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In the consulship of Quintus Fabius and Lucius Cornelius, disturbances woke out immediately at the beginning of the year. The tribunes were urging on the commons. The Latins and Hernicans brought word that a formidable war was threatening on the part of the Volscians and Æquans; that the troops of the Volscians were now in the neighbourhood of Antium.
On the first report of these the Æquans and Volscians, as if they had received a signal, took up arms; also because their leaders, eager for plunder, had persuaded them that the levy proclaimed two years previously could not be proceeded with, as the commons now refused obedience to military authority: that for that reason no armies had been sent against them; that military discipline was subverted by licentiousness, and that Rome was no longer considered a common country for its citizens; that whatever resentment and animosity they might have entertained against foreigners, was now directed against themselves; that now an opportunity offered itself for destroying wolves blinded by intestine rage.
We have already pointed to the fact, that at this epoch the neighbouring lands southern Etruria, Sabina, the land of the Volscians, began to become Romanized, as is attested by the almost total absence of monuments of the old native dialects, and by the occurrence of very ancient Roman inscriptions in those regions; the admission of the Sabines to full burgess-rights at the end of this period betokens that the Latinizing of Central Italy was already at that time the conscious aim of Roman policy.
VIII. Corioli was the most important city of the Volscian nation, with which Rome then was at war. The consul Cominius was besieging it, and the Volscians, fearing it might be taken, gathered from all quarters, meaning to fight a battle under the city walls, and so place the Romans between two fires.
XXXV. When he had taken his fill of embraces, perceiving that his mother desired to address him, he called the chiefs of the Volscians together, and listened to Volumnia, who addressed him as follows: "You may judge, my son, by our dress and appearance, even though we keep silence, to what a miserable condition your exile has reduced us at home.
The object was attained still more fully by the accession of the Hernici to the league of the Romans and Latins , an accession which isolated the Volscians completely, and provided the league with a bulwark against the Sabellian tribes dwelling on the south and east; it is easy therefore to perceive why this little people obtained the concession of full equality with the two others in counsel and in distribution of the spoil.
The further course of events can no longer be ascertained in detail; we discover only that whether after a campaign, or without the intervention of a war Rome and Samnium came to an agreement, by which Capua was left at the disposal of the Romans, Teanum in the hands of the Samnites, and the upper Liris in those of the Volscians.
But among the Volscians, their territory being depopulated, Anxur, which was situate on an eminence, was assaulted, but to no purpose; and when force was ineffectual, they commenced to surround it with a rampart and a trench. In this state of military affairs an intestine disturbance broke out with greater violence than the wars were proceeded with.
There are some who, without mentioning the proposal of the law concerning the election of consuls from among the commons, say that three military tribunes were elected on account of the Veientian war being added to the war of the Æquans and the Volscians and to the revolt of the Ardeates, because two consuls could not execute so many wars together, these tribunes being invested also with the authority and insignia of consuls.
As far as I can conjecture at so great a distance of time, since a triumph had been refused to the consuls Horatius and Valerius, who, in addition to the victory over the Æquans and Volscians, had gained the glory of having also finished the Sabine war, the consuls were ashamed to demand a triumph for one half of the services done by them, lest, even if they should have obtained it, regard might appear to have been paid to persons rather than to merit.
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