entertained of greater booty than was to be got by ranging the country, that they took the place by force of arms in a single day. there two thousand one hundred Samnites were surrounded and made prisoners as they fought, and vast spoils of other kinds were seized. lest these should encumber the marching army with heavy baggage, Decius called the soldiers together and thus addressed them: will this single victory or these spoils content you? will your expectations not be equal to your courage? all the cities of the Samnites and the riches left behind in them are yours, since, after defeating their legions in so many battles, you have in the end expelled them from their country. sell these prizes and with hope of gain lure the traders on to follow your column; I will find you from time to time wares to dispose of. let us go from here to the city Romulea, where no greater toil awaits you, but greater booty. The booty was sold off, and the men themselves urging on their general, they marched to Romulea. there , too, they used no siege —works or artillery; but once they had come up under the walls, no force could constrain them to retire; quickly setting up their ladders at the nearest places, they swarmed over the battlements. The town was captured and sacked; two thousand three hundred were slain and six thousand made prisoners, and the soldiers came into possession of huge spoils which they were obliged, as before, to sell. after that they marched with the utmost alacrity —though they had been allowed no time to rest —to Ferentinum. but there they encountered more difficulty and danger: the city was defended with the utmost energy, and fortification and nature had combined to make it safe; yet all obstacles were overcome by a soldiery grown used to plunder. some three thousand of the enemy were slain about the walls; the spoils went to the men. of the glory accruing from these sieges the larger share is in certain annals assigned to Maximus; they allow that Murgantia was stormed by Decius, but give to Fabius Ferentinum and Romulea. there are those who claim the credit for the new consuls, and some give it not to both but to one of them, Lucius Volumnius, to whom, they say, fell the command in Samnium. whilst these operations were being carried out in Samnium —whoever had the command and auspices —a mighty war was preparing against the Romans in Etruria, on the part of many nations, at the instigation of a Samnite named Gellius Egnatius. The Tuscans had almost all voted for war; the nearest Umbrian tribes had caught the contagion; and Gallic auxiliaries were being solicited for pay. all this multitude was assembling at the camp of the Samnites. when news of this sudden rising was brought to Rome, Lucius Volumnius the consul, with the second and third legions and fifteen thousand of the allies, had already set out for Samnium, and it was resolved to send Appius Claudius into Etruria at the earliest possible moment. two Roman legions followed him, the first and fourth, and twelve thousand of the allies. they encamped not far from the enemy. but the consul's prompt arrival accomplished more, by checking, through dread of the Roman name, certain peoples of Etruria that were already meditating war, than he gained by his generalship, which was characterized neither by much ability nor by good fortune. he repeatedly joined battle at untoward times and places, and the enemy grew every day more hopeful and more formidable, until now the soldiers were near losing confidence in their commander and he in them. i find it recorded by three annalists that he dispatched a letter sending for his colleague out of Samnium; yet am I loath to set it down for certain, since the consuls of the Roman People, now holding that office for the second time, disputed about that very point-Appius denying that he had sent a letter, Volumnius affirming that a letter from Appius had summoned him. Volumnius had already captured three fortresses in Samnium, in which some three thousand of the enemy had been slain and about half as many taken prisoners; and dispatching Quintus Fabius as proconsul with a seasoned army into Lucania, he had suppressed —with the hearty approval of the optimates —certain insurrections which had broken out there at the instigation of necessitous plebeian agitators. leaving to Decius the devastation of the fields, Volumnius himself with his own troops marched to join his colleague in Etruria, where he was welcomed on his arrival with general rejoicings. but what Appius was feeling his conscience alone could tell! —indeed he was justly angered if he had sent no word, but illiberal and ungracious if he had needed help and now sought to dissemble —for coming forth to meet his colleague, before they had fairly greeted one another, he demanded, is all well, Lucius Volumnius? how stand affairs in Samnium? what has moved you to come out of your own province? Volumnius replied that affairs were prospering in Samnium, and that he was come being sent for by Appius' own letter; but if this were a forgery and he were not needed in Etruria, he would immediately face about and march back. by all means go! cried Appius. no one hinders you! for truly it is no way fitting that when, perhaps, you are hardly equal to your own war, you should boast of coming hither to help others. Volumnius prayed that Hercules might direct all for the best; he had rather, he said, his trouble should go for naught than that anything should have befallen to make one consular army insufficient for Etruria. The consuls were parting, when the lieutenants and tribunes from the army of Appius gathered round them. some of them besought their general not to spurn his colleague's help —which ought even to have been asked for —now that it was proffered voluntarily; the greater number threw themselves in the way of Volumnius, as he turned to go, and conjured him not to betray the welfare of the state by an unworthy quarrel with his colleague: if any disaster should occur, the blame would lie more with the deserter than the deserted; to such a pass had matters come that the entire credit or disgrace of success or failure in Etruria was referred to Lucius Volumnius; no one would enquire what the words of Appius had been, but what the fortune of the army; he was being dismissed by Appius, but retained by the republic and the army; let him but test the wishes of the soldiers. thus admonishing and entreating them they dragged the all but resisting consuls to the place of assembly. there they spoke at greater length, but substantially to the same effect as they had argued before in the hearing of a few; and when Volumnius, besides having the better cause, likewise showed himself to be no mean orator in opposing the rare eloquence of his colleague, Appius jeeringly remarked that they ought to give himself the credit, for that instead of a mute and tongue —tied consul they had got one who was actually fluent, since in his former consulship, at all events in its early months, he had been incapable of opening his mouth, but was now delivering popular orations. — how I could wish, exclaimed Volumnius, that you might rather have learnt from me to act with vigour than that I should have learnt to speak cleverly from you! in conclusion he proposed a compact which would determine, not which was the better orator —for this was not what the republic wanted —but the better general. Etruria and Samnium were the nations to be conquered; let Appius choose which he liked; with his own army he would campaign either in Etruria or in Samnium. then the soldiers began to cry out that both should undertake the Etruscan war together. perceiving them to be of one mind in this, Volumnius said, since I erred in interpreting my colleague's wishes, I will not make the blunder of leaving yours in doubt: do you signify by a shout whether you would have me stay or go. then in truth they cheered so loud that the enemy were drawn out from their camp, and snatching up their arms went down into line of battle. Volumnius , too, bade sound the signal and advance the banners from the camp. Appius , they say, was uncertain what to do, perceiving that, whether he fought or refrained from fighting, the victory would be his colleague's; then, fearing that even his own legions would follow Volumnius, he, too, gave his men the signal for which they were clamouring. on neither side had the forces been very advantageously marshalled; for the Samnite commander Gellius Egnatius had taken a few cohorts and gone off to forage, and his soldiers were entering the battle more as their own impulse guided them than under anybody's leadership or orders, and the Roman armies were not both led out together nor had they sufficient time to form. Volumnius was engaged before Appius came within reach of the enemy, and the line of attack was accordingly uneven. moreover , as though lots had been cast, there was a shifting of the customary opponents, the Etruscans confronting Volumnius, and the Samnites —after a little hesitation, owing to the absence of their general —meeting Appius. it is said that when the conflict was at its hottest, Appius was seen to lift up his hands in the very forefront of the standards and utter this petition: Bellona , if to —day thou grant us the victory, then do I vow thee a temple. having pronounced this prayer, as though the goddess were inspiring him, he kept pace with the courage of his colleague and the army kept pace with his. and now the generals were quitting themselves like true commanders, and the soldiers were striving that victory might not come first on the other wing. they therefore routed and put to flight the enemy, who found it no easy task to withstand a greater force than they had been wont to engage with. pressing hard upon them when they faltered and pursuing where they fled, the Romans drove them to their camp. there , on the appearance of Gellius and the Sabellian cohorts, the battle was renewed for a little while; but presently, when these too had been dispersed, the conquering troops assailed the camp, and while Volumnius himself led a charge against the gate, and Appius, calling from time to time on Bellona, goddess of victory, inspirited his soldiers, they burst through the trenches and the rampart. The camp was taken and pillaged, and the vast booty found there was given over to the soldiers. seven thousand eight hundred of the enemy were slain, two thousand one hundred and twenty taken prisoners. while both consuls and all the strength of Rome were being devoted mainly to the Etruscan war, new armies rose up in Samnium to waste the territories under Roman sway, and crossing over into Campania and the Falernian district, through the land of the Vescini, gathered in huge spoils. as Volumnius was returning by long marches into Samnium —for now the extension of authority granted to Fabius and Decius was drawing to a close —a rumour about the Samnite army and its depredations in the territory of Campania turned him aside to the defence of the allies. when he came to the Calenian country, he saw for himself the fresh traces of the enemy's ravages, and the Calenians informed him that the Samnites had already so great a train of booty as to march with difficulty, and their leaders were saying openly that they must retire at once into Samnium, and leaving their plunder there, return to the invasion, and not subject an army so heavily burdened to the risks of battle. These reports were plausible enough; nevertheless he thought it right to obtain more authentic information. he therefore sent out horsemen in various directions, to intercept straggling plunderers in the fields, from whom he learned, on questioning them, that their army was encamped at the Volturnus river, whence they would set forward in the third watch and march towards Samnium. being satisfied of the truth of these reports, he followed the enemy and encamped at such a distance from them that while they could not learn of his arrival from his being too close at hand, he yet might surprise them as they were leaving their camp. a little before dawn he approached the camp and sent ahead men who knew the Oscan language to find out what was being done. mingling with their enemies, as they could easily do in the confusion of the dark, they learned that the standards had gone forward with a scanty following of men —at —arms, that the booty and its escort were just setting out, but that the column was incapable of progress, since every man was intent upon his own affairs, with no common understanding among any of them nor any very definite leadership. The time seemed highly suitable for delivering an attack, and the day was breaking. Volumnius therefore ordered them to sound the charge and assailed the enemy's column. The Samnites were impeded by their booty and few of them were armed; some quickened their pace and drove the cattle before them, some stood still, uncertain whether it were safer to go on or to return to camp; while they hesitated, the Romans were upon them, and now they had scaled the rampart and the camp was filled with carnage and commotion. The Samnite column, besides being charged by the enemy, had also been disordered by a sudden outbreak of the prisoners, some of whom, being loose, were releasing those who were bound, while others were catching up the weapons tied up in the soldiers' packs, and, mixed up with the column as they were, caused a hurly —burly that was more terrifying than the battle itself. they presently performed a remarkable exploit; for as Staius Minatius, the Samnite general, was riding along the ranks and encouraging them, they made a rush at him, and scattering the horsemen who were with him, surrounded him, and hurried him off a prisoner, horse and all, to the Roman consul. this tumult had the effect of bringing back the vanguard of the Samnites, who renewed the battle, which had been almost finished. but prolonged resistance was impossible. The slain amounted to six thousand men, and twenty —five hundred were captured —among them four military tribunes —as well as thirty standards. what caused most joy among the victors was the recovery of seven thousand four hundred prisoners and a vast quantity of spoils belonging to the allies. The owners were summoned by proclamation to identify and recover their property on an appointed day. those things for which no owner appeared were made over to the soldiers, and they were compelled to sell their booty, that they might have no concern in anything but fighting. this raid upon the Campanian countryside had occasioned a great alarm in Rome; and just at that time, as it happened, there came news out of Etruria, that after the withdrawal of the army of Volumnius the Etruscans had been induced to arm, that Gellius Egnatius, the Samnite general, and the Umbrians were being invited to join in the revolt, and that the Gauls were being tempted with great sums of money. terrified by these reports, the senate ordered that a cessation of the courts should be proclaimed, and that a levy should be held of every sort of men. not only was the oath administered to free citizens of military age, but cohorts were also formed out of older men, and freedmen were mustered into centuries. plans were discussed for defending the City, and the supreme command was given to the praetor, Publius Sempronius. but the senators were relieved of a part of their anxiety by a dispatch from Lucius Volumnius, the consul, apprising them of the slaughter and dispersion of the army that had ravaged Campania. they accordingly voted a thanksgiving for the victory, in the consul's name, and reopened the courts, which had been closed for eighteen days. The thanksgiving was a very joyful one. they next considered how they might protect the region devastated by the Samnites, and resolved to plant two colonies in the Vescinian and Falernian country, one, which was named Minturnae, at the mouth of the river Liris, the other in the Vescinian forest, hard by the Falernian district, where the Greek city of Sinope is said to have stood, thereafter called Sinuessa by the Roman settlers. The tribunes of the plebs were assigned the task of obtaining a plebiscite directing Publius Sempronius the praetor to appoint three commissioners to conduct the colonists to these places; yet it was not easy to find men who would enroll, since they regarded themselves as sent, not to settle on the land, but to serve almost as a perpetual outpost in a hostile territory. The senate's attention was diverted from these cares by the growing seriousness of the war in Etruria, and by a succession of dispatches from Appius, in which he warned them not to make light of the disturbance in that region. four races, he said, were uniting their arms, the Etruscans, Samnites, Umbrians, and Gauls; and they had already divided their camp into two, one place not being able to hold so great a multitude. for these reasons and because of the elections —the time for which was rapidly approaching —the consul Lucius Volumnius was recalled to Rome. before summoning the centuries to vote, he brought the people together in an assembly, and discoursed at length of the magnitude of the war in Etruria: even earlier, when he himself and his colleague had campaigned there together, the war had been so great that one general and one army could not have conducted it; but it was said that the Umbrians had since then been added to the enemy's forces, as well as a huge army of Gauls; they should remember that on that day they were choosing consuls to oppose four peoples; for his own part, were he not confident that the Roman People would unanimously choose for consul the man who was then looked upon as unquestionably the first of all commanders, he would at once have named him dictator. no one doubted that Fabius would by the common voice of all be for the fifth time elected; and in fact the prerogative centuries and all those which were summoned first were naming him consul, together with Lucius Volumnius. Fabius then made a speech, to the same purport as he had done two years before; but, overborne by the general agreement, he ended by requesting that he might have for colleague Publius Decius, who would be a prop to his old age. in the censorship and the two consulships which he had shared with Decius, he had found that nothing more tended to the preservation of the commonwealth than the harmony of colleagues. to a new partner in authority he could now hardly hope to adapt an old man's mind: with one whose character he knew, it would be easier to share his counsels. his plea was seconded by the consul, who bestowed well —merited praise on Publius Decius, and recalling the advantages that accrued from harmony betwixt the consuls to the administration of military measures and the harm that resulted from their discord, reminded his hearers how dire had been the danger occasioned lately by the strife between himself and his colleague. Decius and Fabius, he said, were of one heart and one mind, and were, besides, men born for war, great in their deeds, but unskilled in the strife of words and of the tongue. theirs were talents meet for the consul's office. but shrewd and clever men, masters of the law and of eloquence, like Appius Claudius, should be had to preside over the City and the Forum, and should be elected praetors to administer justice. with these transactions the day was taken up. on the following day, by the direction of the consul, elections were held both of consuls and of praetors. Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius were chosen consuls and Appius Claudius praetor —all three being absent —and the senate passed a decree, which the people ratified, prolonging for a year the command of Lucius Volumnius. in that year were many portents, to avert which the senate decreed supplications for two days. wine and incense were provided by the state, and the people went in throngs to offer their prayers -both men and women. The supplication was rendered memorable by a quarrel that broke out among the matrons in the chapel of Patrician Modesty, which stands in the Cattle Market, by the round temple of Hercules. Verginia , Aulus's daughter, a patrician wedded to a commoner, Lucius Volumnius the consul, had been excluded by the matrons from their ceremonies, on the ground that she had married out of the patriciate. this led to a short dispute, which the hot anger of the sex soon kindled to a blaze of passionate contention. Verginia boasted, and with reason, that she had entered the temple of Patrician Modesty both a patrician and a modest woman, as having been wedded to the one man to whom she had been given as a maiden, and was neither ashamed of her husband nor of his honours and his victories. she then added a noble deed to her proud words. in the Vicus Longus, where she lived, she shut off a part of her mansion, large enough for a shrine of moderate size, and, erecting there an altar, called together the plebeian matrons, and after complaining of the injurious behaviour of the patrician ladies, said, i dedicate this altar to Plebeian Modesty; and I urge you, that even as the men of our state contend for the meed of valour, so the matrons may vie for that of modesty, that this altar may be said to be cherished —if it be possible —more reverently than that, and by more modest women. this altar, too, was served with almost the same ritual as that more ancient one, so that no matron but one of proven modesty, who had been wedded to one man alone, should have the right to sacrifice. afterwards the cult was degraded by polluted worshippers, not matrons only but women of every station, and passed finally into oblivion. in that same year Gnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius the curule aediles brought a number of usurers to trial, and, confiscating their possessions, employed the share which came into the public treasury to put brazen thresholds in the Capitol, and silver vessels for the three tables in the shrine of Jupiter, and a statue of the god in a four —horse chariot on the roof, and at the fig —tree Ruminalis a representation of the infant Founders of the City being suckled by the wolf. they also made a paved walk of squared stone from the Porta Capena to the temple of Mars. and the plebeian aediles Lucius Aelius Paetus and Gaius Fulvius Curvus, likewise with the money from fines, which they exacted from convicted graziers, held games and provided golden bowls for the temple of Ceres. after that Quintus Fabius (for the fifth time) and Publius Decius (for the fourth) began their consulship, having thrice been colleagues in that office and once in the censorship, and being not more distinguished for the renown, great though that was, of their achievements than for their harmonious co —operation. this , however, was not destined to be permanent, though its interruption was due, I think, more to rivalry between the orders than to their own; for the patricians strove that Fabius should have the command in Etruria without drawing lots, and the plebeians insisted that Decius should demand that method of determining the question. at all events there was a contention in the senate, and Fabius proving to be the stronger there, the case was carried before the people. in the assembly the speeches were short, as befitted soldiers and men who trusted more to deeds than to words. Fabius argued that when one man had planted a tree, it was unfair that another should gather the fruit that dropped from it; it was he that had opened up the Ciminian Forest and had made a path for Roman arms through remote and desert tracts. why , pray, had they troubled him, old as he was, if they had meant to wage the war with another general? it was only too clear, he said — taking gradually a more reproachful tone —that he had selected an adversary, not a partner in command, and that Decius had begrudged the friendly spirit in which they had administered three offices together. finally , he asked no more than that if they thought him worthy of the command they should give it to him; he had submitted to the decision of the senate and would obey the people. Publius Decius complained of the senate's injustice: as long as they were able, the Fathers had striven to deny the plebeians access to great honours; and since native worth had of its own strength won the right to be recognized in any class of men, they were seeking to make of none effect not only the suffrages of, the people but also the awards of Fortune, and to subject them to the control of a few. all the consuls who had preceded him had drawn lots for their commands, but the senate was now conferring a command on Fabius without the lot. if they were doing this to honour him, he would say that the man had deserved so well both of himself and of the state that he stood ready to promote the glory of Fabius, provided only that its lustre were not purchased with insult to himself. but who could doubt, when there was one difficult, dangerous war, and this was entrusted without lots to one of the consuls, that the other was regarded as superfluous and useless? Fabius gloried in his Etruscan victories: Publius Decius would fain glory too. and perhaps that fire which Fabius had left covered up, but so that it was continually breaking out into new flames, might be by him extinguished. in short he was willing, for the reverence he bore his colleague's years and dignity, to yield to him honours and rewards; but when peril, when strife, was set before them —he yielded not, of his own consent —nor ever would. and if he got nothing else by this contest, one thing at any rate he would get —that what belonged to the people should be disposed of by the people, not bestowed by the Fathers as a favour. to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and the immortal gods he prayed that they would grant him an equal chance in the lot with his colleague only if they were ready to grant him the same courage and the same good fortune in the administration of the war. at least it was a thing in its nature reasonable, in its example salutary, and material to the reputation of the Roman People, that the consuls should be such that the Etruscan war could be managed aright under the leadership of either one of them. Fabius only prayed the Roman people to listen, before the tribes were called to vote, to a dispatch of Appius Claudius the praetor that had been brought in from Etruria. he then left the comitium, and the people then, as unanimously as the senate had done, decreed that Fabius should have the command in Etruria without drawing lots. nearly all the younger men now flocked about the consul, and each gave in his name, so eager were they to serve under such a captain. surrounded by this throng he said, i have in mind to enrol no more than four thousand foot and six hundred horse; I will take with me those of you who give in your names to —day and to —morrow. I am more concerned to bring all my men back with their purses filled than to wage war with many soldiers. marching out with a fit army, which was all the more confident and hopeful because he had not desired a great host, he took his way towards the town of Aharna, from which the enemy were not far distant, to the camp of Appius the praetor. a few miles this side the camp he encountered some men who had come out with an armed escort to gather wood. These people, seeing the lictors in the van and learning that Fabius was consul, with lively manifestations of satisfaction gave thanks to the gods and to the Roman People for having sent him to be their general. then , as they trooped about him and hailed him consul, Fabius asked whither they were bound, and they answered that they were come out to get wood. is it possible, he cried, that you have no rampart round your camp? and, on their shouting back that they had a double rampart and a trench and yet were in mortal fear, then you have quite wood enough, said he; go back and pull up your stockade. Returning to camp they began pulling up the palings, to the terror of their comrades who had stayed behind, as well as of Appius himself, till the news was spread, as each talked with his neighbours, that they were acting under orders of the consul Quintus Fabius. on the morrow the camp was removed and the praetor Appius was sent away to Rome. thenceforward the Romans had no permanent camp anywhere. it was of no use, Fabius maintained, for the army to sit down in one place: by marching and shifting its position it grew more mobile and more healthy. The marches, of course, were such as could be made at a season when winter was not yet over. in the early spring, leaving the second legion in the neighbourhood of Clusium —which they used of old to call Camars —and putting Lucius Scipio, as propraetor, in charge of the camp, Fabius himself returned to Rome to consult about the war, either voluntarily, because he had a task in prospect that was greater than he had believed the reports to signify, or, it may be, summoned by the senate; for both accounts are vouched for. some would have it appear that he was compelled to return by Appius Claudius the praetor, who continued to exaggerate the perils of the Etruscan war in the senate and before the people, as he had done persistently in his dispatches. it was not enough, he said, to have one commander and one army against four nations: the danger was —whether they united to overwhelm him or campaigned separately —that one man would be incapable of meeting simultaneously all emergencies. he himself had left on the ground two Roman legions, and less than five thousand infantry and cavalry had come with Fabius. it was his opinion that Publius Decius the consul should march at the very earliest moment to Etruria, to join his colleague, and that Lucius Volumnius should be given the command in Samnium; or, if the consul preferred to go out to his own province, that Volumnius should set out for Etruria with a regular consular army. The majority were moved by the praetor's speech, but Publius Decius —so they say —advised that all be left to the free and unhampered judgment of Quintus Fabius, until Fabius should either come to Rome himself —if this were compatible with public policy —or send some one of his lieutenants, to inform the senate how great a war was on foot in Etruria, and with what forces, commanded by how many generals, it ought to be conducted. Fabius , when he returned to Rome, both in the senate and afterwards in speaking to the people, steered a middle course, that he might appear neither to exaggerate the current reports about the war nor minimize them, and in accepting an additional commander to be rather consulting the fears of others than guarding against a danger to himself or the republic. for the rest, if they chose to give him a helper in the war and a partner in authority, how —he asked —could he possibly forget Publius Decius the consul, whom he had proved so often when they had been colleagues? there was no one living with whom he would sooner share his commission; he should have troops enough, if Decius were with him, and his enemies would never be too numerous. but if his colleague preferred some other arrangement, let them give him Lucius Volumnius to be his coadjutor. The decision in regard to everything was left by the people and the senate, and by his colleague himself, entirely to Fabius; and when Publius Decius had made known his readiness to set out either for Samnium or Etruria, there were such rejoicings and congratulations that men tasted the sweets of victory in anticipation, and it seemed as though the consuls had been voted a triumph and not a war. i find in some historians that Fabius and Decius set out for Etruria at the very beginning of their consulship, and they make no mention of the casting of lots for provinces or of the disputes betwixt the colleagues which I have described. on the other hand, even these disputes have not been enough for some, but they have added invectives pronounced by Appius before the people against the absent Fabius, and stubborn opposition on the praetor's part to the consul who was present, and another quarrel between the colleagues, when Decius urged that each should attend to his allotted province. The authorities begin to be in agreement from the moment that both consuls set out for the seat of war. but before the consuls could reach Etruria, the Senonian Gauls were come with a great multitude to Clusium, to besiege the Roman legion in camp there. Scipio , who was in command, thought it necessary that he should gain the advantage of position to eke out the smallness of his numbers, and marched his troops up a hill situated between the city and his camp; but, as happens in sudden emergencies, he had sent no scouts ahead of him, and led his men up to a ridge which was held by the enemy, who had approached it from another direction. thus the legion was attacked in the rear and found itself surrounded, with the enemy assailing it from every quarter. some writers say that the legion was even annihilated there, so that none survived to bear away the tidings, and that the consuls, who were not far from Clusium, got no report of the disaster till some Gallic horsemen came in sight, with heads hanging at their horses' breasts or fixed on their lances, and singing their customary song of triumph. others allege that they were not Gauls but Umbrians, and that the reverse experienced was not so great. some foragers, according to their account, under Lucius Manlius Torquatus, a lieutenant, had been cut off and Scipio the propraetor sallied forth from the camp to their relief, and renewing the battle defeated the victorious Umbrians and took from them their prisoners and their booty. it is more probable that the discomfiture was incurred at the hands of a Gallic than of an Umbrian enemy, since apprehensions of a Gallic rising, which had often at other times troubled the Romans, were in that year particularly alarming. and so, not only did both consuls go out to war, having four legions and a strong body of Roman cavalry, together with a thousand picked horse from Campania —furnished for this campaign —and an army of allies and Latins that outnumbered the Romans; but two other armies were posted over against Etruria, not far from the City, one in the Faliscan district and the other in the Vatican. Gnaeus Fulvius and Lucius Postumius Megellus —propraetors both —were ordered to maintain a standing camp there. The consuls came up with the enemy —who had crossed the Apennines —in the territory round Sentinum, and went into camp about four miles off. consultations were then held amongst the enemy and they decided not to unite all their forces in one camp nor to give battle all together; to the Samnites were joined the Gauls and to the Etruscans the men of Umbria. a day was designated for the battle, and the Samnites and Gauls were appointed to make the attack; in the midst of the engagement the Etruscans and the Umbrians were to assault the Roman camp. These plans were upset by three Clusinian deserters who came over secretly in the night to Fabius, and having informed him of the enemy's designs were rewarded and sent back again, so that from time to time, as each new step should be decided on, they might find it out and report upon it. The consuls wrote to Fulvius and Postumius to march from their respective posts in the Faliscan and Vatican districts to Clusium, and lay waste the territories of the enemy with the utmost rigour. The reports of this devastation drew off the Etruscans from the region of Sentinum to the defence of their own frontiers. thereupon the consuls strove to bring about an engagement in their absence. for the space of two days they harassed the enemy, but in these two days there was nothing done worth telling: a few were slain on either side and spirits were whetted for a downright battle, but the main issue was not brought to a decision. on the third day the opposing armies descended in full strength into the field. as they stood arrayed for battle, a hind, pursued by a wolf that had chased it down from the mountains, fled across the plain and ran between the two lines. they then turned in opposite directions, the hind towards the Gauls, the wolf towards the Romans. for the wolf a passage was opened between the ranks, but the hind was killed by the Gauls. then one of the front —rankers on the Roman side called out, that way flight and slaughter have shaped their course, where you see the beast lie slain that is sacred to Diana; on this side the wolf of Mars, unhurt and sound, has reminded us of the Martian race and of our Founder. on the right wing stood the Gauls, on the left the Samnites. facing the Samnites, Quintus Fabius drew up the first and third legions, to form the Roman right, while Decius marshalled the fifth and sixth on the Roman left, against the Gauls. The second and the fourth were campaigning in Samnium under Lucius Volumnius the proconsul. at the first shock the strength put forth on both sides was so equal that if the Etruscans and the Umbrians had been present either in the battle or at the camp, in whichever quarter they had thrown their weight the Romans must have suffered a disaster. but , though so far it was a doubtful battle and Fortune had given no indication where she intended to bestow her might, the fighting was very different on the right wing from what it was on the left. The Romans with Fabius were rather defending themselves than attacking, and were trying to prolong the struggle to as late an hour in the day as possible. this was because their general was persuaded that both Samnites and Gauls fought fiercely at the outset of an engagement, but only needed to be withstood; when a struggle was prolonged, little by little the spirits of the Samnites flagged, while the physical prowess of the Gauls, who could least of all men put up with heat and labour, ebbed away, and, whereas in the early stages of their battles they were more than men, they ended with being less than women. so until the time should come when the enemy were wont to fail, he was keeping his men as fresh as he could contrive to do. but Decius, with the greater impetuosity of his youth and spirits, expended all the strength he could muster in the first encounter. and because the fighting of the infantry seemed to languish, he called on the cavalry to attack, and attaching himself to the bravest squadron of troopers besought the youthful nobles to join him in a charge. theirs , he said, would be a double share of glory, if victory should come first to the left wing and to the cavalry. twice they drove the Gallic cavalry back. The second time they were carried on for a considerable distance and soon found themselves in the midst of the companies of infantry, when they were subjected to a new and terrifying kind of assault; for, standing erect in chariots and waggons, armed enemies came rushing upon them with a mighty clattering of hoofs and wheels, frightening the horses of the Romans with the unfamiliar din. thus the victorious cavalry were scattered, as if by a panic fit of madness, and, suddenly fleeing, were overthrown, both horse and rider. from them the disorder was communicated to the standards of the legions, and many of the first line were trodden underfoot, as horses and chariots swept through their ranks. no sooner did the Gallic infantry perceive the confusion of their enemies than they charged, without leaving them a moment to recover or regain their breath. Decius cried out to them to tell him whither they were fleeing, or what hope they had in flight; he endeavoured to stop them as they broke and ran, and to call them back; then, his exertions proving powerless to stay their rout, he cried aloud on the name of his father Publius Decius. why , he asked, do I seek any longer to postpone the doom of our house? it is the privilege of our family that we should be sacrificed to avert the nation's perils. now will I offer up the legions of the enemy, to be slain with myself as victims to Earth and the Manes. on going down into the field of battle he had ordered Marcus Livius the pontifex not to leave his side. he now commanded this man to recite before him the words with which he proposed to devote himself and the enemy's legions in behalf of the army of the Roman People, the Quirites. he was then devoted with the same form of prayer and in the same habit his father, Publius Decius, had commanded to be used, when he was devoted at the Veseris, in the Latin war ; and having added to the usual prayers that he was driving before him fear and panic, blood and carnage, and the wrath of gods celestial and gods infernal, and should blight with a curse the standards, weapons and armour of the enemy, and that one and the same place should witness his own destruction and that of the Gauls and Samnites, —having uttered, I say, these imprecations upon himself and the enemy, he spurred his charger against the Gallic lines, where he saw that they were thickest, and hurling himself against the weapons of the enemy met his death. from that moment the battle seemed scarce to depend on human efforts. The Romans, after losing their general —an occurrence that is wont to inspire terror —fled no longer, but sought to redeem the field; the Gauls, and especially the press about the body of the consul, as though deprived of reason, were darting their javelins at random and without effect, while some were in a daze, and could neither fight nor run away. but in the other army the pontifex Livius, to whom Decius had handed over his lictors, bidding him act as propraetor, cried aloud that the Romans had won the victory, being quit of all danger by the consul's doom. The Gauls, he said, and the Samnites were made over to Mother Earth and to the Manes; Decius was haling after him their devoted host and calling it to join him, and with the enemy all was madness and despair. while the Romans were restoring the battle, up came Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Gaius Marcius, whom Quintus Fabius the consul had ordered to take reserves from the rearmost line and go to his colleague's support. there they learned of Decius's death, a great incentive to dare everything for the republic. and so, though the Gauls stood crowded together with their shields interlocked in front of them, and it looked no easy battle at close quarters, the lieutenants bade their men gather up the javelins that were scattered about on the ground between the hostile lines and cast them against the testudo of their enemies; and as many of these missiles stuck fast in the shields and now and then one penetrated a soldier's body, their phalanx was broken up —many falling, though unwounded, as if they had been stunned. such were the shifts of Fortune upon the Roman left. on the right, Fabius had begun, as has been said before, by holding back and delaying the decision; later, when neither the shouts of the foe, nor their assaults, nor the missiles they discharged, seemed to have any longer the same force, he ordered the praefects of the cavalry to lead their squadrons round the wing of the Samnites, that, on the signal being given, they might attack them in the flank with all possible vigour, and commanded his own men to push forward by degrees and dislodge the enemy. when he saw that they made no resistance and there could be no question of their weariness, he gathered up all the troops which he had hitherto held in reserve, and, sending in his legions, made a signal to the cavalry to charge. The Samnites could not withstand their onset and fled in confusion past the Gallic line itself, abandoning their comrades in the midst of the fighting and seeking refuge in their camp. The Gauls had formed a testudo and stood there closely packed together. then Fabius, who had learned of his colleague's death, commanded the squadron of Campanians, about five hundred lances, to withdraw from the line, and fetching a compass, assail the Gallic infantry in the rear; these the principes, or middle line, of the third legion were to follow, and, pushing in where they saw that the cavalry charge had disordered the enemy's formation, make havoc of them in their panic. he himself, after vowing a temple and the enemy's spoils to Jupiter Victor, kept on to the Samnite camp, whither the whole affrighted throng was being driven. under the very rampart, since the gates could not receive so great a multitude, those who were shut out by the crowding of their fellows attempted some resistance; there Gellius Egnatius, the commander —in —chief of the Samnites, fell; in the upshot the Samnites were driven within the rampart and after a short struggle their camp was taken and the Gauls were cut off in the rear. there were slain that day five —and —twenty thousand of the enemy, and eight thousand were captured; nor was it a bloodless victory; for of the army of Publius Decius seven thousand were slain and seventeen hundred of the army of Fabius. Fabius sent out men to search for the body of his colleague, and, piling up the spoils of the enemy, burned them in sacrifice to Jupiter the Victor. The consul's body could not be found that day, having been buried under heaps of Gauls who had been slain above him; on the day after, it was found and brought in, amidst the lamentations of the soldiers. postponing his concern for everything else, Fabius celebrated the funeral of his colleague with every show of honour and well —merited eulogiums. in Etruria too at the same time Gnaeus Fulvius the propraetor was succeeding according to his wishes, and, besides the enormous damage which his forays inflicted on the enemy, fought also a victorious battle with them. The Perusini and Clusini lost upwards of three thousand men, and some twenty military standards were captured from them. The Samnite army, as it fled through the Paelignian territory, was surrounded by the inhabitants, and of five thousand men about a thousand were slain. Great is the glory of that day on which the battle was fought in the district of Sentinum, even if a man hold fast to truth; but some writers have so exaggerated as to over —shoot the credible, and have written that in the army of the enemy —including, of course, the Umbrians and Tuscans, for these, too, were present in the battle —there were six hundred thousand infantry, forty —six thousand horse, and a thousand cars; and, to enlarge in like manner the forces of the Romans, they add to the consuls as a general Lucius Volumnius the proconsul, and his army to their legions. in the majority of histories this victory is reserved to the two consuls, and Volumnius is waging war at the same time in Samnium, where, having driven the Samnite army up Mount Tifernus, he routs and scatters them, undeterred by the difficulties of the ground. Quintus Fabius, leaving the Decian army on guard over Etruria, led down his own legions to Rome and triumphed over the Gauls, the Etruscans, and the Samnites. The soldiers followed his triumphal chariot and in their rude verses celebrated no less the glorious death of Publius Decius than the victory of Fabius, reviving by their praise of the son the memory of the father, whose death (and its service to the commonwealth) had now been matched. every soldier received from the spoils a present of eighty —two asses of bronze, with a cloak and tunic, a reward for military service in those days far from contemptible. despite these victories, there was not yet peace either with the Samnites or in Etruria; for war had broken out afresh at the instigation of the Perusini, after the consul had withdrawn his army, and the Samnites were raiding the lands of Vescini and of Formiae on the one hand, and on the other the territory of Aesernia and the region adjacent to the Volturnus river. against these the praetor Appius Claudius was dispatched with the army that Decius had commanded. Fabius dealt with the new outbreak in Etruria, where he slew four thousand five hundred of the Perusini and took one thousand seven hundred and forty prisoners, who were ransomed at three hundred and ten asses each, the rest of the booty being made over to the soldiers. The Samnite levies, of whom a part were being pursued by Appius Claudius the praetor and a part by Lucius Volumnius the pro —consul, effected a junction in the Stellate district, where they all took up a position near Caiatia. Appius and Volumnius also combined their forces. The ensuing battle was very bitterly contested, the Romans being incited by resentment against a people who had so often rebelled, while those on the other side were staking their last hopes on the conflict. The Samnites accordingly lost sixteen thousand three hundred slain and two thousand seven hundred captured; in the Roman army two thousand seven hundred fell. The year, though one of success in war, was saddened by a pestilence and vexed with prodigies. showers of earth were reported to have fallen in many places, and it was said that in the army of Appius Claudius many had been struck by lightning. on account of these signs the Sibylline books were consulted. in this year Quintus Fabius Gurges, the consul's son, assessed a fine of money against a number of married women who were convicted before the people of adultery, and with this money erected the temple of Venus which is near the Circus. there are more Samnite wars still to come, though we have dealt with them continuously throughout four books, covering a period of forty —six years, from the consulship of Marcus Valerius and Aulus Cornelius, who were the first that made war on Samnium; and —not to go over now the disasters sustained in so many years on either side and the toils endured, by which nevertheless those sturdy hearts could not be daunted —in the year just past the Samnites had fought in the territory of Sentinum, in the Pelignian country, at Tifernus, and in the Stellate plains, now by themselves, with their own levies, now in company with troops from other nations, and had been cut to pieces by four armies under four Roman generals; they had lost their nation's most distinguished commander; they beheld their comrades in war, the Etruscans, Umbrians, and Gauls, in the same plight as their own; nor could they longer maintain themselves, either by their own resources or by those of outside nations; yet would they not abstain from war; —so far were they from wearying of a liberty which they had unsuccessfully defended, preferring rather to be conquered than not to try for victory. who , pray, could grudge the time for writing or reading of these wars, when they could not exhaust the men who fought them? Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius were succeeded in the consulship by Lucius Postumius Megellus and Marcus Atilius Regulus. Samnium was assigned them both for their province, in consequence of a report that the enemy had raised three armies, with one of which they meant to return into Etruria, with another to resume the devastation of Campania, while the third was making ready for the defence of their frontiers. Postumius was detained in Rome by ill health: Atilius marched out at once, that he might put down the enemy in Samnium —for such was the senate's plan —ere they could cross the border. as though it had been prearranged, they encountered the foe in a place where they themselves were prevented from laying waste the territory of their enemies, while they prevented the Samnites from coming out into the district which had been pacified and the territory of the allies of the Roman People. on the camps being established over against each other, what the Romans would hardly have dared to do, victorious as they had so often been, the Samnites ventured —such temerity does utter hopelessness beget, —that is, to assault the enemy's camp; and although their desperate enterprise did not fully succeed, still, it was not altogether futile. there was a fog which lasted well on into the day, so dense as to shut out the light and render it impossible to see, not only beyond the rampart, but even at a little way off, when people approached each other. relying on this, as on a screen for their operations, the Samnites came up, when day had scarcely dawned, and even so was hidden behind the murk, to the Roman outpost that was negligently standing guard before the gate. falling upon them unawares they encountered neither courage nor strength sufficient to hold them in check. they charged in by the decuman gate in the rear of the camp, captured the quaestor's tent, and slew the quaestor, Lucius Opimius Pansa; whereupon a general alarm was cried. The consul, aroused by the din, commanded the two allied cohorts which happened to be nearest —those from Lucania and Suessa —to guard headquarters, and put himself at the head of the legionary maniples in the via principalis. The men fell in ere they had fairly fitted on their armour, and, knowing the enemy more by their shouting than by the sight of them, were unable to form any estimate of their numbers. at first they gave ground, uncertain how fortune stood with them, and admitted the foe into the middle of the camp; then, on the consul's asking them whether they meant to be driven without the wall and afterwards make an assault on their own camp, they gave a cheer, and, exerting themselves, first made a successful stand, and afterwards pushed forward and forced their enemies back, and, having once repulsed them, left them no time to recover their first dismay, but thrust them out of gate and rampart. not venturing then to go on and pursue them, since the dim light made them fear an ambush, they retired —content to have cleared their camp —within the palisade, having slain about three hundred of the enemy. The Roman loss, at the outpost and amongst those who were taken by surprise at the quaestor's tent, was some seven hundred and thirty. this bold and not unsuccessful venture of the Samnites raised their spirits; and not only would they not permit the Romans to go forward, but they would not even permit them to forage in their fields; the foragers fell back on the peaceful territory about Sora. The rumour of these events —more startling even than the events themselves — being brought to Rome compelled the consul Lucius Postumius, though barely recovered, to take the field. but after issuing a proclamation calling upon his soldiers to assemble at Sora, he himself, before leaving the City, dedicated a shrine to Victory, which he had built, as curule aedile, with money received from fines. having then set out to join the army, he led it from Sora to his colleague's camp in Samnium. The Samnites then retreated, having no confidence in their ability to resist two armies, and the consuls separated and marched in different directions to waste their fields and attack their cities. Postumius essayed to capture Milionia. unsuccessful in his first attempt to storm the place, he proceeded against it by regular approaches, and, having brought his pent —houses into contact with the walls, effected an entrance. thereupon , though the city was already taken, there ensued in every quarter without interruption, from the fourth hour till about the eighth, a desperate struggle, the result of which was long in doubt. at last the Romans made themselves masters of the place. The Samnites lost three thousand two hundred slain and four thousand seven hundred captured, besides other booty. from there the legions were led to Feritrum, which the townspeople, with all their possessions which they could carry or drive away, evacuated in the silence of the night, by the opposite gate. so , then, the consul was no sooner come than he advanced up to the walls with all the order and circumspection of one who looked for the same resistance that he had met with at Milionia; but afterwards, finding the city as silent as a desert and neither arms nor men upon the battlements and towers, he restrained his soldiers, who were eager to scale the abandoned walls, lest they should rush improvidently into some hidden trap. he ordered two squadrons of Latin allies to make a circuit of the fortifications and effect a thorough reconnaissance. The troopers discovered a wide —open gate, and near it in the same quarter another one, and saw in the roads leading out of them the traces of the enemy's nocturnal flight. riding up then slowly and cautiously to the gates, they saw that the city could be safely traversed by streets that led straight through it, and reported to the consul that it had been abandoned. this was evident, they said, from the unmistakable solitude and the fresh signs of flight and the objects that lay scattered about where they had been discarded in the confusion of the darkness. on receiving this account, the consul led his army round to that side of the city which the horsemen had approached. halting the troops not far from the gate, he commanded five horsemen to enter and advance for a short distance; then, if all seemed safe, three of these were to remain there together, and the other two were to report to him what they had found. when they came back and reported that they had advanced to a place from which a view could be had in all directions, and that silence and solitude reigned far and wide, the consul at once led some light —armed cohorts into the city and ordered the rest to construct a camp in the meanwhile. having entered the place and broken in the house —doors, the soldiers discovered some few decrepit or bed —ridden people and certain things abandoned as too difficult to remove. These things were seized. it was learned from the prisoners that a number of communities in the vicinity had agreed together in planning flight; their own people had left in the first watch; they believed that the Romans would find the same solitude in the other cities. The statements of the prisoners turned out to be true, and the consul took possession of the deserted towns. The other consul, Marcus Atilius, had by no means so easy a war. he was marching, at the head of his legions, towards Luceria, which he had heard was being besieged by the Samnites, when the enemy met him at the Lucerine frontier. on this occasion rage made their strength as great as his, and the battle was one of shifting fortunes and doubtful issue. yet its outcome was more discouraging to the Romans, both as having been unaccustomed to defeat, and because, as they were retiring from the field, they could see, even better than during the actual engagement, how much their side had got the worst of it in killed and wounded. The consequence of this was such a panic in the camp as, had it come over them whilst they were fighting, must have led to a signal overthrow. even so the night was an anxious one, for they thought that the Samnites would soon be attacking the camp, or else that they would have to fight their victorious enemy at break of day. The enemy had suffered less, but was not less faint —hearted. as soon as it grew light they wished to retire without giving battle. but there was only one road, and this led past their enemies, and when they had started to go that way, they looked as if marching straight to attack the camp. The consul ordered the soldiers to arm and follow him outside the rampart. to the lieutenants, tribunes, and prefects of the allies he explained what part it was needful for their several commands to play. they all assured him that, as for themselves, they were ready for anything, but that the soldiers were dispirited; all night long they had been kept awake by the groans of the wounded and the dying; had the enemy attacked the camp before daylight, their fear would have been so great as to cause them to desert their ranks; as it was, they were withheld by shame from running away, but were otherwise as good as beaten. on hearing this, the consul thought he had best go about himself among the men and talk to them. wherever he went he scolded those who were hesitating to arm themselves: Why did they linger and hold back? The enemy would come into the camp, unless they went out; and they would be fighting before their tents, if they were not willing to fight before the palisade. if men armed themselves and fought, it was a question whose the victory would be; but a man who waited for the enemy, unarmed and helpless, must put up with either death or slavery. to these objurgations and reproaches they replied that they were exhausted with the battle of the previous day and had no strength left nor blood to shed; while the enemy appeared to be in greater numbers than on the day before. meanwhile the column was approaching; and presently, as the soldiers obtained a closer view of them, they declared that the Samnites were carrying stakes and were doubtless going to fence in the camp. at this the consul lost all patience, and shouted out that it was a shameful thing to suffer such disgrace and humiliation at the hands of the most cowardly of foes. shall we even be pent up within our camp, he cried, to die shamefully of hunger, rather than, if need be, by the sword, like gallant men? Heaven prosper them! they must act as each thought worthy of himself; but the consul, Marcus Atilius —alone if there were none to follow him —would charge the enemy, and sooner fall amongst the standards of the Samnites than see a Roman camp beleaguered. The consul's words were approved by the lieutenants and the tribunes and by all the squadrons of horse and the centurions of highest rank. then the soldiers began, for very shame, to arm, and slowly emerged from the stockade; in a long and straggling column, discouraged and almost beaten, they advanced towards the enemy, who were no better off for hopefulness or courage. accordingly , no sooner had they beheld the Roman standards than a murmur ran through the column of the Samnites, from the foremost to the hindmost, that the Romans —just as they had feared —were coming out to dispute their passing; there was no way open even for flight; they must fall where they stood, or else cut down their foes and escape over their bodies. they heaped up their baggage together, and, being armed, went every man to his own place in the ranks, and the battle —line was formed. and now there was but a little space between the armies, and they halted, each waiting for the other to be first to attack and first to raise a cheer. neither side had any stomach for fighting, and they would have gone off in opposite directions, scatheless and unhurt, had they not been afraid that, if they retired, their enemies would advance. no signal was given, but though unwilling and reluctant, they began to fight, in a half —hearted manner, with an uncertain and unequal shout; nor would any man stir from his place. then the Roman consul, to put some life into the work, detached a few troops of cavalry and sent them in. of these the most part were unhorsed, and, the rest being thrown into confusion, there was a rush on the part of the Samnites to dispatch the fallen and on that of the Romans to save their comrades. this infused a little spirit into the fighting; but the Samnites had charged somewhat more briskly and in greater numbers, and the disordered cavalry, their horses becoming terrified, rode down their own supports, who began a flight that spread to the whole Roman army. and now the Samnites were on the backs of the fugitives, when the consul, galloping on before to the gate of the camp, posted there a guard of horse and commanded them, whosoever should make for the rampart, be he Roman or Samnite, to treat him as a foe. he likewise threatened the men himself, and stopped them as they made in disorder for the camp. where are you going, men? he shouted: here too you will find arms and soldiers, and while your consul lives you shall not enter the camp, except as victors. choose , therefore, whether you would sooner fight with fellow —citizens or enemies! as the consul spoke these words, the cavalry gathered round the infantry and levelling their spears bade them return into the battle. not only the consul's bravery but Fortune also helped; for the Samnites did not press their advantage, and he had time to reverse his standards and change his front from the camp to the enemy. they then began to encourage each other to resume the fight; the centurions snatched the standards from the standard —bearers and carried them forward, pointing out to their men that the enemy were few in number and were coming on in irregular and ill —formed ranks. at this juncture the consul lifted up his hands to heaven, and in a clear voice, so as to be overheard, vowed a temple to Jupiter the Stayer, if the Roman army should stay its flight, and renewing the struggle cut to pieces and overcome the legions of the Samnites. everybody , all along the line —officers, soldiers, infantry and horse —made an effort to restore the day. it even seemed that the divine power of the gods was concerned for the renown of Rome, so easily was the struggle turned and the enemy repulsed from the camp, and in a short time driven back to the place where the fighting had begun. there they were held up by the heap of bundles which they had piled together, and, to keep their effects from being rifled, they formed around them a circle of armed men. then the foot —soldiers fell hotly upon them in the front, and the cavalry rode round and assailed them in the rear; and so between the two they were slaughtered or made prisoners. The number of the captives was seven thousand eight hundred, who were all stripped and sent under the yoke: the slain were reported at four thousand eight hundred. even the Romans had no joy of their victory, for the consul found, on reckoning up the two days' casualties, that he had lost seven thousand eight hundred men. whilst these affairs were taking place in Apulia, the Samnites with a second army attempted to seize Interamna, a Roman colony on the Latin Way, but could not take it; having pillaged the farms, they were driving off a miscellaneous booty of men and beasts, together with the captured settlers, when they encountered the victorious consul returning from Luceria, and not only lost their spoils, but, marching without order in a long and encumbered column, were massacred themselves. The consul made proclamation summoning the owners back to Interamna to identify and receive again their property, and, leaving there his army, went to Rome for the purpose of conducting the elections. when he sought to obtain a triumph, the honour was denied him, on the ground that he had lost so many thousand men, and because he had sent the prisoners under the yoke, though they had made no terms. The other consul, Postumius, in default of enemies in Samnium, transferred his army to Etruria. there he first devastated the lands of the Volsinienses, and then, when they came out to defend their territory, defeated them at no great distance from their own walls. two thousand eight hundred Etruscans were slain; the rest were saved by their nearness to the city. The army was then led into the territory of Rusellae. there not only were the fields laid waste, but the town was captured too. more than two thousand were made prisoners and somewhat fewer were killed in the fighting about the walls. yet a peace was made that year in Etruria that was more glorious and of more importance than the fighting had been. three very powerful cities, the chief places in that country, namely Volsinii, Perusia, and Arretium, made overtures of peace, and arranged with the consul, in return for clothing and corn for his troops, to be permitted to send ambassadors to Rome, who obtained a truce for forty years. a fine of five hundred thousand asses, to be paid at once, was assessed upon each state. in view of these achievements, the consul asked the senate for a triumph, more as a matter of custom than with any hope of obtaining his request. when he perceived that some were for denying him on the ground of his tardiness in leaving the City, and others because he had gone over without the authorization of the senate from Samnium into Etruria —a part of these critics being his personal enemies, and the rest friends of his colleague, who were minded to console the latter for his rebuff by denying a triumph to Postumius also —seeing, I say, how matters stood, he spoke as follows: i shall not be so mindful, Conscript Fathers, of your dignity as to forget that I am consul. in virtue of the same authority with which I conducted my wars, I intend, now that those wars are happily concluded with the subjugation of Samnium and Etruria and the winning of victory and peace, to celebrate a triumph. so saying he left the senate. a dispute then arose amongst the tribunes of the plebs; some declared that they would interpose their veto to prevent this unprecedented kind of triumph, others that they would support his claims against the opposition of their colleagues. The question was discussed in an assembly and the consul was asked to speak. he reminded them that Marcus Horatius and Lucius Valerius, the consuls, and lately Gaius Marcius Rutulus, father of him who was then censor, had triumphed not by authorization of the senate but by command of the people; and he added that he, too, would have referred the question to the people, had he not known that there were tribunes who were owned by the nobles and would obstruct the law ; but the wishes and approbation of the people when they were of one accord had all the binding force with him —and ever would have of any orders whatsoever. and so, on the following day, with the support of three tribunes of the plebs, against the opposition of seven who forbade the proceedings and a unanimous senate, Postumius triumphed, with the people thronging in attendance. of this year, too, the tradition is uncertain. Postumius , if we follow Claudius, after capturing several cities in Samnium, was defeated in Apulia and put to flight, and, being wounded himself, was forced to take refuge with a few followers in Luceria; while Atilius campaigned in Etruria and obtained a triumph. Fabius writes that both consuls fought in Samnium and at Luceria; that the army was led over into Etruria —by which consul he does not state —and that at Luceria both sides suffered heavy losses; in the course of the battle a temple was vowed to Jupiter Stator, as Romulus had vowed one before; but only the fanum, or place set apart for the temple, had been consecrated; this year, however, their scruples demanded that the senate should order the erection of the building, since the state had now been obligated for the second time by the same vow. The following year brought with it a consul, Lucius Papirius Cursor, remarkable both for his father's glory and for his own, and a mighty war, with a victory such as no one, save Lucius Papirius, the consul's father, had until that day obtained over the Samnites. and it happened that the enemy had made their preparations for the war with the same earnestness and pomp and all the magnificence of splendid arms, and had likewise invoked the assistance of the gods, initiating, as it were, their soldiers, in accordance with a certain antique form of oath. but first they held a levy throughout Samnium under this new ordinance, that whosoever of military age did not report in response to the proclamation of the generals, or departed without their orders, should forfeit his life to Jupiter. which done, they appointed all the army to meet at Aquilonia, where some forty thousand soldiers, the strength of Samnium, came together. there , at about the middle of the camp, they had enclosed an area, extending approximately two hundred feet in all directions, with wicker hurdles, and roofed it over with linen. in this place they offered sacrifice in accordance with directions read from an old linen roll. The celebrant was one Ovius Paccius, an aged man, who claimed to derive this ceremony from an ancient ritual of the Samnites which the forefathers of those present had formerly employed when they had gone secretly about to get Capua away from the Etruscans. on the conclusion of the sacrifice, the general by his apparitor commanded to be summoned all those of the highest degree in birth and deeds of arms; and one by one they were introduced. besides other ceremonial preparations, such as might avail to strike the mind with religious awe, there was a place all enclosed, with altars in the midst and slaughtered victims lying about, and round them a guard of centurions with drawn swords. The man was brought up to the altar, more like a victim than a partaker in the rite, and was sworn not to divulge what he should there see or hear. they then compelled him to take an oath in accordance with a certain dreadful form of words, whereby he invoked a curse upon his head, his household, and his family, if he went not into battle where his generals led the way, or if he either fled from the line himself or saw any other fleeing and did not instantly cut him down. some there were at first who refused to take this oath; these were beheaded before the altars, where they lay amongst the slaughtered victims —a warning to the rest not to refuse. when the leading Samnites had been bound by this imprecation, the general named ten of them and bade them choose every man another, and so to proceed until they had brought their number up to sixteen thousand. These were named the Linen Legion, from the roof of the enclosure wherein the nobles had been sworn, and were given splendid arms and crested helmets, to distinguish them from the rest. a little over twenty thousand men composed another corps, which neither in physical appearance nor in martial renown nor in equipment was inferior to the Linen Legion. this was the size of the army, comprising their effective forces, which encamped at Aquilonia. The consuls set out from the City, Spurius Carvilius, to whom had been assigned the veteran legions which Marcus Atilius the consul of the previous year had left in the territory of Interamna, being the first to take the field. proceeding with these forces into Samnium, while the enemy, busy with their superstitious rites, were holding secret councils, he carried the Samnite town of Amiternum by assault. there about two thousand eight hundred men were slain and four thousand two hundred and seventy made prisoners. Papirius , having levied a new army —for so it had been decreed —took by storm the city of Duronia, making fewer prisoners than his colleague but killing many more. in each place a rich booty was obtained. afterwards , the consuls having ranged over Samnium and laid waste especially the district of Atina, Carvilius appeared before Cominium and Papirius before Aquilonia, where the main power of the Samnites lay encamped. there for some days there was neither cessation from hostilities nor downright fighting, but the time was spent in provoking the enemy when they were quiet and retreating when they offered resistance —in a word, in feinting rather than attacking. whatever was undertaken or given over, the result of every skirmish, no matter how trivial it might be, was reported at the other camp, which was twenty miles away. The other colleague, Carvilius, though absent, shared in every plan of operations, and was more intent upon Aquilonia, as the crisis became more imminent, than upon Cominium, to which he was laying siege. Lucius Papirius, being now prepared at all points for the battle, sent word to his colleague that he purposed, if the auspices permitted, to engage the enemy on the following day; it was needful, he said, that Carvilius should also direct an assault, as violent as possible, on Cominium, that no relaxation of the pressure there might allow of the Samnites' sending relief to Aquilonia. The messenger had a day for the journey. returning in the night, he reported that Carvilius approved the measures taken by his colleague. Papirius had no sooner sent off the courier than he addressed his troops, and said many things of war in general and much regarding the present equipment of the enemy, more vain and showy than effective. for crests, said he, dealt no wounds, and painted and gilded shields would let the Roman javelin through, and their battle —array, resplendent in white tunics, would be stained with blood when sword met sword. long ago a gilt and silvern Samnite army had been utterly destroyed by his father, and the spoils had done their conquerors more credit than the arms had brought to their bearers. it had perhaps been granted to his name and family to be sent forth as generals against the mightiest efforts of the Samnites, and to win such trophies as should strikingly adorn even public places. The immortal gods, he said, were ready to intervene in behalf of treaties so often sought and so often broken. if it were possible in any way to surmise the feelings of the gods, they had never been more enraged with any army than with this one, which with horrid rites and stained with the commingled blood of men and beasts, doubly devoted to the wrath of Heaven, as it trembled now at the gods that attested the treaties it had made with the Romans, and now at the curses called down when it undertook to break those treaties, had sworn unwillingly, hated its oath, and dreaded at one and the same moment its gods, its fellow —citizens, and its enemies. These fears had been made known to Papirius by deserters; and when he had described them to his soldiers, incensed as they already were of themselves, their hopes both of gods and men ran high, and they called out in unison demanding battle; they were vexed at the postponement of the struggle until the morrow, and to wait for a day and night disgusted them. in the third watch of the night, having now received his colleague's answer, Papirius rose silently and sent the keeper of the chickens to take the auspices. there was no class of men in camp who were not affected by the lust of battle; both high and low felt the same eagerness; the general could see the ardour of the men, the men that of their general. this universal zeal spread even to those who took the auspices, for when the chickens refused to feed, their keeper dared to falsify the presage and reported that the corn danced on the ground as it fell from their greedy beaks. The consul joyfully announced that the omens were most favourable, and that the gods would be with them as they fought. so saying, he displayed the signal for a battle. it chanced, as he was already moving out to the field, that a deserter came up with the information that twenty cohorts of the Samnites —of about four hundred each —had set out for Cominium. that his colleague might not be ignorant of this, he instantly dispatched a messenger to him, and ordered his own troops to advance in double time. he had assigned supports to take their posts at favourable points and officers to command them; the right wing he had given to Lucius Volumnius, the left to Lucius Scipio; to lead the cavalry he appointed the other lieutenants, Gaius Caedicius and Titus Trebonius. Spurius Nautius he directed to remove the pack —saddles from the mules, and with three cohorts of auxiliaries to make a hasty detour to a hill which lay in full view, and thence to show himself, in the heat of the engagement, raising as much dust as possible. while the general was thus employed, a dispute which broke out amongst the keepers of the chickens about the auspices for that day was overheard by some Roman cavalrymen, who, deeming it no negligible matter, reported to Spurius Papirius, the consul's nephew, that the auspices were being called in question. The young man had been born before the learning that makes light of the gods, and having inquired into the affair, that he might not be the bearer of an uncertain rumour, acquainted the consul with it. The consul replied: for yourself, I commend your conduct and your diligence; but he who takes the auspices, if he reports aught that is false, draws down the wrath of Heaven upon himself; as for me, I was told that the corn had danced; it is an excellent omen for the Roman People and the army. he then ordered the centurions to station the keepers of the chickens in the front rank. The Samnites, too, advanced their standards, which were followed by the battle —line in gorgeous armour —a splendid spectacle, though composed of enemies. before the first shout and the clash of arms, a random javelin struck the chicken —keeper and he fell before the standards. The consul, on being told of this, exclaimed, The gods are present in the battle; the guilty wretch has paid the penalty! in front of the consul a raven, just as he spoke, uttered a clear cry, and Papirius, rejoiced with the augury, and declaring that never had the gods been more instant to intervene in human affairs, bade sound the trumpets and give a cheer. The battle was fought fiercely, but with far from equal spirit. The Romans were filled with rage and hope and ardour for the combat, and, thirsting for their enemies' blood, rushed into the engagement. as for the Samnites, in most cases it was necessity and the fear of Heaven that compelled them, however reluctant, rather to resist than to attack. nor would they have held out against the first battle —cry and onset of the Romans, accustomed, as they had now been for some years, to being beaten, had not another yet more powerful fear benumbed their hearts and prevented them from fleeing. for their eyes beheld all that array of the secret rite, and the armed priests, and the mingled slaughter of men and beasts, and the altars spattered with the blood of victims —and with that other blood —and they could hear the baleful execrations and that dire oath, framed to invoke perdition on their families and on their stock. These were the chains that stayed them from flight, and they feared their countrymen more than they feared their foes. on came the Romans from either wing and from the centre, and cut them down as they stood there dazed by the dread of gods and men. they resisted, but sluggishly, like men whom cowardice restrained from running. The carnage had now reached almost to the standards, when a cloud of dust appeared on their flank, as though raised by the oncoming of a mighty host. it was Spurius Nautius —some say Octavius Maecius —with the auxiliary cohorts; they made more dust than their numbers warranted, for the grooms who rode the mules were dragging leafy branches along the ground. arms and standards were made out in the van through the murky air, and behind them another denser cloud of dust seemed to show that cavalry were closing the rear, and deceived not only the Samnites, but the Romans as well. this mistake the consul confirmed by calling out in the front ranks, so loud that his voice carried even to the enemy, that Cominium was taken, and that his victorious colleague was at hand; let them therefore strive to conquer before the other army won the glory. he was on horseback as he shouted these words. he then commanded the tribunes and centurions to open a path for the cavalry, having previously admonished Trebonius and Caedicius that when they saw him holding his lance aloft and shaking it, they should make their horsemen run full tilt against the enemy. everything fell out according to his wishes, as happens when plans are laid beforehand. lanes were opened up between the files; the cavalry dashed out, and with levelled spears assailed the midst of the enemy's array, and broke his ranks wherever they charged. hard after them came Volumnius and Scipio, and made havoc of the disordered Samnites. then at last, overwhelmed by gods and men, the Linen Cohorts were put to rout; the sworn and the unsworn fled alike, and knew no fear but fear of the enemy. such portion of the foot as survived the battle was driven to the camp or to Aquilonium; the nobles and cavalry escaped to Bovianum. horse were pursued by horse, infantry by infantry. The Roman wings advanced on different objectives, the right on the Samnite camp, the left on their city. Volumnius succeeded somewhat sooner in capturing the camp. from the city Scipio met with a more violent resistance —not that vanquished men are more courageous, but walls avail better to keep out armed enemies than does a rampart; and from thence they drove their assailants off with stones. Scipio , fearing that it would be a tedious task to reduce a fortified city, unless the affair were concluded during the first panic of his enemies and before they should collect their spirits, asked his soldiers whether they could be content that the other wing should have taken the camp, while they, though victors, were repulsed from the city gates. when they all together cried out no ! he himself led the way to the gate, shield over head, and the others, following him, formed a testudo, burst into the city, and hurling down the defenders seized the walls adjoining the gate; they durst not venture into the middle of the city, because their numbers were so small. of these events the consul was at first unaware, and was intent upon the withdrawal of his army; for the sun was now rapidly sinking in the west, and night coming on apace made all things dangerous and suspect, even to the victors. as he rode farther forward, he saw on his right hand that the camp was taken, while from the city, on his left, a confused uproar was rising in which the shouts of the combatants were mingled with screams of terror; and it so happened that at that very moment the struggle at the gate was in progress. then , riding nearer and perceiving that his men were on the walls and that his course was already marked out for him, since the adventurousness of a few men had provided him with a great opportunity, he gave orders that the troops withdrawn should be called back and advance against the city. they entered it on the nearest side, and, as night was approaching, bivouacked; in the night the town was abandoned by the enemy. there were slain that day of the Samnites at Aquilonia twenty thousand three hundred and forty, and three thousand eight hundred and seventy were captured, with ninety —seven military standards. tradition also avers that hardly had there ever been a general more joyous in combat, whether owing to his native temper or to his confidence that he should gain the victory. it resulted from the same stoutness of heart that he was not to be recalled from giving battle by the dispute about the omen, and that in the hour of crisis, when it was customary to vow temples to the immortal gods, he made a vow to Jupiter the Victor that if he routed the legions of the enemy he would present him with a thimbleful of mead before he drank strong wine himself. this vow was pleasing to the gods and they gave a good tum to the auspices. The same good fortune attended the other consul at Cominium. with the dawn he led up all his forces under the walls and invested the city, posting strong supports to prevent any sally from the gates. he was in the act of giving the signal when the courier from his colleague came up with the alarming news about the twenty cohorts, thus delaying the assault and obliging him to recall a part of his troops who were already drawn up and eager to attack. he commanded Decimus Brutus Scaeva, his lieutenant, to proceed with the first legion, ten auxiliary cohorts, and the cavalry, to confront the new forces of the enemy: wherever he fell in with them, he was to block their path and delay them, giving battle if the situation happened to require it; but on no account must these troops be suffered to approach Cominium. he himself gave orders to bring up scaling —ladders from every side against the walls of the city, and under a mantlet of shields approached the gates. thus at the same instant the gates were burst open and the walls assaulted. The Samnites, although, until they beheld armed men upon their walls, they had pluck enough to keep their enemies from coming near the city, yet when the combat was no longer carried on with missiles at long range, but was fought hand —to —hand, and when those who had mounted with difficulty from the. plain on to the walls —overcoming the inequality of position, which was what they had chiefly dreaded —were making easy work of it on the level ground with an enemy that was no match for them, they forsook their towers and battlements, and, huddled all together in the market —place, made there one last brief attempt to redeem the day. then , throwing down their arms, some eleven thousand four hundred men cast themselves on the mercy of the consul; about four thousand eight hundred had been slain. such were the operations at Cominium and at Aquilonia. in the place between, where a third battle had been looked for, the enemy were not encountered. recalled by their leaders when seven miles from Cominium, they had not been present at either engagement. as the evening shadows began to fall, when they had already come within sight of the camp and of Aquilonia, they had been halted by the shouts, which were equally loud from both directions. but afterwards, from the direction of the camp, which had been fired by the Romans, the flames broke out so extensively, with their warning of an unmistakable disaster, as to keep them from advancing further, and throwing themselves on the ground at random, just where they were, without stopping to remove their arms, they passed the whole weary night in waiting for the dawn, which at the same time they dreaded. as the day broke, they were hesitating which way to march, when the Roman cavalry, who had pursued the Samnites when they left their town in the night, caught sight of the army, lying there without breastworks or outpost, and instantly routed them. their mass had been seen, too, from the walls of Aquilonia, and presently the legionary cohorts were likewise in pursuit of them. but the infantry could not overtake the fugitives, though the cavalry killed some two hundred and eighty of the rear —guard, who in their fright abandoned a quantity of arms and eighteen military standards. The rest of the column made good its escape, as safely as could be in so great a confusion, to Bovianum. The rejoicing in each of the Roman armies was enhanced by the good fortune the other had enjoyed. each consul, with the approval of his fellow, made over the town he had captured to be sacked by the soldiers, and when the houses had been emptied, gave it to the flames. so on the same day Aquilonia and Cominium were destroyed by fire, and the consuls, amid the mutual exultations and good wishes of their legions and themselves, united their camps. in the full sight of both armies Carvilius commended his men as each had merited, and presented them with decorations; and Papirius, who had fought an engagement of many sorts —in line of battle, round the camp, and about the city —awarded armlets and wreaths of gold to Spurius Nautius and to his nephew Spurius Papirius, and to four centurions and a maniple of hastati —to Nautius for the charge by which, as though with a huge force, he had dismayed the enemy; to the young Papirius for his valiant service with the cavalry, both in the battle and in the night when he harassed the flight of the Samnites after their secret departure from Aquilonia; to the centurions and soldiers because they had been the first to capture the gate and wall of Aquilonia. all the horsemen, in recognition of their distinguished conduct in many places, he decorated with little silver horns and silver armlets. a council of war was then held, and the question was debated whether the time were now come for withdrawing both armies, or at any rate one of the two, from Samnium. but they decided that the greater the damage they had inflicted on the Samnites, the more sharply and pertinaciously ought they to carry out such measures as remained, and to persist until they could hand over to the consuls who succeeded them a Samnium utterly subdued. since there was no longer any hostile army that seemed likely to engage in a pitched battle with them, one form of war alone remained, the storming of cities; by destroying which they would be able to enrich their troops with booty and crush their enemies, who would fight for their altars and their hearths. accordingly , after dispatching letters to the senate and the Roman People recounting their achievements, the consuls parted company, Papirius marching to attack Saepinum, and Carvilius Velia. The consuls' letters were listened to with vast exultation both in Senate —house and in assembly, and the general rejoicing found expression in the eagerness with which a thanksgiving of four days' duration was observed by individual citizens. for the Roman People, moreover, it was not only a great but also a very seasonable victory, since it happened that they got news at about the same time that the Etruscans had commenced hostilities again. men wondered how they could have withstood Etruria if anything had gone wrong in Samnium; for the Samnite coalition and the diversion of both consuls and all Rome's military strength to Samnium had encouraged these other enemies to revolt while the Roman People had their hands full. deputations from the allies, introduced into the senate by Marcus Atilius the praetor, complained that their lands were being burnt and devastated by the neighbouring Etruscans, because they were not willing to forsake the Roman People, and besought the Conscript Fathers to defend them against the violence and injuries of their common foes. answer was made to the deputations that the senate would see to it that the allies should not regret their loyalty: the Etruscans would shortly meet with the same fortune as the Samnites, Nevertheless, the Etruscan business would have dragged but for intelligence that the Faliscans likewise, who had for many years been friendly, were now united in arms with the Etruscans. The proximity of this people sharpened the anxiety of the Fathers, and they decreed that fetials should be dispatched to demand redress. on the refusal of this demand, war was declared against the Faliscans, by command of the people, on the authorization of the senate, and the consuls were bidden to cast lots to determine which should cross over with his army from Samnium into Etruria. Carvilius had already taken Velia and Palumbinum and Herculaneum from the Samnites —Velia in a few days' time, and Palumbinum the same day that he approached its walls. at Herculaneum he even fought a regular engagement, of which the issue was for some time in doubt and his losses heavier than the enemy's; he then pitched his camp and shut the enemy up within his walls, and finally stormed the town and captured it. in these three places ten thousand or so of the enemy were taken or put to death, with the prisoners very slightly outnumbering the slain. when the consuls cast lots for their commands, Etruria fell to Carvilius, thus answering the prayers of his soldiers, who could endure no longer the rigorous cold in Samnium. Papirius , before Saepinum, had a larger body of the enemy still to reckon with. his troops were many times engaged in regular battle, many times when marching, and many times about the city itself, in resisting the sorties of the enemy. it was not a siege, but war upon even terms; for the Samnites protected their walls with arms and men full as much as the walls protected them. at length, fighting hard, he forced the enemy to submit to a regular blockade, and by assault and siege —works captured the place. The exasperation of the Romans made the massacre more bloody when the city fell. seven thousand four hundred were slain and fewer than three thousand were made prisoners. The booty, which was very great, since the Samnites had gathered their wealth together in a few cities, was handed over to the soldiers. The ground was now covered with snow and men could no longer live out of doors. The consul therefore withdrew his army from Samnium. on his coming to Rome he was unanimously voted a triumph. this he celebrated, while still holding office, in a style which, for the circumstances of those days, was magnificent. foot -soldiers and horsemen marched or rode past the crowds adorned with their decorations; many civic crowns were seen, and many that had been won at the escalade of a rampart or a city wall. men inspected the spoils that he had taken from the Samnites, and compared them for splendour and beauty with those his father had won, which were familiar to them from being often used in the decoration of public places. a number of noble captives, famous for their own and their fathers' deeds, were led in the procession. of heavy bronze there were carried past two million five hundred and thirty —three thousand pounds. this bronze had been collected, it was said, from the sale of captives. of silver which had been taken from the cities there were eighteen hundred and thirty pounds. all the bronze and silver was placed in the Treasury, none of the booty being given to the soldiers. The ill —feeling which this gave rise to in the plebs was increased by the gathering of a war —tax to pay the troops, since, if the consul had forgone the glory of depositing the captured money in the Treasury, the booty would then have afforded the soldiers a donative, as well as providing for their pay. Papirius dedicated the temple of Quirinus. i find no ancient authority who states that it was vowed in the hour of conflict, nor indeed could it possibly have been completed in so short a time; his father had vowed it when dictator, and the son as consul dedicated it, adorning it with the spoils of the enemy. of these there was such a great quantity that not only were the temple and the Forum bedecked with them, but they were distributed also amongst the allies and the neighbouring colonies for the decoration of their temples and public squares. after triumphing, Papirius led his army into the country of the Vescini —a district infested by the Samnites —to pass the winter. in Etruria meanwhile the consul Carvilius, having made his preparations to begin with an attack on Troilum, agreed with four hundred and seventy of the wealthiest inhabitants for a large sum of money to let them go; the rest of the population and the town itself he took by assault. he then stormed five fortresses situated in positions of great strength. there he slew two thousand four hundred of the enemy, making fewer than two thousand prisoners. he also granted a year's truce to the Faliscans —who came to him seeking peace —having stipulated for a hundred thousand of heavy bronze and the year's pay for his soldiers. after these exploits he departed to enjoy his triumph, which, though less distinguished than his colleague's had been for success against the Samnites, was a match for it when the Etruscan war was counted in. - Of heavy bronze he lodged in the Treasury three hundred and eighty thousand pounds; with what remained he contracted for a temple to Fors Fortuna to be erected from the general's spoils, near the temple of that goddess dedicated by King Servius Tullius, while to the soldiers he apportioned from the rest of the booty one hundred and two asses each, and as much again to the centurions and horsemen. These allowances were all the more welcome because of the parsimony of his colleague. The consul's popularity served to shield his lieutenant Lucius Postumius from the people. he had been indicted by Marcus Scantius, a plebeian tribune, but had escaped trial before the people —so the story ran —through his appointment to the lieutenancy; so that it was easier to threaten him than to carry home the accusation. The year having now run its course, new tribunes of the plebs came in, but owing to a flaw in their election they were themselves supplanted by others, five days later. The lustrum was closed that year by the censors Publius Cornelius Arvina and Gaius Marcius Rutulus; there were enrolled two hundred and sixty —two thousand three hundred and twenty —one. The censors were the twenty —sixth pair from the first censors; the lustrum was the nineteenth. this year for the first time those who had been presented with crowns because of gallant behaviour in the war wore them at the Roman games, and palms were then for the first time conferred upon the victors, in accordance with a custom borrowed from the Greeks. The same year the curule aediles who gave those games procured the conviction of a number of graziers, and with their fines paved the road from the temple of Mars as far as Bovillae. The consular comitia were held by Lucius Papirius, who declared the election of Quintus Fabius Gurges, the son of Maximus, and Decimus Junius Brutus Scaeva. Papirius himself was chosen praetor. The year had been one of many blessings, which yet were hardly a consolation for one misfortune —a pestilence which ravaged both city and countryside. its devastation was now grown portentous, and the Books were consulted to discover what end or what remedy the gods proposed for this misfortune. it was discovered in the Books that Aesculapius must be summoned to Rome from Epidaurus; but nothing could be done about it that year, because the consuls were occupied with the war, except that for one day a supplication to that god was held.

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0914.phi00110.perseus-eng1. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.