p in order of battle; but no
one coming to oppose them, they advanced in a brisk pace to the
enemy's camp. But when they perceived neither guards before the gates,
nor soldiers on the ramparts, nor the usual bustle of a
camp,--surprised at the extraordinary silence, they halted in
apprehension of some stratagem. At length, passing over the rampart,
and finding the whole deserted, they proceeded to search out the
tracks of the enemy. But these, as they scattered themselves to every
quarter, occasioned perplexity at first. Afterwards discovering their
design by means of scouts, they attacked their cities, one after
another, and within the space of fifty days took, entirely by force,
forty-one towns, most of which were razed and burnt, and the race of
the Aequans almost extirpated. A triumph was granted over the Aequans.
The Marrucinians, Marsians, Pelignians, and Ferentans, warned by the
example of their disasters, sent deputies to Rome to solicit peace and
friendship; and these states, on their submissive applications, were
admitted into alliance.

46. In the same year, Cneius Flavius, son of Cneius, grandson of a
freed man, a notary, in low circumstances originally, but artful and
eloquent, was appointed curule aedile. I find in some annals, that,
being in attendance on the aediles, and seeing that he was voted
aedile by the prerogative tribe, but that his name would not be
received, because he acted as a notary, he threw down his tablet, and
took an oath, that he would not, for the future, follow that business.
But Licinius Macer contends, that he had dropped the employment of
notary a considerable time before, having already been a tribune, and
twice a triumvir, once for regulating the nightly watch, and another
time for conducting a colony. However, of this there is no dispute,
that against the nobles, who threw contempt on the meanness of his
condition, he contended with much firmness. He made public the rules
of proceeding in judicial causes, hitherto shut up in the closets of
the pontiffs; and hung up to public view, round the forum, the
calendar on white tablets, that all might know when business could be
transacted in the courts. To the great displeasure of the nobles, he
performed the dedication of the temple of Concord, in the area of
Vulcan's temple; and the chief pontiff, Cornelius Barbatus, was
compelled by the united instances of the people, to dictate to him the
form of words, although he affirmed, that,