Book VIII

I. The consuls were now Gaius Plautius (for the b.c. 341second time) and Lucius Aemilius Mamercus, when the men of Setium and Norba brought tidings to Rome that the Privernates were in revolt, with complaints of a defeat suffered at their hands. It was also reported that a Volscian army, conducted by the Antiates, had encamped at Satricum. Both wars were by lot assigned to Plautius. He marched first on Privernum and at once gave battle. Without much ado he overcame the enemy, captured Privernum, and putting in it a strong garrison, restored it to the inhabitants, but deprived them of two-thirds of their territory. Thence he led his victorious army towards Satricum, to oppose the Antiates. The battle there, which was desperately fought, with heavy losses on both sides, was interrupted by a storm before victory had inclined to either army. The Romans, not a whit discouraged by so indecisive a struggle, prepared to do battle on the morrow; but the Volsci, when they reckoned up the men they had lost in the fighting, were by no means so eager to incur the danger a second time, and in the night marched off like beaten men