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Updated: May 17, 2025
But the following dawn showed the conqueror and the vanquished; for the Etrurians had decamped in the dead of the night.
The envoys were prevented from trading in an insolent manner by the Samnitians, who were in possession of Capua and Cumæ; on the contrary, they were kindly assisted by the tyrants of Sicily. The Tiber brought down the greatest supplies, through the very active zeal of the Etrurians.
The battle was fought with such animosity that no javelins were thrown by either party: swords alone were made use of; and the fury of the combatants was still higher inflamed by the long-continued contest; so that it appeared to the Romans as if they were disputing, not with Etrurians, whom they had so often conquered, but with a new race.
By these Veii was first invested. A little before the commencement of this siege, when a full meeting of the Etrurians was held at the temple of Voltumna, it was not finally determined whether the Veientians were to be supported by the public concurrence of the whole confederacy.
The war was then directed against the Etrurians; and when the dictator had gone to Rome, for the purpose of renewing the auspices, the master of the horse, going out to forage, was surrounded by an ambuscade, and obliged to fly shamefully into his camp, after losing several standards and many of his men.
When it was now day there was not a man of the Etrurians in his place; so Valerius the consul gathered together the spoil and returned in great triumph to Rome. Also he made a great burial for Brutus; and the people also mourned greatly for him, the women lamenting him for the space of a whole year, even as is the custom for women to lament for a father or a brother.
From the Etrurians the Romans borrowed, also, the institution of the Vestals, whose duty was to watch and keep alive the sacred fire of Vesta; the Lares and Penates, the domestic gods, which presided over the dwelling and family; Terminus, the god of property and the rites connected with possession; and the orders of Augurs and Aruspices, whose office was to consult the flight of birds or to inspect the entrails of animals offered in sacrifice, in order to ascertain future events.
And, not to recite the long train of disasters sustained by both nations, and the toils which they underwent, by which, however, their stubborn breasts could not be subdued; even in the course of the last year, the Samnites, with their own forces separately, and also in conjunction with those of other nations, had been defeated by four several armies, and four generals of the Romans, in the territory of Sentinum, in that of the Pelignians, at Tifernum, and in the plains of the Stellatians; had lost the general of the highest character in their nation; and, now, saw their allies in the war, the Etrurians, the Umbrians, and the Gauls, in the same situation with themselves; but, although they could now no longer stand, either by their own or by foreign resources, yet did they not desist from the prosecution of hostilities.
"Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding, "because the Etrurians called their gods the 'AEsar, and the Scandinavians called theirs the 'AEsir, or 'Aser'! And where do you think this adventurous scholar puts their cradle?" "Cradle!" said my mother, dreamily, "it must be in the nursery."
Who can promise that their temper will be the same hereafter, if the war is suspended? when, if you suffer any relaxation, more respectable and more frequent embassies will go; when that which now displeases the Etrurians, the establishment of a king at Veii, may, after an interval, be done away with, either by the joint determination of the state that they may recover the good will of the Etrurians, or by a voluntary act of the king, who may be unwilling that his reign should stand in the way of the welfare of his countrymen.
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