Ab urbe condita

There was general alarm throughout the City, and the consul Fabius was posting pickets before the gates when cavalry were descried in the distance. Their appearance created alarm, as it was doubtful who they were; presently they were recognised, and the fears gave place to such great joy that the City rang with shouts of congratulation at the cavalry having returned safe and victorious.

People flocked into the streets out of houses which had just before been in mourning and filled with wailings for the dead; anxious mothers and wives, forgetting decorum in their joy, ran to meet the column of horsemen, each embracing her own friends and hardly able

to control mind or body for joy. The tribunes of the plebs had appointed a day for the trial of M. Postumius and T. Quinctius on the ground of their ill-success at Veii, and they thought it a favourable opportunity for reviving the public feeling against them through the odium now incurred

by Sempronius. Accordingly they convened the Assembly, and in excited tones declared that the commonwealth had been betrayed at Veii by their generals, and in consequence of their not having been called to account, the army acting against the Volscians had been betrayed by the consul, their gallant cavalry had been given over to slaughter, and the camp had been disgracefully abandoned. C. Junius, one of the tribunes, ordered Tempanius to be called forward.

He then addressed him as follows: “Sextus Tempanius, I ask you, would you consider that the consul Caius Sempronius commenced the action at the fitting moment, or strengthened his line with supports, or discharged any of the duties of a good consul?