ause of alarm was suddenly added.

26. A large body of Sabines, committing dreadful devastation, approached
very close to the walls of the city. The fields were laid waste, the
city was struck with terror. Then the commons cheerfully took up arms;
two large armies were raised, the tribunes remonstrating to no purpose.
Nautius led the one against the Sabines; and having pitched his camp at
Eretum, by small detachments, generally by nightly incursions, he
effected such desolation in the Sabine land, that, when compared to it,
the Roman territories seemed intact by an enemy. Minucius had neither
the same success nor the same energy of mind in conducting his business;
for after he had pitched his camp at no great distance from the enemy,
without having experienced any considerable loss, he kept himself
through fear within the camp. When the enemy perceived this, their
boldness increased, as sometimes happens, from others' fears; and having
attacked his camp by night, when open force did not succeed well, they
on the following day drew lines of circumvallation around it. Before
these could close up all the passes, by a vallum being thrown up on all
sides, five horsemen being despatched between the enemies' posts,
brought the account to Rome, that the consul and his army were besieged.
Nothing could have happened so unexpected, nor so unlooked-for.
Accordingly the panic and the alarm was as great as if the enemy
besieged the city, not the camp. They send for the consul Nautius; in
whom when there seemed to be but insufficient protection, and they were
determined that a dictator should be appointed to retrieve their
embarrassed affairs, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus is appointed by
universal consent. It is worth those persons' while to listen, who
despise all things human in comparison with riches, and who suppose
"that there is no room for exalted honour, nor for virtue, unless where
riches abound in great profusion." Lucius Quintius, the sole hope of the
Roman people, cultivated a farm of four acres, at the other side of the
Tiber, which are called the Quintian meadows, opposite to the very place
where the dock-yard now is. There, whether leaning on a stake in a ditch
which he was digging, or in the employment of ploughing, engaged at
least on some rural work, as is certain, after mutual salutations had
passed, being requested by the ambassadors to put on his gown, and
listen to the commands of the senate, (with wishes) that it