[9,0] BOOK IX.

[9,1] The following year, a dispute having arisen between the populace and the senate 
concerning the men who were to be elected consuls, the senators demanding that 
both men promoted to that magistracy should be of the aristocratic party and the 
populace demanding that they be chosen from among such as were agreeable to 
them, after an obstinate struggle they finally convinced each other that a consul 
should be chosen from each party. Thus Caeso Fabius, who had accused Cassius of 
aiming at a tyranny, was elected consul, for the second time, on the part of the senate, 
and Spurius Furius on the part of the populace, in the seventy-fifth Olympiad, 
Calliades being archon at Athens, at the time when Xerxes made his expedition 
against Greece. They had no sooner taken office than ambassadors of the (p289) Latins 
came to the senate asking them to send to them one of the consuls with an army to 
put a check to the insolence of the Aequians, and at the same time word was brought 
that all Tyrrhenia was aroused and would soon go to war. For that nation had been 
convened in a general assembly and at the urgent solicitation of the Veientes for aid 
in their war against the Romans had passed a decree that any of the Tyrrhenians who 
so desired might take part in the campaign; and it was a sufficiently strong body of 
men that voluntarily aided the Veientes in the war. Upon learning of this the 
authorities in Rome resolved to raise armies and also that both consuls should take 
the field, one to make war on the Aequians and to aid the Latins, and the other to 
march with his forces against Tyrrhenia. All this was opposed by Spurius Icilius, 
one of the tribunes, who, assembling the populace every day, demanded of the senate 
the performance of its promises relating to the allotment of land and said that he 
would allow none of their decrees, whether they concerned military or civil affairs, to 
take effect unless they should first appoint the decemvir so fix the boundaries of the 
public land and divide it among the people as they had promised. When the senate 
was at a loss and did not know what to do, Appius Claudius suggested that they 
should consider how the other tribunes might be brought to dissent from Icilius, 
pointing out that there is no other method of putting an end to the power of a tribune 
who opposes and obstructs the decrees of the (p291) senate, since his person is sacred 
and this authority of his legal, than for another of the men of equal rank and 
possessing the same power to oppose him and to order to be done what the other tries 
to obstruct. And he advised all succeeding consuls to do this and to consider how 
they might always have some of the tribunes well disposed and friendly to them, 
saying that only method of destroying the power of the college was to sow dissension 
among its members. 

[9,2] When Appius had expressed this opinion. both the consuls and the more 
influential of the others, believing his advice to be sound, courted the other four 
tribunes so effectually as to make them well disposed toward the senate. These for a 
time endeavoured by argument to persuade Icilius to desist from his course with 
respect to the allotment of land till the wars should come to an end. But when he kept 
opposing them and swore that he would continue to do so, and had the assurance to 
make a rather insolent remark in the presence of the populace to the effect that he 
had rather see the Tyrrhenians and their other enemies masters of the city than leave 
unpunished those who were occupying public land, they thought they had got an 
excellent opportunity for opposing so great insolence both by their words and by their 
acts, and since even the populace showed displeasure at his remark, they said they 
interposed their veto; and they openly pursued such measures as were agreeable to 
both the senate and the consuls. Thus Icilius being deserted (p293) by his colleagues, no 
longer had any authority. After this the army was raised and everything that was 
necessary for the war was supplied, partly from public and partly from private 
sources, with all possible alacrity; and the consuls, having drawn lots for the armies, 
set out in haste, Spurius Furius marching against the cities of the Aequians and Caeso 
Fabius against the Tyrrhenians. In the case of Spurius everything succeeded 
according to his wish, the enemy not daring to come to an engagement, so that in this 
expedition he had the opportunity of taking much booty in both money and slaves. 
For he overran almost all the territory that the enemy possessed, carrying and driving 
off everything, and he gave all the spoils to the soldiers. Though he had been 
regarded even before this time as a friend of the people, he gained the favour of the 
multitude still more by his conduct in this command; and when the season for 
military operations was over, he brought his army home intact and unscathed, and 
made the fatherland rich with the money he had taken. 

[9,3] Caeso Fabius, the other consul, though as a general his performance was second to 
none, was nevertheless deprived of the praise that his achievements deserved, not 
through any fault of his own, but because he did not enjoy the goodwill of the 
plebeians from the time when he had denounced and put to death the consul Cassius 
for aiming at a tyranny. For they never showed any alacrity either in those matters 
in which men under authority ought to yield a prompt obedience to the orders of their 
general, or when they should through eagerness and a sense of duty seize positions by 
force, or when it was necessary (p295) to occupy advantageous positions without the 
knowledge of the enemy, or in anything else from which the general would derive any 
honour and good repute. Most of their conduct, to be sure, by which they were 
continually insulting their general was neither very troublesome to him nor the 
occasion of any great harm to the commonwealth; but their final action brought no 
small danger and great disgrace to both. For when the two armies had arrayed 
themselves in battle order in the space between the hills on which their camps were 
placed, using all the forces on either side, and the Romans had performed many 
gallant deeds and forced the enemy to begin flight, they neither pursued them as they 
retreated, notwithstanding the repeated exhortations of the general, nor were they 
willing to remain and think the enemy's camp by siege; on the contrary, they left a 
glorious action unfinished and returned to their own camp. And when some of the 
soldiers attempted to salute the consul as imperator, all the rest joined in a loud 
outcry, reproaching and taunting their commander with the loss of many of their 
brave comrades through his want of ability to command; and after many other 
insulting and indignant remarks they demanded that he break camp and lead them 
back to Rome, pretending that they would be unable, if the enemy attacked them, to 
sustain a second battle. And they neither gave heed when their commander 
endeavoured to show them the error of their course, nor were moved by his entreaties 
when he turned to lamentations and supplications, nor were they alarmed by the 
violence of his threats when he made (p297) use of these too; but they continued 
exasperated in the face of all these appeals. Indeed, some of them were possessed 
with such a spirit of disobedience and such contempt for their general that they rose 
up about midnight and without orders from anyone proceeded to strike their tents, 
take up their arms, and carry off their wounded. 

[9,4] When the general was informed of this, he was forced to give the command for all 
to depart, so great was his fear of their disobedience and audacity. And the soldiers 
retired with as great precipitation as if they were saving themselves from a rout, and 
reached the city about daybreak. The guards upon the walls, not knowing that it was 
an army of friends, began to arm themselves and call out to one another, while all the 
rest of the city was full of confusion and turmoil, as if some great disaster had 
occurred; and the guards did not open the gates to them till it was broad day and they 
could distinguish their own army. Thus, in addition to the ignominy they incurred in 
deserting their camp, they also exposed themselves to great danger in returning in the 
dark through the enemy's country, without observing any order. Certainly, if the 
Tyrrhenians had learned of it and had followed close on their heels as they departed, 
nothing could have prevented the army from being utterly destroyed. The motive of 
this unaccountable withdrawal or flight was, as I have said, the hatred of the populace 
against the general and the begrudging of any honour to him, lest he should be 
granted a triumph and so acquire the greatest glory. The next day the Tyrrhenians, 
having learned of the withdrawal of the Romans, stripped their dead, took (p299) up 
and carried off their wounded, and plundered all the stores they had left in their 
camp, which were very abundant as having been prepared for a long war; then, like 
conquerors, they laid waste the adjacent territory of the enemy, after which they 
returned home with their army. 

[9,5] The succeeding consuls, Gnaeus Manlius and Marcus Fabius (the latter chosen for 
the second time), in pursuance of a decree of the senate ordering them to march 
against the Veientes with as large an army as they could raise, appointed a day for 
levying the troops. When Tiberius Pontificius, one of the tribunes, opposed them by 
forbidding the levy and called upon them to carry out the decree relating to the 
allotment of land, they courted some of his colleagues, as their predecessors had 
done, and thus divided the college of tribunes, after which they proceeded to carry 
out the will of the senate with full liberty. The levy being completed in a few days, 
the consuls took the field against the enemy, each of them having with him two 
legions of Romans raised in the city itself a force no less numerous sent by their 
colonies and subjects. Indeed, there came to them from the Latin and the Hernican 
nations double the number of auxiliaries they had called for; they did not, however, 
make use of this entire force, by stating that they were very grateful for their zeal, 
they dismissed one half of the army that had been sent. They also drew up before 
the city a third army, (p301) consisting of two legions of the younger men, to serve as a 
garrison for the country in case any other hostile force should unexpectedly make its 
appearance; the men who were above the military age but still had strength sufficient 
to bear arms they left in the city to guard the citadels and the walls. 
When the consuls had led their forces close to the city of Veii, they encamped on two 
hills not far apart. The enemy's army, which was both large and valiant, had also 
taken the field and lay encamped before the city. For the most influential men from 
all Tyrrhenia had joined them with their dependents, with the result that the 
Tyrrhenians' army was not a little larger than that of the Romans. When the consuls 
saw the numbers of the enemy and the lustre of their arms, great fear came upon 
them lest, with their own forces rent by faction, they might not be able to prevail 
when arrayed against the harmonious forces of the enemy; and they determined to 
fortify their camps and to prolong the war in the hope that the boldness of the enemy, 
encouraged by an ill-advised contempt for them, might afford them some opportunity 
of acting with advantage. After this there were continual skirmishes and brief clashes 
of the light-armed troops, but no important or signal action. 


[9,6] The Tyrrhenians, being irked by the prolongation of the war, taunted the Romans 
with cowardice because they would not come out for battle, and believing that their 
foes had abandoned the field to them, they were greatly elated. They were still further 
inspired with scorn for the Roman army and contempt for the consuls when they 
thought that even the gods were fighting on their side. For (p303) a thunderbolt, falling 
upon the headquarters of Gnaeus Manlius, one of the consuls, tore the tent in pieces, 
overturned the hearth, and tarnished some of the weapons of war, while scorching or 
completely destroying others. It killed also the finest of his horses, the one he used in 
battle, and some of his servants. And when the augurs declared that the gods were 
foretelling the capture of the camp and the death of the most important persons in it, 
Manlius roused his forces about midnight and led them to the other camp, where he 
took up quarters with his colleague. The Tyrrhenians, learning of the general's 
departure and hearing from some of the prisoners the reasons for his action, grew 
still more elated in mind, since it seemed that the gods were making war upon the 
Romans; and they entertained great hopes of conquering them. For their augurs, who 
are reputed to have investigated with greater accuracy than those anywhere else the 
signs that appear in the sky, determining where the thunderbolts come from, what 
quarters receive them when they depart after striking, to which of the gods each kind 
of bolt is assigned, and what good or evil it portends, advised them to engage the 
enemy, interpreting the omen which had appeared to the Romans on this wise: 
Since the bolt had fallen upon the consul's tent, which was the army's headquarters, 
and had utterly destroyed it even to its hearth, the gods were foretelling to the whole 
army the wiping out of their camp after it should be taken by storm, and the death of 
the principal persons in it. "If, now," they said, "the occupants of the place where the 
bolt fell had remained there instead of removing their standards (p305) to the other 
army, the divinity who was wroth with them would have satisfied his anger with the 
capture of a single camp and the destruction of a single army; but since they 
endeavoured to be wiser than the gods and changed their quarters to the other camp, 
leaving the place deserted, as if the god has signified that the calamities should fall, 
not upon the men, but upon the places, the divine wrath will come upon all of them 
alike, both upon those who departed and upon those who received them. And since, 
when destiny had foretold that one camp should be taken by storm, they did not wait 
for their fate, but of their own accord handed their camp over to the enemy, the camp 
which received the deserted camp5 shall be taken by storm instead of the one that was 
abandoned." 

[9,7] The Tyrrhenians, hearing this from their augurs, sent a part of their army to take 
possession of the camp deserted by the Romans, with the intention of making it a fort 
to serve against the other camp. For the place was a very strong one and was 
conveniently situated for intercepting any who might come from Rome to the enemy's 
camp. After they had also made the other dispositions calculated to give them an 
advantage over the enemy, they led out their forces into the plain. Then, when the 
Romans remained quiet, the boldest of the Tyrrhenians rode up and, halting near the 
camp, called them all women and taunted their leaders, likening them to the most 
cowardly of animals; and they challenged them to do one of two things — either to 
descend into the plain, if they laid claim to any warlike (p307) valour, and decide the 
contest by a single battle, or, if they owned themselves to be cowards, to deliver up 
their arms to those who were their betters, and after paying the penalty for their 
deeds, never again to hold themselves worthy of greatness. This they did every day, 
and when it had no effect, they resolved to block them off by a wall with the purpose 
of starving them into surrender. The consuls permitted this to go on for a 
considerable time, not through any cowardice or weakness — for they were both men 
of spirit and fond of war — but because they feared the soldiers' wilful shirking of 
duty and their apathy, which had persisted among the plebeians ever since the 
sedition over the allotment of land. For they still had ringing in their ears and fresh 
before their eyes the shameful behaviour, unworthy of the commonwealth, which the 
soldiers, because of their begrudging the honour that would come to the consul, had 
been guilty of the year before, when they had yielded up the victory to the vanquished 
and endured the false reproach of flight in order that their general might not 
celebrated the triumph awarded for victory. 

[9,8] Desiring, therefore, to banish sedition from the army once and for all and to 
restore the whole rank and file to their original harmony, and devoting to this single 
end all their counsel and all their thought, since it was not in their power by 
punishing some of them to reform the rest, who were numerous, bold, and had arms 
in their hands, or to attempt by the persuasion of words to win over those who did not 
even wish to be persuaded, they assumed that the following two motives would bring 
about the reconciliation of the seditious: first, for those of a more (p309) reasonable 
disposition (for there was an admixture of these also among the mass of the troops), 
the shame of being taunted by the enemy, and second, for those who were not easily 
led to adopt the honourable course, the thing of which all human nature stands in 
dread — necessity. In order, however, to accomplish both these results, they allowed 
the enemy not only to shame them by words, but also by repeated deeds of scorn and 
contempt6 to compel those to show themselves brave men who were not disposed to 
be so of their own accord. For if these insults should be continued, they had great 
hopes that all the soldiers would come to headquarters, giving vent to their 
indignation, reproaching the consuls, and demanding that they lead them against the 
enemy; and that is just what happened. For when the enemy began to block the 
outlets of the camp with ditches and kinds, the Romans, growing indignant at their 
action, ran to the tents of the consuls, first in small numbers and then in a body, and 
crying out, accused them of treachery, and declared that if no one would lead them in 
a sortie, they themselves would take their arms and without their generals sally out 
against the enemy. This being the general cry, the consuls thought the opportunity 
for which they had been waiting had now come, and they ordered the lictors to call 
the troops to an assembly. Then Fabius, coming forward, spoke as follows: 

[9,9] "Long delayed is your indignation at the insults you are receiving from the enemy, 
soldiers and (p311) officers, and the eagerness which you one and all have to come to 
grips with your opponents, by showing itself much too late, is untimely. For you 
should have done this still earlier, when you first saw them come down from their 
entrenchments and eager to begin battle. Then, no doubt, the contest for the 
supremacy would have been glorious and worthy of the Roman spirit; as things are, it 
is already becoming a matter of necessity, and however successful its outcome may 
be, it will not be equally glorious. Yet even now you do well in desiring to atone for 
your slowness and to retrieve what you have lost by neglect, and great thanks are due 
to you for your eagerness to follow the best course, whether this springs from valour 
— for it is better to begin late to do one's duty than never — or whether indeed you 
have all come to the same logical conclusions as to what is example, and the same 
eagerness for rushing into battle has seized all of you. But as it is, we are afraid that 
the grievances of the plebeians against the authorities over the allotment of land may 
be the cause of great mischief to the commonwealth. And the suspicion has come to 
us that this clamour and indignation about a sortie do not spring from the same 
motive with all of you, but that while some desire to go out of the camp in order to 
take revenge on the enemy, others do so in order to run away. As for the reasons 
which have induced us to entertain these suspicions, they are neither divinations nor 
conjectures, but overt deeds, and deeds, too, that happened, not long ago, but only 
last year, as you all know. For when a large and excellent army had taken the field 
against this very (p313) enemy and the first battle had had the most successful outcome 
for us, so that your commander at the time, the consul Caeso, my brother here, could 
not only have taken the enemy's camp, but also have brought back a most glorious 
victory for the fatherland, some of the soldiers, begrudging him the glorious because 
he was not a friend of the people and did not constantly pursue such a course as was 
pleasing to the poor, struck their tents the first night after the battle and without 
orders ran away from the camp, neither taking thought for the danger they would 
incur in retreating from a hostile country in disorderly fashion and without a general, 
and that too in the night, nor taking into account all the disgrace that was sure to 
come upon them for yielding the supremacy to the enemy, as far at least as in them 
lay, and yielding it, moreover, as victors to the vanquished. Being afraid, therefore, 
tribunes, centurions, and soldiers, of these men who are neither able to command nor 
willing to obey, who are numerous and bold and have their weapons in their hands, 
we have been unwilling hitherto to join battle and dare not even now, with such men 
to support us, engage in a life-and-death struggle, lest they prove hindrances and 
detriments to those who are displaying all the alacrity in their power. If, however, 
Heaven is turning the minds of even these men to better ways at the present time, 
and if, laying aside their seditious spirit, from which the commonwealth is suffering 
very great harm, or at least postponing it till times of peace, they wish to redeem their 
pas disgraces by their present valour, let there be no further hindrance to your 
advancing (p315) against the foe, setting before your eyes the fair hopes of victory. 
"We have many resources for winning, but greatest and most decisive are those 
afforded us by the folly of the enemy. For though they far exceed us in the size of their 
army, and for that reason alone might have withstood our courage and experience, 
they have deprived themselves of their only advantage by using up the greater part of 
their forces in garrisoning the forts. In the next place, when they ought to act with 
caution and sober reason in everything they do, bearing in mind against what kind of 
men, actually far superior to them in valour, the hazard will be, they enter the 
struggle recklessly and incautiously, as if forsooth they were some invincible warriors 
and as if we stood in terror of them. At any rate, their digging of ditches round our 
camp, their riding up to our entrenchments, and their many insults both in word and 
actions indicate this. Bearing these thoughts in mind, then, and remembering the 
many glorious battles of the past in which you have overcome them, enter with 
alacrity into this contest also. And let every one of you look upon the spot in which he 
shall be posted as his house, his lot of land, and his country. Let him who saves the 
man beside him feel that he is effecting his own safety, and let him who forsakes his 
comrade feel that he is delivering himself up to the enemy. But, above all, you should 
remember this, that when men stand their ground and fight their losses are small, but 
when they give way and flee very few are saved." 

[9,10] (p317) While he was yet uttering these encouragements to bravery and 
accompanying his words with many tears, calling by name each one of the centurions, 
tribunes, and common soldiers whom he knew to have performed some gallant action 
in battle, and promising to those who should distinguish themselves in this 
engagement many great rewards in proportion to the magnitude of their deeds, such 
as honours, riches, and all the other advantages, shouts arose from all of them as they 
bade him be of good cheer and demanded that he lead them to battle.As soon as he 
had done speaking, there came forward from the throng a man named Marcus 
Flavoleius, a plebeian and a small farmer, though not one of the rabble but one 
celebrated for his merits and valiant in war and on both these accounts honoured 
with the most conspicuous command in one of the legions — a command which the 
sixty centuries are enjoined by the law to follow and obey. These officers the Romans 
call in their own tongue primipili.This man, who, besides his other 
recommendations, was tall and fair to look upon, taking his stand where he would be 
in full view of all, said: "Since this is what you fear, consuls, that our actions will not 
agree with our words, I will be the first to give you in my own name the greatest 
pledge I can give. And you too, fellow citizens and sharers of the same fortune, as 
many of you as are resolved to make your actions match your words, will make no 
mistake in following my example."Having said this, he held up his sword and (p319) 
took the oath traditional among the Romans and regarded by them as the mightiest 
of all, swearing by his own good faith that he would return to Rome victorious over 
the enemy, or not at all. After Flavoleius had taken this oath there was great applause 
from all; and immediately both the consuls did the same, as did also the subordinate 
officers, both tars and centurions, and last of all the rank and file.When this had 
been done, great cheerfulness came upon them all and great affection for one another 
and also confidence and ardour. And going from the assembly, some bridled their 
horses, others sharpened their swords and spears, and still others cleaned their 
defensive arms; and in a short time the whole army was ready for the combat.The 
consuls, after invoking the gods by vows, sacrifices, and prayers to be their guides as 
they marched out, led the army out of the camp in regular order and formation. The 
Tyrrhenians, seeing them come down from their entrenchments, were surprised and 
marched out with their whole force to meet them. 

[9,11] When both armies had come into the plain and the trumpets had sounded the 
charge, they raised their war-cries and ran to close quarters; and engaging, horse with 
horse and foot with foot, they fought there, and great was the slaughter on both sides. 
The troops on the right wing of the Romans, commanded by Manlius, one of the 
consuls, repulsed the part of the enemy that stood opposite to them, and quitting 
their horses, fought on foot. But those on the left wing were being surrounded by the 
enemy's (p321) right wing,since the Tyrrhenians' line at this point outflanked that of 
the Romans and was considerably deeper. Thus the Roman army was being broken in 
this sector and was receiving many blows. This wing was commanded by Quintus 
Fabius, who was a legate and proconsul and had been twice consul. He maintained 
the fight for a long time, receiving wounds of all kinds till, being struck in the breast 
by a spear, the point of which pierced his bowels, he fell through loss of blood. 
When Marcus Fabius, the other consul, who commanded in the centre, was 
informed of this, he took with him the best of the centuries, and summoning Caeso 
Fabius, his other brother, he passed beyond his own line, and advancing a long way, 
till he had got beyond the enemy's right wing, he turned upon those who were 
encircling his men, and charging them, caused great slaughter among all whom he 
encountered, and also put to flight those who were at a distance; and finding his 
brother still breathing, he took him up.The man lived only a short time after that; 
but his death filled his avengers with still more and greater anger against the foe and, 
heedless now of their own lives, they rushed with a few followers into the densest 
ranks of the enemy and made large heaps of their dead bodies.In this part of their 
line, therefore, the (p323) Tyrrhenians were hard pressed, and those who earlier had 
forced their enemies to give ground were now repulsed by those they had conquered; 
but those on the left wing, where Manlius was, though they were already in distress 
and beginning to flee, put their opponents to flight. For when Manlius had been 
struck in the knee with a javelin by an opponent who thrust the point through to the 
hamstrings, and those about him took him up and were carrying him back to the 
camp, the enemy, believing the Roman commander to be dead, took heart and, the 
rest coming to their assistance, pressed hard upon the Romans who now had no 
commander.This obliged the Fabii to quit their left wing once more and rush to the 
relief of the right; and the Tyrrhenians, learning that they were approaching in a 
strong body, gave over further pursuit, and closing their ranks, fought in good order, 
losing a large number of their own men, but also killing many of the Romans. 

[9,12] In the meantime the Tyrrhenians who had possessed themselves of the camp 
abandoned by Manlius, as soon as the signal for battle was given at headquarters, ran 
with great haste and alacrity to the other camp of the Romans, suspecting that it was 
not guarded by a sufficient force. And their belief was correct. For, apart from the 
triarii and a few younger troops, the rest of the crowd then in the camp consisted of 
merchants, servants and artificers; and with many crowded into a small space — for 
the struggle was for the gates of the camp — a sharp and (p325) severe engagement 
followed, and there were many dead on both sides.During this action the consul 
Manlius was coming out with the cavalry to the relief of his men, when his horse fell; 
and he, falling with him and being unable to rise because of his many wounds, died 
there, and likewise many brave young men at his side. After this disaster the camp 
was soon taken, and the Tyrrhenians' prophecies had their fulfilment.Now if they 
had husbanded the good fortune that was then theirs and had kept the camp under 
guard, they would have got possession of the Romans' baggage and forced them to a 
shameful retreat; but as it was, by turning to plundering what had been left behind 
and from then on refreshing themselves, as most of them did, they allowed a fine 
booty to escape out of their hands. For as soon as word of the taking of the camp 
reached the other consul, he hastened thither with the flower of both horse and foot. 
The Tyrrhenians, informed of this approach, formed a circle round the camp and a 
sharp battle occurred between them, as the Romans endeavoured to recover what was 
theirs and the enemy feared being annihilated if their camp should be taken. When 
considerable time passed and the Tyrrhenians had many advantages, since they 
fought from higher ground and against men spent with fighting the whole day,Titus 
Siccius, the legate and proconsul, after communicating his plan to the consul, 
ordered that a retreat should be sounded and (p327) that all the men should assemble in 
a single body and assault one side of the camp where it was most easy of attack. He 
left free from attack the parts next the gates, reasoning plausibly — and in this he was 
not deceived — that if the Tyrrhenians saw any hope of saving themselves, they would 
abandon the camp, whereas, if they despaired of this, finding themselves surrounded 
on all sides and no way of escape left, necessity would make them brave.And when 
the attack was directed against one point only, the Tyrrhenians no longer resisted, 
but opening the gates, made their way back in safety to their own camp. 

[9,13] The consul, after he had averted the danger, returned once more to the assistance 
of those who were in the plain. This battle is said to have been greater than any the 
Romans had previous loyal fought as regards not only the numbers of the 
combatants, but also the time it lasted and its sudden turns of fortune. For of the 
Romans themselves from the city the flower and choice of their youth consisted of 
about 20,000 foot and some 1200 horse attached to the four legions, while from their 
colonies and allies there was another force equally large.As for the duration of the 
battle, it began a little before noon and lasted till sunset. Its fortunes continued for a 
long time shifting to and fro with alternating victories and defeats. A consul was slain, 
as well as a legate who had himself been twice consul, and many other commanders, 
tribunes and centurions — more indeed than in any previous battle. But the victory in 
(p329) the struggle seemed to rest with the Romans, for this one reason alone, that the 
Tyrrhenians left their camp the following night and withdrew. The next day the 
Romans turned to plundering the camp which had been abandoned by the 
Tyrrhenians, and having buried the dead, returned to their own camp. There, having 
called an assembly of the soldiers, they distributed the rewards of valour to those who 
had distinguished themselves in the battle, as follows: first, to Caeso Fabius, the 
consul's brother, who had performed great and remarkable exploits; next, to Siccius, 
who had brought about the recovery of their camp; and third, to Marcus Flavoleius, 
the commander of the legion, on account of both the oath he had taken and the 
prowess he had shown in the midst of danger.After attending to these things they 
remained a few days in the camp; then, when none of the enemy came out to fight 
against them, they returned home. Though all in the city wished to honour the 
surviving consul with the victor's reward of a triumph because of a most glorious 
outcome to a very great battle, the consul declined the favour they offered, saying that 
it was neither right nor lawful for him to ride in procession and wear a crown of laurel 
after the death of his brother and the loss of his colleague. But after putting away the 
standards and dismissing the soldiers to their homes he resigned the consulship 
when two months still remained to complete his year's term, since he was no longer 
capable of performing the duties of the office. For (p331) he was still suffering from a 
horrible wound and obliged to keep his bed. 

[9,14] The senate chose interreges to preside at the election of magistrates, and the 
second interrex having assembled the centuries in the Field, Caeso Fabius, the one 
who had been awarded the prize for valour in the battle, and brother to the man who 
had abdicated his magistracy, was chosen consul for the third time, and with him 
Titus Verginius. These, having drawn lots for the armies, took the field, Fabius to war 
against the Aequians, who were plundering the fields of the Latins, and Verginius 
against the Veientes.The Aequians, when they learned that an army was going to 
come against them, hastily evacuated the enemy's country and returned to their own 
cities; and after that they permitted their own territory to be ravaged, so the consul 
possessed himself at the first blow of large amounts of money, many slaves, and 
much booty of other sorts. As for the Veientes, they at first remained within their 
walls; but as soon as they thought they had a favourable opportunity, they fell upon 
the enemy as they were dispersed over the plains and occupied in seizing booty. And 
attacking them with a large army in good order, they not only took away their booty, 
but also killed or put to flight all who engaged them. Indeed, if titus Siccius, who was 
legate at the time, had not come to their relief with a body of foot and horse in good 
order and held the foe in check, nothing could have prevented the army from being 
utterly destroyed. But when he got in the enemy's way, (p333) the rest of the troops, who 
had been scattered one here and one there, succeeded in getting together before it 
was too late; and being now all united, they occupied a hill late in the afternoon and 
remained there the following night. The Veientes, elated by their success, encamped 
near the hill and sent for their forces in the city, imagining that they had shut up the 
Romans in a place where they could not get any provisions, and that they would soon 
force them to deliver up their arms to them. And when a multitude of their men had 
arrived, there were now two armies posted on the two sides of the hill that could be 
assailed, as well as many smaller detachments to guard the less vulnerable positions; 
and every place was full of armed men. 
The other consul, Fabius, learning from a letter that came from his colleague that 
the troops shut up on the hill were in the direst straits and would be in danger of 
being reduced by famine unless someone came to their relief, broke camp and 
marched in haste against the Veientes. Indeed, if he had been one day later in 
completing his march, he would have been of no help, but would have found the army 
there destroyed. For the men holding the hill, distressed by the lack of provisions, had 
sallied out, ready to choose the most honourable death; and having engaged the 
enemy, they were then fighting, though the bodies of most of them were weakened by 
hunger, thirst, want of sleep, and every other hardship.But after a short time, when 
the army of Fabius, which was very large and drawn up in order of battle, was seen 
approaching, it brought confidence to their own men and fear to the enemy; and the 
Tyrrhenians, (p335) believing themselves no longer to be strong enough to engaged in 
battle with a valiant and fresh army, abandoned their camps and withdrew. When the 
two armies of the Romans had come together, they made a large camp in a strong 
position near the city; then, after remaining there many days and plundering the best 
part of the territory of the Veientes, the generals led the army home.When the 
Veientes heard that the forces of the Romans had been discharged from the 
standards, taking the light-armed youth, not only their own which they had already 
assembled, but also that of their neighbours which was then present, they made an 
incursion into the plains bordering upon their own territory, which were full of corn, 
cattle and men, and plundered them. For the husbandmen had come down from the 
strongholds to get feed for their cattle and to till their lands, relying upon the 
protection of their army, which then lay encamped between them and the enemy; and 
after this army had retired, they had made no hasten to move back, as they did not 
expect the Veientes, after having suffered so many defeats, to make a return attack so 
promptly against the foes. This irruption of the Veientes into the Romans' country, 
though brief in point of the time it lasted, was very serious with respect to the amount 
of territory they overran; and it caused the Romans unusual vexation, mingled with 
shame, since it extended as far as the river Tiber and Mount Janiculum, which is not 
twenty stades from Rome.16 For there was no force (p337) then under the standards to 
stop the enemy's further progress; at any rate, the army of the Veientes had gone 
before the Romans could assemble and be assigned to centuries. 

[9,15] When the senate was later called together by the consuls and had deliberated in 
what manner the war should be carried on against the Veientes, the opinion which 
prevailed was to maintain a standing army upon the frontiers, which should keep 
guard over the Roman territory, camp ing in the open and always remaining under 
arms. But the expense of maintaining the garrisons, which would be very great, 
grieved them, since the public treasury was exhausted as a result of the continual 
campaigns, and their private fortunes had prove unequal to the burden of the war-
taxes. And they were grieved still more by the problem of enlisting the garrisons 
which were to be sent out, how that could be accomplished, there being little 
probability that a few men would, willingly at least, serve as a bulwark in defence of 
all and submit to hardships, not in successive shifts, but continuously.While the 
senate was troubled on both these accounts, the two Fabii assembled all the members 
of their clan, and having consulted with them, promised the senate that they 
themselves would voluntarily undertake this risk in defence of all the citizens, taking 
along with them their clients and friends, and would at their own expense continue in 
arms as long as the war should last. All admired them for their noble devotion and 
placed their hopes of victory in this single undertaking; and while they (p339) were 
being acclaimed and their names were on the lips of all, they took their arms and 
marched forth, accompanied by vows and sacrifices. Their leader was Marcus Fabius, 
the man who had been consul the preceding year and had conquered the Tyrrhenians 
in the late battle; those he took with him were about four thousand in number, the 
greater part of them being clients and friends, while of the Fabian clan there were 
three hundred and six men. They were followed a little later by the Roman army 
under the command of Caeso Fabius, one of the consuls. 
When they came near the river Cremera, which is not far from the city of the 
Veientes, they built upon a steep and craggy hill a fortress to command their territory, 
as large as could be garrisoned by an army of such size, surrounding it with a double 
ditch and erecting frequent towers; and the fortress was named Cremera, after the 
river. Since many hands were employed at this work and consul himself assisted 
them, it was completed sooner than might have been expected.After that the consul 
marched out with the army and went past the city to the other side of the territory of 
the Veientes, the side facing toward the rest of Tyrrhenia, where the Veientes kept 
their herds, not expecting that a Roman army would ever come there; and having 
possessed himself of much booty, he returned home to the newly erected fortress. 
This quarry afforded him great satisfaction for two reasons — first, because he had so 
promptly retaliated upon the enemy, and again, because it would furnish abundant 
supplies to the garrison of the stronghold. For he neither turned over any part of (p341) 
the spoils to the treasury nor distributed any to the soldiers, but presented all the 
cattle, the beasts of burden, the yokes of oxen, the iron, and the other implements of 
husbandry to the patrols of the country.After accomplishing this he led the army 
home. The Veientes found themselves in very dire straits after the erection of the 
frontier stronghold, since they could no longer either till their land in safety or receive 
the provisions that were imported from abroad. For the Fabii had divided their army 
into four bodies, with one of which they guarded the stronghold, while with the other 
three they continually pillaged the enemy's country; and often, when the Veientes 
openly attacked them with a considerable force or endeavoured to entice them into 
places beset with ambuscades, the Fabii had the advantage in both situations, and 
after killing many of them, would retire safely to their stronghold. Consequently the 
enemy no longer dared to engage them, but remained shut up within their walls for 
the most part, and only ventured out by stealth. Thus ended that winter. 

[9,16] The next year, when Lucius Aemilius and Gaius Servilius had assumed the 
consulship, the Romans were informed that the Volscians and the Aequians had 
entered into an agreement to lead out armies against them at the same time, and that 
they would soon make an irruption into their territory. And this information was 
true. At all events, sooner (p343) than anyone was expecting, both nations with their 
armies were ravaging the parts of the Roman territory that adjoined their own, in the 
belief that the Romans would not be able to cope with the Tyrrhenian war and at the 
same time to withstand their own attack. And again other messengers came 
reporting that all Tyrrhenia had become hostile to them and was prepared to send 
joint reinforcements to the Veientes. For the latter, finding themselves unable to 
destroy the fortress by themselves alone, had turned to them for help, reminding 
them of their kinship and friendship, and enumerating the many wars they had 
waged in common. In view of all this, they asked them to assist them in their war 
against the Romans, since they were now serving as a bulwark for all Tyrrhenia and 
stemming the torrent of war which was rushing from Rome upon all the peoples of 
their race. The Tyrrhenians were persuaded, and promised to send them as large a 
force of auxiliaries as they asked for. 
The senate, being informed of this, resolved to send three armies into the field; and 
the levies were speedily raised. Lucius Aemilius was sent against the Tyrrhenians; 
and taking part in the expedition with him was Caeso Fabius, the man who had 
recently resigned the consulship, having now asked leave of the senate to join his 
kinsmen on the Cremera whom his brother had led out to garrison that place, and to 
take part in the same contests as they; and invested with the proconsular power, he 
set out with his followers. Gaius Servilius, the other consul, marched against the 
Volscians, and Servius Furius, the proconsul, against the Aequians. Each of them was 
at the head of two legions of Romans and an equally (p345) strong force of Latins, 
Hernicans and the other allies. In the case of the proconsul Servius the war went 
according to his wish and was soon over. For in a single battle he routed the 
Aequians, and that without any trouble, having terrified the enemy at the first onset; 
and thereafter he laid waste their country, as the people had taken refuge in their 
forts. But Servilius, one of the consuls, having rushed into battle in a precipitate and 
headstrong fashion, found himself greatly disappointed in his expectations, with the 
result that after losing many brave men he was forced to give up engaging in pitched 
battles with them any longer, but remaining in his camp, to carry through the war by 
means of skirmishes and engagements of the light-armed troops. 
Lucius Aemilius, who had been sent against the Tyrrhenians, finding that the 
Veientes had taken the field before their city together with a large number of 
auxiliaries of the same race, set to work without further delay; and letting only a 
single day pass after making camp, he led out his forces to battle, in which the 
Veientes joined with great confidence. When the contest continued doubtful, he took 
the horse and charged the right wing of the enemy; then, after throwing that into 
confusion, he proceeded to the other wing, fighting on horseback where the ground 
would permit, and where it would not, dismounting and fighting on foot. When both 
of the enemy's wings were in distress, those in the centre could no longer hold out 
either, but were thrust back by the Roman foot; and after that they all fled to their 
camp.Aemilius followed them in their flight (p347) with his army in good order and 
killed many of them. When he came near their camp, he attacked it with relays of 
fresh troops, remaining there all that day and the following night; and the next day, 
when the enemy were spent with weariness, wounds and want of sleep, he made 
himself master of the camp. The Tyrrhenians, when they saw the Romans already 
mounting the palisades, left their camp and fled, some to the city and some to the 
neighbouring hills. That day the consul remained in the enemy's camp; and on the 
next day he rewarded with the most magnificent presents those who had 
distinguished themselves in the battle, and gave to the soldiers all the beasts of 
burden and slaves that had been left behind in the camp, together with the tents, 
which were full of many valuables. And the Roman army found itself in greater 
opulence than after any former battle. For the Tyrrhenians were a people of dainty 
and expensive tastes, both at home and in the field carrying about with them, besides 
the necessities, costly and artistic articles of all kinds designed for pleasure and luxury. 

[9,17] In the course of the following days the Veientes, yielding at last to their 
misfortunes, sent their oldest citizens to the consul with the tokens of suppliants to 
treat for peace. These men, resorting to lamentations and entreaties and with many 
tears rehearsing every argument calculated to arouse compassion, endeavoured to 
persuade the consul to let (p349) them send ambassadors to Rome to treat with the 
senate for a termination of the war, and until the ambassadors should return with the 
senate's answer, to do no injury to their country. In order to obtain these concessions, 
they promised to supply the Roman army with corn for two months and with money 
for their pay for six months, as the victor commanded. And the consul, after 
receiving what they brought and distributing it among his men, made the truce with 
them. The senate, having heard the ambassadors and received the letter of the consul, 
in which he earnestly recommended and urged putting an end to the war with the 
Tyrrhenians as soon as possible, passed a decree to grant peace as the enemy desired; 
as to the terms on which the peace should be made, they left them for the consul 
Lucius Aemilius to determine in such manner as he should think best.The consul, 
having received this answer, concluded a peace with the Veientes that was more 
equitable than advantageous to the conquerors; for he neither took far from them any 
part of their territory, nor imposed on them any further fine of money, nor compelled 
them to give hostages as security for the performance of their agreement.This 
action brought upon him great odium and was the reason for his not receiving from 
the senate the rewards due for his success; for when he requested the customary 
triumph, they opposed it, censuring his arbitrary behaviour in the matter of the 
treaty, in that he had concluded it without their concurrence. But lest he should take 
this action as an insult and evidence of their anger, (p351) they ordered him to march 
with his army against the Volscians in order to bear aid to his colleague, on the 
chance that if he succeeded in the war there — for he was a man of great bravery — he 
might blot out the resentment for his former errors. But Aemilius, angry at this slight 
upon his honour, inveighed violently against the senate in the popular assembly, 
accusing them of being displeased that the war against the Tyrrhenians was ended, 
He declared that they were doing this with treacherous intent and through contempt 
of the poor, lest these, when freed from foreign wars, should demand the 
performance of the promises concerning the allotment of land with which they had 
been cajoled by them for so many years already.After he had in his ungovernable 
resentment poured forth these and many similar reproaches against the patricians, 
he not only dismissed from the standards the army that had served under him, but 
also sent for the forces that were tarrying in the country of the Aequians under Furius 
the proconsul and dismissed them to their homes. Thereby he once more gave the 
tribunes a considerable warrant for accusing the senators in the meetings of the 
assembly and sowing dissension between the poor and the rich. 

[9,18] These consuls were succeeded by Gaius Horatius and Titus Menenius in the 
seventy-sixth Olympiad (the one at which Scamander of Mitylene won the foot-
race), when Phaedo was archon at Athens. The new consuls were at first hindered 
from transacting the public business by the domestic disturbance, the populace being 
exasperated and not permitting any other public business to be carried on (p353) until 
they should divide up among themselves the public land; but after a time the 
seditious and turbulent elements yielded to necessity and came in voluntarily to be 
enlisted.For the eleven cities of the Tyrrhenians which had had no part in the peace, 
holding a general assembly, inveighed against the Veientes for having put an end to 
the war with the Romans without the general consent of the nation, and demanded 
that they do one of two things — either break the compact they had made with the 
Romans, or join with the Romans in making war upon the rest of the Tyrrhenians. 
But the Veientes laid the blame for the peace upon necessity, and proposed that the 
assembly consider how they might break it with decency. Upon this someone 
suggested to them that they should make formal complaint of the erection of the 
frontier stronghold on the Cremera and of the failure of its garrison to withdraw from 
there, and then should first make an oral demand that they evacuate the place, and, if 
they refused, should lay siege to the fortress and make this action the beginning of the 
war.Having agreed on this course, they left the assembly; and not long afterwards 
the Veientes sent ambassadors to the Fabii to demand from them the fortress, and all 
Tyrrhenia was in arms. The Romans, learning of these things through letters from the 
Fabii, resolved that both the consuls should take the field, one to command in the war 
that was coming upon them from Tyrrhenia and the other to prosecute the war which 
was still going on with the Volscians.Horatius, accordingly, marched against the 
Volscians with two legions and an adequate force of the allies, and Menenius was 
(p355) preparing to set out against the Tyrrhenians with another force of equal size; but 
while he was making his preparations and losing time, the fortress on the Cremera 
was destroyed by the enemy and the entire Fabian clan perished. Concerning the 
disaster that befell these men two accounts are current, one less probable and the 
other coming nearer to the truth. I shall give them both as I have received them. 

[9,19] Some say that when the time was at hand for a traditional sacrifice which 
devolved upon the Fabian clan, the men set out from the fortress, attended by a few 
clients, to perform the rites, and proceeded without reconnoitring the roads or 
marching ranged in centuries under their standards, but negligently and unguardedly 
as in time of peace and as if they were passing through friendly territory. The 
Tyrrhenians, having learned of their departure in advance, placed one part of their 
army in ambush at a spot along the road, and followed son after with the rest of their 
forces in regular formation. When the Fabii drew near the ambuscade, the 
Tyrrhenians who were lying in wait there rose up and fell upon them, some in front 
and others in flank, and a little later the rest of the Tyrrhenian force attacked them 
from the rear; and surrounding them on all sides and shooting at them, some with 
slings, some with bows, and others hurling javelins and spears, they overwhelmed 
them all with the multitude of their missiles.Now this account seems to me to be 
the less credible. For not only is it improbable that so many serving under the 
standards would have returned from the camp to the city because of a sacrifice 
without a decree from the senate, when the rites might have (p357) been performed by 
others of the same clan who were advanced in years; but even if they had all gone 
from the city and no part of the Fabian clan was left in their homes, it is improbable 
that all who held the fortress would have abandoned the guarding of it, since even 
three or four of them would have sufficed to return to Rome and perform the rites for 
the whole clan. For these reasons, then, this account has not seemed to me to be credible. 

[9,20] The other account concerning the destruction of the Fabii and the capture of 
the fortress, which I regard as being nearer to the truth, is somewhat as follows. As 
the men went out frequently to forage and, encouraged by the continued success of 
their forays, advanced even farther, the Tyrrhenians got ready a numerous army and 
encamped in the near neighbourhood unperceived by the enemy. Then, sending out 
of their strongholds flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and drove of mares as if to 
pasture, they lured the garrison to these; and the men, coming out, seized the 
herdsmen and rounded up the cattle.The Tyrrhenians kept doing this and drawing 
the enemy ever farther away from their camp; then, when they had destroyed in them 
all thought for their safety by enticing them with constant booty, they placed 
ambuscades at night in the most suitable positions, while others occupied the heights 
that commanded the plains. The next day, sending ahead a few armed men, as if to 
serve as a guard for the herdsmen, they drove out a large number of herds (p359) from 
their strongholds.When word was brought to the Fabii that if they went over the 
neighbouring hills they would in a very short time find the plain covered with cattle of 
all sorts with a guard insufficient to defend them, they went out of the fortress, 
leaving an adequate garrison there. And covering the distance speedily in their 
eagerness, they appeared before the guards of the cattle in battle array. These did not 
await their attack, but fled, and the Fabii, thinking themselves now quite secure, set 
about seizing the herdsmen and rounding up the cattle.Thereupon the Tyrrhenians, 
rising up from ambush in many places, fell upon them from all sides. The greater part 
of the Romans, being scattered and unable to assist one another, were killed upon the 
spot; but those who were in a body, being eager to reach a secure position and 
hastening toward the hills, fell into another ambuscade that lay concealed in the 
woods and glens. Here a sharp battle took place between them and there was great 
slaughter on both sides. But nevertheless they repulsed even these foes, and after 
filling the ravine with dead bodies, they ran up to the top of a hill that was not easy to 
take, and there passed the following night in want of the necessary provisions. 

[9,21] The next day those who were holding the fortress, upon being informed of the 
disaster that had befallen their companions — namely, that the greater part of the 
army had been destroyed in their pursuit of plunder and the bravest of them were 
shut up and besieged on a lonely mountain, and that if some aid (p361) seems reach 
them promptly they would soon be destroyed for want of provisions — set out in 
haste, leaving very few in the fortress to guard it. These troops, before they could join 
their companions, were surrounded by the Tyrrhenians, who rushed down upon them 
from their strongholds; and though they displayed many feats of valour, they were in 
time all destroyed. Not long afterwards those also who had seized the hill, being 
oppressed by both hunger and thirst, resolved to charge the enemy; and engaging, a 
few against many, they continued fighting from morning till night, and made so great 
a slaughter of the enemy that the heaps of dead bodies piled up in many places were a 
hindrance to them in fighting. Indeed, the Tyrrhenians had lost above a third part of 
their army, and fearing for the rest, they now gave the signal for a retreat and stopped 
fighting for a short time; and sending heralds to the men, they offered them their 
lives and a safe-conduct if they would lay down their arms and evacuate the fortress. 
When the others refused their offer and chose the death befitting men of noble 
birth, the Tyrrhenians renewed the struggle, attacking them in relays, though no 
longer fighting at close quarters in hand-to-hand combat, but standing in a body and 
hurling javelins and stones at them from a distance; and the multitude of missiles was 
like a snow-storm. The Romans, massing by companies, rushed upon their foes, who 
did not stand their ground, and though they received many wounds from those 
surrounding them, they stood firm.But when the swords of many had become 
useless, some having their edges blunted and others being broken, and the borders of 
their shields (p363) next the rims were hacked in pieces, and the men themselves were 
for the most part bled white and overwhelmed by missiles and their limbs paralysed 
by reason of the multitude of their wounds, the Tyrrhenians scorned them and came 
to close quarters. Then the Romans, rushing at them like wild beasts, seized their 
spears and broke them, grasped their swords by the edges and wrenched them out of 
their hands, and twisting the bodies of their antagonists, fell with them to the ground, 
locked in close embrace, fighting with greater rage than strength. Hence the enemy, 
astonished at their endurance and terrified at the madness that had seized them in 
their despair of life, no longer ventured to come to grips with them, but retiring again, 
stood in a body and hurled at them sticks, stones, and anything else they could lay 
their hands on, and at last buried them under the multitude of missiles. After 
destroying these men they ran to the fortress, carrying with them the heads of the 
most prominent, expecting to take the men there prisoners at their first onset. 
However, the attempt did not turn out according to their hopes; for the men who 
had been left there, emulating the noble death of their comrades and kinsmen, came 
out of the fortress, though very few in number, and after fighting for a considerable 
time were all destroyed in the same manner as the others; and the place was empty of 
men when the Tyrrhenians took it. To me now this account appears much more 
credible than the former; but both of them are to be found in Roman writings of good 
authority. 

[9,22] The addition to this account which has been made by certain writers, though 
neither true nor (p365) plausible, but invented by the multitude from some false report, 
does not deserve to be passed over without examination. For some report that after 
the three hundred and six Fabii had been slain, there was only one boy left out of the 
whole clan, thereby introducing a detail that is not only improbable, but even 
impossible;for it is not possible that all the Fabii who went out to the fortress were 
unmarried and childless. For not only did the ancient law of the Romans oblige all of 
the proper age to marry, but they were forced also to rear all their children; and 
surely the Fabii would not have been the only persons to violate a law which had been 
observed by their ancestor down to their time.But even if one were to admit this 
assumption, yet he would never make the further assumption that none of them had 
any brothers still in their childhood. Why, such institutions resemble myths and 
fictions of the stage! Besides, would not as many of their fathers as were still of an age 
to beget children, now that so great a desolation had come upon their clan, have 
begotten other children both willingly and unwillingly, in order that neither the 
sacrifices of their ancestors might be abandoned nor the great reputation of the clan 
be extinguished?Unless, indeed, none even of their fathers were left and all the 
conditions which would render it impossible to perpetuate the clan combined 
together ink those three hundred and six men — namely, that they left behind them 
no infant children, no wives with child, no brothers still under age, no fathers in the 
prime of life. Testing the story by such reasoning, I have come to the conclusion that 
it is not true, but that the following is the true account. Of the three brothers, Caeso, 
Quintus, and Marcus, who had (p367) been consuls for seven years in succession, 
I believe that Marcus left one young son, and that this boy was the one who is 
reported to have been the survivor  of the Fabian house.There is no reason why it 
should not have been because no one else of the clan became famous and illustrious 
except this one son, when he had grown to manhood,  that most people came to hold 
the belief that he was the only survivor of the Fabian clan — not, indeed, that there 
was no other, but that there was none like those famous three — judging kinship on 
the basis of merit, not of birth. But enough on this subject. 

[9,23] After the Tyrrhenians, then, had destroyed the Fabii and taken the fortress on 
the Cremera, they led their forces against the other army of the Romans. It chanced 
that Menenius, one of the consuls, lay encamped not far away in an insecure position; 
and when the Fabian clan and their clients perished, he was only some thirty stades 
from the place where the disaster occurred — a circumstance which gave many people 
reason to believe that, though aware of the dire straits of the Fabii, he had shown no 
concern for them because of the envy he felt of their valour and reputation. 
Accordingly, when he was later brought to trial by the tribunes, this was the chief 
ground for his condemnation. For the people of Rome deeply mourned their having 
shorn themselves of the valour of so many and so brave men and were severe and 
inexorable toward all whom they suspected of having been responsible for so great a 
calamity; and they regard the day on (p369) which the disaster occurred as black and 
inauspicious and will begin no useful labour on it, looking upon the disaster which 
then occurred on that day as a bad omen. When the Tyrrhenians came near the 
Romans and observed the situation of their camp, which lay under a flank of a hill, 
they felt contempt for the inexperience of the general and gladly grasped the 
advantage presented to them by Fortune. They at once marched up the opposite side 
of the hill with their horse and gained the summit without opposition. Then, having 
possessed themselves of the height above the Romans, they made camp there, 
brought up the rest of their army in safety, and fortified the camp with a high palisade 
and a deep ditch.Now if Menenius, when he perceived what an advantage he had 
given the enemy, had repented of his error and removed his army to a safer position, 
he would have been wise; but as it was, being ashamed to be thought to have made a 
mistake, and maintaining an obstinate front toward those who advised him to change 
his plans, he came a merited fall which brought disgrace as well.For as the enemy 
were constantly sending out detachments from places that commanded his camp, 
they had many advantages, not only seizing the provisions which the merchants were 
bringing to the Romans, but also attacking his men as they went out for forage or for 
water; and it had come to the point where the consul did not have it in his power to 
choose either the time or the place of combat — which seems to be strong evidence of 
the inexperience of a general — whereas the Tyrrhenians could do both as they 
wished.And not even then (p371) could Menenius bring himself to move his army away 
from there; but leading out the troops, he drew them up ready for battle, scorning all 
who offered salutary advice. The Tyrrhenians, looking upon the folly of the general as 
a piece of great good fortune, came down from their camp with numbers fully twice 
those of their foe.When they engaged, there was a great slaughter of the Romans, 
who were unable to keep their ranks. For they were forced back by the Tyrrhenians, 
who not only had the terrain as an ally, but were also helped by the vigorous pressure 
of those who stood behind them, their army being drawn up with deep files. When the 
most prominent centurions had fallen, the rest of the Roman army gave way and fled 
to the camp; and the enemy pursued them, took away their standards, seized their 
wounded, and got possession of their dead. Then style shut them up in their camp 
and besieged them; and delivering numerous attacks during all the rest of the day, 
without desisting even at night, they captured the camp, which the Romans had 
abandoned, and took many prisoners and a great quantity of booty; for those who fled 
had not been able to pack up their belongings, but were glad to escape with their bare 
lives, many not keeping even their arms. 

[9,24] When those at Rome heard that their army was destroyed and their camp taken 
— the first who had saved themselves from the rout arrived while it was still deep 
night — they fell into great confusion, as may well be imagined; and expecting the 
enemy to come against them at any moment, they seized (p373) their arms and some 
formed a circle about the walls, others stationed themselves before the gates, and still 
others occupied the heights in the city.There was a disorderly running to and fro 
throughout the entire city and a confused clamour; on the roofs of the houses were 
the members of each household, prepared to defend themselves and give battle; and 
an uninterrupted succession of torches, as it was in the night and dark, blazed 
through lanterns and from roofs, so many in number that to those seeing them at a 
distance it seemed to be one continuous blaze and gave the impression of a city on 
fire.And if the Tyrrhenians at that time had scorned the booty to be got from the 
camp and had followed on the heels of the fleeing Romans, the whole army which had 
taken the field against them would have been destroyed; but as it was, by turning to 
plundering everything which had been left behind in the camp and to resting their 
bodies, they deprived themselves of a great opportunity for boasting. The next day 
they led their forces against Rome, and when they were about sixteen stades from the 
city, they occupied the mount called Janiculum, from which the city is in full view. 
And using that as a base of operations, they pillaged the territory of the Romans 
without (p375) hindrance, holding those in the city in great contempt, till the other 
consul, Horatius, appeared with the army which had been among the Volscians. 
Then at last the Romans thought themselves safe, and arming the youth that were in 
the city, they took the field; and having not only in the first battle, which was fought 
at the distance of eight stades from the city near the temple of Hope, overcome their 
opponents and driven them back, but also, after that engagement, having fought 
brilliantly with them again near the gate called the Colline, when the Tyrrhenians had 
come against them with another and larger army, they recovered from their fear. 
Thus ended that year. 

[9,25] The following year, about the summer solstice, in the month of August, 
Servius Servilius and Aulus Verginius succeeded to the consulship, both being men 
of experience in warfare. To them the Tyrrhenian war, though great and difficult, 
seemed pure gold in comparison with the conflict inside the city walls. For since the 
land had gone unsown the preceding winter because the enemy had fortified the 
adjacent hill against them and had kept up incessant raids, and since not even the 
merchants any longer imported the usual provisions from outside, Rome suffered 
from a great scarcity of corn, as the city was then crowded not only with its 
permanent population, but also with a multitude that had flocked thither from the 
country. For of adult (p5) citizens there were more than 110,000, as appeared by the 
latest census; and the number of the women, children, domestics, foreign traders and 
artisans who plied the menial trades — for no Roman citizen was permitted to earn a 
livelihood as a tradesman or artisan — was not less than treble the number of the 
citizens. This multitude was not easy to placate; for they were exasperated at their 
misfortune, and gathering together in the Forum, clamoured against the magistrates, 
rushed in a body to the houses of the rich and endeavoured to seize without payment 
the provisions that were stored up by them.In the meantime the tribunes assembled 
the people, and by accusing the patricians of always contriving some mischief against 
the poor, and calling them the authors of all the evils which had ever happened at the 
caprice of Fortune, whose whims men can neither foresee nor guard against, they 
inspired them with insolence and bitter resentment.The consuls, beset by these 
evils, sent men with large sums of money to the neighbouring districts to purchase 
corn, and ordered all those who had stored up more than a moderate amount of corn 
for their own subsistence to turn it over to the state; and they fixed a reasonable price 
for it. By these and many other like expedients they put a stop to the lawless actions 
of the poor and thus got respite and thus got respite for their preparations for war. 

[9,26] But when the provisions from outside were slow in coming and all the food 
supplies in the city had been consumed and there was no other means of averting the 
evils but to choose one of two courses (p7)— either to hazard an engagement with all 
their forces, in order to drive the enemy out of the country, or by remaining shut up 
within the walls to perish both by famine and by sedition — they chose the lesser of 
these evils and resolved to go forth to meet the perils from the enemy. Marching out 
of the city, therefore, with their forces, they crossed the river about midnight on rafts, 
and before it was broad daylight encamped near the enemy. The next day they came 
out of their camp and drew up their army for battle, Verginius commanding the right 
wing and Servilius the left. The Tyrrhenians, seeing them ready for the contest, 
rejoiced greatly, believing that by this single battle, if it turned out according to their 
wish, they would overthrow the empire of the Romans; for they knew that all their 
foes' best soldiery was entered in this contest, and they entertained the hope, which 
was very ill founded, of defeating them with ease, since they had conquered the 
troops of Menenius when these had been arrayed against them in a disadvantageous 
position. But after a sharp and protracted battle, in which they killed many of the 
Romans but lost many more of their own men, they began to retreat gradually toward 
their camp.Verginius, who commanded the right wing, would not permit his men to 
pursue the enemy, but urged them to rest content with the advantage they had 
gained; Servilius, however, who was posted on the other wing, pursued the foes who 
had faced him, following them for a long distance. But when he reached the heights, 
the Tyrrhenians face about and, those in the camp coming to their aid, they fell upon 
the Romans. These, after receiving their attack for a short time, turned their backs 
(p9) and, being pursued down hill, were slain as they became scattered. When 
Verginius was informed of the plight of the left wing of the army, he led his entire 
force in battle array by a transverse road that passed over the hill. Then, finding 
himself in the rear of those who were pursuing his troops, he left a part of his army 
there to block any who should be sent from the camp to the relief of their comrades, 
and he himself with the rest attacked the enemy. In the meantime the troops also 
under Servilius, encouraged by the arrival of their comrades, faced about and, 
standing their ground, engaged. The Tyrrhenians, being thus surrounded by both 
forces and being unable either to break through in front, by reason of those who 
engaged them, or to flee back to their camp, by reason of those who attacked them in 
the rear, fought bravely but unsuccessfully, and were almost all destroyed.The 
Romans having thus gained a melancholy victory and the outcome of the battle being 
not altogether fortunate, the consuls encamped before the bodies of the slain and 
there spent the following night under the open sky. 
The Tyrrhenians who were occupying the Janiculum, when no reinforcements came 
to them from home, decided to abandon the fortress; and breaking camp in the night, 
they withdrew to Veii, which lay nearest to them of the Tyrrhenian cities.The 
Romans, having possessed themselves of their camp, plundered all the effects which 
the enemy had left behind as being impossible to carry away in their flight, and also 
seized many of their wounded, part of whom had been left in their tents, while others 
lay scattered all along the road. For some, eager to be on their way home, were 
holding out and with hearts (p11) stout beyond their strength were persisting in 
following their comrades; then, when their limbs grew heavy, they collapsed half dead 
to the ground. These the Roman horsemen slew as they advanced a good distance 
along the road. and when there was no longer any sign of the enemy, the army razed 
the fortress and returned to the city with the spoils, carrying with them the bodies of 
those who had been slain in the battle — a piteous sight to all the citizens by reason 
both of the number and of the valour of those who had perished. Accordingly, the 
people did not think it fitting either to hold festival as for a glorious victory or to 
mourn as for a great and irreparable calamity; and the senate, while ordering the 
required sacrifices to be offered to the gods, did not permit the consuls to conduct the 
triumphal procession in token of a victory. A few days later the city was filled with all 
sorts of provisions, as not only the men who had been sent out by the commonwealth 
but also those who were accustomed to carry on this trader had brought in much 
corn; consequently, everybody enjoyed the same abundance as aforetime. 

[9,27] The foreign wars31 being now ended, the civil dissensions began to flare up again 
as the tribunes once more stirred up the populace. And though all their other 
measures were defeated as the result of marshalling their forces against every 
proposal, yet they were unable to suppress the accusation against Menenius, the late 
consul, in spite of all their efforts,but he was brought to trial by Quintus Considius 
and Titus Genucius, two of the tribunes. And being called upon to give an accounting 
of his (p13) conduct of the war, the outcome of which had been neither fortunate nor 
honourable, and being blamed particularly for the destruction of the Fabii and the 
capture of Cremera, he was condemned by no small majority of the votes when the 
plebeians passed judgement upon him by tribes — even though he was the son of 
Agrippa Menenius who had brought the populace home after their secession and 
reconciled them with the patricians, the son of a man whom the senate after his death 
had honoured with a most magnificent funeral at the public expense and for whom 
the Roman matrons had mourned for a whole year, laying aside their purple and 
gold. However, those who convicted him did not impose death as the penalty, but 
rather a fine — one which if compared with the fortunes of to-day would appear 
ridiculous, but to the men of that age, who worked their own farms and aimed at no 
more than the necessaries of life, and particularly to Menenius, who had inherited 
poverty from his father, was excessive and oppressive, amounting to 2000 asses. 
The as was at that time a copper coin weighing a pound, so that the whole fine 
amounted to sixteen talents of copper in weight. And this appeared invidious to the 
men of those days, who, in order to redress it, abolished all pecuniary fines, changing 
them to payments in sheep and oxen, and limiting the number even of these in the 
case of all fines to be imposed thereafter by the magistrates upon private persons. 
From this condemnation of Menenius the patricians took fresh occasion for 
resentment against the plebeians and would neither permit them to carry out the 
allotment (p15) of lands nor make any other concession in their favour.And not long 
afterwards even the populace repented of having condemned him, when they learned 
of his death. For from that time he no longer entered into any intercourse with his 
fellow men nor was seen by anyone in any public place; and though it was his 
privilege by paying his fine not to be excluded from any public doings — for not a few 
of his friends were ready to pay the fine — he would not accept their offer, but rating 
his misfortune as a capital sentence and remaining at home and admitting no one, 
wasted away through dejection and abstinence from food, and so perished. These 
were the events of that year. 

[9,28] When Publius Valerius Publicola and Gaius Nautius had succeeded to the 
consulship, another of the patricians, Servius Servilius, who had been consul the 
preceding year, was put on trial for his life not long after laying down his magistracy. 
Those who cited him to trial before the populace were Lucius Caedicius and Titus 
Statius, two of the tribunes, who demanded an accounting, not for any crime, but for 
his bad luck, inasmuch as in the battle against the Tyrrhenians he had pressed 
forward to the enemy's camp with greater daring than prudence, and being pursued 
by the garrison, who rushed out in a body, had lost the flower of the youth.This trial 
was regarded by the patricians as the most grievous of all; and meeting together, they 
expressed their resentment and indignation if boldness on the part of generals and 
their refusal to shirk any danger were going to be made a ground for (p17) accusations, 
in case Heaven opposed their plans, on the part of those who had not faced the 
dangers; and they reasoned that such trials would in all probability be the cause of 
cowardice, shirking and the lack of any further initiative on the part of commanders 
— the very weaknesses through which liberty is lost and supremacy undermined. 
They earnestly implored the plebeians not to condemn the man, pointing out that 
they would do great harm to the commonwealth if they punished their generals for 
being unfortunate.When the time for the trial was at hand, Lucius Caedicius, one of 
the tribunes, came forward and accused Servilius of having through his folly and 
inexperience in the duties of a general led his forces to manifest destruction and lost 
the finest manhood of the army; and he declared that if his colleague had not been 
informed promptly of the disaster and had not by bringing up his forces in all haste 
repulsed the enemy and saved their own men, nothing could have prevented the 
other army from being utterly destroyed and the state from being reduced henceforth 
to one-half its former members.After he had thus spoken, he produced as witnesses 
all the centurions who had survived and some of the rank and file, who in the effort to 
wipe out their own disgrace arising from that defeat and flight were ready to blame 
the general for the ill success of the engagement. Then, having poured out many 
words of commiseration for the fate of those who had lost their lives upon that 
occasion, exaggerated the disaster, and with great contempt of the patricians dwelt at 
length upon everything else which by exposing their whole order to hatred was sure 
to discourage all who were intending to intercede (p19) for the man, he gave him an 
opportunity of speaking. 

[9,29] Taking up his defence, Servilius said: "If it is to a trial, citizens, that you have 
summoned me, and you desire an accounting of my generalship, I am ready to make 
my defence; but if it is to a punishment all determined, and no advantage is to accrue 
to me for showing that I have not wronged you in any way, take my person and deal 
with it as you have long desired to do.Indeed, for me it is better to die without a 
trial than after getting a chance to plead my cause and then failing to convince you — 
since I should in that case seem to suffer deservedly whatever you determined against 
me — and you on your part will be less blameworthy for depriving me of the right to 
plead my cause and for indulging your angry passions while it is still uncertain even 
whether I have done you any wrong. And your intention will be evident to me by the 
manner in which you give me a hearing: by your clamour and by your silence I shall 
judge whether it is to vengeance or to judgement that you have summoned me." 
Having said this, he stopped, And when silence followed and then the majority cried 
out to him to be of good courage and say all that he wished, he resumed his plea and 
said: "Well then, citizens, if you are to be my judges and not my enemies, I believe 
I shall easily convince you that I am guilty of no crime. I shall begin my defence with 
facts with which you are all familiar. I was chosen consul together with that most 
excellent man, Verginius, at the time when the Tyrrhenians, having fortified against 
you the hill that commands the city, were masters of all the open country and 
(p21) entertained hopes of speedily overthrowing our empire. There was a great famine 
in the city, and sedition, and perplexity as to what should be done.Having been 
brought face to face with so turbulent and so formidable a crisis, I together with my 
colleague overcame the enemy in two engagements and obliged them to abandon the 
fort and leave the country, while I soon put an end to the famine by supplying the 
markets with abundant provisions; and I handed over to my successors not only our 
territory freed from hostile arms but also our city cured of every political distemper 
with which the demagogues had infected it. For what wrongdoing, then, am I 
accountable to you — unless to conquer your enemies is to wrong you?And if some 
of the soldiers happened to lose their lives in the battle while fighting successfully,35 in 
what way has Servilius wronged the people? For naturally no god offers himself as 
surety to generals for the lives of all who are going into battle; nor do we receive the 
command of armies upon stated terms and conditions, namely that we are to 
overcome all our enemies and lose none of our own men. For who that is a mere 
mortal would consent to take upon himself all the consequences both of his 
judgement and of his luck? No man, I say; but our great successes we always buy at 
the cost of great hazards. 

[9,30] "Moreover, I am not the first to whom it has fallen to suffer this fate when 
engaging the enemy, but it has happened to practically all who have risked desperate 
battles against enemy forces (p23) more numerous than their own. For there have been 
instances when generals after chasing their foes have themselves been put to flight, 
and while slaying many of their opponents have lost still more of their own men. 
I shall not add that many even after meeting utter defeat have returned home with 
ignominy and great loss, yet not one of them has been punished for his bad luck. For 
the calamity itself is a sufficient punishment, and to receive no praise, as is inevitable, 
even without anything else, is a great and grievous penalty for a general. 
Nevertheless, I for my part am so far from maintaining — what all reasonable men 
will allow to be just — that I do not have to render an accounting of my luck, that, 
even though no one else was ever willing to submit to such a trial, I alone do not 
decline to do so, but consent that my luck be inquired into as well as my judgement — 
after I have first made this one statement:I observe that men's undertakings, both 
unsuccessful and successful, are judged, not by the several operations in detail, which 
are many and various, but by the final outcome. When this turns out according to 
their hopes, even though the intermediate operations, which are many, may not be to 
their liking, I nevertheless hear the undertakings praised and admired by all and 
regarded as the consequences of good luck; but when these measures lead to bad 
results, even though every measure before the final outcome is carried out with the 
greatest ease, they are ascribed, not to the (p25) good, but to the bad luck of their 
authors.So, taking this as the target, do you yourselves consider what has been my 
luck in the various wars; and if you find that I was vanquished by the enemy, call my 
luck bad, but if I was victorious over them, call it good. On the subject of luck, now, 
I could say still more; however, as I am not unaware that all who discuss it are 
tiresome, I will desist. 

[9,31] "But since they censure my judgement also, not daring, indeed, to accuse me of 
treachery or cowardice, the charges on which other generals are tried, but accuse me 
of inexperience in the duties of a general and imprudence, in that I undertook an 
unnecessary risk in pressing forward to the enemy's camp, I wish to render you an 
accounting on that point, too, since I can make the very obvious retort that it is very 
easy and lies within the power of any man to censure past actions, whereas to venture 
upon glorious exploits is difficult and within the power of but few; also that it is not 
so apparent what future events will be as what past events are, but, on the contrary, 
we apprehend the latter by perception and our experiences, while we conjecture the 
others by divination and opinions, in which there is much that is deceptive; and 
again, that it is the easiest thing in the world for people to conduct wars by talk when 
they stand far from the danger, which is what my accusers do.But, to waive all this, 
tell me, in the name of the gods, do you regard me as the first or the only man who 
ever attempted to capture a stronghold by force and led his men against lofty 
positions? Or have not many (p27) others of your generals done the sam, some of whom 
have succeeded, while the attempt of others has not turned out as they wished? Why 
in the world, then, did you let the others off but now try me, if you consider these 
actions to be marks of incapacity and imprudence in a general? How many other 
undertakings more daring than this does it occur to your generals to attempt when 
times of crisis will by no means admit of the safe and well-considered course? Some 
indeed have snatched the standards from their own men and hurled them among the 
enemy, in order that the indolent and cowardly might perforce gain courage, since 
they knew that those who failed to recover those standards must be put to death 
ignominiously by their generals. Others, after invading the enemy's country, have 
destroyed the bridges over the rivers what they had crossed, in order that any who 
entertained thoughts of saving themselves by flight might find their hope vain and so 
be inspired with boldness and resolution in the battles. Still others by burning their 
tents and baggage38 have imposed on their men the necessity of supplying themselves 
out of the enemy's country with everything they needed. I omit mentioning all the 
other instances of the kind, which are countless, and the many other daring actions 
and expedients of generals that we know of from both history and our own 
experience, for which no general was ever punished when disappointed in his helps. 
Unless, indeed, someone among you can bring the charge against me that when 
I exposed the others to manifest destruction I kept myself out of danger. But if I took 
my place in the line with all the rest, was last to withdraw and shared the same 
fortune with the (p29) others, of what crime am I guilty? Concerning myself, then, let 
this suffice. 

[9,32] "But concerning the senate and the patricians I wish to say a few words to you, 
since the general hatred you plebeians bear toward them because they prevented the 
allotment of land hurts me also, and since my accuser too did not conceal this hatred, 
but made it no small part of his accusation against me. And I shall prospect with 
frankness; for I could not speak in any other fashion, nor would it be to your interest 
to hear me if I did. You are not doing right in the eyes of men or the gods, plebeians, 
if, on the one hand, you show no gratitude for the many great benefits you have 
received from the senate, but, on the other hand, because, when you demanded a 
measure the concession of which would bring great harm to the public, the senate, 
not in any spirit of animosity toward you, but having in view the welfare of the 
commonwealth, opposed it, you angrily resent its action.But what you ought to 
have done was, preferably, to accept the senate's decisions as having been made with 
the best of motives and for the good of all and then to have desisted from your selfish 
striving; but if you were unable to restrain your inexpedient desire by means of sober 
reason, you should have sought to obtain these same ends by persuasion and not by 
violence. For voluntary gifts are not only more pleasing to those who grant them 
than such as are extorted by force, but are also more lasting to those who receive 
them than those which are not freely given. Of this truth you, however, as Heaven is 
my witness, take no account, but you are continually stirred up by your demagogues 
and roused to fury (p31) even as is the sea by winds that spring up one after another, 
and you do not permit the commonwealth to remain calm and serene for even the 
briefest space of time. The result, therefore, is that we prefer war to peace; at any rate, 
when we Romans are at war, we hurt our enemies, but when at peace, our friends. 
And yet, plebeians, if you regard all the resolutions of the senate as excellent and 
advantageous, as they really are, why do you not assume this also to be one of them? 
If, however, you believe that the senate takes no thought at all for the things it should, 
but governs the commonwealth dishonourably and basely, why in the world do you 
not abolish it bag and baggage and yourselves govern and deliberate and wage wars in 
defence of our empire, rather than pare it down and destroy it by degrees by making 
away with its most important members in your trials? For it would be better for all of 
us to be attacked together in war than for each one separately to be the victim of false 
accusations.However, it is not you, as I said, who are the authors of these disorders, 
but rather the demagogues, who keep you stirred up and who are neither willing to be 
ruled nor capable of ruling. Indeed, so far as their imprudence and inexperience 
could accomplish it, this ship of yours would have foundered many times over; but as 
it is, the power which corrects their errors and enables your commonwealth to sail on 
an even keel is the senate, so greatly maligned by them. These remarks, whether 
they are pleasant for you to hear or vexatious, have been uttered and hazarded by me 
in all sincerity; and I (p33) had rather lose my life by using a freedom of speech that is 
advantageous for the commonwealth than save it by flattering you." 

[9,33] Having spoken in this manner and without either resorting to lamentations and 
wailings over his misfortune or abasing himself by entreaties and unseemly grovelling 
at the feet of anyone, and without displaying any other mark of an ignoble nature, he 
yielded the floor to those who desired to speak or bear witness in his favour. Many 
came forward and sought to clear him of the charge, and particularly Verginius, who 
had been consul at the same time with him and was regarded as having been the 
cause of the victory. He not only declared Servilius to be innocent, but argued that, as 
the bravest of men in war and the most prudent of generals, he deserved to be praised 
and honoured by all. He said that if they thought the war had ended favourably, they 
ought to feel grateful to both commanders, but if unfavourably, they ought to punish 
them both; for not only their plans, but also their actions and the fortunes meted out 
to them by Heaven had belonged to them both. Not only were the man's words 
convincing, but his whole life as well, which had been tested in all manner of good 
deeds. He had moreover — and this it was that stirred the greatest compassion — 
a look of fellow-suffering, such a look as one is apt to see on the faces of those who 
themselves have suffered calamities or are about to suffer them. Hence even the 
relations of the men who had lost their lives in the battle and seemed irreconcilable to 
the au of their misfortune became softened and laid aside their resentment, as they 
presently made evident. For (p35) when the votes had been taken, not a single tribe 
condemned him. Such was the outcome of the jeopardy in which Servilius had been placed. 

[9,34] Not long afterwards an army of the Romans marched out against the 
Tyrrhenians under the command of Publius Valerius, one of the consuls. For the 
forces of the Veientes had again assembled and had been joined by the Sabines. The 
latter had hitherto hesitated to assist them in the war, fearing that they were aiming 
at the impossible; but now, when they learned both of the flight of Menenius and of 
the fortifying of the hill close to the city, concluding that the forces of the Romans had 
been humbled and that the spirit of the commonwealth had been broken, they 
proceeded to aid the Tyrrhenians, sending them a large body of troops. The 
Veientes, relying night on their own forces and on those of the Sabines which had just 
come to them, and expecting reinforcements from the rest of the Tyrrhenians, were 
eager to march on Rome with the greater part of their army, in the belief that none 
would oppose them, but that they should either take the city by storm or reduce it by 
famine. But Valerius forestalled their plan, while they were still delaying and 
waiting for the allies who tarried, by setting out himself with the flower of the Roman 
youth and with the auxiliary force from the allies, not openly, but in such a manner as 
would conceal his march from the enemy so far as possible. For, advancing from 
Rome in the later afternoon and crossing the Tiber, he encamped at a short distance 
from the city; then, rousing the army about midnight, (p37) he marched in haste and, 
before it was day, attacked one of the enemy's camps.For there were two camp s, 
separate but at no great distance from one another, one of the Tyrrhenian and the 
other of the Sabines. The first camp he attacked was that of the Sabines, where most 
of the men were still asleep and there was no guard worth mentioning, inasmuch as 
they were in friendly territory and felt great contempt for the enemy, whose presence 
had not been reported from any quarter; and he took it by storm. Some of the Sabines 
were slain in their beds, others just as they were getting up and arming themselves, 
and still others, who, though armed, were dispersed and fighting in disorder; but the 
larger part of them were intercepted and destroyed by the Roman horse while they 
were endeavouring to escape to the other camp. 

[9,35] The camp of the Sabines having thus been taken, Valerius led his forces to the 
other camp, where the Veientes lay, having occupied a position that was not very 
strong. Here it was not possible for the attackers to approach the camp without being 
seen, since it was now broad daylight and the fleeing Sabines had informed the 
Tyrrhenians both of their own disaster and of the advance of the Romans against the 
others;hence it was necessary to attack the enemy with might and main.Then, as 
the Tyrrhenians ought to before their camp with all possible vigour, a sharp action 
ensued, with great slaughter on both sides; and the decision of the battle was equally 
balanced, shifting to and fro for a long time. At last (p39) the Tyrrhenians, forced back 
by the Roman horse, gave way and retired to their camp. The consul followed, and 
when he came near their ramparts — these had been poorly constructed and the 
place, as I said, was not very secure — he attacked them in many places at once, 
continuing his exhausting efforts all the rest of that day and not even resting the 
following night. The Tyrrhenians, exhausted by their continual hardships, left their 
camp at break of day, some fleeing to their city and others dispersing themselves in 
the neighbouring woods. The consul, having made himself master of this camp also, 
rested his army that day; then, on the next day he distributed to the men who had 
shared in the fighting the spoils, great in quantity, which he had taken in both camps, 
and honoured with the customary crowns those who had distinguished themselves in 
the battles.The man who was regarded as having fought with the better bravery of 
all and put the troops of the Veientes to flight was Servilius, the consul of the 
preceding year, who had been acquitted in his trail before the populace and now had 
been sent along as legate to Valerius; and in consideration of the superior valour he 
showed upon this occasion he was the first to receive the rewards which among the 
Romans are the most esteemed. After that the consul, having stripped the enemy's 
dead and buried his own, marched away with his army, and encamping near the city 
of the Veientes, challenged those inside to give battle.But when none ventured out 
to fight and he saw that it would be a difficult matter to capture them by assault, 
occupying as they did a city that was exceedingly strong, he overran a great part of 
their country and then invaded that of the (p41) Sabines. For many days he plundered 
their territory too, which was still untouched, and then, since his baggage train was 
now heavily laden with booty, he led his troops homeward. While he was yet a long 
way from the city he was met by the people, who, crowned with garlands, perfumed 
the route with frankincense as he entered and received the army with bowls of 
honeyed wine. And the senate decreed to him the celebration of a triumph. 
The other consul, Gaius Nautius, to whom the defence of their allies the Latins and 
the Hernicans had fallen by lot, had delayed taking the field, not because he was 
swayed by any irresolution or fear of danger, but because he was awaiting the 
uncertain outcome of the war with the Veientes, to the end that, if any misfortune 
should befall the army employed against them the commonwealth might have 
another force assembled in readiness to hinder the enemy from making an irruption 
into the country, in case this foe, like those who had earlier marched against Rome, 
should attempt to fortify any places as a threat to the city. In the meantime the war 
brought upon the Latins by the Aequians and the Volscians had been happily 
concluded and messengers had arrived announcing that the enemy, defeated in 
battle, had left the territory of the Latins and that these allies no longer stood in any 
need of assistance for the present. Nevertheless, Nautius, after affairs in Tyrrhenia 
had taken a happy turn for the Romans, marched out with his army. Then, having 
invaded the country of the Volscians and overrun a great part of it which they had left 
deserted, he possessed (p43) himself of a very few slaves and cattle, and having set fire 
to their fields, the corn being then ripe, and done not a little other damage to their 
farmsteads, as none came to oppose him, he led his army home. These were the 
things accomplished in the consulship of those men. 

[9,36] Their successors in the consulship,41 Aulus Manlius and Lucius Furius, after the 
senate had voted that one of them should march against the Veientes, drew lots, 
according to their custom, to determine which should command the expedition. And 
the lot falling to Manlius, he speedily led out the troops and encamped near the 
enemy. The Veientes, being shut up within their walls, defended themselves for some 
time; and sending ambassadors both to the other cities of Tyrrhenia and to the 
Sabines who had lately assisted them, they asked them to send them aid promptly. 
But when they failed of everything they asked for and had consumed all their 
provisions, the oldest and most honoured among them, compelled by necessity, came 
out of the city to the consul with the tokens of suppliants, begging for an end to the 
war. Manlius ordered them to bring money for a year's pay for the army and 
provisions for two months and after doing this to send envoys to Rome to treat with 
the senate for peace. And they, having approved these conditions and speedily 
brought the pay for the army, together with the money which the consul permitted 
them to pay in lieu of the corn, came to Rome; and being introduced into the senate, 
they sought to obtain forgiveness for the past and for (p45) the future to be freed from 
the war. After many arguments on both sides, the motion prevailed to put an end to 
the war by a treaty, and a truce was granted to them for forty years. Then the envoys 
departed, feeling very grateful to the commonwealth for the peace. And Manlius, 
coming to the city, requested and received an ovation for having put an end to the 
war. There was also a census in this consulship; the number of the citizens who 
registered their own names, their wealth, and the names of their sons who had 
reached manhood was a little over 103,000.

[9,37] These consuls44 were succeeded by Lucius Aemilius Mamercus (elected for the 
third time) and Vopiscus Julius, in the seventy-seventh Olympiad (the one at which 
Dandes of Argos won the foot-race), when Chares was archon at Athens. The 
administration of the new consuls was very difficult and turbulent; they enjoyed 
peace, it is true, from foreign wars — for all their quarrels were in a state of quiet — 
but through the dissensions at home they were not only themselves exposed to 
dangers, but came near destroying the commonwealth as well. For as soon as the 
populace had a respite from military expeditions, they at once became eager for a 
distribution of the public lands.It seems there was among the tribunes a certain 
bold man, not wanting in eloquence, Gnaeus Genucius, who whetted the passions of 
the poor. This man, by assembling the populace on every occasion and cajoling the 
needy, (p47) was endeavouring to force the consuls to carry out the decree of the senate 
concerning the allotment of lands. But the consuls kept refusing to do, alleging that 
this duty had been assigned by the senate, not to them, but to the consuls who 
immediately followed Cassius and Verginius, with reference to whom the preliminary 
decree had been drawn up. At the same time they pointed out that decrees of the 
senate were not laws continuing in force forever, but measures designed to meet 
temporary needs and having validity for one year only.When the consuls put 
forward these excuses, Genucius, finding himself unable to employ compulsion 
against them, since they were invested with a superior authority, took a bold course. 
He brought a public suit against Manlius and Lucius, the consuls of the preceding 
year, and summoned them to appear before the populace and make their defence, 
specifying openly the ground for the action, which was that they had wronged the 
populace in not appointing the decemvirs directed by the senate to distribute the 
allotments of land.And he advanced plausible reasons for not bringing to trail some 
of the other consuls, though there had been twelve consulships in the interval since 
the senate had drawn up this decree,47 and for accusing only these men of violating 
the promise. He ended by saying that the only way the present consuls could be 
compelled to allot the land would be for them to see some others punished by the 
populace and thus be reminded that it would be their fate to meet with the same treatment. 

[9,38] After he had said this and exhorted p49 them all to be present at the trial and had 
solemnly sworn over the victims that he would persist in his resolution and prosecute 
the men with all possible vigour, he appointed a day for holding the trail. The 
patricians, upon learning of this, felt great fear and concern, wondering what course 
they ought to take to secure the men's acquittal of the charge and also to put a stop to 
the boldness of the demagogue. And they resolved, in case the populace should pass 
any vote to the prejudice of the consular power, to prevent them from carrying it out, 
by opposing them with all their power and even resorting to arms if that should be 
necessary. But they had no need to use any violent means, as the danger was 
dispelled in a sudden and unexpected manner. For when only one day remained till 
the trial, Genucius was found dead on his bed without the least sign of stabbing, 
strangling, poisoning, or any of the other means of killing as the result of a plot. As 
soon as this unhappy occurrence was known and the body had been brought into the 
Forum, the event was looked upon as a kind of providential obstacle to the trial, 
which was straightway dismissed. For none of the other tribunes dared to revive the 
sedition, but they even looked upon Genucius as having been guilty of great madness. 
Now if the consuls had not committed any further act of officiousness, but had let the 
dissension, as Heaven had put it to sleep, remain so, no further danger would have 
beset them; but as it was, by turning to arrogance and contempt for the plebeians and 
by desiring to display the extent of their power, they brought about great mischiefs. 
For, having appointed a day for levying troops and endeavouring (p51) to coerce the 
disobedient by various punishments, including even scourging with rods, they drove 
the greater part of the plebeians to desperation. This was caused particularly by the 
incident I shall now relate. 

[9,39] A certain man of the plebeians, famous for his exploits in war, Volero Publius, 
who had commanded centuries in the late campaigns, was now listed by the consuls 
as a common soldier instead of a centurion. Upon his objecting to this and refusing to 
take a lower rank when he had been guilty of misconduct in the former campaigns, 
the consuls, offended at his frankness, ordered the lictors to strip him and lash his 
body with their rods. The young man called upon the tribunes for assistance, and 
asked, if he were guilty of any crime, to stand trial before the plebeians. When the 
consuls paid no heed to him but repeated their orders to the lictors to take him away 
and flog him, he regarded the insult as intolerable and took justice into his own 
hands. The first lictor who approached him he struck squarely in the face with his 
fists, and being a young man and vigorous, he knocked him down; and the next one 
likewise. When the consuls in their anger ordered all their attendants to approach 
him at the same time, the plebeians who were present thought it an outrageous thing. 
And immediately gathering together in a body and shouting the cry used to incite one 
another's resentment, they snatched the young man away and repulsed the lictors 
with blows, and at last made a rush against the consuls; and if those magistrates had 
not left the Forum and fled, the mob (p53) would have done some irreparable mischief. 
As a result of this incident the whole city was divided, and those tribunes who till 
then had remained quiet grew wild with rage and inveighed against the consuls. Thus 
the dissensions over the land-allotment had turned into another quarrel of greater 
consequence because of the contest concerning the form of government. On the one 
hand the patricians, believing that the power of the consuls was being destroyed, 
shared their indignation and demanded that the man who had dared to lay hands on 
their attendants should be hurled down from the precipice. On the other hand the 
plebeians, assembling together, raised a loud clamour and exhorted one another not 
to betray their liberty, but to carry the matter before the senate, to accuse the consuls 
and to endeavour to ought to be some justice from them because they had refused to 
permit a man who had invoked the assistance of the tribunes and asked to be tried 
before the populace, in case he were guilty of any wrongdoing, to obtain either of 
these rights, but had treated him like a slave, though he was free born and a citizen, 
when they ordered him to be beaten. The two parties being thus arrayed against one 
another and neither being willing to yield to the other, all the remaining time of this 
consulship was consumed without being marked either by any glorious exploits in 
war or by achievements at home worthy of mention. 

[9,40] The election of magistrates being at hand, Lucius Pinarius and Publius Furius 
were chosen consuls. At the very beginning of this year the city (p55) was filled with a 
kind of religious awe and fear of the gods owing to the occurrence of many prodigies 
and omens. All the augurs and the pontiffs declared that these occurrences were 
indications of divine anger, aroused because of some rites were not being performed 
in a pure and holy manner.And not long afterwards the disease known as the 
pestilence attacked the women, particularly such as were with child, and more of 
them died than ever before; for as they miscarried and brought forth dead children, 
they died together with their infants. And neither supplications made at the statues 
and altars of the gods nor expiatory sacrifices performed on behalf of the state and of 
private households gave the women any respite from their ills.While the 
commonwealth was suffering from such a calamity, information was given to the 
pontiffs by a slave that one of the Vestal virgins who have the care of the perpetual 
fire, Urbinia by name, had lost her virginity and, though unchaste, was performing 
the public sacrifices. The pontiffs removed her from her sacred offices, brought her to 
trial, and after her guilt had been clearly established, they ordered her to be scourged 
with rods, to be carried through the city in solemn procession and then to be buried 
alive. One of the two men who had perpetrated the impious defilement killed 
himself; the other was seized by the pontiffs, who ordered him to be scourged in the 
Forum like a slave and then put to death. After this action the pestilence which had 
attacked women and caused so great a mortality among them promptly ceased. 

[9,41] But the sedition raised by the plebeians (p57) against the patricians, which had long 
continued in the city, was starting up again. The person who stirred it up was Volero 
Publius, one of the tribunes, the same man who the year before had disobeyed the 
consuls Aemilius and Julius when they would have listed him as a common soldier 
instead of a centurion. He was chosen by the poor as leader of the populace, not so 
much for any other reason — for he was not only of common birth, but had been 
brought up in great obscurity and want — but because he was regarded as the first 
person in private life who by his disobedience had humbled the consular power, 
which till then had been invested with the royal dignity, and still more by reason of 
the promises he had made, when he stood candidate for the tribunate against the 
patricians, to deprive them of their power. This man, as soon as it was possible for 
him to attend to public business, now that the divine anger had abated, called an 
assembly of the populace and proposed a law concerning the tribunician elections, 
transferring them from the assembly of the clans, called by the Romans the curiate 
assembly, to the tribal assembly. What the difference was between these assemblies 
I will now point out.In order that the voting in the curiate assembly might be valid 
it was necessary that the senate should pass a preliminary decree and that the 
plebeians should vote on it by curiae, and that (p59) after both these votes the heavenly 
signs and omens should offer no opposition; whereas, in the case of the voting of 
tribal assembly, neither the preliminary decree of the senate was necessary nor the 
sanction of the priests and augurs, but it was only necessary that it should be carried 
through and completed by the members of the tribes in a single day. Now of the other 
four tribunes there were two who joined with Volero in proposing this law; and by 
enlisting the co-operation of these two he carried the day, as those who were not of 
the same mind were in the minority. But the consuls, the senate, and all the 
patricians sought to prevent the law from passing; and coming to the Forum in great 
numbers on the day appointed by the tribunes for ratifying the law, they delivered all 
kinds of speeches, the consuls, the oldest senators and everyone else who so desired 
enumerating the absurdities inherent in the law. When the tribunes had argued on 
the other side and the consuls had spoken a second time and the verbal skirmishing 
had lasted a long while, that assembly at least was dispersed by the closing in of 
night-time. The tribunes having again appointed the third market-day for the 
consideration of the law and an even greater throng flocking to the Forum on that 
day, the same thing happened as before.Publius, perceiving this, resolved neither to 
permit the consuls to inveigh against the law again nor to allow patricians to be 
present at the voting. For the patricians in their partisan bands and in groups 
together with their clients, who were numerous, occupied many parts of the Forum, 
shouting encouragement to those who inveighed against the law and noisily 
interrupting those who defended it, and doing many other things (p61) that were 
indications of the disorder and violence that there would be in the voting. 

[9,42] These designs of Publius, pointing toward a tyranny, were checked by a fresh 
calamity sent from Heaven. For the city was visited with a pestilence, which occurred, 
indeed, in the rest of Italy also, but was especially prevalent in Rome. No human 
assistance could relieve the sick; but alike whether they were attended with great care 
or received none of the necessary attentions, they died all the same. No supplications 
to the gods nor sacrifices nor the final refuge to which men under such calamities are 
compelled to have recourse — private and public expiations — contributed any help at 
that time; and the disease made no distinction of age or sex, of strong or weak 
constitutions, of skill, or of any other of the agencies supposed to lighten the malady, 
but attacked both men and women, old and young. However, it did not last long — 
a circumstance which saved the city from utter destruction; but, like a river in flood 
or a conflagration, falling upon the people with full force, it made a sharp attack and a 
speedy departure. As soon as the calamity abated, Publius, (p63) whose magistracy was 
near expiring, since he could not get the law confirmed during the remainder of his 
term, as the election of magistrates was at hand, stood again for the tribuneship for 
the following year, making many big promises to the plebeians; and he was again 
chosen tribune by them, together with two of his colleagues. The patricians, to meet 
this situation, contrived to advance to the consulship a man of stern disposition and 
an enemy of the populace, one who would not diminish in any respect the power of 
the aristocracy, namely, Appius Claudius, the son of that Appius who had most 
strongly opposed the populace in the matter of their return. And though he 
protested much and even refused to go to the field for the election, they nevertheless 
passed the preliminary vote and appointed him consul in his absence. 

[9,43] After the election had been carried through quite easily — for the poorer 
people left the field as soon as they heard Appius named — Titus Quintius 
Capitolinus and Appius Claudius Sabinus succeeded to the consulship, men alike 
neither in their dispositions nor in their principles.For it was the opinion of Appius 
that the idle and needy populace should be kept employed in military expeditions 
abroad, in order that, while supplying themselves from the enemy's country by their 
own toils with an abundance of the daily necessaries of which they were in the 
greatest need and at the same time accomplishing results advantageous to the 
commonwealth, (p65) they might be least likely to be hostile and troublesome to the 
senators who were administering public affairs. He declared that any excuse for 
making war would be justifiable for a state that laid claim to supremacy and was 
envied by all; and he asked them, applying the principle of probability, to judge what 
was to happen in the future by what had already taken place in the past, adding that 
all the commotions which had occurred in the commonwealth in the past had 
happened during the respites from war. Quintius, on the other hand, thought they 
ought not to wage any war. He declared they ought to be satisfied if the populace, 
when called upon to face the inevitable dangers brought upon them from outside, 
yielded ready obedience; and he showed that if they attempted to use force with the 
disobedient they would drive the plebeians to desperation, as the consuls before them 
had done. As a result, they would run the risk either of putting down the sedition with 
bloodshed and slaughter or of submitting to a shameful courting of the plebeians.In 
that month the command belonged to Quintius, so that the other consul was bound to 
do nothing without his consent. In the meantime Publius and the other two tribunes 
without further delay were again proposing the law which they had been unable to get 
ratified the year before, with this additional provision that the college of aediles61 
should also be chosen in the same assemblies, and that everything else that was to 
be done and ratified by the populace should be voted on in like manner by the 
members of the (p67) tribes. This, now, clearly meant the overthrow of the senate and 
the dominance of the populace. 

[9,44] When the consuls were informed of this, they grew anxious and considered by 
what means the commotion and sedition might speedily and safely be removed. 
Appius advised summoning to arms all who wished the constitution of their fathers to 
be preserved, and if any opposed them, to look upon them as enemies.But Quintius 
thought they ought to use persuasion with the plebeians and convince them that 
through ignorance of their own interest they were being led into pernicious counsels. 
He said that it was the extreme of folly to wish to obtain from their fellow citizens 
against their will the things which they might receive by their consent.The advice of 
Quintius being approved of by the other members of the senate, the consuls went to 
the Forum and asked the tribunes to give them a hearing and to appoint a time for it. 
And having obtained both requests with difficulty, when the day they had asked of 
them had come, the Forum being filled with a great concourse of people of all sorts, 
which the magistrates on both sides had got together under instructions to support 
them, the consuls presented themselves with the intention of speaking against the 
law. Quintius, accordingly, who was a fair-minded man in all respects and most 
capable of winning over the populace by his eloquence, first desired leave to speak, 
and then made an adroit speech that was acceptable to everybody, with the result that 
those who spoke in favour of the law were p69reduced to great embarrassment, 
finding nothing to say that was more just or more reasonable. And if his colleague 
had not chosen to continue his officiousness, the populace, being fully aware that 
their demands were neither just nor right, would have rejected the law. But as it was, 
he delivered a speech that was haughty and offensive to the ears of the poor, so that 
they became exasperated and implacable and fell into greater strife than before.For 
he did not talk to them as if they were free men and his fellow citizens who had power 
to confirm or reject the law, but domineering over them as if they were outcasts or 
foreigners or men whose liberty was precarious, he uttered bitter and intolerable 
reproaches, upbraiding them with the abolition of their debts and with their desertion 
of the consuls when they snatched up the consuls and quit the camp, imposing 
voluntary banishment upon themselves;63 and he appealed to the oaths they had 
sworn when they took up arms in defence of the country which had given them birth, 
only to turn them against that very country.Therefore their conduct was not at all 
strange, he said, if, after being guilty of perjury to the gods, deserting their generals, 
leaving the city undefended as far as in them lay, and returning home in order to 
violate the public faith, subvert the laws and overthrow the constitution of their 
fathers, they showed no moderation and could not behave themselves like good 
citizens, but were always aiming at some selfish encroachment and violation of the 
laws. At one time they were demanding the right to choose for themselves their own 
magistrates (p71) and making these unaccountable for their actions and sacrosanct; 
again, they were putting on trial for their lives such of the patricians as they saw fit, 
and transferring the legitimate courts, to which the commonwealth had formerly 
entrusted the trial of causes involving death or banishment, from the most 
incorruptible senate to the vilest mob; and yet again, the labourers for hire and the 
homeless were introducing tyrannical and unfair laws against the men of noble birth, 
without leaving to the senate the power even of passing the preliminary decree 
concerning those laws, but depriving that body of this honour also, which it had 
always enjoyed undisputed under both kings and tyrants. After he had (p73) uttered 
many other reproaches of like nature and withheld neither any bitter fact nor any 
opprobrious word, he concluded with this declaration — which gave greater offence to 
the multitude than all the rest — that the commonwealth would never cease being 
divided into factions over every matter, but would always suffer from some fresh 
distemper following the old as long as the tribunician power should last. He pointed 
out that it is important to examine the beginnings of every political and public 
institution, to see that they shall be righteous and just; for from good seeds are wont 
to come good and wholesome fruit, and from bad seeds evil and deadly fruit. 

[9,45] "If, now," he said, "this magistracy had been introduced into the commonwealth 
harmoniously, for the good of all, entering in with the sanction of both omens and 
religious rites, it would have been the source of many blessings to us — kindly 
services, harmony, wholesome laws, hopes of blessings from Heaven, and countless 
any other benefits. But as it is, since it was introduced by violence, lawlessness, 
sedition, the fear of civil war, and by everything mankind most abhors, what good or 
salutary thing can one now expect will ever come of it when it had such beginnings? 
So that it is vain for us to seek for a cure and for the aids which human reason 
suggests against the evils that are continually springing out of it, so long as the 
pernicious root remains. For we shall have no end of outbursts of the divine wrath, 
no deliverance from them, while this malignant curse and cancer, firmly imbedded in 
our body politic, corrupts and destroys all that is wholesome. But for the discussion of 
this subject another occasion will be more suitable. For the moment, since it is 
necessary (p75) to compose the present disturbances, I put aside all equivocation and 
say this to you: Neither this nor any other law shall become valid during my 
consulship without a preliminary decree of the senate; on the contrary, I will fight for 
the aristocracy not only with words, but, if it shall be necessary to proceed to deeds, 
I shall not be outdone by its opponents even in these. And if you did not know before 
the extent of the consular power, you shall learn it during my term of office." 

[9,46] Thus Appius spoke; and, on the side of the tribunes, the oldest and most highly 
respected, Gaius Laetorius, a man acknowledged to be of no mean courage in warfare 
and not without ability in public affairs, rose up to answer him; and he delivered a 
long speech in behalf of the populace, beginning with the earliest times. He showed 
that the poor whom Appius maligned had made many hard campaigns not only under 
their kings, when one might say their action was due to compulsion, but also after the 
expulsion of the kings, when they were acquiring liberty and supremacy for the 
fatherland.But they had received no recompense from the patricians nor enjoyed 
any of the public advantages, but, like captives taken in war, had been deprived by 
them even of their liberty, to recover which they had been compelled to leave their 
country in their yearning for another land in which they might live as free men 
without being insulted. And they had obtained their return to their possessions 
neither by offering violence to the senate nor by resorting to the compulsion of war, 
but by yielding to it when it asked and implored (p77) them to receive back their 
abandoned possessions.He mentioned the oaths and appealed to the terms of the 
compact which had been made to induce them to return, among which there was, 
first, a general amnesty, and then for the poor the power of choosing magistrates who 
should assist them and oppose those who would do violence to them.After 
recounting these matters, he cited the laws which the people had not long before 
ratified, both the one concerning the transfer of the courts, by which the senate had 
granted to the people the power to try any of the patricians they should think fit, and 
also the one concerning the manner of their voting, which no longer made the 
centuriate assembly, but rather the tribal assembly, responsible for the voting.65 

[9,47] When he had finished his defence of the populace, he turned to Appius and said: 
"After this do you dare revile these men through whom the commonwealth, once 
small, has become great, and, once obscure, illustrious? And do you call your 
opponents seditious and reproach them for a fate akin to exile, as if all these men 
here did not still remember what befel your own family — that your ancestors, having 
raised a sedition against the authorities and abandoned their country, settled here as 
suppliants? Unless, indeed, your folk, when they forsook their country through a 
desire for liberty, did a noble thing, but Romans, when they did the same thing as 
you, did an ignoble thing!Do you dare also to revile the (p79) tribunician power as 
having been introduced into the commonwealth for a mischievous purpose and do 
you attempt to persuade these men here to abrogate this sacred and inviolable 
protection of the poor, safeguarded as it is by powerful sanctions which stem from 
both gods and men, O greatest enemy of the populace and most tyrannical of men? 
Have you not been able, then, to learn even this, that in saying these things you 
traduce both the senate and your own magistracy? For the senate, having risen 
against the kings, whose arrogance and insults they resolved to bear no longer, 
established the consulship, and before they had expelled the kings, invested others 
with the royal authority. So that everything you say against the tribunician power as 
having been introduced for a mischievous purpose, since it had its origin in sedition, 
you say against the consulship also; for there was no other ground for introducing 
that magistracy than the sedition of the patricians against the kings. But why do I 
talk thus with you as with a good and fair-minded citizen, when all these men here 
know that you are by inheritance mischievous, harsh and an enemy of the populace, 
and that you can never tame your inborn savagery? Why do I not rather come to grips 
with you, preferring actions to words, and show you how great is the strength, all 
unknown to you, of the populace, whom you were not ashamed to call homeless and 
vile, and how great is the power of this magistracy, to which the law obliges you to 
give way and submit? I too shall lay aside all equivocation and set to work." 

[9,48] Having said this and sworn the strongest oath in use among the Romans that he 
would either p81get the law ratified or abandon life, the multitude meanwhile having 
become silent and being in an agony of expectation concerning what he was going to 
do, he ordered Appius to leave the assembly. And when Appius, instead of obeying, 
placed the lictors about him, together with the crowd which he had brought from 
home for that purpose, and obstinately refused to leave the Forum, Laetorius, after 
bidding the heralds to command silence, announced that the tribunes ordered the 
consul to be led away to prison. Upon this the assist by his command advanced in 
order to seize the person of Appius, but the foremost lictor with a successful blow 
drove him back. When those present raised a great outcry and showed their 
resentment, Laetorius himself rushed forward after appealing to the crowds to assist 
him, while Appius, supported by a numerous and vigorous body of young men, stood 
his ground. There followed unseemly words between the factions and shouting and 
the pushing of body against body; and at last the strife broke out into blows and they 
began to throw stones.But a stop was put to this and the mischief was prevented 
from proceeding farther by Quintius, the other consul, who together with the oldest 
senators implored and entreated them all to desist, and thrust himself into the midst 
of the contending parties. Moreover, there was little of the day left, so that, albeit 
reluctantly, they separated. 
During the following days not only did the magistrates indulge in accusations 
against one another, the consul charging the tribunes with a desire to invalidate his 
authority by ordering a consul to be led away to prison, and the tribunes charging the 
consul with having struck those whose persons were (p83) sacred and made inviolate by 
the law — Laetorius, indeed, bore on his face the marks, still visible, of the blows — 
but the whole city, filled with rage and fury, was rent with faction.Then the 
populace together with the tribunes proceeded to guard the Capitol both day and 
night without intermission. The senate assembled and entered into a long and 
difficult consideration of the proper means of putting a stop to the sedition, being 
sensible not only of the magnitude of the danger but also that not even the consuls 
had succeeded in being of one mind; for Quintius advised yielding to the populace in 
everything that was reasonable, whereas Appius proposed to resist till death. 

[9,49] When no end would come to the strife, Quintius took each party aside separately, 
the tribunes and Appius, and begged, besought and implored them to regard the 
public interests as more vital than their private concerns. And observing that the 
tribunes had become milder but that his colleague persisted in the same arrogance, 
he undertook to persuade Laetorius and his colleagues to refer all their complaints, 
both private and public, to the determination of the senate.When he had 
accomplished this, he assembled the senate, and after bestowing great praise upon 
the tribunes and begging his colleague not to act against the safety of the state, he 
then proceeded to call upon those who were wont to express their opinions.  
Publius Valerius Publicola, who was called upon first, expressed the following 
opinion: That the mutual accusations of the tribunes and the consul relating to what 
they had suffered or done in the tumult, since they had gone so far, not (p85) with 
malice aforethought or for personal advantage, but out of rivalry in their zeal for the 
public welfare, should be publicly dismissed and that no suit should be brought 
because of them. As to the proposed law, since the consul would not allow any law to 
be presented to the assembly without a preliminary vote of the senate, he advised that 
the senate should vote upon it first; also that the tribunes together with the consuls 
should take care to preserve harmony and decorum among the citizens when the vote 
should be taken concerning it. This advice being approved of by all, Quintius 
immediately put the question to the senate concerning the law, and after many 
objections offered by Appius and many rejoinders made by the tribunes the motion to 
lay it before the populace was carried by a large majority. The preliminary decree 
having been thus passed, the private differences of the magistrates were composed; 
and the populace, gladly accepting this concession of the senate, ratified the law. 
From that time down to our own the tribunes and the aediles have been chosen in 
the tribal assemblies68 without auspices or any other religious observances. This was 
the end of the tumult which disturbed the commonwealth at that time. 


[9,50] Not long afterwards the Romans decided to enrol armies and to send out both 
consuls against the Aequians and the Volscians; for it was reported that large forces 
from both these nations had taken the field and were then pillaging the territories of 
the Romans' allies. The armies being soon ready, Quintius (p87) set out to make war 
against the Aequians and Appius against the Volscians, these commands having 
fallen to them by lot. And the fortunes of each of the consuls were such as might have 
been expected. The army assigned to Quintius, pleased with the fairness and 
moderation of their general, were eager to carry out all his orders, and undertook 
most of the hazards unbidden, thereby achieving glory and honour for their 
commander. They overran a large part of the country of the Aequians and plundered 
it, the enemy not daring to come to an engagement; and from it they acquired great 
booty and rich spoils. After tarrying a short time in the enemy's country they returned 
to the city without any losses, bringing their general home illustrious because of his 
exploits. But the army that went out with Appius because of their hatred of him 
disregarded many of the principles of their ancestors. in fact, during the whole 
campaign they not only played the coward deliberately and treated their general with 
contempt, but particularly when they were to engage the army of the Volscians and 
their commanders had drawn them up in order of battle, they refused to come to 
grips with the enemy, but both the centurions and the antesignani, some throwing 
away their standards and others quitting their posts, fled to the camp. And if the 
enemy, wondering at their unexpected flight and fearing there might be an ambush, 
had not turned back from pursuing them farther, the greater part of the Romans 
would have been destroyed. The troops acted thus because of the grudge they bore to 
their general, lest he should (p89) win a brilliant engagement and so obtain the 
distinction of a triumph and the other honours.And the following day, when the 
consul alternately upbraided them for their inglorious flight, exhorted them to 
redeem their most disgraceful conduct by a noble effort, and threatened to invoke the 
laws against them if they would than stand firm in the face of danger, they broke out 
into disobedience, clamoured against him and bade him lead them out of the enemy's 
country, alleging that they were no longer able to hold out by reason of their wounds; 
for most of them had bound up the sound parts of their bodies as if they had been 
wounded. Hence Appius was obliged to withdraw his army from the enemy's country, 
and the Volscians, pursuing them as they retreated, killed many of them.As soon as 
they were in friendly territory, the consul assembled the troops, and after uttering 
many reproaches said that he would inflict upon them the punishment ordained 
against those who quit their posts. And though the legates and the other officers 
earnestly besought him to use moderation and not to heap one calamity after another 
upon the commonwealth, he paid no heed to any of them but confirmed the 
punishment.Thereupon the centurions whose centuries had run away and the 
antesignani who had lost their standards were either beheaded with an axe or beaten 
to death with rods; as for the rank and file, one man chosen by lot out of every ten 
was put to death for the rest. This is the traditional punishment among the Romans 
for those who desert their posts or yield their standards. Afterwards, the general, an 
object of hatred himself and leading back, dejected and disgraced, what was left of his 
army, (p91) the elections being now at hand, returned to the fatherland. 

[9,51] When Lucius Valerius (for the second time) and Tiberius Aemilius had been 
appointed as the next consuls, the tribunes after a short delay brought up again the 
question of the land-allotment; and coming to the consuls, they asked them, with 
prayers and entreaties, to fulfil for the populace the promises which the senate had 
made in the consulship of Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius. Both consuls 
favoured their request, Tiberius Aemilius bringing up an old and not unreasonable 
grudge against the senate because it had refused a triumph to his father when he 
asked for it, and Valerius from a desire to heal the anger of the populace directed 
against him because of the death of Spurius Cassius, whom he, being quaestor at the 
time, had caused to be put to death for aiming at tyranny. Cassius had been the most 
distinguished of his contemporaries both in military commands and in civil affairs; 
moreover, he was the first to introduce into the commonwealth the measure 
concerning the allotment of lands and for that reason in particular was hated by the 
patricians as one who preferred the populace to them.At the time in question, at 
any rate, when the consuls promised them to bring up in the senate the question of 
the division of the public lands and to assist in securing the ratification of the law, the 
tribunes trusted them, and going to the senate, they spoke with moderation. And the 
consuls, desiring to avoid any appearance of contention, said nothing in opposition, 
but asked the oldest (p93) senators to express their opinions.The first person called 
upon was Lucius Aemilius, the father of one of the consuls, who said it seemed to him 
that it would be both just and for the interest of the commonwealth that the 
possessions of the public should belong to all and not to a few, and he advised them 
to support the plea of the populace, in order that this concession on their part might 
be regarded as a favour; for many other things which they had not granted them by 
choice they had yielded through necessity. He felt also that those who were occupying 
these possessions ought to be grateful for the time they had enjoyed them without 
being detected, and when peeved from using them longer should not cling to them 
obstinately. He added that, along with the principle of justice, the force of which all 
would acknowledge, according to which the public possessions are the common 
property of all and private possessions the property of the one who has acquired them 
according to law, the action had also become unavoidable now through the action of 
the senate, which seventeen years before had ordered that the land be divided. And 
he declared that it had reached this decision at that time in the public interest, to the 
end that neither the land should go uncultivated nor the multitude of poor people 
dwelling in the city should live in idleness, envying the advantages of the others, as 
was now the case, and that young men might be reared up for the state in the homes 
and on the lands of their fathers, deriving also some pride of spirit from the very 
rearing.For such as have no lands of their own and live miserably off the 
possessions of others which they cultivate for hire either do not feel any desire at all 
to (p95) beget children, or, if they do, produce a sorry and wretched offspring, such as 
might be expected of those who are the fruit of humble marriages and are reared in 
beggared circumstances."As for me, then," he said, "the motion I make is that the 
consuls should carry out the preliminary decree which was then passed by the senate 
and has since been delayed by reason of the intervening disturbances, and appoint 
the men to divide the land." 

[9,52] Aemilius having spoken thus, Appius Claudius, who had been consul the 
preceding year, being the second person called upon, expressed the contrary opinion, 
pointing out that neither the senate had had any intention of dividing the public 
possessions — for in that case its decree would long since have been carried out — but 
had deferred it to a later time for further consideration, its concern being to put a 
stop to the sedition then raging, which had been stirred up by the consul who was 
aiming at tyranny and afterwards suffered deserved punishment; nor had the first 
consuls chosen after the preliminary decree put the vote into effect, when they saw 
what a source of evils would be introduced into the state if the poor were once 
accustomed to get by allotment the public possessions; nor did the consuls of the 
following fifteen years, though they were threatened with many dangers from the 
populace, consent to do anything that was not in the public interest, for the reason 
that no authority even was given to them by the preliminary decree to appoint the 
land commissioners, but only to those first consuls. (p97)  "So that for you men also, 
Valerius, yes, and you too, Aemilius, to propose allotments of land which the senate 
did not direct you to carry out is neither honourable, descended as you are from 
worthy ancestors, nor is it safe. As regards the preliminary decree, then, let this 
suffice to show that you who have become consuls so many years afterwards are not 
bound by it. As for any who may, either forcibly or stealthily, have appropriated to 
themselves the public possessions, a few words will serve my purpose. If anyone 
knows that another is enjoying the use of property to which he cannot support his 
title by law, let him give information of it to the consuls and prosecute him according 
to the laws, which will not have to be drawn up afresh; for they were drawn up long 
since, and no lapse of time has abrogated them. But since Aemilius has spoken also 
about the advantage of this measure, asserting that the allotting of the land will be for 
the good of all, I do not wish to leave this point either unrefuted. For he, it seems to 
me, looks only to the present, and does not foresee the future, namely, that the 
granting of a portion of the public possessions to the idle and the poor, which now 
seems to him of small importance, will be the cause of many great evils,since the 
custom thereby introduced will not only continue in the state, but will for all time 
prove pernicious and dangerous. For the gratification of evil desires does not 
eradicate them from the soul, but rather strengthens them and renders them still 
more evil. Let the facts convince you of this; for why should you pay any attention to 
words, either mine or those of Aemilius? 

[9,53] (p99) "You all know, to be sure, how many enemies we have overcome, how much 
territory we have ravaged, and how great spoils we have taken from the towns we 
have captured, the loss of which has reduced the enemy from their former prosperity 
to great want, and that those who now bewail their poverty were excluded from none 
of these spoils nor had less than their share in the distribution of them.Do they 
appear, then, to have improved their former condition at all by these further 
acquisitions or to have attained to any distinction in their lives? I could wish and have 
prayed to the gods that they might do so, in order that they might have been to a less 
extent mere transients, a nuisance to the city. But as it is, you see and hear them 
complaining that they are in the direst want. So that not even if you should receive 
what they now ask for — aye, still more than that — will they effect any improvement 
in their lives. For their poverty is not inherent in their condition in life, but in their 
character; and not only will this small portion of land not supply their lack of that, 
but not even all the largesses of kings and despots would do so. If we make this 
concession also to them, we shall be like those physicians whose treatment of the sick 
is to tickle their palates. For the diseased part of the commonwealth will not be cured, 
but even the sound part will catch the disease. In general, senators, you need to take 
much care and thought how you may preserve with all possible zeal the morals of the 
commonwealth which are being corrupted. For you see to what lengths the 
unruliness of the populace has gone and that they no longer care to be governed by 
the consuls; indeed, they (p101) were so far from repenting of what they did here that 
they showed the same unruliness in the field too, throwing away their arms, quitting 
their posts, abandoning their standards to the enemy and resorting to discipline 
graceful flight before ever coming to grips with them, as if they could rob me alone of 
the glory of the victory without robbing the fatherland at the same time of the renown 
it would gain at the expense of their enemies.And now trophies are being erected by 
the Volscians over the Romans, their temples are being adorned with spoils taken 
from us and their cities vaunt themselves as never before — those cities which were 
wont aforetime to beseech our generals to save them from slavery and total 
destruction.Is it just, then, or becoming in you to feel gratitude to you for such 
successes and to honour them with public grants by dividing up the land which, so far 
as they are concerned, is in the enemy's possession? Yet why should we accuse those 
who because of their lack of education and because of their low birth pay little regard 
to matters of honour, when we see that no longer in the character of all even of your 
own number does the ancient proud spirit dwell, but, on the contrary, some call 
gravity haughtiness, justice folly, courage madness, and modesty stupidity? On the 
other hand, those qualities that were held in detestation by the men of former times 
are now extolled and appear to the corrupt as wonderful virtues, such as cowardice, 
buffoonery, malignity, crafty wisdom, rashness in undertaking everything and 
unwillingness to listen to any of one's betters — vices which ere now have laid hold on 
and utterly overthrown many strong states.These words, senators, whether they 
(p103) are pleasing to you to hear or vexatious, have been uttered in all sincerity and 
frankness. To those among you who will be persuaded — if indeed you will be 
persuaded — they will prove both useful at the present time and a source of security 
for the future; but to me, who in the interest of the public good am bringing private 
hatreds upon myself, they will be the cause of great dangers. For reason enables me to 
foresee what will happen; and I take the misfortunes of others as examples of my own." 

[9,54] After Appius had spoken thus and almost all the others had expressed the same 
opinion, the senate was dismissed. The tribunes, angry at their failure, departed and 
after that considered how they might take revenge on the man; and they decided, 
after long deliberation, to bring him to trial on a capital charge. Then, having accused 
him before the popular assembly, they asked all to be present on the day they should 
appoint in order to give their votes concerning him. The charges they planned to 
bring against him were these: that he had been spring mischievous opinions against 
the populace and introducing sedition into the commonwealth, that he had laid hands 
on a tribune contrary to the sacred laws, and that after taking command of the army 
he had returned home with great loss and disgrace. After announcing these 
accusations to the populace and appointing a definite day on which they said they 
would hold the trial, they summoned him to appear on the day named and make his 
defence. All the patricians resented this proceeding and were prepared to use every 
effort to save Appius, and they urged him to yield to the occasion and to assume a 
bearing suitable to his present fortunes; but he declared (p105) that he would do nothing 
ignoble or unworthy of his former conduct, and that he would rather die a thousand 
deaths than cling to the knees of any man. And though his friends were prepared to 
make entreaties in his behalf, he would not permit it, saying that he would be doubly 
ashamed to see others doing for him things which he thought unbecoming even for 
him to do for himself. After he had said this and many other things of like nature 
and neither changed his dress, altered the haughtiness of his looks nor abated 
anything of his proud spirit, when now he saw the whole city intent upon his trial and 
on tiptoe with expectation, and only a few days were left, he made away with himself; 
his relations, however, pretended that he had died a natural death. When his body 
was brought into the Forum, his son went to the tribunes and consuls and asked them 
to assemble the people for him in the manner usual upon such occasions and give 
him leave to deliver the eulogy over his father according to the practice of the Romans 
at the funerals of worthy men.But the tribunes, even while the consuls were calling 
the assembly, vetoed it and bade the youth take away the body. However, the people 
would not permit this nor allow the body to be cast out in dishonour and ignominy, 
but gave leave to the youth to render the customary honours to his father. Such was 
the end of Appius. 

[9,55] The consuls, having enrolled the armies, led them out of the city, Lucius 
Valerius to fight against the Aequians and Tiberius Aemilius against the Sabines; for 
these nations had made an incursion (p107) into the Romans' country on the occasion of 
the sedition and after plundering much of it had returned home with rich booty. The 
Aequians came to an engagement repeatedly; but after receiving many wounds they 
fled to their camp, which was situated in a strong place, and from that time no longer 
came out to fight.Valerius endeavoured to take their camp by storm but was 
prevented by the gods from doing so. For as he was advancing and already setting 
himself to the task darkness descended from the sky, and a heavy rain, accompanied 
by lightning and terrible thunder claps. Then, as soon as the army had scattered, the 
storm ceased and the sky over the place became perfectly clear. The consul looking 
upon this as an omen and the augurs forbidding him to besiege the place any longer, 
he desisted and laid waste the enemy's country; then, having yielded as spoils to the 
soldiers all the booty he came upon, he led the army home. As for Tiberius Aemilius, 
while he was overrunning the enemy's country with great contempt of them at first 
and no longer expecting anyone to oppose him, the army of the Sabines came upon 
him and a pitched battle took place between them, beginning about noon and lasting 
till sunset; but when darkness came on, the two armies retired to their camps neither 
victorious nor yet outmatched. During the following days the commanders paid the 
final offices to their dead and constructed ramparts for their camps; and both of them 
had the same intention, which was to defend their own positions and not to engage in 
another action. Then, after a time, they struck their tents and withdrew their forces. 

[9,56] (p109) The year following their consulship, in the seventy-eighth Olympiad (the 
one at which Parmenides of Posidonia won the foot-race), Theagenides being annual 
archon at Athens, Aulus Verginius Caelimontanus and Titus Numicius Priscus were 
made consuls. They had no sooner entered upon their magistracy than news was 
brought that a numerous army of Volscians was at hand. And not long afterwards one 
of the guard-houses of the Romans was on fire after being taken by assault; it was not 
far from Rome and the smoke informed the people in the city of the disaster. 
Thereupon, it being still night, the consuls sent some horsemen out to reconnoitre, 
and stationing guards upon the walls and posting themselves before the gates with 
the troops which were most lightly equipped, they waited for the report of the 
horsemen. Then, as soon as it was day and the forces in the city had joined them, they 
marched against their foes. These, however, after plundering and burning the fort, 
had retired in haste.The consuls extinguished what was still burning, and leaving a 
guard over the place, returned to the city. A few days later they both took the field 
with not only their own forces but those of the allies as well, Verginius marching 
against the Aequians and Numicius against the Volscians; and the campaigns of both 
proceeded according to plan.The Aequians, when Verginius was laying waste their 
country, not only did not dare come to an engagement, but even when they placed an 
ambush of chosen men in the woods with (p111) orders to fall upon their enemies when 
they were scattered, they were disappointed of their hopes, inasmuch as the Romans 
soon became aware of their design and a sharp action ensued, in which the Aequians 
lost many of their men; the result was that they would no longer even try the fortune 
of another engagement.Neither did any army oppose Numicius as he was marching 
on Antium, which was at that time among the foremost cities of the Volscians; but the 
people were forced in every instance to defend themselves from their walls. In the 
meantime not only was the greater part of their country laid waste, but also a small 
town on the coast was taken which they used as a station for their ships and a market 
for the necessaries of life, bringing thither the many spoils they took both from the 
sea and by raids on land. The slaves, goods, cattle and merchandise were seized as 
plunder by the army with the consul's permission; but all the free men ho had not lost 
their lives in the war were taken away to be sold at an auction of spoils. There were 
also captured twenty-two warships belonging to the Antiates together with rigging 
and equipment for ships besides.After that at the consul's command the Romans 
set fire to the houses, destroyed the docks and demolished the wall to its foundations, 
so that even after their departure the fortress could be of no use to the Antiates. These 
were the exploits of the two consuls while they acted separately. They afterwards 
joined forces and made an incursion into the territory of the Sabines; and having laid 
it waste, they returned home with the army. Thus that year ended. 

[9,57] (p113) The next year, when Titus Quintius Capitolinus and Quintus Servilius 
Priscus had succeeded to the consulship, not only were the Romans' forces all under 
arms, but the allied contingents as well presented themselves of their own accord 
before they were notified of the expedition. Thereupon the consuls, after they had 
offered upon their vows to the gods and performed the lustration of the army, set out 
against their enemies.the Sabines, against whom Servilius marched, neither drew 
up for battle nor came out into the open, but remaining in their fortresses, permitted 
their land to be laid waste, their houses to be burned and their slaves to desert, so 
that the Romans retired from their country entirely at their ease, loaded down with 
spoils and exulting in their success. This was the outcome of the expedition led by Servilius. 
The forces which had marched under Quintius against the Aequians and the 
Volscians — for the contingents from both nations who were to fight in behalf of the 
rest had joined together and had encamped before Antium — advancing at a quick 
pace, suddenly appeared before them and set down their baggage not far from the 
enemy's camp in the place where they had first been visible to each other, even 
though it was a low position; for they wished to avoid the appearance of fearing the 
enemy's numbers, which were much larger than their own.When everything was 
ready for battle on both sides, they advanced into the plain, and engaging, fought till 
midday, neither yielding to nor charging their (p115) opponents, and both sides 
continually bringing up to equal strength with the enemy, by means of the troops held 
in reserve, any part of their line that was in distress. In this respect particularly the 
Aequians and Volscians, being more numerous than the Romans, rallied and had the 
advantage, since their foes' numbers were not equal to their ardour. Quintius, seeing 
many of his men dead and the greater part of the survivors wounded, was on the 
point of recalling his forces, but fearing that this would give the enemy the 
impression of a flight, he decided that they must make a bold stroke. Choosing, 
therefore, the best of his horse, he hastened to the aid of his men on the right wing, 
which was hardest pressed. And upbraiding the officers themselves for their want of 
courage, reminding them of their former exploits, and showing them to what shame 
and danger they would be exposed in fleeing, he ended with an untruth, which more 
than anything else inspired his own men with confidence and the enemy with fear. 
For he told them that their other wing had already put the enemy to flight and was by 
now close to their camp. Having said this, he charged the enemy, and dismounting 
from his horse, he and the chosen horsemen with him fought hand to hand. Upon this 
a kind of daring came to those whose spirits till then had flagged, and as if they had 
become different men, all pressed forward; and the Volscians — for these stood 
opposite to them — after holding out for a long time, gave way. Quintius, having 
repulsed these opponents, mounted his horse (p117) and, riding along to the other wing, 
showed to the foot posted there the part of the enemy which was defeated, and 
exhorted them not to be behind the others in valour. 

[9,58] After this no part of the enemy stood their ground but all fled together to their 
camp. The Romans, however, did not pursue them far, but promptly turned back, as 
their bodies were spent with toil and their weapons no longer what they had been. 
But after a few days had passed, for which they had made a truce in order to bury 
their dead and care for their sick, and they had supplied themselves with whatever 
was lacking for the war, they fought another battle, this time about the camp of the 
Romans.For, reinforcements having come to the Volscians and Aequians from the 
neighbouring forts round about, their general grew elated because his forces were 
actually five times as large as to of the enemy, and observing that the Romans' camp 
was not strongly situated, he thought this was a most excellent opportunity for 
attacking them. Having so reasoned, he led his army to their camp about midnight, 
and surrounding it with his men, kept it under guard so that the Romans should not 
steal away. Quintius, upon being informed of the numbers of the enemy, welcomed 
this move and bided his time till it was day and about the hour of full market. Then, 
perceiving that the enemy were already suffering both from lack of sleep and from the 
flying missiles and that they were advancing neither by centuries nor by ranks but 
widely extended and scattered, he opened the gates of the camp and sallied out with 
the flower of the horse; and the foot, closing their ranks, (p119) followed.The Volscians 
were astonished at their boldness and at the madness of their onset and, after holding 
out for a brief time, were repulsed and at the same time began to retire from the 
camp; and, as there stood not far from it a hill of moderate height, they hastened up 
this hill with the intention of both resting themselves and forming in line of battle 
again. But they were unable to form their lines and to recover themselves, for the 
enemy followed at their heels, closing their ranks as much as possible in order not to 
be hurled back while trying to force their way up-hill. There followed a mighty 
struggle which lasted a large part of the day, and many fell on both sides. The 
Volscians, though superior in numbers and having the added security of their 
position, got no benefit from either circumstance; but being forced from their 
position by the ardour and bravery of the Romans, they abandoned the hill and while 
fleeing toward the camp the greater part of them were killed. For the Romans never 
left them as they pursued, but followed at their heels and did not desist till they had 
taken their camp by storm. Then, having seized all the persons who had been left 
behind in the camp and taken possession of the horses and arms and huge quantities 
of baggage, they encamped there that night. The next day the consul, having prepared 
everything that was necessary for a siege, marched with his army to Antium, which 
was not more than thirty stades distant.It chanced that some reinforcements sent 
by the Aequians to the (p121) Antiates for their protection were in the city and were 
guarding the walls. These men, dreading the boldness of the Romans, were now 
attempting to escape from the city; but being prevented from leaving by the Antiates, 
who had notice of their intention, they resolved to deliver up the city to the Romans 
when they should attack it.  The Antiates, being informed of this, yielded to the 
situation, and concerting measures with the Aequians, surrendered the city to 
Quintius upon the terms that the Aequians should have leave to depart under a truce 
and that the Antiates should receive a garrison and obey the commands of the 
Romans. The consul, having made himself master of the city upon these terms and 
having received provisions and everything that was needed for the army, placed a 
garrison there and then led his forces home. In consideration of his success the 
senate came out to meet him, gave him a cordial welcome and honoured him with a triumph. 

[9,59] The following year the consuls were Tiberius Aemilius (for the second time) and 
Quintus Fabius, the son of one of the three brothers who had commanded the 
garrison that was sent out to Cremera and had perished there together with their 
clients. As the tribunes, supported by Aemilius, one of the consuls, were again 
stirring up the populace over the land-allotment, the senate, wishing both to court 
and to relieve the poor, passed a decree to divide among them a certain part of the 
territory of the Antiates which they had taken by the sword the year before and now 
held.Those appointed as leaders in the allotting of the land were Titus Quintius 
Capitolinus, (p123) to whom the Antiates had surrendered themselves, together with 
Lucius Furius and Aulus Verginius. But the masses and the poor among the Romans 
were dissatisfied with the proposed assignment of land, feeling that they were being 
banished from the fatherland; and when few gave in their names, the senate 
resolved, since the list of colonists was insufficient, to permit such of the Latins and 
Hernicans as so desired to join the colony. The triumvirs, accordingly, who were sent 
to Antium divided the land among their people, leaving a certain part of it to the Antiates. 
Meanwhile both consuls took the field, Aemilius marching into the country of the 
Sabines and Fabius into that of the Aequians. Aemilius, though he remained a long 
time in the enemy's country, encountered no army ready to fight for it, but ravaged it 
with impunity; then, when the time for the elections was at hand, he led his forces 
home. To Fabius the Aequians, even before they were compelled to do so by the 
destruction of their army or the capture of their walls, sent heralds to sue for a 
reconciliation and friendship. The consul, after exacting from them two months' 
provisions for his army, two tunics for every man and six months' pay, and whatever 
else was urgently required, concluded a truce with them till they should go to Rome 
and obtain the terms of peace from the senate. The senate, however, when informed 
of this, gave Fabius full power to make peace with the Aequians upon such terms as 
he himself should elect.After that the two nations by the mediation of the consul 
made a (p125) treaty as follows: the Aequians were to be subject to the Romans while 
still possessing their cities and lands, and were not to send anything to the Romans 
except troops, when so ordered, these to be maintained at their own expense. Fabius, 
having made this treaty, returned home with his army and together with his fellow 
consul nominated magistrates for the following year. 

[9,60] The consuls named by them were Spurius Postumius Albinus and Quintus 
Servilius Priscus, the latter for the second time. In their consulship the Aequians were 
held to be violating the agreements lately made with the Romans, and this for the 
following reason.All the Antiates who possessed homes and allotments of land 
remained in the country cultivating not only the lands assigned to them but also those 
which had been taken from them by the colonists, tilling the latter on the basis of 
certain fixed shares which they paid to the colonists out of the produce. But those 
who had no such possessions left the city, and being heartily welcomed by the 
Aequians, were using their country as a base from which to ravage the fields of the 
Latins. As a consequence, such of the Aequians too as were bold and needy joined 
with them in their raids.When the Latins complained before the senate of their 
situation and asked them either to send an army to their relief or to permit them to 
take vengeance themselves on those who had begun the war, the senators, on hearing 
their complaint, neither voted to send an army themselves nor permitted the Latins 
to lead out theirs, but choosing three ambassadors, of whom Quintus (p127) Fabius, 
who had concluded the treaty with the Aequian nation, was the leader, they sent
them out with instructions to inquire of the leaders of the nation whether it was by 
general consent that they were sending out these bands of brigands into the territory 
of the allies and also into that of the Romans — for there had been some raids into the 
latter too by the fugitive Antiates — or whether the state had no hand in any of the 
things that were going on; and if they should say that the acts complained of were the 
work of private persons without the consent of the people, they were to demand 
restitution of the stolen property and ask for the surrender of those who had 
committed the wrongs.Upon the arrival of the ambassadors the Aequians, having 
heard their demands, gave them an evasive answer, saying, indeed, that the 
plundering had not been done by public consent, yet refusing to deliver up the 
perpetrators, who, after losing their own city and becoming wanderers, had in their 
destitution become suppliants of the Aequians.Fabius resented this and appealed 
to the treaty which they had violated; but seeing that the Aequians were dissembling, 
asking time for deliberation and seeking to detain him under the pretence of 
hospitality, he remained there in order to spy upon what was going on in the city. And 
visiting every place, both profane and sacred, on the pretext of seeing the sights, and 
observing the shops full of weapons of war, some already completed and (p129 )others 
still in the making, he perceived their intention.And returning to Rome, he reported 
to the senate what he had heard and what he had seen. The senate, without hesitating 
any longer, voted to send the fetiales to declare war against the Aequians unless they 
expelled the Antiate fugitives from the city and promised satisfaction to the injured. 
The Aequians gave a rather bold answer to the fetiales and admitted that they not 
unwillingly accepted war. But the Romans were unable to send an army against 
them that year, either because Heaven forbade it or because of the maladies with 
which the population was afflicted during a great part of the year; however, for the 
protection of their allies a small army marched forth under Quintus Servilius, one of 
the consuls, and remained on the frontiers of the Latins. 
At Rome his colleague, Spurius Postumius, consecrated the temple of Dius Fidius 
upon the Quirinal hill on the day called the nones of June. This temple had been built 
by Tarquinius, the last king, but had not received at his hands the dedication custom 
among the Romans. At this time by order of the senate the name of Postumius was 
inscribed on the temple. Nothing else worth relating happened during that consulship. 

[9,61] In the seventy-ninth Olympiad (the one at which Xenophon of Corinth won the 
foot-race), (p131) Archedemides being archon at Athens, Titus Quintius Capitolinus 
and Quintus Fabius Vibulanus succeeded to the consulship, Quintius being elected by 
the people to that office for the third time and Fabius for the second. Both of them the 
senate sent into the field, giving them large and well-equipped armies.Quintius was 
ordered to defend the part of their territory which adjoined that of the enemy, and 
Fabius to plunder the country of the Aequians. Fabius found the Aequians waiting for 
him on their own borders with a large force. After both sides had placed their camps 
in the most advantageous positions, they advanced into the plain, the Aequians being 
the challengers and beginning the battle; and they continued fighting spiritedly and 
with perseverance for a great part of the day, each man placing his hopes of victory in 
no one but himself. But when the swords of the greater part of them had become 
useless from repeated blows, the generals ordered the retreat to be sounded and the 
men returned to their camps. After this action no pitched battle was again fought by 
them, but there were sundry skirmishes and constant clashes of the light-armed 
troops as they went to fetch water and escorted convoys of provisions; and in these 
encounters, moreover, they were as a result evenly matched. While this was going 
on, a detachment of the Aequians' army, marching by other roads, made an irruption 
into the part of the Roman territory which lay at a very great distance from the 
common boundary and was for that reason unguarded; and seizing there many 
persons and goods, they returned to their homes without (p133) being discovered by the 
patrols under Quintius who were guarding their own territory. This happened 
continually and brought much disgrace upon the consuls. Later Fabius, learning 
through scouts and prisoners that the best of the Aequians' forces had gone out of 
their camp, set out himself in the night with the flower of the horse and foot, leaving 
the oldest men in the camp. The Aequians, after plundering the regions which they 
had invaded, were returning home with many spoils. But they had not proceeded far 
when Fabius suddenly appeared before them, took away their booty, and defeated in 
battle those who valiantly withstood him; the rest scattered, and being familiar with 
the roads, escaped their pursuers and fled to their camp for refuge.When the 
Aequians had been checked by this unexpected disaster, they broke camp and 
departed as night came on; and after that they ventured out no more from their city, 
but submitted to seeing their corn, which was then ripe, carried off by the enemy, 
their herds of cattle driven away, their effects seized, their farm-houses given to the 
flames and many prisoners led away. After these achievements Fabius, the time 
having come for the consuls to hand over their power to their successors, took his 
army and returned home; and Quintius did the same. 

[9,62] When they came to Rome, they named Aulus Postumius Albus and Servius 
Furius consuls. These had just taken over their magistracy when messengers from the 
Latin allies, sent in haste to the Romans, arrived. These, being introduced into the 
senate, informed them that the situation at Antium (p135) was precarious, since the 
Aequians were sending envoys thither in secret and large numbers of Volscians were 
resorting to the city openly on the pretext of trading; they were being brought there 
by those who had left Antium earlier because of poverty, when their lands were 
allotted among the Roman colonists, and had deserted to the Aequians, as I have 
related. At the same time they reported that along with the natives many also of 
the colonists had been corrupted, and that unless their pursue were forestalled by 
means of an adequate garrison an unexpected war would break out in that quarter 
also against the Romans. Not long after this other messengers, sent by the Hernicans, 
brought word that a large force of Aequians had set out and now lay encamped in the 
hernican's country, where they were plundering everything, and that the Volscians 
were joining with the Aequians in the expedition, contributing the larger part of the 
army.In view of all this the senate voted, first, with reference to those among the 
Antiates who were creating the disturbances — for some of them had come to Rome 
to defend their conduct and had made it clear that they had no honest purpose — to 
send another garrison to keep the city safe; and second, with reference to the 
Aequians, that Servius Furius, one of the consuls, should lead the army against them; 
and both forces promptly set out. The Aequians, upon learning that the Roman 
army had taken the field, departed from the country of the Hernicans and went to 
meet it. When the two armies came in sight of one another, they encamped that day 
not far apart; and the next day the enemy advanced toward the camp of the Romans 
in order to ascertain their intentions. Then, when the (p137) Romans did not come out 
to fight, they engaged in skirmishes, and without performing any noteworthy exploit 
retired with great boasting. But the Roman consul on the following day left his 
entrenchments — for the place was not very safe — and shifted his camp to a more 
advantageous position, where he dug a deeper trench and threw up a higher rampart. 
The enemy, seeing this, were greatly emboldened, and still more so when an army 
came to their assistance from both the Volscian and the Aequian nations; so that 
without further delay they led their forces against the camp of the Romans. 

[9,63] The consul, realizing that the army under his command would not be strong 
enough to contend against both these nations, sent some of his horsemen to Rome 
with letters in which he asked that reinforcements might speedily reach him, as his 
whole army was in danger of being destroyed. When his colleague Postumius had 
read the letter — it was about midnight when the horsemen arrived — he sent out 
numerous heralds to call the senators together from their homes; and before it was 
broad daylight a decree was passed by them that Titus Quintius, who had been thrice 
consul, should take the flower of the young men, both fortune than horse, and, 
invested with proconsular power, should march against the enemy and attack them 
immediately; also that Aulus Postumius, the other consul, should get together the rest 
of the troops, whose assembling would require more time, and go to the assistance of 
the others as speedily as possible.By the time day began to break Quintius got 
together the volunteers, about five thousand in (p139) number; and after waiting only a 
short time he led them out of the city. The Aequians, suspecting this move, remained 
where they were; and having determined, before reinforcements should come to the 
Romans, to attack their camp, in the belief that it would be taken by main strength 
and superior numbers, they sallied out in force after dividing themselves into two 
bodies. There ensued a mighty struggle, lasting throughout the entire day, as the 
enemy boldly mounted the outworks in many places and were not repulsed, though 
exposed to a continual shower of javelins, missiles shot from bows, and stones 
thrown by slings. Then it was that the consul and the legate, after encouraging one 
another, both opened the gates at the same time, and sallying out against their 
opponents with the best of their men, engaged them where they were attacking on 
both sides of the camp, and repulsed those who were mounting the ramparts.When 
the enemy had been routed, the consul pursued for a short distance those who had 
been arrayed opposite to him, and then returned. But his brother and legate, Publius 
Furius, inspired by courage and ardour, drove ahead, pursuing and slaying, till he 
came to the enemy's camp. He had with him two cohorts, not exceeding a thousand 
men. Upon learning of this, the enemy, who were about five thousand, advanced 
against him from their camp. These attacked the Romans in front, while their horse, 
circling round them, fell upon their rear.The troops of Publius, when thus 
surrounded and cut off from their own army, though (p141) they had it in their power to 
save their lives by giving up their arms — for the enemy urged them to do so and were 
extremely anxious to take prisoner a thousand of the bravest Romans, in order to 
obtain through them an honourable peace — nevertheless scorned the enemy and 
exhorting one another to do nothing unworthy of the commonwealth, all died fighting 
after they had killed many of the enemy. 

[9,64] When these men had been slain, the Aequians, elated by their success, advanced 
to the camp of the Romans, bearing aloft, fixed to their spears, the heads of Publius 
and the other prominent men, hoping to terrify the troops inside by this spectacle and 
compel them to surrender to them their arms. But though the Romans were indeed 
somewhat stirred by compassion at the fate of the slain and lamented their 
misfortune, yet they were inspired with a double boldness for the struggle and with a 
noble passion either to conquer or to die like their comrades rather than fall into the 
enemy's hands.That night, accordingly, while the enemy bivouacked beside their 
camp, the Romans went without sleep as they repaired the damaged portions of their 
camp and made ready the other means, of many and various kinds, with which to 
ward off the enemy if they should attempt again to breach their walls. The next day 
the assaults were renewed and the rampart was torn apart at many points. Often the 
Aequians were repulsed by sorties of massed troops from the camp, and often the 
men who rushed out to recklessly were beaten back by the Aequians. And this kept 
happening all day long.In these encounters the Roman consul was wounded in the 
thigh by a javelin (p143) that pierced his shield; wounded also were many other persons 
of distinction who fought at his side. At last, when the Romans had reached 
exhaustion, Quintius unexpectedly appeared in the late afternoon with his 
reinforcement of volunteers composed of the choicest troops. When the enemy saw 
these approaching, they turned back, leaving the siege and completed; and the 
Romans, sallying out against them as they withdrew, set about slaying the laggards. 
They did not pursue them for long, however, weakened as most of them were by 
their wounds, but speedily returned. After this both sides acted upon the defensive, 
remaining a long time in their camps. 

[9,65] Later another force of Aequians and Volscians, thinking they now had a fine 
opportunity to plunder the Romans' country while their best troops were in the field, 
set out in the night; and invading the remotest part of the land, where the 
husbandmen thought there was nothing to fear, they gained possession of much 
booty and many captives.But in the end their return from there proved neither 
glorious nor fortunate. For the other consul, Postumius, who was bringing the 
reinforcements he had got together for the relief of the Romans besieged in their 
camp, when he learned what the enemy were doing, appeared before them 
unexpectedly. They were neither astonished nor terrified at his approach, but when 
they had leisurely deposited their baggage and booty in a single strong place and left a 
sufficient guard to defend it, the rest marched in good order to meet the Romans. 
And when they had joined combat, they performed notable deeds, though they (p145) 
fought few against many — for large numbers came streaming in to oppose them 
from their farms, to which they had earlier scattered — and lightly-armed against 
men whose bodies were entirely protected. They killed many of the Romans and, 
though intercepted in a foreign land, came very near erecting trophies over those who 
had come to attack them.But the consul and the Roman horsemen who were with 
him, all chosen men, charging with their horses unbridled that part of the enemy 
which was firmest and fought best, broke their ranks and killed a goodly number. 
When those in the front line had been slain, the rest of the army gave way and fled; 
and the men appointed to guard the baggage abandoned it and made off by way of the 
near-by mountains. In the action itself only a few of them were slain, but very many 
in the rout, as they were both unacquainted with the country and pursued by the 
Roman horse. 

[9,66] While these things were occurring, the other consul, Servius, being informed that 
his colleague was coming to his assistance and fearing that the enemy might go out to 
meet him and prevent him from getting through to him, planned to divert them from 
this purpose by delivering attacks upon their camp.But the enemy forestalled him; 
for as soon as they learned of the disaster that had befallen their forces, the report 
being brought by those who had survived the pillaging expedition, they broke camp 
the first night after the battle and retired to their city without having accomplished all 
that they desired. For, besides those who had lost their lives in the battles and the 
pillaging expeditions, style lost (p147) many more stragglers in their retreat at this time 
than on the former occasion. For those who were overcome by fatigue and their 
wounds marched slowly, and when their limbs failed them, they fell down, 
particularly at the fountains and rivers, as they were parched with thirst; and the 
Roman horse, overtaking them, put them to the sword.Nor did the Romans, either, 
return home completely successful from this campaign; for they had lost many brave 
men in the several actions and a legate who had distinguished himself above all the 
rest in the combat; but they did return with a victory second to none for the 
commonwealth. These were the achievements of that consulship. 

[9,67] The next year, when Lucius Aebutius and Publius Servilius Priscus had assumed 
office, the Romans accomplished nothing worthy of mention either in war or at home, 
as they were afflicted by a pestilence more severely than ever before. It first attacked 
the studs of mares and herds of cattle and then seize upon the flocks of goats and 
sheep and destroyed almost all the live-stock. After that it fell upon the herdsmen and 
husbandmen, and having spread through the whole country, it invaded the city. It 
was no easy matter to discover the number of servants, labourers and poor people 
who were carried off by it. For at first the dead bodies were carried away heaped up in 
carts and at last the persons of least account were shoved into the river that flows past 
the city. Of the senate the fourth (p149) part was estimated to have perished, including 
not only both consuls but also most of the tribunes. The pestilence began about the 
calends of September and continued all that year, seizing and destroying people 
without distinction of sex or age. When the neighbouring peoples learned of the evils 
that were afflicting Rome, the Aequians and the Volscians, thinking they had an 
excellent opportunity to overthrow her supremacy, concluded a treaty of alliance with 
each other, confirmed by oaths; and after making the preparations necessary for a 
siege, both led out their forces as speedily as possible. In order to deprive Rome of 
the assistance of her allies, they first invaded the territories of the Latins and the 
Hernicans. When envoys from the two nations which were attacked came to the 
senate to beg assistance, it chanced that one of the consuls, Lucius Aebutius, had died 
that very day, while Publius Servilius was at the point of death. Though he could 
barely breathe, he convened the senate, of whom the larger part were brought in half 
dead in litters; and after deliberating, they instructed the envoys to report to their 
countrymen that the senate gave them leave to repulse the enemy by their own 
courage till the consul should recover and the army that was to participate with them 
in the conflict should be assembled. When the Romans had garden this answer, the 
Latins removed everything they could out of the country into their cities, and keeping 
their walls under (p151) guard, permitted everything else to be destroyed. But the 
Hernicans, resenting the ruin and desolation of their lands, took up their arms and 
marched out. And though they fought brilliantly and, while losing many of their own 
men, slew many more of the enemy, they were forced to take refuge inside their walls 
and no longer risked an engagement. 

[9,68] When the Aequians and Volscians had laid waste the Hernicans' territory, they 
came unopposed to the lands of the Tusculans. And having plundered these also, 
none offering to defend them, they arrived at the borders of the Gabini. Then, passing 
through their territory also without opposition, they advanced upon Rome. They 
caused the city enough alarm, it is true, yet they could not make themselves masters 
of it; on the contrary, the Romans, though they were utterly weakened in body and 
had lost both consuls — for Servilius had recently died — armed themselves beyond 
their strength and manned the walls, the circuit of which was at that time of the same 
extent as that of Athens. Some sections of the walls, standing on hills and sheer cliffs, 
have been fortified by Nature herself and require but a small garrison; others are 
protected by the river Tiber, the breadth of which is about four hundred feet and the 
depth capable of carrying large ships, while its current is as rapid as that of any river 
and forms great eddies. There is no crossing it on foot except by means of a bridge, 
and there was at that time only one bridge, constructed of timber, and this they 
removed in time (p153) of war.One section, which is the most vulnerable part of the 
city, extending from the Esquiline gate, as it is called, to the Colline, is strengthened 
artificially. For there is a ditch excavated in front of it more than one hundred feet in 
breadth where it is narrowest, and thirty in depth; and above this ditch rises a wall 
supported on the inside by an earthen rampart so high and broad that it can neither 
be shaken by battering rams nor thrown down by undermining the foundations. 
This section is about seven stades in length and fifty feet in breadth. here the 
Romans were drawn up at that time in force and checked the enemy's assault; for the 
men of that day were unacquainted with the building of either sheds to protect the 
men filling up ditches or the engines called helepoleis. The enemy, therefore, 
despairing of taking the city, retired from the walls, and after laying waste all the 
country through which they marched, led their forces home. 

[9,69] The Romans, after choosing interreges, as they are called, to preside at the 
election of magistrates — a course they are accustomed to take whenever a state of 
"anarchy," or lack of a regular government, occurs — elected Lucius Lucretius and 
Titus Veturius Geminus consuls. In their consulship the pestilence ceased and all civil 
complaints, both (p155) public and private, were postponed. Sextus Titius, one of the 
tribunes, endeavoured, it is true, to revive the measure for the allotment of land, but 
the populace would not permit it and deferred the matter to more suitable times. 
A great eagerness came upon all to take revenge on those who had made expeditions 
against the city on the occasion of the pestilence. And the senate having straightway 
voted for war and the people having confirmed the decree, they proceeded to enrol 
their forces; and no man who was of military age, not even if the law exempted him, 
wished to be left out of the expedition. The army having been divided into three 
bodies, one of them, commanded by Quintus Furius, an ex-consul, was left to defend 
the city, while the other two marched out with the consuls against the Aequians and 
the Volscians.This same course had also been taken already by the enemy. For their 
best army, assembled from both nations, was in the field under two commanders, and 
intended to begin with the territory of the Hernicans, in which they were then 
encamped, and to proceed against all the territory that was subject to the Romans; 
their less useful forces were left to guard their towns, lest some sudden attack might 
be made upon them by enemies.In view of this situation the Roman consuls 
thought it best to attack their foes' cities first; for they reasoned to this effect, that the 
allied army would fall apart if each of the two nations learned that their own 
possessions were in the direst peril, and that they would think it much more 
important to save their own (p157) possessions than to destroy those of the enemy. 
Lucretius accordingly invaded the country of the Aequians and Veturius that of the 
Volscians. The Aequians, for their part, permitted everything outside their walls to be 
destroyed, but guarded their city and their fortresses. 

[9,70] The Volscians, however, inspired by rashness and arrogance and despising the 
Roman army as inadequate to cope with their own large numbers, came out to fight 
in defence of their land and encamped near Veturius. But, as usually happens with an 
army of fresh levies composed of a crowd of both townsmen and farmers got together 
for the occasion, of which many are not only unarmed but also unacquainted with 
danger, the Volscian army dared not so much as encounter the enemy;but the 
greater part of them, thrown into confusion at the first onset of the Romans and 
unable to endure either their war-cry or the clash of their arms, fled precipitately 
inside the walls, with the result that many of them perished when overtaken in the 
narrow parts of the roads and many more when they were crowding about the gates 
as the cavalry pursued them.The Volscians, therefore, having met with this disaster, 
reproached themselves for their folly and were unwilling to hazard another 
engagement. But the generals who commanded the armies of the Volscians and 
Aequians in the field, when they heard that their possessions were being attacked, 
resolved to perform some brave action on their part also, namely, to take their army 
out of the country of the Hernicans and Latins and lead it against Rome in their 
present mood of anger and haste. For they too had some such thought as this in 
mind, that they should succeed in one or (p159) the other of two glorious achievements 
— either to take Rome, if it was unguarded, or to drive the enemy out of their own 
territory, since the consuls would be forced to hasten to the relief of their own country 
when it was attacked.Having come to this decision, they made a forced march, in 
order that they might fall upon the city unexpectedly and immediately get to work. 

[9,71] Having got as far as the city of Tusculum and learning that the whole circuit of 
Rome was lined with armed men and that four cohorts of six hundred men each were 
encamped before the gates, they abandoned their march on Rome; and encamping, 
they laid waste the district close to the city, which they had left untouched on their 
former incursion.But when one of the consuls, Lucius Lucretius, appeared and 
made camp not far from them, they thought this an excellent opportunity to join 
battle before the other army of the Romans, commanded by Veturius, should come to 
the assistance of Lucretius; and placing their baggage on a certain hill and leaving two 
cohorts to defend it, the rest advanced into the plain. Then they engaged the Romans 
and acquitted themselves bravely in the conflict for a long time; but some of them, 
being informed by the guards in the rear that an army was coming down over a hill, 
assumed that the other consul had arrived with the forces under his command, and 
fearing to be hemmed in between the two armies, they no longer stood their ground, 
but turned to flight. In this ancient both their generals fell after performing the deeds 
of valiant men, and likewise many other brave men fighting at their side. Those who 
escaped from the battle scattered and every man retired to his own (p161) city.As a 
result of this victory Lucretius laid waste the country of the Aequians in great 
security, and Veturius that of the Volscians, till the time for the elections was at hand. 
Then both of them, breaking camp, returned to Rome with their armies and 
celebrated the triumphs awarded for victories, Lucretius entering the city in a chariot 
drawn by four horses and Veturius on foot. For these two triumphs are granted to 
generals by the senate, as I have stated; they are equal in other respects, but differ in 
this, that one is celebrated in a chariot and the other on foot.