second time, Lucius Virginius, Publius Cornelius, Aulus
Manlius, Lucius AEmilius, Lucius Postumius. These having entered on their
office immediately after the interregnum, consulted the senate on no
other business previous to that which related to religion. In the first
place they ordered that the treaties and laws which could be found,
should be collected; (these consisted of the twelve tables, and some
laws made under the kings.) Some of them were publicly promulgated; but
such as appertained to religious matters were kept secret chiefly by the
pontiffs, that they might hold the minds of the people fettered by them.
Then they began to turn their attention to the subject of desecrated
days; and the day before the fifteenth day of the calends of August,
remarkable for a double disaster, (as being the day on which the Fabii
were slain at Cremera, and afterwards the disgraceful battle attended
with the ruin of the city had been fought at Allia,) they called the
Allian day from the latter disaster, and they rendered it remarkable for
transacting no business whether public or private. Some persons think,
that because Sulpicius, the military tribune, had not duly offered
sacrifice on the day after the ides of July, and because, without having
obtained the favour of the gods, the Roman army had been exposed to the
enemy on the third day after, an order was also made to abstain from all
religious undertakings on the day following the ides: thence the same
religious observance was derived with respect to the days following the
calends and the nones.

2. But it was not long allowed them to consult in quiet regarding the
means of raising the city, after so grievous a fall. On the one side
their old enemies, the Volscians, had taken arms, to extinguish the
Roman name: on the other, some traders brought [intelligence] that a
conspiracy of the leading men of Etruria from all the states had been
formed at the temple of Voltumna. A new cause of terror also had been
added by the defection of the Latins and Hernicians, who, since the
battle fought at the lake Regillus, had remained in friendship with the
Roman people with fidelity not to be questioned. Accordingly, when such
great alarms surrounded them on every side, and it became apparent to
all that the Roman name laboured not only under hatred with their
enemies, but under contempt also with their allies; it was resolved that
the state should be defended under the same auspices, as