er, a privilege which they alone of the
Hernicians, for a long time after, enjoyed. To the Anagnians, and the
others, who had made war on the Romans, was granted the freedom of the
state, without the right of voting; public assemblies, and
intermarriages, were not allowed them, and their magistrates were
prohibited from acting except in the ministration of public worship.
During this year, Caius Junius Bubulcus, censor, contracted for the
building of a temple to Health, which he had vowed during his
consulate in the war with the Samnites. By the same person, and his
colleague, Marcus Valerius Maximus, roads were made through the fields
at the public expense. During the same year the treaty with the
Carthaginians was renewed a third time, and ample presents made to
their ambassadors who came on that business.

44. This year had a dictator in office, Publius Cornelius Scipio, with
Publius Decius Mus, master of the horse. By these the election of
consuls was held, being the purpose for which they had been created,
because neither of the consuls could be absent from the armies. The
consuls elected were Lucius Postumius and Titus Minucius; whom Piso
places next after Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius, omitting the two
years in which I have set down Claudius with Volumnius, and Cornelius
with Marcius, as consuls. Whether this happened through a lapse of
memory in digesting his annals, or whether he purposely passed over
those two consulates as deeming the accounts of them false, cannot be
ascertained. During this year the Samnites made incursions into the
district of Stellae in the Campanian territory. Both the consuls were
therefore sent into Samnium, and proceeded to different regions,
Postumius to Tifernum, Minucius to Bovianum. The first engagement
happened at Tifernum, under the command of Postumius. Some say, that
the Samnites were completely defeated, and twenty thousand of them
made prisoners. Others, that the army separated without victory on
either side; and that Postumius, counterfeiting fear, withdrew his
forces privately by night, and marched away to the mountains; whither
the enemy also followed, and took possession of a stronghold two miles
distant. The consul, having created a belief that he had come thither
for the sake of a safe post, and a fruitful spot, (and such it really
was,) secured his camp with strong works. Furnishing it with magazines
of every thing useful, he left a strong guard to defend it; and