Volumnius, proconsul, formed a junction in the country of the Stellatians.  Here sat down the whole body of the Samnites; and Appius and Volumnius, with their forces united in one camp.  A battle was fought with the most rancorous animosity, one party being spurred on by rage against men who had so often renewed their attacks on them, and the other now fighting in support of their last remaining hope.  Accordingly, there were slain, of the Samnites, sixteen thousand three hundred, and two thousand and seven hundred made prisoners:  of the Roman army fell two thousand and seven hundred.  This year, so successful in the operations of war, was filled with distress at home, arising from a pestilence, and with anxiety, occasioned by prodigies:  for accounts were received that, in many places, showers of earth had fallen; and that very many persons, in the army of Appius Claudius, had been struck by lightning; in consequence of which, the books were consulted.  At this time, Quintus Fabius Gurges, the consul’s son, having prosecuted some matrons before the people on a charge of adultery, built, with the money accruing from the fines which they were condemned to pay, the temple of Venus, which stands near the circus.  Still we have the wars of the Samnites on our hands, notwithstanding that the relation of them has already extended, in one continued course, through four volumes of our history, and through a period of forty-six years, from the consulate of Marcus Valerius and Aulus Cornelius, who first carried the Roman arms into Samnium.  And, not to recite the long train of disasters sustained by both nations, and the toils which they underwent, by which, however, their stubborn breasts could not be subdued; even in the course of the last year, the Samnites, with their own forces separately, and also in conjunction with those of other nations, had been defeated by four several armies, and four generals of the Romans, in the territory of Sentinum, in that of the Pelignians, at Tifernum, and in the plains of the Stellatians; had lost the general of the highest character in their nation; and, now, saw their allies in the war, the Etrurians, the Umbrians, and the Gauls, in the same situation with themselves; but, although they could now no longer stand, either by their own or by foreign resources, yet did they not desist from the prosecution of hostilities.  So far were they from being weary of defending liberty, even though unsuccessfully:  and they preferred being defeated to not aspiring after victory.  Who does not find his patience tired, either in writing, or reading, of wars of such continuance; and which yet exhausted not the resolution of the parties concerned?