f their former courage.

Aulus Verginius and Spurius Servilius were next chosen consuls. After
the defeat sustained in the last battle, the Veientines declined an
engagement.[67] Ravages were committed, and they made repeated attacks
in every direction upon the Roman territory from the Janiculum, as if
from a fortress: nowhere were cattle or husbandmen safe. They were
afterward entrapped by the same stratagem as that by which they
had entrapped the Fabii: having pursued cattle which had been
intentionally driven on in all directions to decoy them, they fell
into an ambuscade; in proportion as they were more numerous,[68] the
slaughter was greater. The violent resentment resulting from this
disaster was the cause and beginning of one still greater: for having
crossed the Tiber by night, they attempted to assault the camp of the
consul Servilius; being repulsed from thence with great slaughter,
they with difficulty made good their retreat to the Janiculum. The
consul himself also immediately crossed the Tiber, and fortified
his camp at the foot of the Janiculum: at daybreak on the following
morning, being both somewhat elated by the success of the battle of
the day before, more, however, because the scarcity of corn forced him
to adopt measures, however dangerous, provided only they were more
expeditious, he rashly marched his army up the steep of the Janiculum
to the camp of the enemy, and, being repulsed from thence with more
disgrace than when he had repulsed them on the preceding day, he
was saved, both himself and his army, by the intervention of his
colleague. The Etruscans, hemmed in between the two armies, and
presenting their rear to the one and the other by turns, were
completely destroyed. Thus the Veientine war was crushed by a
successful piece of audacity. [69]

Together with peace, provisions came in to the city in greater
abundance, both by reason of corn having been brought in from
Campania, and, as soon as the fear of want, which every one felt was
likely to befall himself, left them, by the corn being brought out,
which had been stored. Then their minds once more became wanton from
plenty and ease, and they sought at home their former subjects of
complaint, now that there was none abroad; the tribunes began to
excite the commons by their poisonous charm, the agrarian law: they
roused them against the senators who opposed it, and not only against
them as a body, but against particular individuals. Quint