g colonies to
Interamna and Cassinum. But commissioners were appointed, and
colonists, to the number of four thousand, were sent by the succeeding
consuls, Marcus Valerius and Publius Decius.

29. The war with the Samnites being now nearly put an end to, before
the Roman senate was freed from all concern on that side, a report
arose of an Etrurian war; and there was not, in those times, any
nation, excepting the Gauls, whose arms were more dreaded, by reason
both of the vicinity of their country, and of the multitude of their
men. While therefore one of the consuls prosecuted the remains of the
war in Samnium, Publius Decius, who, being attacked by a severe
illness, remained at Rome, by direction of the senate, nominated Caius
Junius Bubulcus dictator. He, as the magnitude of the affair demanded,
compelled all the younger citizens to enlist, and with the utmost
diligence prepared arms, and the other matters which the occasion
required. Yet he was not so elated by the power he had collected, as
to think of commencing offensive operations, but prudently determined
to remain quiet, unless the Etrurians should become aggressors. The
plans of the Etrurians were exactly similar with respect to preparing
for, and abstaining from, war: neither party went beyond their own
frontiers. The censorship of Appius Claudius and Caius Plautius, for
this year, was remarkable; but the name of Appius has been handed down
with more celebrity to posterity, on account of his having made the
road, [called after him, the Appian,] and for having conveyed water
into the city. These works he performed alone; for his colleague,
overwhelmed with shame by reason of the infamous and unworthy choice
made of senators, had abdicated his office. Appius possessing that
inflexibility Of temper, which, from the earliest times, had been the
characteristic of his family, held on the censorship by himself. By
direction of the same Appius, the Potitian family, in which the office
of priests attendant on the great altar of Hercules was hereditary,
instructed some of the public servants in the rites of that solemnity,
with the intention to delegate the same to them. A circumstance is
recorded, wonderful to be told, and one which should make people
scrupulous of disturbing the established modes of religious
solemnities: for though there were, at that time, twelve branches of
the Potitian family, all grown-up persons, to the number of thirty,
yet they were every one