wished not more ardently for the attainment of that honour for himself, than he did that the patricians might recover the possession of both places in the consulship, he laboured, with all his own power, supported by that of the whole body of the nobility, to prevail on them to appoint him consul along with Quintus Fabius.  To this Fabius objected, giving, at first, the same reasons which he had advanced the year before.  The nobles then all gathered round his seat, and besought him to raise up the consulship out of the plebeian mire, and to restore both to the office itself, and to the patrician rank, their original dignity.  Fabius then, procuring silence, allayed their warmth by a qualifying speech, declaring, that “he would have so managed, as to have received the names of two patricians, if he had seen an intention of appointing any other than himself to the consulship.  As things now stood, he would not set so bad a precedent as to admit his own name among the candidates; such a proceeding being contrary to the laws.”  Whereupon Appius Claudius, and Lucius Volumnius, a plebeian, who had likewise been colleagues in that office before, were elected consuls.  The nobility reproached Fabius for declining to act in conjunction with Appius Claudius, because he evidently excelled him in eloquence and political abilities.

16.  When the election was finished, the former consuls, their command being continued for six months, were ordered to prosecute the war in Samnium.  Accordingly, during this next year also, in the consulate of Lucius Volumnius and Appius Claudius, Publius Decius, who had been left consul in Samnium by his colleague, in the character of proconsul, ceased not to spread devastation through all parts of that country; until, at last, he drove the army of the Samnites, which never dared to face him in the field, entirely out of the country.  Thus expelled from home, they bent their route to Etruria; and, supposing that the business, which they had often in vain endeavoured to accomplish by embassies, might now be negotiated with more effect, when they were backed by such a powerful armed force, and could intermix terror with their entreaties, they demanded a meeting of the chiefs of Etruria:  which being assembled, they set forth the great number of years during which they had waged war with the Romans, in the cause of liberty; “they had,” they said, “tried to sustain, with their own strength, the weight of so great a war:  they had also made trial of the support of the adjoining nations, which proved of little avail.  When they were unable longer to maintain the conflict, they had sued the Roman people for peace; and had again taken up arms, because they felt peace was more grievous to those with servitude, than war to free men.  That their one only hope remaining rested in the Etrurians.  They knew that nation to be the most powerful in Italy, in respect of arms, men, and money; to have the Gauls their closest neighbours, born in the midst of war