iled; and not for the present only, but
for the forthcoming year they succeeded in bringing in M. Fabius, Kaeso's
brother, as consul, and one still more detested by the commons for his
persecution of Sp. Cassius, L. Valerius. In that year also there was a
contest with the tribunes. The law proved to be a vain project, and the
abettors of the law mere boasters, by their holding out a gift that was
not realized. The Fabian name was from thence held in high repute, after
three successive consulates, and all as it were uniformly exercised in
contending with the tribunes; accordingly, the honour remained for a
considerable time in that family, as being right well placed. A
Veientian war was then commenced; the Volscians, too, renewed
hostilities; but for foreign wars their strength was almost more than
sufficient, and they abused it by contending among themselves. To the
distracted state of the public mind were added prodigies from heaven,
exhibiting almost daily threats in the city and in the country, and the
soothsayers, consulted by the state and by private individuals, one
while by means of entrails, another by birds, declared that there was no
other cause for the divine anger, but that the ceremonies of religion
were not duly attended to. These terrors, however, terminated in this,
that Oppia, a vestal virgin, being found guilty of a breach of chastity,
was made to suffer punishment.

43. Quintus Fabius and C. Julius were then made consuls. During this
year the dissension at home was not abated, and the war abroad was more
desperate. Arms were taken up by the AEquans; the Veientes also entered
the territory of the Romans committing devastations; the solicitude
about which wars increasing, Kaeso Fabius and Sp. Fusius are created
consuls. The AEqui were laying siege to Ortona, a Latin city. The
Veientes, now satiated with plunder, threatened that they would besiege
Rome itself. Which terrors, when they ought to assuage, increased still
further the bad feelings of the commons: and the custom of declining the
military service was now returning, not of their own accord; but Sp.
Licinius, a tribune of the people, thinking that the time was come for
forcing the agrarian law on the patricians by extreme necessity, had
taken on him the task of obstructing the military preparations. But all
the odium of the tribunitian power was turned on the author; nor did the
consuls rise up against him more zealously than his own colleagues; a