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Updated: June 7, 2025
XVII. After the capture of the Ceninete tribe, while the rest of the Sabines were still engaged in preparation for war, the inhabitants of Fidenae and Crustumerium and Antemna attacked the Romans. A battle took place in which they were all alike worsted, after which they permitted Romulus to take their cities, divide their lands, and incorporate them as citizens.
For although by this last-mentioned device the Romans at the first were somewhat disconcerted, so soon as the dictator came up and began to chide them, asking if they were not ashamed to fly like bees from smoke, and calling on them to turn on their enemy, and "with her own flames efface that Fidenae whom their benefits could not conciliate," they took courage; so that the device proved of no service to its contrivers, who were vanquished in the battle.
A second battle now took place at Fidenae, in which all agree that Romulus took the most important part, showing the greatest skill and courage, and a strength and swiftness more than mortal. But some accounts are altogether fabulous, such as that fourteen hundred were slain, more than half of whom Romulus slew with his own hand.
A fresh battle was fought near Fidenae, and here all men acknowledge the day's success to have been chiefly the work of Romulus himself, who showed the highest skill as well as courage, and seemed to manifest a strength and swiftness more than human.
The Veientes were the nearest to the Tiber, and it was with them that Rome and Latium came most frequently into serious conflict, especially for the possession of Fidenae, which served the Veientes as a sort of -tete de pont- on the left bank just as the Janiculum served the Romans on the right, and which was sometimes in the hands of the Latins, sometimes in those of the Etruscans.
This demand was not only unjust, but absurd, seeing that they had not assisted the people of Fidenae when they were fighting and in danger, but permitted them to be destroyed, and then demanded their houses and lands, when they were in the possession of others.
Brennus answers: 'The wrong that Alba did to you, the wrong that Fidenae did to you, the wrong that the Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your neighbors. The Clusians are ours. We understand neighborliness just as you do. You have stolen Alba, we shall take Clusium. Rome said: 'You shall not take Clusium. Brennus took Rome.
After the overthrow of the Ceninensians, the other Sabines still protracting the time in preparations, the people of Fidenae, Crustumerium, and Antemna, joined their forces against the Romans; they in like manner were defeated in battle, and surrendered up to Romulus their cities to be seized, their lands and territories to be divided, and themselves to be transplanted to Rome.
The nearness, however, of the city Fidenae was the preservation of the Sabines, especially those that fled from the camp; those that could not gain the city either perished in the field, or were taken prisoners.
In a battle which the Dictator Mamercus fought against the people of Fidenae, the latter, to strike terror into the minds of the Romans, contrived that while the combat raged a number of soldiers should issue from Fidenae bearing lances tipped with fire, thinking that the Romans, disturbed by so strange a sight, would be thrown into confusion.
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