and rustics,
were slain or captured. The least part of the loss was, that the
praefect himself was taken prisoner; for he was not only in the
present instance guilty of having rashly engaged the enemy, but
previously, in the capacity of farmer of the revenue, by iniquitous
practices of every description, had shown himself faithless and
injurious to the state, as well as the companies. Among the Lucanians,
the consul, Sempronius, fought several small battles, but none worthy
of being recorded, he also took several inconsiderable towns. In
proportion as the war was protracted, and the sentiments no less than
the circumstances of men fluctuated accordingly as events flowed
prosperously or otherwise, the citizens were seized with such a
passion for superstitious observances, and those for the most part
introduced from foreign countries, that either the people or the gods
appeared to have undergone a sudden change. And now the Roman rites
were growing into disuse, not only in private, and within doors, but
in public also; in the forum and Capitol there were crowds of women
sacrificing, and offering up prayers to the gods, in modes unusual in
that country. A low order of sacrificers and soothsayers had enslaved
men's understandings, and the numbers of these were increased by the
country people, whom want and terror had driven into the city, from
the fields which were lain uncultivated during a protracted war, and
had suffered from the incursions of the enemy, and by the profitable
cheating in the ignorance of others which they carried on like an
allowed and customary trade. At first, good men gave protest in
private to the indignation they felt at these proceedings, but
afterwards the thing came before the fathers, and formed a matter of
public complaint. The aediles and triumviri, appointed for the
execution of criminals, were severely reprimanded by the senate for
not preventing these irregularities, but when they attempted to remove
the crowd of persons thus employed from the forum, and to overthrow
the preparations for their sacred rites, they narrowly escaped
personal injury. It being now evident, that the evil was too powerful
to be checked by inferior magistrates, the senate commissioned Marcus
Atilius, the city praetor, to rid the people of these superstitions.
He called an assembly, in which he read the decree of the senate, and
gave notice, that all persons who had any books of divination, or
forms of prayer, or any