11.  The province of Etruria fell by lot to the consul Titus Manlius; who, when he had but just entered the enemy’s country, as he was exercising the cavalry, in wheeling about at full speed, was thrown from his horse, and almost killed on the spot; three days after the fall, he died.  The Etrurians, embracing this omen, as it were, of the future progress of the war, and observing that the gods had commenced hostilities on their behalf, assumed new courage.  At Rome the news caused great affliction, on account both of the loss of such a man and of the unseasonableness of the juncture; insomuch that an assembly, held for the purpose of substituting a new consul, having been conducted agreeably to the wishes of people of the first consequence, prevented the senate from ordering a dictator to be created.  All the votes and centuries concurred unanimously in appointing Marcus Valerius consul, the same whom the senate would have ordered to be made dictator.  They then commanded him to proceed immediately into Etruria, to the legions.  His coming gave such a check to the Etrurians, that not one of them dared thenceforward to appear on the outside of their trenches; their own fears operating as a blockade.  Nor could the new consul, by wasting their lands and burning their houses, draw them out to an engagement; for not only country-houses, but numbers of their towns, were seen smoking and in ashes, on every side.  While this war proceeded more slowly than had been expected, an account was received of the breaking out of another; which was, not without reason, regarded as terrible, in consequence of the heavy losses formerly sustained by both parties, from information given by their new allies, the Picentians, that the Samnites were looking to arms and a renewal of hostilities, and that they themselves had been solicited to join therein.  The Picentians received the thanks of the state; and a large share of the attention of the senate was turned from Etruria towards Samnium.  The dearness of provisions also distressed the state very much, and they would have felt the extremity of want, according to the relation of those who make Fabius Maximus curule aedile that year, had not the vigilant activity of that man, such as he had on many occasions displayed in the field, been exerted then with equal zeal at home, in the management of the market, and in procuring and forming magazines of corn.  An interregnum took place this year, the reason of which is not mentioned.  Appius Claudius, and, after him, Publius Sulpicius, were interreges.  The latter held an election of consuls, and chose Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Cneius Fulvius.  In the beginning of this year, ambassadors came from the Lucanians to the new consuls to complain, that “the Samnites, finding that they could not, by any offers, tempt them to take part in the war, had marched an army in a hostile manner into their country, and were now laying it waste, and forcing them into a war; that the Lucanian people had on former occasions erred