Servius Sulpicius and Manius Tullius were consuls the next year:
nothing worth mentioning happened. Titus Aebutius and Gaius Vetusius
succeeded. In their consulship Fideae was besieged, Crustumeria taken,
and Præneste[23] revolted from the Latins to the Romans. Nor was the
Latin war, which had now been fomenting for several years, any longer
deferred. Aulus Postumius the dictator, and Titus Aebutius his master
of the horse, setting out with a numerous army of horse and foot,
met the enemy's forces at the Lake Regillus,[24] in the territory of
Tusculum, and, because it was rumoured that the Tarquins were in the
army of the Latins, their rage could not be restrained, so that
they immediately came to an engagement. Accordingly, the battle was
considerably more severe and fierce than others. For the generals
were present not only to direct matters by their instructions, but,
exposing their own persons, they met in combat. And there was hardly
one of the principal officers of either army who came off unwounded,
except the Roman dictator. As Postumius was encouraging his men in the
first line, and drawing them up in order, Tarquinius Superbus, though
now advanced in years and enfeebled, urged on his horse to attack him:
and, being wounded in the side, he was carried off by a party of his
men to a place of safety. In like manner, on the other wing, Aebutius,
master of the horse, had charged Octavius Mamilius; nor was his
approach unobserved by the Etruscan general, who in like manner
spurred his horse against him. And such was their impetuosity as they
advanced with lances couched, that Aebutius was pierced through the
arm and Mamilius run through the breast. The Latins received the
latter into their second line; Aebutius, as he was unable to wield
his lance with his wounded arm, retired from the battle. The Latin
general, no way discouraged by his wound, stirred up the fight: and,
because he saw that his own men were disheartened, sent for a company
of Roman exiles, commanded by the son of Lucius Tarquinius. This body,
inasmuch as they fought with greater fury, owing to the loss of their
country, and the seizure of their estates, for a while revived the
battle.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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