or a very long time. When they had been subdued,
they deteriorated into a state of effeminacy, left the management of
the city to their servants and let those servants, as a rule, also
carry on their campaigns. Finally they encouraged them to such an
extent that the servants possessed both spirit and power, and thought
they had a right to freedom. In the course of time their efforts to
obtain it were crowned with success. After that they were accustomed
to wed their mistresses, to inherit their masters, to be enrolled in
the senate, to secure the offices, and to hold the entire authority
themselves. Indeed, it was usual, when insults were offered them by
their masters, for them to requite the authors of them with rather
unbecoming speed. Hence the old-fashioned citizens, not being able to
endure them and yet possessing no power of their own to repress them,
despatched envoys by stealth to Rome. The envoys urged the senate to
convene with secrecy at night in a private house, so that no report
might get abroad, and they obtained their request. The meeting
accordingly deliberated under the idea that no one was listening: but
a sick Samnite, who was being entertained as a guest of the master of
the house, kept his bed unnoticed, learned what was voted, and gave
information to those against whom charges were preferred. The latter
seized and tortured the envoys on their return; when they found out
what was on foot they killed the messengers and also some of the
foremost men.

The above were the causes which led the Romans to send Fabius against
them. He routed the body of the foe that met him, destroyed many in
their flight, shut up the remainder within the wall, and made an
assault upon the city. In that action he was wounded and killed,
whereupon gaining confidence the enemy made a sortie. They were again
defeated, retired, and had to submit to siege. When they began to feel
the pangs of hunger, they surrendered. The consul delivered to outrage
and death the men who had appropriated the honors of the ruling class
and he razed the city to the ground; the native inhabitants, however,
and many servants who had rendered valuable service to their masters
he settled on another site.

_(BOOK 11, BOISSEVAIN.)_

VIII, 8.--From that time the Romans began struggles oversea: they had
previously had no experience at all in naval matters. They now became
seamen and crossed over to the islands and to other divisions of the
mainland.