ve
taken, and met them as they were coming down from Tusculan territory
into the Alban valley: there a battle was fought under circumstances
by no means equal; and their fidelity proved by no means favourable to
the allies for the time being. The havoc caused by pestilence at Rome
was not less than that caused by the sword among the allies: the only
surviving consul died, as well as other distinguished men, Marcus
Valerius, Titus Verginius Rutilus, augurs: Servius Sulpicius, chief
priest of the curies:[12] while among undistinguished persons the
virulence of the disease spread extensively: and the senate, destitute
of human aid, directed the people's attention to the gods and to vows:
they were ordered to go and offer supplications with their wives and
children, and to entreat the favour of Heaven. Besides the fact that
their own sufferings obliged each to do so, when summoned by public
authority, they filled all the shrines; the prostrate matrons in every
quarter sweeping the temples with their hair, begged for a remission
of the divine displeasure, and a termination to the pestilence.

From this time, whether it was that the favour of the gods was
obtained, or that the more unhealthful season of the year was now
over, the bodily condition of the people, now rid of disease,
gradually began to be more healthy, and their attention being
now directed to public concerns, after the expiration of several
interregna, Publius Valerius Publicola, on the third day after he had
entered on his office of interrex,[13] procured the election of Lucius
Lucretius Tricipitinus, and Titus Veturius (or Vetusius) Geminus, to
the consulship. They entered on their consulship on the third day
before the ides of August,[14] the state being now strong enough
not only to repel a a hostile attack, but even to act itself on the
offensive. Therefore when the Hernicans announced that the enemy had
crossed over into their boundaries, assistance was readily promised:
two consular armies were enrolled. Veturius was sent against the
Volscians to carry on an offensive war. Tricipitinus, being posted to
protect the territory of the allies from devastation, proceeded no
further than into the countryof the Hernicans. Veturius routed and put
the enemy to flight in the first engagement. A party of plunderers,
led over the Praenestine Mountains, and from thence sent down into the
plains, was unobserved by Lucretius, while he lay encamped among the
Hernicans.