sufficiently apparent, having
at length given the signal for sallying forth, he lets out the soldiers
now impatient for the fight. At the very first onset the enemy were
routed; the rear of them who fled was harassed, as long as the infantry
was able to overtake them; the cavalry drove them in consternation to
their very camp. In a little time the camp itself was taken and
plundered, the legions having surrounded it, as the panic had driven the
Volscians even from thence also. On the next day the legions being led
to Suessa Pometia, whither the enemy had retreated, in a few days the
town is taken; when taken, it was given up for plunder: by these means
the needy soldiers were somewhat relieved. The consul leads back his
victorious army to Rome with the greatest glory to himself: as he is
setting out for Rome, the deputies of the Ecetrans, (a part) of the
Volscians, alarmed for their state after the taking of Pometia, come to
him. By a decree of the senate peace is granted them, but their land is
taken from them.

26. Immediately after the Sabines also caused an alarm to the Romans;
but it was rather a tumult than a war. It was announced in the city
during the night that a Sabine army had advanced as far as the river
Anio, plundering the country: that the country houses there were
pillaged and burnt down indiscriminately. A. Postumius, who had been
dictator in the Latin war, was immediately sent against them with all
the horse. The consul Servilius followed him with a chosen body of foot.
The cavalry cut off most of the stragglers; nor did the Sabine legion
make any resistance against the foot when they came up with them. Being
tired both by their march and their plundering the country in the night,
and a great number of them being surfeited with eating and drinking in
the cottages, they had scarcely sufficient strength for flight. The
Sabine war being thus heard of and finished in one night, on the
following day, amid sanguine hope of peace being secured in every
quarter, ambassadors from the Auruncians come to the senate, proclaiming
war unless the troops are withdrawn from the Volscian territory. The
army of the Auruncians had set out from home simultaneously with the
ambassadors; the report of which having been seen not far from Aricia,
excited such a tumult among the Romans, that neither the senate could be
consulted in regular form, nor could they, while themselves taking up
arms, give a pacific answer to those ad