Ab urbe condita

And if the senate should assign the task to you, consuls, I beg that you will begin with M. Foslius and myself, so that it may be conclusively shown that we are protected from such charges, not by our official position, but by our innocence.” He then at once laid down his office, followed by the Master of the Horse.

They were the first to be tried before the consuls, for so the senate ordered, and as the evidence given by the nobles against them completely broke down, they were triumphantly acquitted.

Even Publilius Philo, a man who had repeatedly filled the highest offices as a reward for his services at home and in the field, but who was disliked by the nobility, was put on his trial and acquitted.

As usual, however, it was only whilst this inquisition was a novelty that it had strength enough to attack illustrious names; it soon began to stoop to humbler victims, until it was at length stifled by the very cabals and factions which it had been instituted to suppress.

The[*](Defeat of the Samnites in Campania.) rumour of these proceedings, and, still more, the expectation of a Campanian revolt, which had already been secretly organised, recalled the Samnites from their designs in Apulia.

They marched to Caudium, which from its proximity to Capua would make it easy for them, if the opportunity offered, to wrest that city from the Romans.

The consuls marched to Caudium with a strong force. For some time both armies remained in their positions on either side of the pass, as they could only reach each other by a most difficult route.

At length the Samnites descended by a short detour through open country into the flat district of Campania, and there for the first time they came within sight of each other's camp.

There were frequent skirmishes, in which the cavalry played a greater part than the infantry, and the Romans had no cause to be dissatisfied with these trials of strength, nor with the delay which was prolonging the war.