After due attention being paid to so great a prodigy, the senate, during the same year, being consulted regarding the Hernicians, (after having sent heralds to demand restitution in vain,) voted, that a motion be submitted on the earliest day to the people on the subject of declaring war against the Hernicians, and the people, in full assembly, ordered it.

That province fell by lot to the consul Lucius Genucius.

The state was in anxious suspense, because he was the first plebeian consul that was about to conduct a war under his own auspices, being sure to judge of the good or bad policy of establishing a community of honours, according as the matter should turn out.

Chance so arranged it that Genucius, marching against the enemy with a considerable force, fell into an ambush; the legions being routed by reason of a sudden panic, the consul was slain after being surrounded by persons who knew not whom they had slain.

When this news was brought to Rome, the patricians, by no means so grieved for the public disaster, as elated at the unsuccessful guidance of the plebeian consul, every where exclaim, "They might now go, and elect consuls from the commons, they might transfer the auspices where it was impious to do so.