Minucius had neither the same success nor the same energy of mind in conducting his business; for after he had pitched his camp at no great distance from the enemy, without having experienced any considerable loss, he kept himself through fear within the camp.

When the enemy perceived this, their boldness increased, as sometimes happens, from others' fears; and having attacked his camp by night, when open force did not succeed well, they on the following day drew lines of circumvallation around it.

Before these could close up all the passes, by a vallum being thrown up on all sides, five horsemen being despatched between the enemies' posts, brought the account to Rome, that the consul and his army were besieged.
Nothing could have happened so unexpected, nor so unlooked-for.
Accordingly the panic and the alarm was as great as if the enemy besieged the city, not the camp.

They send for the consul Nautius; in whom when there seemed to be but insufficient protection, and they were determined that a dictator should be appointed to retrieve their embarrassed affairs, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus is appointed by universal consent.

It is worth those persons' while to listen, who despise all things human in comparison with riches, and who suppose "that there is no room for exalted honour, nor for virtue, unless where riches abound in great profusion." Lucius Quintius, the sole hope of the Roman people, cultivated a farm of four acres, at the other side of the Tiber, which are called the Quintian meadows, opposite to the very place where the dock-yard now is.