them of a double allowance of corn in future. The army further wove the obsidional crown of grass and placed it on the brows of Decius, and a similar crown was bestowed on him by his own men. Such were the generous arts by which Rome fostered the heroic spirit in her sons! Meantime the Samnites at Suessula had been largely reinforced, and they spread their ravages over Campania. The two consular armies being united under Valerius, came and encamped hard by them, and as Valerius had left all the baggage and camp-followers behind, the Roman army occupied a much smaller camp than was usual to their numbers. Deceived by the size of their camp the Samnites clamoured to storm it, but the caution of their leaders withheld them. Necessity soon compelled them to scour the country in quest of provisions, and emboldened by the consul’s inactivity they went to greater and greater distances. This was what Valerius waited for; he suddenly assailed and took their camp, which was but slightly guarded; then leaving two legions to keep it, he divided the rest of the army, and falling on the scattered Samnites cut them everywhere to pieces. The shields of the slain and fugitives amounted, we are told, to forty thousand, the captured standards to one hundred and seventy. Both consuls triumphed. While the Roman arms were thus engaged in Campania, the Latins invaded the territory of the Pelignians, the kinsmen and allies of the Samnites. No military events are recorded of the year 342, but a strange tale of an insurrection of the Roman army has been handed down. The tale runs thus: The Roman soldiers, who at the end of the last campaign, had been left to winter in Capua, corrupted by the luxury which they there witnessed and enjoyed, formed the nefarious plan of massacring the inhabitants and seizing the town. Their projects had not ripened, when C. Marcius Rutilus, the consul for 342, came to take the command. He first, to keep them quiet, gave out that the troops were to be quartered in Capua the following winter also; then noting the ringleaders, he sent them home under various pretexts and gave furloughs to any that asked for them; his colleague, Q. Servilius Ahala, meantime taking care to detain all who came to Rome. The stratagem succeeded for some time; but at length the soldiers perceived that none of their comrades came back; and a cohort that was going home on furlough halted at Lautulæ, a narrow pass between the sea and the mountains east of Tarracina; it was there joined by all who were going home singly on leave, and the whole number soon equalled that of an army. They soon after broke up, and marching for Rome encamped under Alba Longa. Feeling their want of a leader, and learning that T. Quinctius, a distinguished patrician, who being lame of one leg from a wound had retired from the city, was living on his farm in the Tusculan district, they sent a party by night, who seized him in his bed, and