38.
while these things were going on in Etruria, the other consul, Gaius Marcius Rutulus, [p. 311]captured Allifae from the Samnites by assault.1 2 many forts and villages besides were either wiped out in the course of hostilities or came intact into the hands of the
[2]
Romans.
at about this time a Roman fleet, commanded by Publius Cornelius, whom the senate had placed in charge of the coast, sailed for Campania and put into Pompeii. from there the sailors and rowers set out to pillage the territory of Nuceria.3 having quickly ravaged the nearest fields, from which they might have returned in safety to their ships, they were lured on, as often happens, by the love of booty, and going too far abroad aroused the
[3]
enemy. while they roamed through the fields, nobody interfered with them, though they might have been utterly annihilated; but as they came trooping back, without a thought of danger, the country —folk overtook them not far from the ships, stripped them of their plunder, and even slew a part of them; those who escaped the massacre were driven, a disordered rabble, to their
[4]
ships.
Great as had been the fears excited in Rome when Quintus Fabius marched through the Ciminian Forest, the rejoicings that took place in Samnium amongst the enemy were no less on their hearing a report that the Roman army was intercepted and
[5]
besieged. they recalled the Caudine Forks as showing what the disaster would be
[6]
like; with the same temerity, they said, a race that was ever reaching out for what lay beyond had been led into pathless forests and there hemmed in, more by the difficulties of the ground than by the arms of their
[7]
enemy. soon their joy began to be mixed with a kind of envy, that Fortune should have transferred the glory [p. 313]of the Roman war from Samnites to
[8]
Etruscans. so4 they hastened to bring all their strength to bear upon crushing Gaius Marcius, the consul; and resolved, if Marcius should avoid an encounter, to march forthwith into Etruria, through the countries of the Marsi and the Sabines. The consul met them, and the battle was fiercely contested on both sides, but without a decision being reached. yet, doubtful though it was which side had suffered most, the report gained ground that the Romans had been worsted: they had lost certain members of the equestrian order, certain military tribunes, and one lieutenant, and —most conspicuous of their misfortunes —the consul himself was
[9]
wounded.
These reverses as usual were further exaggerated in the telling, and the senate in great dismay determined on the appointment of a
[10]
dictator. nobody could doubt that Papirius Cursor, who was regarded as the foremost soldier of his time, would be
[11]
designated. but the senators were not certain that a messenger could be got through in safety to Samnium, where all was hostile, nor that the consul Marcius was alive. The other consul, Fabius, had a private grudge against
[12]
Papirius; and lest this enmity might hinder the general welfare, the senate decided to send a deputation of former consuls, in the hope that their personal influence, when added to the wishes of the government, might induce him to forget those quarrels for the good of the
[13]
country. The ambassadors went to Fabius and delivered the resolution of the senate, with a discourse that suited their instructions. The consul, his eyes fixed on the ground, retired without a word, leaving the ambassadors uncertain what he proposed to
[14]
do. then in the [p. 315]silence of the night, as the custom is, he appointed5 Lucius Papirius dictator.6 when the envoys thanked him for nobly conquering his feelings, he continued obstinately silent, and dismissed them without making any reply or alluding to what he had done, so that it was clearly seen what agony his great
[15]
heart was suppressing.
Papirius named Gaius Junius Bubulcus master of the horse. when he began to lay before the curiate assembly7 a law confirming his authority, the proceedings were cut short by an evil omen, the first vote to be counted being that of the ward called Faucia, notorious for two calamities, the capture of the City and the Caudine Peace, which had both been incurred in years when this same curia had the right of
[16]
the first return.8 Licinius Macer makes this ward unlucky also for a third disaster —that of the Cremera.9
1 At viii. xxv. 4, Livy mentioned the acquisition of Allifae, but has nowhere spoken of its recapture by the Samnites.
2 B.C. 310
3 Diod. (XIX. lxv.) tells us that Nuceria (formerly an ally of Rome) had revolted to the Samnites.
4 B.C. 310
5 B.C. 310
6 The consul rose and took the auspices after midnight because it was less likely that anything unlucky would then be said or done —in the absence of bystanders —to vitiate the ceremony.
7 Under the kings the curiate assembly had been the only formal assembly of the people (cf. I. xiii. 6 for the origin of the curiae), but in the time of the republic its functions had largely passed to the centuriate assembly. it was, however, still called upon to ratify the election of new magistrates by passing a lex ciuriata de imperio, and retained certain other ceremonial duties.
8 This was determined each time by lot.
9 477 B.C. (Book II, chap. 1.).
Livy. Books VIII-X With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1926: no copyright notice.
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