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Updated: June 10, 2025
To Fabius, because he, as conqueror, had granted peace to the Aequans that sphere of action was assigned in an unusual manner.
Not only the couriers, but also the flight of the country people through the city inspired them with alarm. The decemvirs, left in a dilemma between the hatred of the patricians and people, took counsel what was to be done. Fortune, moreover, brought an additional cause of alarm. The AEquans on the opposite side pitched their camp at Algidum, and by raids from there ravaged Tusculan territory.
Spurius Furius, one of the consuls to whom that sphere of action had fallen, having marched against the Aequans, found the enemy committing depredations in the country of the Hernicans; and being ignorant of their numbers, because they had nowhere been seen all together, he rashly hazarded an engagement with an army which was no match for their forces.
But through party spirit and men's regard for their private interest, which always has and always will stand in the way of public councils, Appius prevailed, and was himself near being created dictator a step which would certainly have alienated the commons at a most dangerous juncture, when the Volscians, the Aequans, and the Sabines all happened to be in arms at the same time.
At length, wearied with standing and waiting in vain for a contest, the Aequans and Volscians, considering that the victory was almost yielded to them, went off some to Hernican, others to Latin territory, to commit depredations. There was left in the camp rather a garrison for its defence than sufficient force for a contest.
The troops of the Aequans, like tumultuary recruits, in consequence of their having passed such a number of years without waging war on their own account, were all in disorder and confusion, without established officers and without command.
If there were two families of the same strength in the city, let them demand, the one the Volscians for itself, the other the Aequans; that all the neighbouring states could be subdued, while the Roman people all the time enjoyed profound peace. The day following, the Fabii took up arms; they assembled where they had been ordered.
The Volscians afterward returned, having been joined by the Aequans, into Roman territory: the latter, however, would no longer have Attius Tullius as their leader; hence from a dispute, whether the Volscians or the Aequans should give the general to the allied army, a quarrel, and afterward a furious battle, broke out.
He, setting out with a sure hope that his name and renown would reduce the Aequans to submission, sent ambassadors to the council of the nation, and ordered them to announce that Quintus Fabius, the consul, stated that he had brought peace to Rome from the Aequans, that from Rome he now brought them war, with that same right hand, but now armed, which he had formerly given to them in amity; that the gods were now witnesses, and would presently take vengeance on those by whose perfidy and perjury that had come to pass.
The consuls, under the immediate compulsion of the senate, led forth the youth from the city to war, and thereby rendered the rest of the commons more quiet. And the enemy indeed, having merely filled the Romans with fear that proved groundless, departed in great haste. Numicius marched to Antium against the Volscians, Verginius against the Aequans.
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