tribune again urged his law; this to the consul seemed of greater importance.  The business was discussed for several days, both in the senate and before the people:  at last the tribune yielded to the majesty of the consul, and desisted; then their due honour was paid to the general and his army.  He triumphed over the Volscians and AEquans; his troops followed him in his triumph.  The other consul was allowed to enter the city in ovation[15]unaccompanied by his soldiers.

In the following year the Terentilian law, being brought forward again by the entire college, engaged the serious attention of the new consuls, who were Publius Volumnius and Servius Sulpicius.  In that year the sky seemed to be on fire, and a violent earthquake took place:  it was believed that an ox spoke, a phenomenon which had not been credited in the previous year:  among other prodigies there was a shower of flesh, which a large flock of birds is said to have carried off by pecking at the falling pieces:  that which fell to the ground is said to have lain scattered about just as it was for several days, without becoming tainted.  The books were consulted[16] by the duumviri for sacred rites:  dangers of attacks to be made on the highest parts of the city, and of consequent bloodshed, were predicted as threatening from an assemblage of strangers; among other things, admonition was given that all intestine disturbances should be abandoned.[17] The tribunes alleged that that was done to obstruct the law, and a desperate contest was at hand.

On a sudden, however, that the same order of events might be renewed each year, the Hernicans announced that the Volscians and the AEquans, in spite of their strength being much impaired, were recruiting their armies:  that the centre of events was situated at Antium; that the colonists of Antium openly held councils at Ecetra:  that there was the head—­there was the strength—­of the war.  As soon as this announcement was made in the senate, a levy was proclaimed:  the consuls were commanded to divide the management of the war between them; that the Volscians should be the sphere of action of the one, the AEquans of the other.  The tribunes loudly declared openly in the forum that the story of the Volscian war was nothing but a got-up farce:  that the Hernicans had been trained to act their parts:  that the liberty of the Roman people was now not even crushed by manly efforts, but was baffled by cunning; because it was now no longer believed that the Volscians and the AEquans who were almost utterly annihilated, could of themselves begin hostilities, new enemies were sought for:  that a loyal colony, and one in their very vicinity, was being rendered infamous:  that war was proclaimed against the unoffending people of Antium, in reality waged with the commons of Rome, whom, loaded with arms, they were determined to drive out of the city with precipitous haste, wreaking their vengeance on the tribunes by the exile and expulsion