us awe, nor their
bodies from disease. Nay more, when the circus being inundated by the
overflowing of the Tiber happened to interrupt the middle of the
performance, that indeed, as if the gods were now turned from them, and
despised their efforts to soothe their wrath, excited great terror.
Accordingly, Cneius Genucius and Lucius AEmilius Mamercinus being a
second time consuls, when the searching for expiations harassed their
minds, more than the diseases did their bodies, it is said to have been
collected from the memory of the more aged, that a pestilence had
formerly been relieved, on the nail being driven by a dictator. Induced
by this superstitious circumstance, the senate ordered a dictator to be
appointed for the purpose of driving the nail. Lucius Manlius Imperiosus
being appointed, named Lucius Pinarius master of the horse. There is an
ancient law written in antique letters and words, that whoever is
supreme officer should drive a nail on the ides of September. It was
driven into the right side of the temple of Jupiter supremely good and
great, on that part where the temple of Minerva is. They say that the
nail was a mark of the number of years elapsed, because letters were
rare in those times, and that the law was referred to the temple of
Minerva, because number is the invention of that goddess. Cincius, a
careful writer on such monuments, asserts that there were seen at
Volsinii also nails fixed in the temple of Nortia, a Tuscan goddess, as
indices of the number of years. Marcus Horatius, being consul, according
to law dedicated the temple of Jupiter the best and greatest the year
after the expulsion of kings; the solemnity of fixing the nail was
afterwards transferred from the consuls to the dictators, because theirs
was a superior office. The custom being afterwards dropped, it seemed a
matter of sufficient importance in itself, on account of which a
dictator should be appointed. For which reason Lucius Manlius being
appointed, just as if he had been appointed for the purpose of managing
the business of the state in general, and not to acquit it of a
religious obligation, being ambitious to manage the Hernician war,
harassed the youth by a severe levy, and at length, all the plebeian
tribunes having risen up against him, whether overcome by force or
shame, he resigned the dictatorship.

4. Notwithstanding this, in the commencement of the ensuing year,
Quintus Servilius Ahala, Lucius Genucius being consuls