Then one of the ambassadors, when departing, says, "Let both this consecrated oak and all the gods hear the treaty violated by you, and favour both our complaints now, and our arms presently, when we shall simultaneously avenge the rights of gods and men as violated by you." As soon as the ambassadors returned to Rome, the senate ordered one of the consuls to lead his army against Gracchus at Algidum, to the other they assigned as his province the laying waste of the country of the AEqui.

The tribunes, according to their practice, attempted to obstruct the levy; and probably would have eventually prevented it, but a new cause of alarm was suddenly added.
26.

A large body of Sabines, committing dreadful devastation, approached very close to the walls of the city.

The fields were laid waste, the city was struck with terror.

Then the commons cheerfully took up arms; two large armies were raised, the tribunes remonstrating to no purpose.
Nautius led the one against the Sabines; and having pitched his camp at Eretum, by small detachments, generally by nightly incursions, he effected such desolation in the Sabine land, that, when compared to it, the Roman territories seemed intact by an enemy.