History of Rome

​Thereupon a rush was made to the consul by almost all the younger men, and each of them was giving his name; so great was the desire of serving under that leader.

​Surrounded by this crowd, he said, “I intend to enlist only four thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry; those of you who give your names today and tomorrow, I will take with me.

​It is of greater concern to me to bring everyone back rich, than to carry on the campaign with many soldiers.” Having set out with a well-fitted army, ​and one which carried all the more confidence and hope because a vast multitude had not been required, he proceeded to the town of Aharna, from which the enemy were not far distant, to the camp of the praetor Appius.

​A few miles this side of it, some wood-cutters with a guard met him; when they saw the lictors preceding him and learned that Fabius was the consul, they were glad and cheerful, and returned thanks to the gods and the Roman people for having sent him to them as general.

​Then, as they crowded around to salute the consul, Fabius asked where they were going; and on their replying that they were going to get wood, “Are you indeed?”

​he said; “have you not a fortified camp?” When they cried out in reply that they had indeed a double rampart and a trench, but were nevertheless in great fear, “Then you have,” said he, “plenty of wood; return and pull up the palisade.” They returned to the camp, and there, pulling up the palisade, they caused terror ​both to the soldiers who had remained in the camp and to Appius himself;

​then everyone on his own part told one another that they were doing so by order of the consul Quintus Fabius. On the following day, the camp was moved, and the praetor Appius was sent back to Rome.

​From that time, the Romans had no permanent camp anywhere. He denied that it was useful for an army to remain in one place, saying that by marches and change of scene it became more active and healthy. And marches were made, as long as the winter, not yet ended, permitted.

​At the beginning of spring, leaving the second legion at Clusium, which they formerly called Camars, and placing Lucius Scipio in command of the camp as propraetor, he himself returned to Rome to consult about the war, ​whether of his own accord, because a war of greater magnitude was in his view than he had believed from report, or because he was summoned by a decree of the senate; for there are authorities for both accounts.

​Some wish to make it appear that he was brought back by the praetor Appius Claudius, since Appius in the senate and before the people, as he had continually done in his letters, exaggerated the terror of the Etruscan war, saying that one leader and one army would not suffice against four nations;

​that there was danger, whether they pressed upon one point in conjunction or waged war in different quarters, lest one man might not be able to attend to all things at once.

​He said that he had left two Roman legions there, and that less than five thousand infantry and cavalry had come with Fabius. It was his opinion that the consul Publius Decius should proceed to his colleague in Etruria at the earliest opportunity, and that the province of Samnium should be given to Lucius Volumnius;

​or, if the consul preferred to go to his own province, that Volumnius should proceed to the consul in Etruria with a regular consular army.

​Though the speech of the praetor moved a great part of the senate, they say that Publius Decius proposed that everything should be kept intact and free for Quintus Fabius, until either he himself should come to Rome, if it could be done consistently with the public advantage, or should send one of his legates, ​from whom the senate might learn how great a war there was in Etruria, and with what forces and by how many leaders it ought to be conducted.