He met no one, not even an unarmed peasant, and after overrunning the
country, abandoned as it was by its defenders and even devoid of all
cultivation, he reached the third milestone from Rome on the Gabian road. Aebutius,
the consul, was dead, his colleague Servilius was still breathing, with
little hope of recovery, most of the leading men were down, the majority
of the senators, nearly all the men of military age, so that not only
was their strength unequal to an expeditionary force such as the
position of affairs required, but it hardly allowed of their mounting
guard for home defence.
The duty of sentinel was discharged in person by those of the senators
whose age and health allowed them to do so; the Aediles of the plebs
were responsible for their inspection. On these magistrates had devolved
the consular authority and the supreme control of affairs.
The helpless commonwealth, deprived of its head and all its strength, was
saved by its guardian deities and the fortune of the City, who made the
Volscians and Aequi think more of plunder than of their enemy.
For they had no hope of even approaching the walls of Rome, still less of effecting its
capture. The distant view of its houses and its hills, so far from
alluring them repelled them.
Everywhere throughout their camp angry remonstrances arose: “Why
were they idly wasting their time in a waste and deserted land amid
plague stricken beasts and men while they could find places free from
infection in the territory of Tusculum with its abundant wealth?” They hastily
plucked up their standards,When an army was in camp, these were fixed in
the ground, each marking the station of the cohort to which it
belonged; when they were taken up it was the signal for breaking up
the camp and commencing the march. and by cross-marches
through the fields of Labici
they reached the hills of Tusculum. All the violence and storm of war was now
turned in this direction. Meantime the Hernici and Latins joined their
forces and proceeded to Rome.
They were actuated by a feeling not only of pity but also of the
disgrace they would incur if they had offered no opposition to their
common foe while he was advancing to attack Rome, or had brought no succour to
those who were their allies.
Not finding the enemy there, they followed up their traces from the
information supplied them, and met them as they were descending from the
hills of Tusculum into the
valley of Alba. Here a very one-sided action was fought, and their
fidelity to their allies met with little success for the time.
The mortality in Rome through
the epidemic was not less than that of the allies through the sword. The
surviving consul died; amongst other illustrious victims were M.
Valerius and T. Verginius Rutilus, the augurs, and Ser. Sulpicius, the
“Curio Maximus.”
Each Curia had its own chapel and sacrifices and
its own Curio and Flamen to conduct its religious services. The whole
were under the supervision of the Curio
Maximus. Amongst the common people the violence
of the epidemic made great ravage. The senate, deprived of all human
aid, bade the people betake themselves to prayers; they with their wives
and children were ordered to go as suppliants and entreat the gods to be
gracious. Summoned by public authority to do what each man's misery was
constraining him to do, they crowded all the temples. Prostrate matrons,
sweeping with their dishevelled hair the temple floors, were everywhere
imploring pardon from offended heaven, and entreating that an end might
be put to the pestilence.