Ab urbe condita

During the year a colony was settled at Carseoli, in the country of the Aequicoli. The consul Fulvius celebrated a triumph over the Samnites.

Just as the consular elections were coming on, a rumour spread that the Etruscans and Samnites were levying immense armies.

According to the reports which were sent, the leaders of the Etruscans were attacked in all the cantonal council meetings for not having brought the Gauls over on any terms whatever to take part in the war; the Samnite government were abused for having employed against the Romans a force which was only raised to act against the Lucanians;

the enemy was arising in his own strength and in that of his allies to make war on Rome, and matters would not be settled without a conflict on a very much larger scale than formerly.

Men of distinction were amongst the candidates for the consulship, but the gravity of the danger turned all eyes to Quintus Fabius Maximus . He at first simply declined to become a candidate, but when he saw the trend of popular feeling he distinctly refused to allow his name to stand:

“Why,” he asked, “do you want an old man like me, who has finished his allotted tasks and gained all the rewards they have brought? I am not the man I was either in strength of body or mind, and I fear lest some god should even deem my good fortune too great or too unbroken for human nature to enjoy.

I have grown up to the measure of the glory of my seniors, and I would gladly see others rising to the height of my own renown.

There is no lack of honours in Rome for the strongest and most capable men, nor is there any lack of men to win the honour.” This display of modesty and unselfishness only made the popular feeling all the keener in his favour by showing how rightly it was directed.

Thinking that the best way of checking it would be to appeal to the instinctive reverence for law, he ordered the law to be rehearsed which forbade any man from being re-elected consul within ten years.