e obliged to go
back into the quiet country of Sora. News of these events being
conveyed to Rome, with circumstances of alarm magnified beyond the
truth, obliged Lucius Postumius, the consul, though scarcely recovered
from his illness, to set out for the army. However, before his
departure, having issued a proclamation that his troops should
assemble at Sora, he dedicated the temple of Victory, for the building
of which he had provided, when curule aedile, out of the money arising
from fines; and, joining the army, he advanced from Sora towards
Samnium, to the camp of his colleague. The Samnites, despairing of
being able to make head against the two armies, retreated from thence,
on which the consuls, separating, proceeded by different routes to lay
waste the enemy's lands and besiege their towns.

34. Postumius attempted to make himself master of Milionia, at first
by storm and an assault; but these not succeeding, he carried his
approaches to the walls, and thus gained an entrance into the place.
The fight was continued in all parts of the city from the fourth hour
until near the eighth, the result being a long time uncertain: the
Romans at last gained possession of the town. Three thousand two
hundred of the Samnites were killed, four thousand seven hundred
taken, besides the other booty. From thence the legions were conducted
to Ferentinum, out of which the inhabitants had, during the night,
retired in silence through the opposite gate, with all their effects
which could be either carried or driven. The consul, on his arrival,
approached the walls with the same order and circumspection, as if he
were to meet an opposition here equal to what he had experienced at
Milionia. Then, perceiving a dead silence in the city, and neither
arms nor men on the towers and ramparts, he restrains the soldiers,
who were eager to mount the deserted fortifications, lest they might
fall into a snare. He ordered two divisions of the confederate Latin
horse to ride round the walls, and explore every particular. These
horsemen observed one gate, and, at a little distance, another on the
same side, standing wide open, and on the roads leading from these
every mark of the enemy having fled by night. They then rode up
leisurely to the gates, from whence, with perfect safety, they took a
clear view through straight streets quite across the city. They report
to the consul, that the city was abandoned by the enemy, as was plain
from the solitu