Ab urbe condita

During[*](The Revolt of Fidenae.) their magistracy Fidenae, where a body of Romans were settled, revolted to Lars Tolumnius, king of the Veientines.

The revolt was made worse by a crime. C. Fulcinius, Cloelius Tullus, Sp. Antius, and L. Roscius, who were sent as envoys to ascertain the reasons for this change of policy, were murdered by order of Tolumnius.

Some try to exculpate the king by alleging that whilst playing at dice he made a lucky throw and used an ambiguous expression which might be taken to be an order for death, and that the Fidenates took it so, and this was the reason of the death of the envoys.

This is incredible; it is impossible to believe that when the Fidenates, his new allies, came to consult him as to committing a murder in defiance of the law of nations, he should

not have turned his thoughts from the game, or should afterwards have imputed the crime to a misunderstanding.

It is much more probable that he wished the Fidenates to be implicated in such an awful crime in order to make it impossible for them to hope for any reconciliation with Rome. The statues of the murdered envoys were set up in the Rostra. Owing to the proximity of the Veientines and Fidenates, and still more to the heinous crime with which they began the war, the struggle threatened to be a desperate one.

Anxiety for the national safety kept the plebs quiet, and their tribunes raised no difficulties in the election of M. Geganius Macerinus as consul for the third time, and L. Sergius Fidenas, who, I believe, was so called from the war which he afterwards conducted.

He was the first who fought a successful action with the king of Veii on this side of the Anio. The victory he gained was by no means a bloodless one; there was more mourning for their countrymen who were lost than joy over the defeat of the enemy.