And as long as there was nothing else to occupy them but mutual devastations, the Fabii were not only sufficiently able to protect their garrison, but through the entire tract, as far as the Etrurian joins the Roman territory, they protected all their own districts and ravaged those of the enemy, spreading their forces along both frontiers.

There was afterwards an intermission, though not of long duration, to these depredations: whilst both the Veientians, having sent for an army from Etruria, assault the post at the Cremera, and the Roman troops, led thither by L.AEmilius the consul, come to a close engagement in the field with the Etrurians; although the Veientians had scarcely time to draw up their line: for during the first alarm, whilst the ranks are posting themselves behind their respective banners and they are stationing their reserves, a brigade of Roman cavalry charging them suddenly in flank, took away all opportunity not only of commencing the fight, but even of standing their ground.

Thus being driven back to the Red Rocks, (there they pitched their camp,) they suppliantly sue for peace; for the obtaining of which they were sorry, from the natural inconsistency of their minds, before the Roman garrison was drawn off from the Cremera.
[Footnote 97: Before a consul set out on any expedition, he offered sacrifices and prayers in the Capitol; and then, laying aside his consular gown, marched out of the city, dressed in a military robe of state, called Paludamentum.] 50.

Again the Veientian state had to contend with the Fabii without any additional military armament [on either side]; and there were not merely incursions into each other's territories, or sudden attacks on those making the incursions, but they fought repeatedly in the open field, and in pitched battles: and one family of the Roman people oftentimes gained the victory over an entire Etrurian state, one of the most powerful at that time.

This at first appeared mortifying and humiliating to the Veientians: then (they formed) a design, suggested by the circumstance, of surprising their daring enemy by an ambuscade; they were even glad that the confidence of the Fabii was increasing by their great success.
Wherefore cattle were frequently driven in the way of the plundering parties, as if they had come there by mere accident, and tracts of land were abandoned by the flight of the peasants; and troops of armed men sent to prevent the devastations retreated more frequently from pretended than from real fear.