I considered, that these matters should be mentioned before-hand to you, consuls.

With regard to myself, it is my determination to depart hence home immediately, lest, if present, I may be affected by the contagion of any word or deed." Having said this, he departed.

When the consuls laid before the senate the matter, doubtful with respect to proof, though from credible authority, the authority more than the thing itself, as usually happens, urged them to adopt even needless precautions; and a decree of the senate being passed, that the Volscians should quit the city, criers are sent in different directions to order them all to depart before night.

A great panic struck them at first as they ran about to their lodgings to carry away their effects.
Afterwards, when setting out, indignation arose in their breasts: "that they, as if polluted with crime and contaminated, were driven away from the games, on festival days, from the converse in a manner of men and gods." [Footnote 93: _Sequius sit_--otherwise than as it should be.] 38.

As they went along in an almost continuous body, Tullus having preceded them to the fountain of Ferentina, accosting the chiefs among them according as each arrived, by asking questions and expressing indignation, he led both themselves, who greedily listened to language congenial[94] to their angry feelings, and through them the rest of the multitude, into a plain adjoining to the road.