Ab urbe condita

The Volscians hurled their javelins at the first onset, and then flung the stones lying at their feet upon the enemy as they came up. Many were hit, and through the disorder thus created they were forced back from the higher ground.In this way the Roman left wing was nearly overwhelmed, but through the reproaches which the consul cast upon his retreating men for their rashness as well as their cowardice, he made their fear give way to the sense of shame.

At first they stood and offered a firm resistance, then when by holding their ground they had recovered their energies they ventured upon an advance. With a renewed shout the whole line went forward, and pressing on in a second charge they surmounted the difficulties of the ascent,

and were just on the point of reaching the summit when the enemy turned and fled. With a wild rush, pursuers and fugitives almost in one mass dashed into the camp,

which was taken. Those of the Volscians who succeeded in escaping made for Antium; thither the Roman army was led. After a few days' investment the place was surrendered, not owing to any unusual efforts on the part of the besiegers, but simply because after the unsuccessful battle and the loss of their camp the enemy had lost heart.

[*](Colonists sent to Antium.)For the year following the capture of Antium, Titus Aemilius and Quinctius Fabius were made consuls. This was the Fabius who was the sole survivor of the extinction of his house at the Cremera.1

Aemilius had already in his former consulship advocated the grant of land to the plebeians. As he was now consul for the second time, the agrarian party entertained hopes that the Law would be carried out; the tribunes took the matter up in the firm expectation that after so many attempts they would gain their cause, now that one consul, at all events, was supporting them; the consul's views on the question remained unchanged.

Those in occupation of the land-the majority of the patricians complained that the head of the State was adopting the methods of the tribunes and making himself popular by giving away other people's property, and in this way they shifted all the odium from the tribunes on to the consul.

There was every prospect of a serious contest, had not Fabius smoothed matters by a suggestion acceptable to both sides, namely, that as there was a considerable quantity of land which had been taken from the Volscians the previous year, under

the auspicious general-ship of T. Quinctius, a colony might be settled at Antium, which, as a seaport town, and at no great distance from Rome, was a suitable city for the purpose.

This would allow the plebeians to enter on public land without any injustice to those in occupa-tion, and so harmony would be restored to the State. This suggestion was adopted. He appointed as the three commis-sioners for the distribution of the land, T. Quinctius, A. Verginius, and P. Furius.

Those who wished to receive a grant were ordered to give in their names. As usual, abundance produced disgust,2 and so few gave in their names that the number was made up by the addition of Volscians as colonists.

The rest of the people preferred to ask for land at Rome rather than accept it elsewhere. The Aequi sought for peace from Q. Fabius, who had marched against them, but they broke it by a sudden incursion into Latin territory.

[*](War with the Aequi and Volscians.)In the following year, Q. Servilius —for he was consul with Sp. Postumius —was sent against the Aequi, and fixed his entrenched camp on Latin territory. His army was attacked by an epidemic and compelled to remain inactive.

The war was protracted into the third year, when Quinctius Fabius and T. Quinctius were the consuls. As Fabius after his victory had granted peace to the Aequi, they were by special edict assigned to him as his sphere of operation.

He set out in the firm belief that the renown of his name would dispose them to peace; accordingly he sent envoys to their national council who were instructed to carry a message from Q. Fabius the consul to the effect that as he had brought peace from the Aequi to Rome, so now he was bringing war from Rome to the Aequi, with the same right hand, now armed, which he had formerly given to them as a pledge of peace.

The gods were now the witnesses and would soon be the avengers of those through whose perfidy and perjury this had come about.