Ab urbe condita

He then established friendly relations with Rome, but it is very doubtful how far he would have maintained them had his other enterprises been equally successful.

In this year a census was taken, the censors being Q. Publilius Philo and Sp. Postumius. The new citizens were assessed and formed into two additional tribes, the Maecian and the Scaptian.

L. Papirius, the praetor, secured the passage of a law by which the rights of citizenship without the franchise were conferred on the inhabitants of Acerrae. These were the military and civil transactions for the year.

[*](Roman Matrons Guilty of Poisoning.) M Claudius Marcellus and T Valerius were the new consuls. I find in the annals Flaccus and Potitus variously given as the consul's cognomen, but the question is of small importance.

This year gained an evil notoriety, either through the unhealthy weather or through human guilt. I would gladly believe —and the authorities are not unanimous on the point — that it is a false story which states that those whose deaths made the year notorious for pestilence were really carried off by poison.

I shall, however, relate the matter as it has been handed down to avoid any appearance of impugning the credit of our authorities.

The foremost men in the State were being attacked by the same malady, and in almost every case with the same fatal results. A maid-servant went to Q. Fabius Maximus, one of the curule aediles, and promised to reveal the cause of the public mischief if the government would guarantee her against any danger in which her discovery might involve her.