The next consuls were Marcus Valerius and Publius Postumius. During
that year war was carried on successfully against the Sabines; the
consuls received the honour of a triumph. Upon this the Sabines made
preparations for war on a larger scale. To make head against them, and
to prevent any sudden danger arising from Tusculum, from which quarter
war, though not openly declared, was suspected, Publius Valerius was
created consul a fourth time, and Titus Lucretius a second time. A
disturbance that arose among the Sabines between the advocates of
war and of peace transferred considerable strength from them to the
Romans. For Attius Clausus, who was afterward called Appius Claudius
at Rome, being himself an advocate of peace, when hard pressed by
the agitators for war, and being no match for the party, fled from
Regillum to Rome, accompanied by a great number of dependents. The
rights of citizenship and land on the other side of the Anio were
bestowed on them. This settlement was called the old Claudian tribe,
and was subsequently increased by the addition of new tribesmen who
kept arriving from that district. Appius, being chosen into the
senate, was soon after advanced to the rank of the highest in that
order. The consuls entered the territories of the Sabines with a
hostile army, and when, both by laying waste their country, and
afterward by defeating them in battle, they had so weakened the power
of the enemy that for a long time there was no reason to dread the
renewal of the war in that quarter, they returned to Rome in triumph.
The following year, Agrippa Menenius and Publius Postumius being
consuls, Publius Valerius, by universal consent the ablest man in
Rome, in the arts both of peace and war, died covered with glory, but
in such straitened private circumstances that there was not enough
to defray the expenses of a public funeral: one was given him at
the public charge. The matrons mourned for him as they had done for
Brutus. The same year two Latin colonies, Pometia and Cora,[18]
revolted to the Auruncans.[19] War was commenced against the
Auruncans, and after a large army, which boldly met the consuls
as they were entering their frontiers, had been defeated, all the
operations of the Auruncan war were concentrated at Pometia. Nor,
after the battle was over, did they refrain from slaughter any more
than when it was going on: the number of the slain was considerably
greater than that of the prisoners, and the latter they put to death
indiscriminately. Nor did the wrath of war spare even the hostages,
three hundred in number, whom they had received. This year also the
consuls celebrated a triumph at Rome.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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