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For the consul Fabius having routed that people near Sutrium, and thinking to pass onward through the Ciminian forest into Etruria, so far from seeking the advice of the senate, gave them no hint whatever of his design, although for its execution the war had to be carried into a new, difficult, and dangerous country.
Etruria Proper at Peace and on the Decline Thus the Etruscans, after the loss of their possessions in Campania and of the whole district to the north of the Apennines and to the south of the Ciminian Forest, remained restricted to very narrow bounds; their season of power and of aspiration had for ever passed away.
The Etruscans and the Gauls did not yet cease their wars on the north, and in 283 they encountered the Roman army at the little pond, between the Ciminian Hills and the Tiber, known as Lake Vadimonis, on the spot where the Etrurian power had been broken thirty years before by Fabius Maximus, and were defeated with great slaughter.
These being slain or put to flight, and the country laid waste to a great extent, the Romans returned to their camp victorious, and enriched with plenty of every kind. It happened that, in the mean time, five deputies, with two plebeian tribunes, had come hither, to charge Fabius, in the name of the senate, not to attempt to pass the Ciminian forest.
They set out in the dress of shepherds, armed with rustic weapons, bills, and two short javelins each. But neither their speaking the language of the country, nor the fashion of their dress and arms, concealed them so effectually, as the incredible circumstance of a stranger's passing the Ciminian forest.
These groups are, first, the coins of the cities of Etruria lying north of the Ciminian Forest and those of Umbria; secondly, the coins of Rome and Latium; and lastly, those of the eastern seaboard.
The Ciminian forest was in those days deemed as impassable and frightful as the German forests have been in latter times; not even any trader having ever attempted to pass it. Hardly any, besides the general himself, showed boldness enough to enter it; the others had not the remembrance of the disaster at Caudium effaced from their mind.
As late as the fourth century before our era Rome was divided from central Etruria by the dreaded Ciminian forest, which Livy compares to the woods of Germany.
Some affirm, that this famous battle was fought on the farther side of the Ciminian forest, at Perusia; and that the public had been under great dread, lest the army might be enclosed in such a dangerous pass, and overpowered by a general combination of the Etrurians and Umbrians.
He had opened the Ciminian forest, and made a way for the Roman arms, through passes until then impracticable. Why had they disturbed him, at that time of his life, if they intended to give the management of the war to another?"
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