Kitap 6
12.1
AlthoughThe Volscian War. the Dictator recognised that a more difficult contest lay before him at home than abroad, he enrolled his troops and proceeded to the Pomptine territory, which, he heard, had been invaded by the Volscians. Either he considered it necessary to take prompt military measures or he hoped to strengthen his hands as Dictator by a victory and a triumph.
12.2
I have no doubt that my readers will be tired of such a long record of incessant wars with the Volscians, but they will also be struck with the same difficulty which I have myself felt whilst examining the authorities who lived nearer to the period, namely, from what source did the Volscians obtain sufficient soldiers after so many defeats?
12.3
Since this point has been passed over by the ancient writers, what can I do more than express an opinion such as any one may form from his own inferences?
12.4
Probably, in the interval between one war and another, they trained each fresh generation against the renewal of hostilities, as is now done in the enlistment of Roman troops, or their armies were not always drawn from the same districts, though it was always the same nation that carried on the war, or there must have been an innumerable free population in those districts which
12.5
are barely now kept from desolation by the scanty tillage of Roman slaves, with hardly so much as a miserably small recruiting ground for soldiers left.
