r the expeditions, which, amid such an alarm the conjuncture
required, but scarcely had they sufficient even for quietly mounting
guard. The senators whose age and health permitted them, discharged
personally the duty of sentinels. The going around[111] and attending to
these was assigned to the aediles of the people; on them devolved the
chief administration of affairs and the majesty of the consular
authority.

[Footnote 109: Of the year,--i.e. the consular year, not the civil one,
which commenced in January.]

[Footnote 110: A similar measure was adopted at Athens. See Thucyd. ii.
52.]

[Footnote 111: _Circuitio_. Stroth observes, that this is what we
understand by 'the Round.']

7. The commonwealth thus desolate, without a head, without strength, the
guardian gods and good fortune of the city saved, which inspired the
Volscians and AEquans with the disposition of banditti rather than of
enemies; for so far was any hope not only of taking but even of
approaching the walls of Rome[112] from taking possession of their
minds, and so thoroughly did the sight of the houses in the distance,
and the adjacent hills, divert their thoughts, (from such an attempt,)
that, a murmur having arisen in every direction throughout the entire
camp, "why they should waste time in indolence without booty in a wild
and desert land, amid the putrid decay of cattle and of human beings,
when they might repair to places uninjured by infection, the Tusculan
territory abounding in wealth?" they suddenly tore up their standards,
and by journeys across the country, they passed through the Lavican
territory to the Tusculan hills; and to that quarter was the whole
violence and storm of the war directed. In the mean time the Hernicians
and Latins, influenced not only by compassion but by shame, if they
neither gave opposition to the common enemy, when making for the city
of Rome with a hostile army, nor afforded any aid to their allies when
besieged, march to Rome with their forces united. Where, when they did
not find the enemy, following their tracks as indicated by rumour, they
meet them as they are coming down from the 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 present. The mortality at Rome by disease was not less than that
of the allies by the sword (of the enemy); the only surviving consul
dies; other emin