ent characters also died, Marcus Valerius, Titus
Virginius Rutilus, the augurs; Servius Sulpicius, principal curio; and
through persons of inferior note the virulence of the disease spread
extensively: and the senate, destitute of human aid, directed the
people's attention to the gods and to prayers; they were ordered to go
to supplicate with their wives and children, and earnestly to implore
the protection of heaven. Besides that their own sufferings obliged each
to do so, when called on by public authority, they fill all the shrines;
the prostrate matrons in every quarter sweeping the temples with their
hair, beg for a remission of the divine displeasure, and a termination
to the pestilence.

[Footnote 112: According to Dionysius, the Volsci attacked Rome on this
occasion.]

8. From this time, whether it was from the favour of the gods being
obtained, or that the more unhealthy season of the year was now passed,
the bodies of the people having shaken off disease, gradually began to
be more healthy, and their attention being now directed to public
concerns, when several interregna had expired, Publius Valerius
Publicola, on the third day after he had entered on his office of
interrex, causes Lucretius Tricipitinus, and Titus Veturius Geminus, (or
Velusius,) to be elected consuls. They enter on their consulship on the
third day of the Ides of August, the state being now sufficiently
strong, not only to repel a hostile attack, but even to act itself on
the offensive. Therefore when the Hernicians brought an account that the
enemy had made an incursion into their frontiers, assistance was readily
promised; two consular armies were enlisted. Veturius was sent against
the Volscians to carry on an offensive war. Tricipitinus being appointed
to protect the territory of the allies from devastation, proceeds no
further than into the country of the Hernicians. Veturius routs and puts
to flight the enemy in the first engagement. A party of plunderers
which had marched over the Praenestine mountains, and from thence
descended into the plains, escaped the notice of Lucretius, whilst he
lay encamped amongst the Hernicians. These laid waste all the country
around Praeneste and Gabii: from the Gabinian territory they turn their
course towards the heights of Tusculum; great alarm was excited in the
city of Rome also, more from the suddenness of the affair, than that
there was not sufficient strength to repel violence. Quintus Fabius h