r allies, and occasioned such great consternation
that, while scattered in different directions, they sallied forth in
small parties to repel the assault of the enemy, the gate which he
first atacked was taken: then within the rampart a massacre rather
than a battle took place. From within the camp the alarm spread also
into the city; the Veientines ran to arms in as great a panic as if
Veii had been taken: some came up to the support of the Sabines,
others fell upon the Romans, who had directed all their force against
the camp. For a little while they were disconcerted and thrown into
confusion; then they in like manner formed two fronts and made a
stand: and the cavalry, being commanded by the consul to charge,
routed the Tuscans and put them to flight; and in the self-same
hour two armies and two of the most influential and powerful of the
neighbouring states were vanquished. While these events were taking
place at Veii, the Volscians and AEquans had pitched their camp in
Latin territory, and laid waste their frontiers. The Latins, being
joined by the Hernicans, without either a Roman general or Roman
auxiliaries, by their own efforts, stripped them of their camp.
Besides recovering their own effects, they obtained immense booty. The
consul Gaius Nautius, however, was sent against the Volscians from
Rome. The custom, I suppose, was not approved of, that the allies
should carry on wars with their own forces and according to their own
plans without a Roman general and troops. There was no kind of injury
and petty annoyance that was not practised against the Volscians; they
could not, however, be prevailed on to come to an engagement in the
field.

Lucius Furius and Gaius Manlius were the next consuls. The Veientines
fell to Manlius as his province. No war, however, followed: a truce
for forty years was granted them at their request, but they were
ordered to provide corn and pay for the soldiers. Disturbance at home
immediately followed in close succession on peace abroad: the commons
were goaded by the spur employed by the tribunes in the shape of the
agrarian law. The consuls, no whit intimidated by the condemnation of
Menenius, nor by the danger of Servilius, resisted with their utmost
might; Gnaeus Genucius, a tribune of the people, dragged the consuls
before the court on their going out of office. Lucius AEmilius and
Opiter Verginius entered upon the consulate. Instead of Verginius I
find Vopiscus Julius given as