The Romans drove spoil in every direction, both from the Salpinian and Volsinian territory, there being no one to repel that aggression; until a truce for twenty years was granted to the Volsinians, exhausted by the war, on this condition, that they should make restitution to the Roman people, and furnish the pay of the army for that year.

During the same year, Marcus Caedicius, a plebeian, announced to the tribunes that in the New Street, where the chapel now stands, above the temple of Vesta, he had heard in the silence of the night a voice louder than that of a human being, which ordered the magistrates to be told, that the Gauls were approaching.

This, as is usual, was disregarded, on account of the humble station of the author, and also because the nation was a remote one, and therefore the less known.

And not only were the warnings of the gods disregarded, fate now impending; but further, the only human aid which was left them, Marcus Furius, they drove away from the city; who, on a day [of trial] being appointed for him by Lucius Appuleius, a tribune of the people, in reference to the Veientian spoil, he having also lost his son, a young man, about the same time, when he summoned to his house the members of his tribe and his dependents, (they constituted a considerable portion of the commons,) and having sounded their sentiments, he received for answer, "that they would contribute whatever fine he should be condemned to pay; that to acquit him they were unable,"[168] retired into exile; after praying to the immortal gods, "that if that outrage was done to him without his deserving it, they would at the earliest opportunity give cause to his ungrateful country to regret his absence." In his absence he was fined fifteen thousand _asses_ in weight.
[Footnote 168: Niebuhr and Arnold understand these words to signify, that these persons had already made up their minds not to acquit him, or assist him by voting in favour of him--in fact, that they could not conscientiously do so.

It may, however, signify simply, that the people were so incensed against him, that there existed not a rational prospect of acquittal for him.] 33.