1A huge force of Sabines came with hostile ravaging almost up to the walls of the city; 1the fields were laid waste, and terror was struck into the city. 1Then the plebs took up arms willingly; 1while the tribunes protested in vain, two great armies were enrolled. 2Nautius led one against the Sabines and, pitching camp at Eretum, by small expeditions, mostly raids by night, wrought such devastation in Sabine territory that, compared with it, the Roman lands seemed almost untouched by war. 3Minucius had neither the same fortune nor the same strength of mind in conducting his campaign; 3for having pitched camp not far from the enemy, though he had suffered no great reverse, he kept within his camp in fear.
4When the enemy noticed this, their boldness grew, as usually happens, from another's fear, and after attacking the camp by night, when open force had achieved little, they surround it with siege works the next day. 4Before these, thrown up on every side with a rampart, could shut off the exits, five horsemen sent out between the enemy's posts brought word to Rome that the consul and his army were under siege. 5Nothing could have happened so unforeseen or so unexpected. 5And so there was as much panic, as much alarm, as if the enemy were besieging the city, not a camp. 6They summon the consul Nautius. 6When there seemed too little protection in him, and it was decided that a dictator should be named to restore the shaken situation, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus is named by universal consent.
7It is worth the while of those who despise all human things in comparison with riches, and think there is no room for great honour or for virtue except where wealth flows in abundance, to listen to this. 7The sole hope of the Roman people's dominion, Lucius Quinctius, was farming a plot of four iugera across the Tiber, opposite the very spot where the dockyards now are; it is called the Quinctian Meadows. 9There the envoys found him, either digging a ditch and leaning on his spade or ploughing, but at any rate, as is agreed, intent on some work of the farm; when greetings had been given and returned, he was asked, with a prayer that it might turn out well for himself and the state, to put on his toga and hear the instructions of the senate; astonished, and asking again and again, 'Is all well?' 9he tells his wife Racilia to bring his toga quickly out of the cottage.
10As soon as he had wiped off the dust and sweat and came forward clothed in it, the envoys hail him as dictator with congratulations, summon him to the city, and explain what terror there is in the army. 11A boat had been made ready for Quinctius at public expense, and when he had been carried across his three sons, who had come out to meet him, receive him, then other relatives and friends, then the greater part of the senators. 12Thronged by this crowd, with the lictors going before him, he was escorted home. 12There was a huge concourse of the plebs too; 12but they were by no means so glad to see Quinctius, thinking both his power excessive and the man more vehement than the power itself.
12And that night indeed nothing was done in the city except keep watch.