uscans proper, which had
hitherto from diversity of language and scanty means of communication
remained almost unknown to the Romans. His march through the Ciminian
Forest which no Roman army had yet traversed, and his pillaging of a
rich region that had long been spared the horrors of war, raised
all Etruria in arms. The Roman government, which had seriously
disapproved the rash expedition and had when too late forbidden the
daring leader from crossing the frontier, collected in the greatest
haste new legions, in order to meet the expected onslaught of the
whole Etruscan power. But a seasonable and decisive victory of
Rullianus, the battle at the Vadimonian lake which long lived in
the memory of the people, converted an imprudent enterprise into a
celebrated feat of heroism and broke the resistance of the Etruscans.
Unlike the Samnites who had now for eighteen years maintained the
unequal struggle, three of the most powerful Etruscan towns--Perusia,
Cortona, and Arretium--consented after the first defeat to a separate
peace for three hundred months (444), and after the Romans had once
more beaten the other Etruscans near Perusia in the following year,
the Tarquinienses also agreed to a peace of four hundred months (446);
whereupon the other cities desisted from the contest, and a temporary
cessation of arms took place throughout Etruria.

Last Campaigns in Samnium

While these events were passing, the war had not been suspended in
Samnium. The campaign of 443 was confined like the preceding to the
besieging and storming of several strongholds of the Samnites; but
in the next year the war took a more vigorous turn. The dangerous
position of Rullianus in Etruria, and the reports which spread as
to the annihilation of the Roman army in the north, encouraged the
Samnites to new exertions; the Roman consul Gaius Marcius Rutilus was
vanquished by them and severely wounded in person. But the sudden
change in the aspect of matters in Etruria destroyed their newly
kindled hopes. Lucius Papirius Cursor again appeared at the head of
the Roman troops sent against the Samnites, and again remained the
victor in a great and decisive battle (445), in which the confederates
had put forth their last energies. The flower of their army--the
wearers of the striped tunics and golden shields, and the wearers of
the white tunics and silver shields--were there extirpated, and their
splendid equipments thenceforth on festal occasions