Читать книгу THE HISTORY OF ROME (Complete Edition in 4 Volumes) - Livy - Страница 299

Therefore when in pursuance of a decree of the senate the consuls resigned their office, Marcus Furius Camillus is created interrex, who appointed Publius Cornelius Scipio interrex, and he afterwards Lucius Valerius Potitus. By him were appointed six military tribunes with consular power; so that, though any one of them should be incommoded by bad health, the state might have a sufficient number of magistrates. On the calends of July, the following entered on their office, Lucius Lucretius, Servius Sulpicius, Marcus Æmilius, Lucius Furius Medullinus a seventh time, Agrippa Furius, Caius Æmilius a second time. Of these, Lucius Lucretius and Caius Æmilius got the Volsinians as their province; the Salpinians fell to the lot of Agrippa Furius and Servius Sulpicius. The first engagement was with the Volsinians. The war, important from the number of the enemy, was without difficulty brought to a close. At the first onset, their army was put to flight. Eight thousand soldiers, hemmed in by the cavalry, laid down their arms and surrendered. The account received of that war had the effect of preventing the Salpinians from hazarding an engagement; the troops secured themselves within their towns. The Romans drove spoil in every direction, both from the Salpinian and Volsinian territory, there being no one to repel that aggression; until a truce for twenty years was granted to the Volsinians, exhausted by the war, on this condition, that they should make restitution to the Roman people, and furnish the pay of the army for that year. During the same year, Marcus Cædicius, a plebeian, announced to the tribunes that in the New Street, where the chapel now stands, above the temple of Vesta, he had heard in the silence of the night a voice louder than that of a human being, which ordered the magistrates to be told, that the Gauls were approaching. This, as is usual, was disregarded, on account of the humble station of the author, and also because the nation was a remote one, and therefore the less known. And not only were the warnings of the gods disregarded, fate now impending; but further, the only human aid which was left them, Marcus Furius, they drove away from the city; who, on a day (of trial) being appointed for him by Lucius Appuleius, a tribune of the people, in reference to the Veientian spoil, he having also lost his son, a young man, about the same time, when he summoned to his house the members of his tribe and his dependents, (they constituted a considerable portion of the commons,) and having sounded their sentiments, he received for answer, "that they would contribute whatever fine he should be condemned to pay; that to acquit him they were unable,"168 retired into exile; after praying to the immortal gods, "that if that outrage was done to him without his deserving it, they would at the earliest opportunity give cause to his ungrateful country to regret his absence." In his absence he was fined fifteen thousand asses in weight.