Book 6
28.1
A report had reached Praeneste that no army had been raised in Rome and no commander-in-chief selected, and that the patricians and plebeians had turned against one another.
28.2
Seizing the opportunity, their generals had led their army by rapid marches through fields which they had utterly laid waste and appeared before the Colline Gate. There was wide-spread alarm in the City.
28.3
A general cry arose, “To arms!” and men hurried to the walls and gates. At last, abandoning sedition for war, they nominated T. Quinctius Cincinnatus as Dictator.
28.4
He named A. Sempronius Atratinus as his Master of the Horse. No sooner did they hear of this —so great was the terror which a Dictatorship inspired —than the enemy retired from the wails, and the men liable for active service assembled without any hesitation at the Dictator's orders.
28.5
Whilst the army was being mobilised in Rome, the camp of the enemy had been fixed not far from the Alia. From this point they spread devastation far and wide, and congratulated themselves that they had chosen a position of fatal import for the City of Rome; they expected that there would be the same panic and flight as in the Gaulish war.
