Ab urbe condita

The allies departed, carrying home in answer to the gloomy tidings they had brought a still more gloomy response, for they had in their own strength to sustain a war which they had hardly been equal to when supported by the power of Rome. The enemy no longer confined himself to the country of the Hernici, he went on to destroy the fields of Rome, which were already lying waste without having suffered the ravages of war.

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.