the laurel disfigured by public and private grief.  The triumph thus declined was more illustrious than any triumph actually enjoyed; so true it is, that glory refused at a fitting moment sometimes returns with accumulated lustre.  He next celebrated the two funerals of his colleague and brother, one after the other, himself delivering the funeral oration over both, wherein, by yielding up to them the praise that was his own due, he himself obtained the greatest share of it; and, not unmindful of that which he had determined upon at the beginning of his consulate, namely, the regaining the affection of the people, he distributed the wounded soldiers among the patricians to be attended to.  Most of them were given to the Fabii:  nor were they treated with greater attention anywhere else.  From this time the Fabii began to be popular, and that not by aught save such conduct as was beneficial to the state.

Accordingly, Caeso Fabius, having been elected consul with Titus Verginius not more with the good-will of the senators than of the commons, gave no attention either to wars, or levies, or anything else in preference, until, the hope of concord being now in some measure assured, the feelings of the commons should be united with those of the senators at the earliest opportunity.  Accordingly, at the beginning of the year he proposed that before any tribune should stand forth as a supporter of the agrarian law, the patricians themselves should be beforehand in bestowing the gift unasked and making it their own:  that they should distribute among the commons the land taken from the enemy in as equal a proportion as possible; that it was but just that those should enjoy it by whose blood and labour it had been won.  The patricians rejected the proposal with scorn:  some even complained that the once vigorous spirit of Caeso was running riot, and decaying through a surfeit of glory.  There were afterward no party struggles in the city.  The Latins, however, were harassed by the incursions of the Aequans.  Caeso being sent thither with an army, crossed into the territory of the Aequans themselves to lay it waste.  The Aequans retired into the towns, and kept themselves within the walls:  on that account no battle worth mentioning was fought.

However, a reverse was sustained at the hands of the Veientine foe owing to the rashness of the other consul; and the army would have been all cut off, had not Caeso Fabius come to their assistance in time.  From that time there was neither peace nor war with the Veientines:  their mode of operation had now come very near to the form of brigandage.  They retired before the Roman troops into the city; when they perceived that the troops were drawn off, they made incursions into the country, alternately mocking war with peace and peace with war.  Thus the matter could neither be dropped altogether, nor brought to a conclusion.  Besides, other wars were threatening either at the moment, as from the Aequans and Volscians,