Ab urbe condita

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.

Fabius at once brought the matter to the notice of the consuls and they referred it to the senate, who authorised the promise of immunity to be given.

She then disclosed the fact that the State was suffering through the crimes of certain women; those poisons were concocted by Roman matrons, and if they would follow her at once she promised that they should catch the poisoners in the act.