History of Rome

​At the end of the year there was some peace, but, as always at other times, a peace disturbed by the contest between the patricians and the plebeians. The angry plebeians did not wish to take part in the consular elections;

​by the patricians and their clients, Titus Quinctius and Quintus Servilius were elected consuls. The consuls had a year similar to the previous one, with mutinous beginnings, but afterwards tranquil because of foreign war.

​The Sabines, having crossed the Crustumine plains in a rapid march, when they had caused slaughter and fires around the river Anio, though repulsed from near the Colline gate and the walls, nevertheless drove off huge spoils of men and cattle.

​The consul Servilius, having pursued them with a hostile army, could not indeed overtake the main body itself in a favorable position, but he carried out plundering so extensively that he left nothing untouched by war and returned with manifold booty captured.

​And in the territory of the Volscians, the public interest was splendidly managed by the efforts of both the commander and the soldiers. First, a battle was fought on a level plain with standards joined, with great slaughter on both sides and very much blood.

​And the Romans, because their small number made them more liable to feel loss, would have retreated, had not the consul, by a salutary lie, shouting that the enemy were fleeing from the other wing, excited the battle-line. An assault having been made, while they thought they were winning, they won.

​The consul, fearing lest by pressing on too much he might renew the contest, gave the signal for retreat.

​A few days intervened, rest being taken on both sides as if by a tacit truce, during which a huge force of men from all the Volscian and Aequian peoples came to the camp, not doubting that, if the Romans perceived them, they would depart by night.

​And so, they came to assault the camp at about the third watch.

​Quinctius, having allayed the tumult which sudden terror had excited, when he had ordered the soldiers to remain quiet in their tents, led out a cohort of the Hernici to the outpost, ordered the horn-blowers and trumpeters, placed on horses, to sound before the rampart, and to keep the anxious enemy occupied until daylight.

​For the rest of the night everything in the camp was so tranquil that the Romans even had an abundance of sleep. As for the Volscians, the appearance of the armed infantry, whom they thought both to be more numerous and to be Romans, and the noise and neighing of the horses, which were wild because of both the unaccustomed riders sitting on them and moreover the sound shaking their ears, kept them alert as if for an attack of the enemy.