Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
Between that place and Fidenae, the army of the Veientes had crossed the Tiber. These, in the line of battle, also occupied the right wing near the river; the Fidenates were posted on the left nearer the mountains. Tullus stationed his own men opposite the Veientine foe; the Albans he posted to face the legion of the Fidenates. The Alban had no more courage than loyalty.
You people of the other world esteem it a wonderful thing that, out of the family of the Fabii at Rome, on a certain day, which was the 13th of February, at a certain gate, which was the Porta Carmentalis, since named Scelerata, formerly situated at the foot of the Capitol, between the Tarpeian rock and the Tiber, marched out against the Veientes of Etruria three hundred and six men bearing arms, all related to each other, with five thousand other soldiers, every one of them their vassals, who were all slain near the river Cremera, that comes out of the lake of Beccano.
Statues of the famous men of the past, of the kings, priests, and heroes of the legendary period, and of the Grecian -hospes- who was said to have interpreted to the decemvirs the laws of Solon; honorary columns and monuments dedicated to the great burgomasters who had conquered the Veientes, the Latins, the Samnites, to state envoys who had perished while executing their instructions, to rich women who had bequeathed their property to public objects, nay even to celebrated Greek philosophers and heroes such as Pythagoras and Alcibiades, were erected on the Capitol or in the Forum.
The Fidenates, a Roman colony, having gained over the Veientes as partisans in the confederacy, are instigated to declare war and take up arms under a compact of desertion on the part of the Albans. When Fidenæ had openly revolted, Tullus, after summoning Mettus and his army from Alba, marches against the enemy. When he crossed the Anio, he pitches his camp at the conflux of the rivers.
The history of the war against the Veientes, Capenates, and Falisci, and of the siege of Veii, which is said, like that of Troy, to have lasted ten years, rests on evidence far from trustworthy. Legend and poetry have taken possession of these events as their own, and with reason; for the struggle in this case was waged, with unprecedented exertions, for an unprecedented prize.
The minds of the Veientes being excited by the contagious influence of the Fidenatian war, both from the tie of consanguinity, for the Fidenates also were Etrurians, and because the very proximity of situation, in case the Roman arms should be turned against all their neighbours, urged them on, they made an incursion on the Roman territories, more to commit depredations than after the manner of a regular war.
The mighty development of the power of Etruria that occurred at this very time, the constant assaults of the Veientes, and the expedition of Porsena, may have materially contributed to secure the adherence of the Latin nation to the once-established form of union, or, in other words, to the continued recognition of the supremacy of Rome, and disposed them for its sake to acquiesce in a change of constitution for which, beyond doubt, the way had been in many respects prepared even in the bosom of the Latin communities, nay perhaps to submit even to an enlargement of the rights of hegemony.
There was no lack of feuds with the Etruscans and with the Veientes in particular, chiefly respecting the possession of Fidenae; but it does not appear that the Romans were successful in acquiring permanent mastery over that Etruscan outpost, which was situated on the Latin bank of the river not much more than five miles from Rome, or in dislodging the Veientes from that formidable basis of offensive operations.
Cornelius Cossus, having killed Tolumnius, king of the Veientes, offers the second spolia opima. Duration of the censorship, originally five years, limited to one year and a half. Fidenæ reduced, and a colony settled there. The colonists destroyed by the Fidenatians, who are subsequently conquered by Mamercus Æmilius, dictator. A conspiracy of the slaves put down.
Arms were taken up by the Æquans; the Veientes also entered the territory of the Romans committing devastations; the solicitude about which wars increasing, Kæso Fabius and Sp. Fusius are created consuls. The Æqui were laying siege to Ortona, a Latin city. The Veientes, now satiated with plunder, threatened that they would besiege Rome itself.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking