1Then elections were held; 1Lucius Aebutius and Publius Servilius were elected consuls. 1On the Kalends 1of Sextilis, the day on which the year then began, they entered upon their consulship. 2It was a grievous time, and as it happened the year was a pestilential one for the city and the countryside, and no less for men than for cattle; 2and they increased the violence of the disease by taking cattle and country people into the city for fear of raids. 3This medley of all kinds of living creatures mixed together distressed both the city folk, with its unaccustomed stench, and the country people, crowded into cramped dwellings, with heat and sleeplessness; and the tending of one another and contact itself spread the disease.
4While they could scarcely bear the disasters pressing upon them, envoys of the Hernici suddenly reported that the Aequi and Volscians had joined forces and pitched camp in their territory; 4and from there, with a huge army, were laying waste their lands. 5Besides the fact that the thin attendance of the senate was a sign to the allies that the state was stricken by pestilence, they also brought back a gloomy answer: that the Hernici, together with the Latins, should protect their own affairs by themselves: the city of Rome was being ravaged by disease through a sudden anger of the gods; 5if any respite from that evil should come, they would bring help to their allies, as the year before, as always at other times.
6The allies departed, carrying home, in place of a sad message, a sadder one, since they had to sustain by themselves a war which they could scarcely have sustained even when propped up by Roman strength. 7The enemy did not confine himself any longer to Hernican territory; 7he proceeded from there with hostile intent into Roman lands, which were laid waste even without the injury of war. 7There, since no one met them, not even unarmed, and they passed through everything deserted not only by garrisons but even by the tillage of the fields, they came as far as the third milestone on the Gabine road. 7Aebutius, the Roman consul, had died; 8his colleague Servilius was drawing breath with slight hope of life; 8most of the leading men were stricken, the greater part of the senators, and nearly all of military age, so that their strength was scarcely sufficient, not merely for the expeditions which the situation demanded in so great a tumult, but even for standing quietly on guard.
9The duty of keeping watch was undertaken in person by those senators whose age and health allowed it; 9the rounds and the supervision were the business of the plebeian aediles; 9to them the supreme control of affairs and the majesty of consular command had passed.