Wars with various nations now assailed the Romans, in some of which they were victorious within a few days; but with the Etruscans they waged a long continued contest.  Postumius conquered the AEqui and had captured a large city of theirs, but the soldiers neither had had it turned over to them for pillage nor were awarded a share of the plunder when they requested it.  Therefore they surrounded and slew the quaestor who was disposing of it, and when Postumius reprimanded them for this and strove to find the assassins, they killed him also.  And they assigned to their own use not only the captive territory but all that at the time happened to be found in the public treasury.  The uprising would have assumed even greater dimensions but for the fact that war against the Romans was renewed by the AEqui.  Alarmed by this situation they became quiet, endured the punishment for the murders, which touched only a few, and took the field against their opponents, whom they engaged and conquered.  For this achievement the nobles distributed the plunder among them, and voted pay first to the infantry and later also to the cavalry.  Up to that time they were used to undertaking campaigns without pay and lived at their own expense; now for the first time they began to draw pay.

[Sidenote:  B.C. 408 (a.u. 346)] A war arising between them and Veii, the Romans won frequent victories and reduced the foe to a state of siege as long as the latter fought with merely their own contingent:  but when allies had been added to their force they came out against the Romans and defeated them.  Meanwhile the lake situated close to the Alban Mount, which was shut in by the surrounding ridges and had no outlet, overflowed its banks during the siege of Veii to such an extent that it actually poured over the crests of the hills and went rushing down to the sea.  The Romans deeming that something supernatural was certainly signified by this event sent to Delphi to consult the oracle about the matter.  There was also among the population of Veii an Etruscan who was a soothsayer.  The Pythian interpretation coincided with his; and both declared that the city would be captured when the overflowing water should not fall into the sea but be used up differently.  The Romans consequently ordered several religious services to be performed.  But the Pythian god did not specify to which of the divinities nor in what way they should offer these, and the Etruscan appeared to have the knowledge but would explain nothing.  So the Romans who were stationed about the wall from which he was wont to issue to consort with them pretended friendliness toward him, permitted him to make himself at ease in every way, and allowed him to come to visit them without interference.  Thus they succeeded in seizing him and forced him to give all the requisite information.  According to the indications he furnished they offered sacrifices, tunneled the hill, and conducted the superfluous water by a secret canal into the plain, so that all of it was used up there and none ran down into the sea.