ower of Rome. The
enemy no longer confined themselves to the Hernican territory. They
proceeded thence with determined hostility into the Roman territories,
which were already devastated without the injuries of war. There,
without any one meeting them, not even an unarmed person, they
passed through entire tracts destitute not only of troops, but
even uncultivated, and reached the third milestone on the Gabinian
road.[10] Aebutius, the Roman consul, was dead: his colleague,
Servilius, was dragging out his life with slender hope of recovery;
most of the leading men, the chief part of the patricians, nearly all
those of military age, were stricken down with disease, so that they
not only had not sufficient strength for the expeditions, which amid
such an alarm the state of affairs required, but scarcely even for
quietly mounting guard. Those senators, whose age and health permitted
them, personally discharged the duty of sentinels. The patrol and
general supervision was assigned to the plebeian aediles: on them
devolved the chief conduct of affairs and the majesty of the consular
authority.

The commonwealth thus desolate, since it was without a head, and
without strength, was saved by the guardian gods and good fortune of
the city, which inspired the Volscians and AEquans with the disposition
of freebooters rather than of enemies; for so far were their minds
from entertaining any hope not only of taking but even of approaching
the walls of Rome, and so thoroughly did the sight of the houses in
the distance, and the adjacent hills, divert their thoughts, that, on
a murmur arising throughout the entire camp--why should they waste
time in indolence without booty in a wild and desert land, amid the
pestilence engendered by cattle and human beings, when they could
repair to places as yet unattacked--the Tusculan territory abounding
in wealth? They suddenly pulled up their standards,[11] and, by
cross-country marches, passed through the Lavican territory to the
Tusculan hills: to that quarter the whole violence and storm of the
war was directed. In the meantime the Hernicans and Latins, influenced
not only by compassion but by a feeling of shame, if they neither
opposed the common enemy who were making for the city of Rome with
a hostile army, nor afforded any aid to their allies when besieged,
marched to Rome with united forces. Not finding the enemy there, they
followed their tracks in the direction they were reported to ha