must be devoted to that place, if they desired
the Roman state to be perpetual. Then they tell us that Marcus Curtius,
a youth distinguished in war, reproved them for hesitating, whether
there was any greater Roman good than arms and valour. Silence being
made, looking to the temples of the immortal gods, which command a view
of the forum, and towards the Capitol, and extending his hands at one
time towards heaven, at another towards the infernal gods, through the
gaping aperture of the earth, he devoted himself: then, mounted on a
horse accoutred in the most gorgeous style possible, he plunged in full
armour into the opening, and offerings and the fruits of the earth were
thrown in over him by the multitude of men and women, and the lake was
called Curtian not from Curtius Mettus, the ancient soldier of Titus
Tatius, but from this circumstance. If any way would lead one's inquiry
to the truth, industry would not be wanting: now, when length of time
precludes all certainty of evidence, we must stand by the rumour of
tradition; and the name of the lake must be accounted for from this more
recent story. After due attention being paid to so great a prodigy, the
senate, during the same year, being consulted regarding the Hernicians,
(after having sent heralds to demand restitution in vain,) voted, that a
motion be submitted on the earliest day to the people on the subject of
declaring war against the Hernicians, and the people, in full assembly,
ordered it. That province fell by lot to the consul Lucius Genucius. The
state was in anxious suspense, because he was the first plebeian consul
that was about to conduct a war under his own auspices, being sure to
judge of the good or bad policy of establishing a community of honours,
according as the matter should turn out. Chance so arranged it that
Genucius, marching against the enemy with a considerable force, fell
into an ambush; the legions being routed by reason of a sudden panic,
the consul was slain after being surrounded by persons who knew not whom
they had slain. When this news was brought to Rome, the patricians, by
no means so grieved for the public disaster, as elated at the
unsuccessful guidance of the plebeian consul, every where exclaim, "They
might now go, and elect consuls from the commons, they might transfer
the auspices where it was impious to do so. The patricians might by a
vote of the people be driven from their own exclusive honour: whether
had this inausp