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The result of this embassy being reported at Rome, the care of all other concerns being laid aside, the senate, having despatched heralds to demand satisfaction, and, because this was not complied with, war being proclaimed in the usual way, they decreed that the matter should be submitted to the people at the very earliest opportunity; and both the consuls having set out from the city by order of the people with two armies, Valerius into Campania, Cornelius into Samnium, the former pitches his camp at Mount Gaurus, the latter at Saticula.
For the consul Cornelius, having set out from Saticula, incautiously led his army into a mountainous tract, passable through a deep defile, and beset on all sides by the enemy; nor did he perceive the enemy stationed over his head, until a retreat could no longer be made with safety.
The year coming to a conclusion, the war was thenceforward conducted by a dictator, Quintius Fabius. The new consuls, Lucius Papirius Cursor and Quintus Publilius Philo, both a fourth time, as the former had done, remained at Rome. Fabius came with a reinforcement to Saticula, to receive the army from Aemilius.
Call to mind how formerly at Saticula we received into our protection and defended your ancestors, when dismayed and driven within their walls; terrified not only by their Samnite but Sidicinian enemies; and how we carried on, with varying success, through a period of almost a century, a war with the Samnites, commenced on your account.
Fabius crossed the Vulturnus, after having at length expiated the prodigies, and both the consuls prosecuted the war in the neighbourhood of Capua. Fabius regained by force the towns Compulteria, Trebula, and Saticula, which had revolted to the Carthaginians; and in them were captured the garrisons of Hannibal and a great number of Campanians.
The Samnites, being forced to fly into their camp, extinguished their fires at night, and marched away in silence; and renouncing all hopes of relieving Saticula, sat themselves down before Plistia, which was in alliance with the Romans, that they might, if possible, retort equal vexation on their enemy.
He himself marched from Casilinum to Calatia, and thence crossing the Vulturnus, and passing through the territories of Saticula and Trebula, pursuing his course along the mountains above Suessula, he arrived at Nola.
The consuls, Caius Junius Bubulcus and Quintus Aemilius Barbula, at the conclusion of the year, delivered over the legions, not to the consuls elected by themselves, who were Spurius Nautius and Marcus Popillius, but to a dictator, Lucius Aemilius. He, with Lucius Fulvius, master of the horse, having commenced to lay siege to Saticula, gave occasion to the Samnites of reviving hostilities.
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