Ab urbe condita

Three days later the consul ended his life. The Etruscans derived encouragement from this incident, for they took it as an omen, and declared that the gods were fighting for them.

When the sad news reached Rome, not only was the loss of the man severely felt, but also the inopportuneness of the time when it occurred.

The senate were prepared to order the nomination of a Dictator, but refrained from doing so as the election of a successor to the consul went quite in accordance with the wishes of the leading patricians. Every vote was given in favour of M. Valerius, the man whom the senate had decided upon as Dictator.

The legions were at once ordered to Etruria. Their presence acted as such a check upon the Etruscans that no one ventured outside their lines; their fears shut them up as closely as though they were blockaded.

Valerius devastated their fields and burnt their houses, till not only single farms but numerous villages were reduced to smoking ashes, but he failed to bring the enemy to action.

While this war was progressing more slowly than had been anticipated, apprehensions were felt as to another war which, from the numerous defeats sustained formerly on both sides, was not unreasonably regarded with dread. The Picentes had sent information that the Samnites were arming for war, and that they had approached the Picentes to induce them to join them.

The latter were thanked for their loyalty, and the public attention was diverted to a large extent from Etruria to Samnium.

The dearness of provisions caused widespread distress amongst the citizens. Those writers who make Fabius Maximus a curule aedile for that year assert that there would have been actual famine if he had not shown the same wise care in the control of the market and the accumulation of supplies which he had so often before displayed in war. An interregnum occurred this year —tradition assigns no reason for it.