1The following year Quintus Servilius — for he was consul with Spurius Postumius — was sent against the Aequi and kept a standing camp in Latin territory. 1An enforced inactivity held the army, which was gripped by disease. 2The war was dragged out into a third year, when Quintus Fabius and Titus Quinctius were consuls. 2That command was given to Fabius out of the regular order, because as victor he had granted the Aequi peace. 3He set out in no doubtful hope that the fame of his name would bring the Aequi to peace, and he ordered envoys sent to the council of the nation to announce that the consul Quintus Fabius declared that he had brought peace from the Aequi to Rome, and was bringing war from Rome to the Aequi with the same right hand, now armed, which he had earlier given them in peace.
4By whose treachery and perjury this was happening, the gods were now witnesses and would soon be avengers. 4Yet he, however that might be, would even now prefer the Aequi to repent of their own accord rather than suffer the treatment of enemies. 5If they repented, there would be a safe refuge in the clemency they had already experienced; 5but if they delighted in perjury, they would be waging war with the angry gods more than with their enemies. 6These words so utterly failed to move anyone that the envoys were almost assaulted, and an army was sent to Algidus against the Romans. 7When this was reported at Rome, the outrage of the thing rather than the danger called the other consul out from the city.
7So two consular armies approached the enemy in battle order, to fight at once. 8But since, as it happened, not much of the day remained, one man from the enemy outpost shouted: 'This is making a show of war, Romans, not waging it. 9You draw up your battle line with night coming on; 9we need a longer daylight for the contest that lies ahead. 9Come back into line tomorrow at sunrise; 9there will be a chance to fight; 9do not be afraid.' 10Provoked by these words, the soldiers were led back to camp until the next day, thinking that a long night was coming which would delay the contest. 10Then indeed they refreshed their bodies with food and sleep; 10when day dawned the next morning, the Roman line took its stand a good while earlier; 10at last the Aequi too came forward.
11The battle was fierce on both sides, because the Romans fought with anger and hatred, and the Aequi were driven to dare and to attempt the utmost by the consciousness of a danger brought on by their own fault and by despair of ever being trusted afterwards. 12Still, the Aequi did not withstand the Roman line; 12and when, beaten, they had retreated into their own territory, the fierce multitude, with minds no more inclined to peace, abused their leaders because the matter had been committed to a pitched battle, a style of fighting in which the Romans excelled; 12the Aequi, they said, were better at raids and incursions, and many bands here and there waged war more properly than the great mass of a single army.