to places as yet unattacked—­the Tusculan territory abounding in wealth?  They suddenly pulled up their standards,[11] and, by cross-country marches, passed through the Lavican territory to the Tusculan hills:  to that quarter the whole violence and storm of the war was directed.  In the meantime the Hernicans and Latins, influenced not only by compassion but by a feeling of shame, if they neither opposed the common enemy who were making for the city of Rome with a hostile army, nor afforded any aid to their allies when besieged, marched to Rome with united forces.  Not finding the enemy there, they followed their tracks in the direction they were reported to have taken, and met them as they were coming down from Tusculan territory into the Alban valley:  there a battle was fought under circumstances by no means equal; and their fidelity proved by no means favourable to the allies for the time being.  The havoc caused by pestilence at Rome was not less than that caused by the sword among the allies:  the only surviving consul died, as well as other distinguished men, Marcus Valerius, Titus Verginius Rutilus, augurs:  Servius Sulpicius, chief priest of the curies:[12] while among undistinguished persons the virulence of the disease spread extensively:  and the senate, destitute of human aid, directed the people’s attention to the gods and to vows:  they were ordered to go and offer supplications with their wives and children, and to entreat the favour of Heaven.  Besides the fact that their own sufferings obliged each to do so, when summoned by public authority, they filled all the shrines; the prostrate matrons in every quarter sweeping the temples with their hair, begged for a remission of the divine displeasure, and a termination to the pestilence.

From this time, whether it was that the favour of the gods was obtained, or that the more unhealthful season of the year was now over, the bodily condition of the people, now rid of disease, gradually began to be more healthy, and their attention being now directed to public concerns, after the expiration of several interregna, Publius Valerius Publicola, on the third day after he had entered on his office of interrex,[13] procured the election of Lucius Lucretius Tricipitinus, and Titus Veturius (or Vetusius) Geminus, to the consulship.  They entered on their consulship on the third day before the ides of August,[14] the state being now strong enough not only to repel a a hostile attack, but even to act itself on the offensive.  Therefore when the Hernicans announced that the enemy had crossed over into their boundaries, assistance was readily promised:  two consular armies were enrolled.  Veturius was sent against the Volscians to carry on an offensive war.  Tricipitinus, being posted to protect the territory of the allies from devastation, proceeded no further than into the countryof the Hernicans.  Veturius routed and put the enemy to flight in the first engagement.  A party of plunderers, led over the Praenestine Mountains, and