rising from success, which had
previously existed in the Roman generals, were now transferred to the
AEquans. Accordingly, when in the very first engagement the dictator had
thrown the enemy's van into disorder by a charge of his cavalry, he
immediately ordered the infantry to advance, and slew one of his own
standard-bearers who hesitated in so doing. So great was the ardour to
fight, that the AEquans did not stand the shock; and when, vanquished in
the field, they made for their camp in a precipitate flight, the taking
of it was shorter in time and less in trouble than the battle had been.
After the camp had been taken and plundered, and the dictator had given
up the spoil to the soldiers, and the cavalry, who had pursued the enemy
in their flight, brought back intelligence that all the Lavicanians were
vanquished, and that a considerable number of the AEquans had fled to
Lavici, the army was marched to Lavici on the following day; and the
town, being invested on all sides, was taken by storm and plundered. The
dictator, having marched back his victorious army to Rome, resigned his
office on the eighth day after he had been appointed; and before
agrarian disturbances could be raised by the tribunes of the commons,
allusion having been made to a division of the Lavicanian land, the
senate very opportunely voted in full assembly that a colony should be
conducted to Lavici. One thousand five hundred colonists were sent from
the city, and received each two acres. Lavici being taken, and
subsequently Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, and Lucius Servilius Structus,
and Publius Lucretius Tricipitinus, all these a second time, and Spurius
Rutilius Crassus being military tribunes with consular authority, and on
the following year Aulus Sempronius Atratinus a third time, and Marcus
Papirius Mugillanus and Spurius Nautius Rutilus both a second time,
affairs abroad were peaceable for two years, but at home there was
dissension from the agrarian laws.

48. The disturbers of the commons were Spurius Maecilius a fourth time,
and Spurius Maetilius a third time, tribunes of the people, both elected
during their absence. And after they had proposed a bill, that the land
taken from the enemy should be divided man by man, and the property of
a considerable part of the nobles would be confiscated by such a
measure; for there was scarcely any of the land, considering the city
itself was built on a strange soil, that had not been acquired by arms;