The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08
relief for their terror; and the tumult being calmed, and after chiding
them for being in dread of a vanquished enemy, he posted a guard on the
gates. Then having convened the senate, when he set out to defend the
frontiers, a suspension[106] of civil business having been proclaimed by
a decree of the senate, leaving Quintus Servilius behind as prefect of
the city, he found no enemy in the country. Matters were conducted with
distinguished success by the other consul; who having attacked the
enemy, wherever he knew that they were to come, laden with booty, and
proceeding therefore with their army the more encumbered, made their
depredation prove fatal to them. Few of the enemy escaped from the
ambuscade; all the booty was recovered; thus the return of the consul
Quintius to the city put a termination to the justitium, which lasted
only four days. A census was then held, and the lustrum was closed by
Quintius: the number of citizens rated are said to have been one hundred
and twenty-four thousand two hundred and fourteen, besides orphans of
both sexes. Nothing memorable occurred afterwards among the Æquans; they
betook themselves into their towns, suffering their possessions to be
consumed by fire and to be devastated. The consul, after he had
repeatedly carried depredation through the entire country of the enemy,
returned to Rome with great glory and booty.
[Footnote 106: _Justitium_--a jure sistendo.]
4. Then Aulus Posthumius Albus and Spurius Furius Fusus were consuls.
Furii some writers have written Fusii; this I mention, lest any one may
imagine that the change, which is only in the names, may be in the
persons themselves. There was no doubt but that one of the consuls would
commence hostilities against the Æquans. The Æquans accordingly sought
aid from the Volscians of Ecetra; which being granted readily, (so
keenly did these states vie in inveterate hatred against the Romans,)
preparations for war were made with the utmost vigour. The Hernicians
came to the knowledge of it, and warned the Romans that the Ecetrans had
revolted to the Æquans; the colony of Antium also was suspected, because
when the town was taken, a great number of the inhabitants had fled
thence for refuge to the Æquans: and these proved the bravest soldiers
during the war with the Æquans. Afterwards the Æquans being driven into
the towns, this rabble withdrawing privately, when they returned to
Antium, seduced from the Romans the colonists who were already disposed
to treachery of their own accord. The matter not being yet ripe, when it
was announced to the senate that a defection was intended, the consuls
were charged to inquire into the business by summoning to Rome the
leading men of the colony. When those persons attended without
reluctance, being conducted to the senate by the consuls, they so
answered to the questions put to them, that they were dismissed more
suspected than they had come. Upon this war was considered as
inevitable. Spurius Fusius, one of the consuls to whom that province had
fallen, having marched against the Æquans, found the enemy committing
depredations in the country of the Hernicians; and being ignorant of
their numbers, because they had never been seen all together, he rashly
hazarded an engagement with an army not a match for their forces. Being
beaten from his ground at the first onset, he betook himself to his
camp: nor was that an end of the danger: for both on the next night and
the following day, his camp was beset and assaulted with such vigour,
that not even a messenger could be sent from thence to Rome. The
Hernicians brought an account both that a defeat had taken place, and
that the army was besieged: and they struck such terror into the senate,
that a charge was given to the other consul Posthumius, that he should
"take care that the commonwealth sustained no injury,"[107] which form
of a decree has ever been deemed to be one of extreme exigency. It
seemed most advisable that the consul himself should remain at Rome to
enlist all who were able to bear arms: that Titus Quintius should be
sent as pro-consul[108] to the relief of the camp with the army of the
allies: to complete that army the Latins and Hernicians, and the colony
of Antium, were ordered to supply Quintius with subitary soldiers (so
they then called auxiliaries raised for sudden emergencies).
[Footnote 107: According to Stroth, this is the first instance we have
of a decree of the senate arming the consul with almost dictatorial
power.]
[Footnote 108: _Pro-consul_:--the first mention of a pro-consul in
Livy.]
5. During those days many movements and many attempts were made on
either side, because the enemy, having the advantage in numbers,
attempted to weaken the Roman strength by dividing it into many parts,
as not being likely to suffice for all points of attack. At the same
time the camp was besieged, at the same time a part of the army was sent
to devastate the Roman territory, and to attempt the city itself, if
fortune should favour. Lucius Valerius was left to guard the city: the
consul Postumius was sent to repel the attacks on the frontiers. There
was no abatement in any part either in vigilance or activity; watches in
the city, out-posts before the gates, and guards stationed along the
walls: and a justitium was observed for several days (a thing which was
necessary in such general confusion). In the mean time the consul
Furius, after he had at first passively endured the siege in his camp,
burst forth from the Decuman gate on the enemy when off their guard; and
though he might have pursued them, he stopped through fear, lest an
attack should be made on the camp from the other side. The
lieutenant-general Furius (he was the consul's brother) was carried away
too far by his ardour; nor did he, from his eagerness to pursue, observe
his own party returning, nor the attack of the enemy on his rear: thus
being shut out, after repeatedly making many unavailing efforts to force
his way to the camp, he fell, fighting bravely. And the consul, turning
about to renew the fight, on hearing the account that his brother was
surrounded, rushing into the thick of the fight rather rashly than with
sufficient caution, received a wound, and was with difficulty rescued by
those around him. This both damped the courage of his own men, and
rendered the enemy more daring; who, being encouraged by the death of
the lieutenant-general, and by the consul's wound, could not afterwards
be withstood by any force, so as to prevent the Romans from being driven
within their camp and again submitting to a siege, as being a match for
them neither in hopes nor in strength; and every thing would have been
endangered, had not T. Quintius come to their relief with foreign troops
from the Latin and Hernician army. He attacked the Æquans on their rear
whilst intent on the Roman camp, and insultingly displaying the head of
the lieutenant-general, and, a sally being made at the same time from
the camp on a signal given at a distance by him, he surrounded a great
number of the enemy. Of the Æquans on the Roman territory the slaughter
was less, their dispersion was more complete. On these as they straggled
in different directions, and were driving plunder before them, Postumius
made an attack in several places, where he had posted convenient
detachments; these straying about and pursuing their flight in great
disorder, fell in with the victorious Quintius as he was returning with
the wounded consul. Then did the consular army by their distinguished
bravery take ample vengeance for the consul's wound, and for the death
of the lieutenant-general and the cohorts; heavy losses were both
inflicted and received on both sides during those days. In a matter of
such antiquity it is difficult to state with certainty the exact number
of those who fought or fell: Antias Valerius, however, ventures to sum
them up; that in the Hernician territory there fell five thousand three
hundred Romans; that of the predatory parties of the Æquans, who strayed
through the Roman frontiers for the purpose of plundering, two thousand
four hundred were slain by the consul Postumius; that the rest of the
body that were driving booty before them, and which fell in with
Quintius, by no means got off with so light a loss: that of these four
thousand, and by way of stating the number exactly, two hundred and
thirty, were slain. After this they returned to Rome; the order for the
justitium was discharged. The sky seemed to be all on fire; and other
prodigies either actually presented themselves to their sight, or
exhibited imaginary appearances to their affrighted minds. To avert
these terrors, a solemn festival of three days was proclaimed, during
which, all the temples were filled with a crowd of men and women,
earnestly imploring the protection of the gods. After this the Latin and
Hernician cohorts were sent back to their respective homes, thanks
having been returned to them for their spirited military services. The
thousand soldiers from Antium were dismissed almost with disgrace,
because they had come after the battle with assistance then too late.
6. The elections were then held: Lucius Æbutius and Publius Servilius
being elected consuls, enter on their office on the calends of August,
which was then considered as the commencement of the year.[109] This was
a distressing time, and it so happened that the season was pestilential
to the city and country, and not more to men than to cattle; and they
increased the malignity of the distemper, by admitting[110] the cattle
and the peasants into the city through dread of devastation. This
collection of animals of every kind mixed together, distressed both the
citizens by the unusual stench, and the peasants crowded together into
their close apartments, with heat, want of sleep, and their attendance
on each other, and contact itself propagated the disease. Whilst with
difficulty sustaining these calamities, ambassadors from the Hernicians
suddenly bring word that the Æquans and Volscians, having united their
forces, had pitched their camp in their territory, that from thence they
were depopulating their frontiers with an immense army. Besides that the
thinness of the senate was a proof to the allies that the state was
prostrated by the pestilence, they further received this melancholy
answer: "That the Hernicians, with the Latins, must now defend their
possessions by their own exertions. That the Roman city, through the
sudden anger of the gods, was now depopulated by disease. If any respite
from that calamity should come, that they would afford aid to their
allies, as they had done the year before, and always on other
occasions." The allies departed, carrying home, instead of the
melancholy news (they had brought), news still more melancholy, as being
persons who were now obliged to sustain by their own means a war, which
they had sustained with difficulty when backed by the power of Rome. The
enemy did not confine themselves any longer to the Hernician territory.
They proceed thence with determined hostility into the Roman
territories, which were already devastated without the injuries of war.
Where, when there was no one to meet them, not even an unarmed person,
and they passed through every place destitute not only of troops, but
even of the cultivation of the husbandman, they reached as far as the
third stone on the Gabinian road. Æbutius, the Roman consul, was dead;
his colleague, Servilius, was dragging out life with slender hope of
recovery; most of the leading men, the chief part of the patricians, all
of the military age, were lying sick, so that strength was wanting not
only for the expeditions, which, amid such an alarm the conjuncture
required, but scarcely had they sufficient even for quietly mounting