Ab urbe condita

After this he returned to Rome for the elections and arranged for them to be held at an early date. The centuries who voted first declared without exception for Fabius. Amongst the candidates was the energetic and ambitious Appius Claudius.

Anxious to secure the honour for himself, he was quite as anxious that both posts should be held by patricians, and he brought his utmost influence, supported by the whole of the nobility, to bear upon the electors so that they might return him together with Fabius.

At the outset Fabius refused, and alleged the same grounds for his refusal as he had alleged the year before. Then all the nobles crowded round his chair and begged him to extricate the consulship from the plebeian mire and restore both to the office itself and to the patrician houses the august dignity which they possessed of old.

As soon as he could obtain silence he addressed them in terms which calmed their excitement. He would, he said, have arranged to admit votes for two patricians if he saw that any one else than himself was

being elected, but as matters were he would not allow his name to stand, since it would be against the law and form a most dangerous precedent.

So L. Volumnius, a plebeian, was elected together with Appius Claudius; they had already been associated in a previous consulship. The nobles taunted Fabius and said that he refused to have Appius Claudius as a colleague because he was unquestionably his inferior in eloquence and state-craft.

When the elections were over, the previous consuls received a six months' extension of their command and were ordered to prosecute the war in Samnium.

P. Decius, who had been left by his colleague in Samnium and was now proconsul, continued his ravages of the Samnite fields until he had driven their army, which nowhere ventured to encounter him, outside their frontiers. They made for Etruria, and were in hopes that the object which they had failed to secure by their numerous deputations might be achieved now that they had a strong force and could back up their appeals by intimidation.

They insisted upon a meeting of the Etruscan chiefs being convened.

When it had assembled they pointed out how for many years they had been fighting with the Romans, how they had tried in every possible way to sustain the weight of that war in their own strength, and how they had proved the assistance of their neighbours to be of small value.

They had sued for peace because they could no longer endure war, they had taken to war again because a peace which reduced them to slavery was heavier to bear than a war in which they could fight as free men. The only hope left to them now lay in the Etruscans.

They knew that they of all the nations of Italy were the richest in arms and men and money, and they had for their neighbours the Gauls, trained to arms from the cradle, naturally courageous to desperation and especially against the Romans, a nation whom they justly boast of having captured and then allowing them to ransom themselves with gold.

If the Etruscans had the same spirit which Porsena and their ancestors once had there was no reason why they should not expel the Romans from the whole of their land as far as the Tiber and compel them to fight, not for their insupportable dominion over Italy, but for their very existence.

The Samnite army had come to them completely provided with arms and a war chest, and were ready to follow them at once, even if they led them to an attack on Rome itself.

While they were thus busy with their intrigues in Etruria the warfare which the Romans were carrying on in Samnium was terribly destructive. When P. Decius had ascertained through his scouts the departure of the Samnite army he summoned a council of war.

“Why,” he asked, “are we roaming through the country districts, making war only upon the villages? Why are we not attacking the walled cities? There is no army to defend them, the army has abandoned its country and gone into voluntary exile.”

His proposal was unanimously adopted and he led them to the attack of Murgantia, a powerfully fortified city. Such was the eagerness of the soldiers, due partly to the affection they felt for their commander and partly to the expectation of a larger amount of plunder than they were securing in the country districts, that they stormed and captured the city in a single day.

Two thousand one hundred combatants were cut off and made prisoners and an enormous quantity of plunder was seized.

To avoid loading the army with a lot of heavy baggage Decius called his men together and addressed them thus: “Are you going to content yourselves with this one victory and this spoil? Raise your hopes and expectations to the height of your courage. All the cities of the Samnites and all the wealth left in them are yours now that their legions, routed in so many battles, have at last been driven by you beyond their frontiers.

Sell what you now hold and attract traders by the hope of profit to follow our armies; I shall frequently supply you with things for sale.