ught. Mamercus AEmilius, a
man of the highest dignity, was voted in, prior to Quintius. In the
third place they appoint Lucius Julius.

17. During their office Fidenae, a Roman colony, revolted to Lars
Tolunmius, king of the Veientians, and to the Veientians. To the revolt
a more heinous crime was added. By order of Tolumnius they put to death
Caius Fulcinius, Claelius Tullus, Spurius Antius, Lucius Roscius, Roman
ambassadors, who came to inquire into the reason of this new line of
conduct. Some palliate the guilt of the king; that an ambiguous
expression of his, during a lucky throw of dice, having been mistaken by
the Fidenatians, as if it seemed to be an order for their execution, had
been the cause of the ambassadors' death. An incredible tale; that his
thoughts should not have been drawn away from the game on the arrival of
the Fidenatians, his new allies, when consulting him on a murder tending
to violate the law of nations; and that the act was not afterwards
viewed by him with horror. It is more probable that he wished the state
of the Fidenatians to be so compromised by their participation in so
great a crime, that they might not afterwards look to any hope from the
Romans. Statues of the ambassadors, who were slain at Fidenae, were set
up in the rostra at the public expense. A desperate struggle was coming
on with the Veientians and Fidenatians, who, besides that they were
neighbouring states, had commenced the war with so heinous a
provocation. Therefore, the commons and their tribunes being now quiet,
so as to attend to the general welfare, there was no dispute with
respect to the electing of Marcus Geganius Macerinus a third time, and
Lucius Sergius Fidenas, as consuls; so called, I suppose, from the war
which he afterwards conducted. For he was the first who fought a
successful battle with the king of the Veientians on this side of the
Anio, nor did he obtain an unbloody victory. Greater grief was therefore
felt from the loss of their countrymen, than joy from the defeat of the
enemy: and the senate, as in an alarming crisis, ordered Mamercus
AEmilius to be appointed dictator. He appointed as his master of the
horse from the college of the preceding year, in which there had been
tribunes of the soldiers with consular power, Lucius Quintius
Cincinnatus, a youth worthy of his parent. To the levy held by the
consuls were added the old centurions well versed in war, and the number
of those lost in the late bat