Upon this a very singular change of opinions befel both the people and the Senate.  The people were eager to annul their sentence against Marcius, and to beg him to return, but the Senate, after meeting and considering this proposal, finally rejected it, either out of a mere spirit of opposition to anything proposed by the people, or because they did not wish him to return by favour of the people; or it may be because they themselves were now angry with him for having shown himself the enemy of all classes alike, although he had only been injured by one, and for having become the avowed enemy of his country, in which he knew that the best and noblest all sympathised with him, and had suffered along with him.  When this resolution was made known to the people, they were unable to proceed to vote or to pass any bill on the subject, without a previous decree of the Senate.

XXX.  Marcius when he heard of this was more exasperated than ever.  He raised his siege of Lavinium, marched straight upon Rome, and pitched his camp five miles from the city, at the place called Fossae Cluiliae.  The appearance of his army caused much terror and disturbance, but nevertheless put an end to sedition, for no magistrate or patrician dared any longer oppose the people’s desire to recall him.  When they beheld the women running distractedly through the city, the old men weeping and praying at the altars, and no one able to take courage and form any plan of defence, it was agreed that the people had been right in wishing to come to terms with Marcius, and that the Senate had committed a fatal error in inflicting a new outrage upon him, just at the time when all unkindness might have been buried.  It was determined, therefore, by the whole city that an embassy should be despatched to Marcius, to offer him restoration to his own country, and to beg of him to make peace.  Those of the Senate who were sent were relations of Marcius, and expected to be warmly welcomed by a man who was their near relation and personal friend.  Nothing of the kind, however, happened.  They were conducted through the enemy’s camp, and found him seated, and displaying insufferable pride and arrogance, with the chiefs of the Volscians standing round him.  He bade the ambassadors deliver their message; and after they had, in a supplicatory fashion, pronounced a conciliatory oration, he answered them, dwelling with bitterness on his own unjust treatment; and then in his capacity of general-in-chief of the Volscians, he bade them restore the cities and territory which they had conquered in the late war, and to grant the franchise to the Volscians on the same terms as enjoyed by the Latins.  These, he said, were the only conditions on which a just and lasting peace could be made.  He allowed them a space of thirty days for deliberation, and on the departure of the ambassadors immediately drew off his forces.