Ab urbe condita

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.

They followed their informant and actually found some women compounding poisonous drugs and some poisons already made up.

These latter were brought into the Forum, and as many as twenty matrons, at whose houses they had been seized, were brought up by the magistrates' officers. Two of them, Cornelia and Sergia, both members of patrician houses, contended that the drugs were medicinal preparations. The maid-servant, when confronted with them, told them to drink some that they might prove she had given false evidence.

They were allowed time to consult as to what they would do, and the bystanders were ordered to retire that they might take counsel with the other matrons. They all consented to drink the drugs, and after doing so fell victims to their own criminal designs.

Their attendants were instantly arrested, and denounced a large number of matrons as being guilty of the same offence, out of whom a hundred and seventy were found guilty. Up to that time there had never been a charge of poison investigated in Rome.

The whole incident was regarded as a portent, and thought to be an act of madness rather than deliberate wickedness. In consequence of the universal alarm created, it was decided to follow the precedent recorded in the annals.

During the secessions of the plebs in the old days a nail had been driven in by the Dictator, and by this act of expiation men's minds, disordered by civil strife, had been restored to sanity. A resolution was passed accordingly, that a Dictator should be appointed to drive in the nail.

Cnaeus Quinctilius was appointed and named L. Valerius as his Master of the Horse. After the nail was driven in they resigned office.

L.[*](Revolt and Recovery of Privernum and Fundi.) Papirius Crassus and L. Plautius Venox were thereupon elected consuls, the former for the second time. At the beginning of the year deputations came from Fabrateria and Luca, places belonging to the Volscians, with a request

to be received into the protection al Rome, whose overlordship they would faithfully and loyally acknowledge if they would undertake to defend them from the Samnites The senate acceded to their request, and sent to warn the Samnites against violating the territory of these two cities.

The Samnites took the warning, not because they were anxious for peace, but because they were not yet ready for war.

This year a war commenced with Privernum and its ally, Fundi; their commander was a Fundan, Vitrubius Baccus, a man of great distinction not only in his own city but even in Rome, where he had a house on the Palatine, which was afterwards destroyed and the site sold, the place being thenceforth known as the Bacci Prata.

Whilst he was spreading devastation far and wide through the districts of Setia, Norba, and Cora, L. Papirius advanced against him and took up a position not far from his camp.

Vitrubius had neither the prudence to remain within his lines in presence of an enemy stronger than himself nor the courage to fight at a distance from his camp.

He gave battle whilst his men were hardly clear of their camp, and thinking more of retreating back to it than of the battle or the enemy, was with very little effort put to a decisive defeat.