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6. The elections were then held: Lucius Aebutius and Publius Servilius being elected consuls, enter on their office on the calends of August, which was then considered as the commencement of the year.1 This was a distressing time, and it so happened that the season was pestilential to the city and country, and not more to men than to cattle; and they increased the malignity of the distemper, by admitting2 the cattle and the peasants into the city through dread of [3] devastation. This collection of animals of every kind mixed together, distressed both the citizens by the unusual stench, and the peasants crowded together into their close apartments, with heat, want of sleep, and their attendance on each other, and contact itself propagated the [4] disease. Whilst with difficulty sustaining these calamities, ambassadors from the Hernicians suddenly bring word that the Aequans and Volscians, having united their forces, had pitched their camp in their territory, that from thence they were depopulating their frontiers with an immense [5] army. Besides that the thinness of the senate was a proof to the allies that the state was prostrated by the pestilence, they further received this melancholy answer: “That the Hernicians, with the Latins, must now defend their possessions by their own exertions. That the Roman city, through the sudden anger of the gods, was now depopulated by disease. If any respite from that calamity should come, that they would afford aid to their allies, as they had done the year before, and always on other [6] occasions.” The allies departed, carrying home, instead of the melancholy news (they had brought), news still more melancholy, as being persons who were now obliged to sustain by their own means a war, which they had sustained with difficulty when backed by the power of [7] Rome. The enemy did not confine themselves any [p. 166]longer to the Hernician territory. They proceed thence with determined hostility into the Roman territories, which were already devastated without the injuries of war. Where, when there was no one to meet them, not even an unarmed person, and they passed through every place destitute not only of troops, but even of the cultivation of the husbandman, they reached as far as the third stone on the Gabinian [8] road. Aebutius, the Roman consul, was dead; his colleague, Servilius, was dragging out life with slender hope of recovery; most of the leading men, the chief part of the patricians, all of the military age, were lying sick, so that strength was wanting not only for the expeditions, which, amid such an alarm the conjuncture required, but scarcely had they sufficient even for quietly mounting [9] guard. The senators whose age and health permitted them, discharged personally the duty of sentinels. The going around3 and attending to these was assigned to the aediles of the people; on them devolved the chief administration of affairs and the majesty of the consular authority.

1 Of the year, [2] —i. e. the consular year, not the civil one, which commenced in January.

2 A similar measure was adopted at Athens. See Thucyd. ii. 52.

3 Circuitio. Stroth observes, that this is what we understand by 'the Round.'

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load focus Summary (English, Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., 1922)
load focus Summary (Latin, Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., 1922)
load focus Latin (Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., 1922)
load focus English (Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912)
load focus Latin (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1898)
load focus Latin (Robert Seymour Conway, Charles Flamstead Walters, 1914)
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  • Commentary references to this page (13):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 31-32, commentary, 31.6
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 33.29
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 34.2
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 34.35
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 34.9
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 41.13
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 42.18
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 42.23
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 42.54
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 43.6
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 43-44, commentary, 44.17
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, book 45, commentary, 45.1
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, book 45, commentary, 45.37
  • Cross-references to this page (20):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Latini
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Pestis
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, P. Servilius
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Sextiles Kalendae
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Tribunus
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Aediles
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Annus
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, L. Aebutius
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Via
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Vigiliis
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Volsci
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Consulatus
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Gabina
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Hernici
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), CONSUL
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), LEGA´TUS
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), LUDI SAECULA´RES
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), GA´BII
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), HE´RNICI
    • Smith's Bio, Priscus, Servi'lius
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (18):
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