While these events were taking place at Antium, the Aequans, in the meanwhile, sending forward the flower of their youth surprised the citadel of Tusculum by night:  and with the rest of their army sat down at no great distance from the walls of Tusculutn, so as to divide the forces of the enemy.[31] News of this being quickly brought to Rome, and from Rome to the camp at Antium, affected the Romans no less than if it had been announced that the Capitol was taken; so recent was the service rendered by the Tusculans, and the very similarity of the danger seemed to demand a return of the aid that had been afforded.  Fabius, giving up all thought of everything else, removed the booty hastily from the camp to Antium:  and, having left a small garrison there, hurried on his army by forced marches to Tusculum.  The soldiers were allowed to take with them nothing but their arms, and whatever baked provision was at hand.  The consul Cornelius sent up provisions from Rome.  The war was carried on at Tusculum for several months.  With one part of his army the consul assailed the camp of the Aequans; he had given part to the Tusculans to aid in the recovery of their citadel.  They could never have made their way up to it by force:  at length famine caused the enemy to withdraw from it.  When matters subsequently came to extremities, they were all sent under the yoke, [32] by the Tusculans, unarmed and naked.  While returning home in ignominious flight, they were overtaken by the Roman consul at Algidum, and cut to pieces to a man.[33] After this victory, having marched back his army to Columen (so is the place named), he pitched his camp there.  The other consul also, as soon as the Roman walls ceased to be in danger, now that the enemy had been defeated, set out from Rome.  Thus the consuls, having entered the territories of the enemies on two different sides, in eager rivalry plundered the territory of the Volscians on the one hand, and of the Aequans on the other.  I find it stated by several writers that the people of Antium revolted during the same year.  That Lucius Cornelius, the consul, conducted that war and took the town; I would not venture to assert it for certain, because no mention is made of the matter in the older writers.

This war being concluded, a tribunician war at home alarmed the senate.  The tribunes held that the detention of the army abroad was due to a fraudulent motive:  that that deception was intended to prevent the passing of the law; that they, however, would none the less go through with the matter they had undertaken.  Publius Lucretius, however, the prefect of the city, so far prevailed, that the proceedings of the tribunes were postponed till the arrival of the consuls.  A new cause of disturbance had also arisen.  The quaestors, [34] Aulus Cornelius and Quintus Servilius, appointed a day of trial for Marcus Volscius, because he had come forward as a manifestly false witness against Caeso.  For it was established by many