1Therefore, Kaeso Fabius, made consul with Titus Verginius through the support of the senators no less than of the plebs, attended to no business of war or of levies or anything else before seeing that, now that the hope of concord had in some measure been begun, the feelings of the plebs should be united with the senators at the earliest opportunity. 2And so at the beginning of the year he proposed that, before any tribune arose as author of an agrarian law, the senators should themselves take the lead in performing their own duty and give the captured land to the plebs as equally as possible: it was right that those should have it by whose blood and sweat it had been won.
3The senators scorned the idea; 3some even complained that the once lively genius of Kaeso was running riot and fading away through excessive glory. 3After that there were no factions in the city. 3The Latins were being harassed by raids of the Aequi. 4Sent there with an army, Kaeso crosses into the territory of the Aequi themselves to lay it waste. 4The Aequi withdrew into their towns and kept within their walls. 4For that reason there was no battle worth remembering. 5But a defeat was suffered at the hands of the Veientine enemy through the rashness of the other consul, and it would have been all over with the army, had not Kaeso Fabius come to its aid in time.
5From that time there was neither peace nor war with the Veientes; 5the affair had come very close to the pattern of brigandage: before the Roman legions they would withdraw into their city; 6when they perceived that the legions had been led away, they would raid the fields, alternately evading war by quiet and quiet by war. 6Thus the whole matter could neither be dropped nor brought to an end. 6And other wars were either pressing at present, as from the Aequi and Volsci, who stayed quiet no longer than while the fresh pain of their last defeat passed off, or it was clear that the ever hostile Sabines and all Etruria would soon be on the move.
7But the Veientine enemy, persistent rather than dangerous, troubled their minds with insults more often than with peril, because at no time could it be disregarded or allow attention to be turned elsewhere. 7Then the Fabian clan approached the senate. 8The consul speaks on behalf of the clan: 'The war with Veii, as you know, Conscript Fathers, needs a persistent rather than a large garrison. 8You take care of the other wars, and give the Fabii as enemies to the Veientes. 8We pledge that the majesty of the Roman name will be safe there. 9We intend to wage that war as our own, a family war as it were, at our private expense; 9let the state be free of the need for soldiers and money there.' 10Enormous thanks were given.
10The consul left the senate house and, escorted by a column of Fabii who had stood in the vestibule of the senate house waiting for the senate's decree, returns home. 10They were ordered to be present, armed, at the consul's threshold the next day; 10then they disperse to their homes.