Scarcely ever was the speech of a popular tribune more acceptable to the commons than this of a most austere consul on that occasion.  The young men also, who, during such alarms, had been accustomed to employ the refusal to enlist as the sharpest weapon against the patricians, began to turn their attention to war and arms:  and the flight of the rustics, and those who had been robbed and wounded in the country, by announcing events more revolting even than what was before their eyes, filled the whole city with exasperation.  When they came into the senate, there all, turning to Quinctius, looked upon him as the only champion of the majesty of Rome:  and the leading senators declared that his harangue was worthy of the consular authority, worthy of so many consulships formerly borne by him, worthy of his whole life, full of honours frequently enjoyed, more frequently deserved.  That other consuls had either flattered the commons by betraying the dignity of the patricians, or by harshly maintaining the rights of their order, had rendered the multitude more exasperated by their efforts to subdue them:  that Titus Quinctius had delivered a speech mindful of the dignity of the patricians, of the concord of the different orders, and above all, of the needs of the times.  They entreated him and his colleague to assume the management of the commonwealth; they entreated the tribunes, by acting in concert with the consuls, to join in driving back the war from the city and the walls, and to induce the commons to be obedient to the senate at so perilous a conjuncture:  declaring that, their lands being devastated, and their city in a manner besieged, their common country appealed to them as tribunes, and implored their aid.  By universal consent the levy was decreed and held.  When the consuls gave public notice that there was no time for considering claims for exemption; that all the young men should attend on the following morning at dawn in the Campus Martius; that when the war was over, they would afford time for inquiring into the excuses of those who had not given in their names; that the man should be held as a deserter, whose excuse they found unsatisfactory; all the youth attended on the following day.  The cohorts [70] chose each their centurions:  two senators were placed at the head of each cohort.  We have read that all these measures were carried out with such expedition that the standards, which had been brought forth from the treasury on that very day by the quaestors and conveyed to the Campus, started from thence at the fourth hour; and the newly-raised army halted at the tenth milestone, followed only by a few cohorts of veteran soldiers as volunteers.  The following day brought the enemy within sight, and camp was joined to camp near Corbio.  On the third day, when resentment urged on the Romans, and a consciousness of guilt for having so often rebelled and a feeling of despair, the others, there was no delay in coming to an engagement.