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Caesar, therefore, sent Marcus Antonius, with five cohorts from Ariminum to Arretium; he himself stayed at Ariminum with two legions, with the intention of raising levies there. He secured Pisaurus, Fanum, and Ancona, with a cohort each.

The consuls had to protect the northern frontier, and stationed themselves accordingly on the two highways which led from Rome to the north, the western of which at that lime terminated at Arretium, and the eastern at Ariminum; Gaius Flaminius occupied the former, Gnaeus Servilius the latter.

They therefore ordered Marcus Livius, proconsul, to march his army of volunteer slaves out of Etruria to Ariminum, and gave in charge to Cneius Servilius to issue orders, if he thought it necessary for the safety of the state, that the city legions should be marched out under the command of any person he thought proper. Marcus Valerius Laevinus led those legions to Arretium.

From somewhere between Pistoria and Luca we broke up into small parties of three to seven, and travelled by day like ordinary wayfarers. Somewhere not far south of the Arnus we reassembled, evidently by prearrangement and as accurately as a well-managed military-expedition. Through the mountains past Arretium we marched at night as in the Apennines.

A dangerous ferment immediately showed itself in Arretium; a conspiracy organized in the interest of Hannibal among the Etruscans was discovered, and appeared so perilous that Roman troops were ordered to march thither.

He himself was the first who vowed them in this manner, and he celebrated them on the third day of the nones of July, a day which was henceforth kept sacred. The reports respecting the people of Arretium became daily more serious, and the anxiety of the fathers increased.

That a formal armistice for two years subsisted between the Romans and Samnites in 436-437 is more than improbable. The operations in the campaign of 537, and still more plainly the formation of the highway from Arretium to Bononia in 567, show that the road from Rome to Arretium had already been rendered serviceable before that time.

Most of these new settlements were directed towards Etruria, as for instance to Faesulae and Arretium, others to Latium and Campania, where Praeneste and Pompeii among other places became Sullan colonies. To repeople Samnium was, as we have said, no part of the regent's design.

The Etruscan league actually revolted, and hired numerous bands of Gauls; the Roman army, which the praetor Lucius Caecilius was leading to the help of the Arretines who had remained faithful, was annihilated under the walls of Arretium by the Senonian mercenaries of the Etruscans: the general himself fell with 13,000 of his men . The Senones were reckoned allies of Rome; the Romans accordingly sent envoys to them to complain of their furnishing warriors to serve against Rome, and to require the surrender of their captives without ransom.

Many men and cattle having been lost thus wretchedly, when at length he had emerged from the marshes, he pitched his camp as soon as he could on dry ground. And here he received information, through the scouts sent in advance, that the Roman army was round the walls of Arretium.