At Rome the news caused great affliction, on account both of the loss of such a man and of the unseasonableness of the juncture; insomuch that an assembly, held for the purpose of substituting a new consul, having been conducted agreeably to the wishes of people of the first consequence, prevented the senate from ordering a dictator to be created.

All the votes and centuries concurred unanimously in appointing Marcus Valerius consul, the same whom the senate would have ordered to be made dictator.

They then commanded him to proceed immediately into Etruria, to the legions.

His coming gave such a check to the Etrurians, that not one of them dared thenceforward to appear on the outside of their trenches; their own fears operating as a blockade.
Nor could the new consul, by wasting their lands and burning their houses, draw them out to an engagement; for not only country-houses, but numbers of their towns, were seen smoking and in ashes, on every side.

While this war proceeded more slowly than had been expected, an account was received of the breaking out of another; which was, not without reason, regarded as terrible, in consequence of the heavy losses formerly sustained by both parties, from information given by their new allies, the Picentians, that the Samnites were looking to arms and a renewal of hostilities, and that they themselves had been solicited to join therein.