History of Rome

​And so in the following year, when Marcus Popilius Laenas and Gnaeus Manlius were consuls, having set out from Tibur in a hostile army at the first silence of the night, they came to the city of Rome.

​The sudden event and the night-time panic brought terror to those who were suddenly roused from sleep, and in addition to this, the ignorance of many, as to who the enemy were or from where they had come.

​Nevertheless, a cry to arms was quickly raised, and the gates were secured with guards and the walls with garrisons; and when the first light showed a moderate multitude before the walls and no other enemy than the Tiburtines, the consuls, having gone out by two gates, attacked from both sides the line of those who were already approaching the walls. ​And it became clear that they had come relying on opportunity rather than on courage; so barely did they withstand the first onset of the Romans. Indeed, it was established that their coming was even of advantage to the Romans, and that the sedition already arising between the patricians and the plebeians was suppressed by the fear of so near a war.

​The arrival of another enemy in the following year was more terrible to the fields than to the city:

​the Tarquinienses, intent on plunder, traversed the Roman territory, especially on the side where it adjoins Etruria; and since redress was demanded in vain, the new consuls, Gaius Fabius and Gaius Plautius, by order of the people, declared war against them; and that province fell to Fabius, while the Hernici fell to Plautius. The rumor of a Gallic war was also growing frequent.

​But amid many terrors, it was a consolation that peace was granted to the Latins at their request, and a large force of soldiers was received from them according to an ancient treaty, which they had discontinued for many years.

​Since the Roman power was supported by this defense, it was a lighter matter that it was soon heard that the Gauls had come to Praeneste and from there had settled around Pedum.

​It was decided that Gaius Sulpicius should be named dictator; the consul Gaius Plautius, summoned for this purpose, named him; Marcus Valerius was added to the dictator as master of the horse. These led the elite of the soldiers, chosen from the two consular armies, against the Gauls.

​That war was somewhat slower than was pleasing to either party. While at first only the Gauls had been eager for a fight, and then the Roman soldier, by rushing to arms and combat, somewhat overcame the Gallic ferocity, it was by no means pleasing to the dictator, ​when no circumstance compelled it, to commit himself to fortune against an enemy whom time was making worse day by day, lingering as they were in unfamiliar places without prepared provisions, without a strong fortification, and moreover, with bodies and minds whose whole strength was in their onset, which same strength would languish with a small delay.

​With these designs, the dictator was dragging out the war and had proclaimed a heavy penalty if anyone should fight against the enemy without orders. The soldiers, bearing this with difficulty, at first began to criticize the dictator among themselves in their stations and watches, and sometimes to rail against the patricians in common, because they had not ordered the war to be conducted by the consuls:

​that an extraordinary commander, a unique leader, had been chosen, who thinks that victory will fly down from heaven into his lap while he does nothing. Then, by day, they openly tossed about these same things and even wilder words: that they would either fight without the commander’s order or go to Rome in a body;

​and the centurions mingled with the soldiers, and they did not only mutter in small circles, but now in the headquarters and the general’s tent their talk was mingled into one, and the crowd grew to the size of an assembly and shouted from all places that they should go immediately to the dictator; that Sextus Tullius should speak for the army, as was worthy of his courage.