History of Rome

​It was agitated in the city by the tribunes of the plebs that tribunes of the soldiers with consular power should be created, but it could not be obtained. Lucius Papirius Crassus and Lucius Julius became consuls. When the envoys of the Aequi had sought a treaty from the senate, and unconditional surrender was offered in place of a treaty, they obtained a truce of eight years;

​The affairs of the Volscians, on top of the defeat sustained at Algidus, turned into brawls and seditions through a persistent conflict between the advocates of peace and of war; on all sides there was peace for the Romans.

​When the consuls had learned, through the betrayal of one of the college, that a law concerning the valuation of fines, highly pleasing to the people, was being prepared by the tribunes, they themselves anticipated them by proposing it.

​The consuls were Lucius Sergius Fidenas for the second time, and Hostus Lucretius Tricipitinus. Nothing worthy of mention was done under these consuls. They were succeeded by the consuls Aulus Cornelius Cossus and Titus Quinctius Poenus for the second time.

​The Veientes made incursions into Roman territory. There was a rumor that certain of the youth of Fidenae had been participants in that plundering, and the investigation of that matter was entrusted to Lucius Sergius, Quintus Servilius, and Mamercus Aemilius.

​Certain persons were banished to Ostia, because it was not sufficiently clear why they had been absent from Fidenae during those days. An additional number of colonists was sent, and the land of those killed in the war was assigned to them.

​In that year they suffered greatly from a drought; not only did the waters from heaven fail, but the earth also, lacking its natural moisture, was scarcely sufficient for the perennial rivers.

​The failure of waters in other places, around parched springs and streams, caused a slaughter of cattle dying of thirst; others were carried off by mange; and the diseases, spread by contact, passed to humans. And at first they fell upon the rustics and the slaves;

​Then the city was filled. Not only were bodies affected by the pestilence, but a manifold superstition, and for the most part foreign, invaded also their minds, since those to whom minds captured by superstition are a source of gain introduced, by prophesying, new rites of sacrificing into homes, ​until a public sense of shame at last reached the leading men of the state, who saw in all the streets and chapels foreign and unusual expiations for imploring the peace of the gods.

​Thereupon a charge was given to the aediles to see to it that none but Roman gods, and in no other manner than that of their ancestors, should be worshipped. The resentment against the Veientes was deferred to the following year, ​in which Gaius Servilius Ahala and Lucius Papirius Mugillanus were consuls.

​Nor did any religious scruple prevent war from being declared immediately or armies from being sent; but they decided that fetials should first be sent to demand redress.

​They had recently fought in battle with the Veientes near Nomentum and Fidenae, and from that time a truce, not a peace, had been made, the term of which had both expired, and they had rebelled before its expiration; nevertheless, fetials were sent; but when, having sworn after the manner of their fathers, they demanded redress, their words were not listened to.

​Then there was a controversy whether war should be declared by order of the people, or whether a decree of the senate was sufficient. The tribunes prevailed, by declaring that they would obstruct the levy, so that the consul Quinctius should refer the question of war to the people. All the centuries voted for it. In this matter also the plebs had the upper hand, ​because they carried their point that consuls should not be created for the following year.