Progress of the Samnite War.-In spite of these defeats neither the Etruscans nor the Samnites remained quiet. Mter the consul had withdrawn his army the Perusians recommenced hostilities, a force of Samnites descended into the country round Vescia and Formiae, plundering and harrying as they went, whilst another body invaded the district of .lEsernum and the region round the Vulturnus. Appius Claudius was sent against these with Decius' old army; Fabius, who ha.d marched into Etruria, slew 4500 of the Perusians, and took 1740 prisoners, \vho '\vere ransomed at 310 ases per head ,; the rest of the booty was given to the soldiers. The Samnites, one body of which was pursued by Appius Claudius, the other by L. V olumnius, effected a junction in the Stellate district and took up a position there. A desperate battle was fought, the one army was furious against those who had so often taken up arms against them, the other felt that this was their ]ast hope. The Samnites lost 16,300 killed and 2700 prisoners; on the side of the Romans 2700 fell. As far as military operations \vent, the year was a prosperous Dne, but it "vas rendered an anxious one by a severe pestilence and by alarming portents. In many places showers of earth were reported to have fallen, and a large number of men in the army under Appius Claudius were said to have been struck by lightning. The Sacred Books were consulted in view of these occurrences. During this year Q. Fabius Gurges, the consul's son, \vho was an redile, brought some matrons to trial before the people on the charge of adultery. Out of their fines he obtained sufficient money to build the temple of Venus \vhich stands near the Circus. The Samnite \vars are still with us, those wars which I have been occupied ,vith through these last four books J and which have gone on continuously for six-and-forty years} in fact ever sinc the consuls, 1\1. Valerius and l\.. Cornelius, carried the arms of Rome for the first tirne into Sainnium. It is unnecessary now to recount the numberless defeats which overtook both nations, and the toils which they endured through all those years, and yet these things were po\verless to break down the resolution or crush the spirit of that people; I will only allude to the events of the past year. During that period the Samnites, fighting sometirnes alone, sometimes in conjunction \vith other nations, had been defeated by Roman armies under Roman generals on four several occasions, at Sentinunl, al1l0ngst the Paeligni, at Tifernum, and in the Stellate plains; they had lost the n10st brilliant general they ever possessed; they now savv their allies-Etruscans, Umbrians, Gauls-overtaken by the same fortune that they had suffered; they \vere unable any longer to stand either in their o\vn strength or in that afforded by foreign arn1S. P...nd yet they would not abstain from war; so far vvere they fron1 being weary of defending their liberty, even though unsuccessfully, that they vvould rather be worsted than give up trying for victory. vVhat sort of a man must he be who would find the long story of those vvars tedious, though he is only narrating or reading it, \vhen they failed to wear out those \vho were actually engaged in them?