Ab urbe condita

As the matter could not be settled within the four walls of the house, they brought it into court. After hearing the appeals of the mother and of the guardians, the magistrates granted the disposal of the girl's hand in accordance with the mother's wishes.

But violence won the day, for the guardians, after haranguing a number of their partisans in the Forum on the iniquity of the verdict, collected a body of men and carried off the maiden from her mother's house.

They were met by a still more determined troop of nobles, assembled to follow their young comrade, who was furious at the outrage. A desperate fight ensued and the plebeians got the worst of it. In a very different spirit from the Roman plebs they marched, fully armed, out of the city and took possession of a hill from which they raided the lands of the nobles and laid them waste with fire and sword.

A multitude of artisans who had previously taken no part in the conflict, excited by the hope of plunder, joined them, and preparations were made to besiege the city.

All the horrors of war were present in the city, as though it had been infected with the madness

of the two young men who were seeking fatal nuptials out of their country's ruin. Both sides felt the need of an addition to their strength; the nobles prevailed on the Romans to come to the relief of their beleaguered city;

the plebs induced the Volscians to join them in attacking Ardea.

The Volscians, under the leadership of Cluilius, the Aequian, were the first to come, and drew lines of circumvallation round the enemy's walls. When news of this reached Rome the consul M. Geganius at once left with an army and fixed his camp three miles distant from the enemy, and as the day was declining he ordered his men to rest. At the fourth watch he ordered an advance, and so expeditiously was the task undertaken and completed, that at sunrise the Volscians saw themselves enclosed by a stronger circumvallation than the one which they had themselves carried round the city.

[*](This description is identical with the one in Book III. chap. xxviii. Even the name of the Volscian commander is the same.)In another direction the consul constructed a covered way up to the wall of Ardea by which his friends in the city could go to and fro.