llaged and set fire to indiscriminately. Aulus Postumius, who had
been dictator in the Latin war, was immediately sent thither with all
the cavalry forces. The consul Servilius followed him with a picked
body of infantry. The cavalry cut off most of the stragglers; nor
did the Sabine legions make any resistance against the battalion of
infantry when it came up with them. Tired both by their march and
nightly raids, surfeited with eating and drinking in the country
houses, a great number of them had scarcely sufficient strength to
flee. Thus the Sabine war was heard of and finished in a single night.
On the following day, when all were sanguine that peace had been
secured in every quarter, ambassadors from the Auruncans presented
themselves before the senate, threatening to declare war unless the
troops were withdrawn from the Volscian territory. The army of the
Auruncans had set out from home at the same time as the ambassadors,
and the report that this army had been seen not far from Aricia threw
the Romans into such a state of confusion that neither could the
senate be consulted in regular form, nor could the Romans, while
themselves taking up arms, give a pacific answer to those who were
advancing to attack them. They marched to Aricia in hostile array,
engaged with the Auruncans not far from that town and in one battle
the war was ended.

After the defeat of the Auruncans, the people of Rome, victorious in
so many wars within a few days, were looking to the consul to fulfill
his promises, and to the senate to keep their word, when Appius, both
from his natural pride, and in order to undermine the credit of his
colleague, issued a decree concerning borrowed money in the harshest
possible terms. From this time, both those who had been formerly in
confinement were delivered up to their creditors, and others also were
taken into custody. Whenever this happened to any soldier, he appealed
to the other consul. A crowd gathered about Servilius: they threw his
promises in his teeth, severally upbraiding him with their services in
war, and the scars they had received. They called upon him either
to lay the matter before the senate, or, as consul, to assist his
fellow-citizens, as commander, his soldiers. These remonstrances
affected the consul, but the situation of affairs obliged him to act
in a shuffling manner: so completely had not only his colleague,
but the whole of the patrician party, enthusiastically taken up the
o