sians first appeared in arms against the Romans. The
Pelignians, imitating the defection of the Marsians, met the same
fate. The other consul, Decius, was likewise very successful in his
operations: through terror he compelled the Tarquinians to supply his
army with corn, and to sue for a truce for forty years. He took
several forts from the Volsinians by assault, some of which he
demolished, that they might not serve as receptacles to the enemy, and
by extending his operations through every quarter, diffused such a
dread of his arms, that the whole Etrurian nation sued to the consul
for an alliance: this they did not obtain; but a truce for a year was
granted them. The pay of the Roman army for that year was furnished by
the enemy; and two tunics for each soldier were exacted from them:
this was the purchase of the truce. The tranquillity now established
in Etruria was interrupted by a sudden insurrection of the Umbrians, a
nation which had suffered no injury from the war, except what
inconvenience the country had felt in the passing of the army. These,
by calling into the field all their own young men, and forcing a great
part of the Etrurians to resume their arms, made up such a numerous
force, that speaking of themselves with ostentatious vanity and of the
Romans with contempt, they boasted that they would leave Decius behind
in Etruria, and march away to besiege Rome; which design of theirs
being reported to the consul Decius, he removed by long marches from
Etruria towards their city, and sat down in the district of Pupinia,
in readiness to act according to the intelligence received of the
enemy. Nor was the insurrection of the Umbrians slighted at Rome:
their very threats excited tears among the people, who had
experienced, in the calamities suffered from the Gauls, how insecure a
city they inhabited. Deputies were therefore despatched to the consul
Fabius with directions, that, if he had any respite from the war of
the Samnites, he should with all haste lead his army into Umbria. The
consul obeyed the order, and by forced marches proceeded to Mevania,
where the forces of the Umbrians then lay. The unexpected arrival of
the consul, whom they had believed to be sufficiently employed in
Samnium, far distant from their country, so thoroughly affrighted the
Umbrians, that several advised retiring to their fortified towns;
others, the discontinuing the war. However, one district, called by
themselves Materina, prevaile