9.38
During
these occurrences in Etruria the other consul, C. Marcius Rutilus, took
Allifae from the Samnites. Many other fortified posts and hamlets were
either destroyed or passed uninjured into the power of the Romans. While
this was going on, P. Cornelius, whom the senate had made maritime
prefect, took the Roman fleet to Campania and brought up at Pompeii. Here
the crews landed and proceeded to ravage the territory of Nuceria. After
devastating the district near the coast, from which they could have easily
reached their ships, they went further inland, attracted as usual by the desire
for plunder, and here they roused the inhabitants against them. As long as
they were scattered through the fields they met nobody, though they might
have been cut off to a man, but when they returned, thinking themselves
perfectly safe, they were overtaken by the peasants and stripped of all their
plunder. Some were killed; the survivors were driven helter-skelter to their
ships. However great the alarm created in Rome by Q. Fabius' expedition
through the Ciminian forest, there was quite as much pleasure felt by the
Samnites when they heard of it. They said that the Roman army was hemmed
in; it was the Caudine disaster over again; the old recklessness had again led
a nation always greedy for further conquests into an impassable forest; they
were beset by the difficulties of the ground quite as much as by hostile arms.
Their delight was, however, tinged with envy when they reflected that
fortune had diverted the glory of finishing the war with Rome from the
Samnites to the Etruscans. So they concentrated their whole strength to
crush C. Marcius or, if he did not give them a chance of fighting, to march
through the country of the Marsi and Sabines into Etruria. The consul
advanced against them, and a desperate battle was fought with no decisive
result. Which side lost most heavily was doubtful, but a rumour was spread
that the Romans had been worsted, as they had lost some belonging to the
equestrian order and some military tribunes, besides a staff officer, and -what was a signal disaster -the consul himself was wounded. Reports of the
battle, exaggerated as usual, reached Rome and created the liveliest alarm
among the senators. It was decided that a Dictator should be nominated, and
no one had the slightest doubt that Papirius Cursor would be nominated, the
one man who was regarded as the supreme general of his day. But they did
not believe that a messenger could get through to the army in Samnium, as
the whole country was hostile, nor were they by any means sure that Marcius
was still alive.
The other consul, Fabius, was on bad terms with Papirius. To
prevent this private feud from causing public danger, the senate resolved to
send a deputation to Fabius, consisting of men of consular rank, who were to
support their authority as public envoys by using their personal influence to
induce him to lay aside all feelings of enmity for the sake of his country.
When they had handed to Fabius the resolution of the senate, and had
employed such arguments as their instructions demanded, the consul,
keeping his eyes fixed on the ground, withdrew from the deputation, without
making any reply and leaving them in utter uncertainty as to what he would
do. Subsequently, he nominated L. Papirius Dictator according to the
traditional usage at midnight. When the deputation thanked him for having
shown such rare self-command, he remained absolutely silent, and without
vouchsafing any reply or making any allusion to what he had done, he
abruptly dismissed them, showing by his conduct what a painful effort it had
cost him. Papirius named C. Junius Bubulcus, Master of the Horse. Whilst he
was submitting to the Assembly of Curies the resolution conferring the
Dictatorial power, an unfavourable omen compelled him to adjourn the
proceedings. It fell to the Faucian cury to vote first, and this cury had voted
first in the years in which two memorable disasters occurred, the capture of
the City and the capitulation of Caudium. Licinius Macer adds a third
disaster through which this cury became ill-omened, the massacre at the
Cremera.