1Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, for the fourth time, and Agrippa Furius were then made consuls, and inherited neither sedition at home nor war abroad; 2but both were threatening. 2The discord of the citizens could no longer be held back, with both tribunes and plebs roused against the senators, while the summoning of one noble or another to trial kept disturbing the assemblies with ever new struggles. 3At the first noise of these quarrels, as though they had received a signal, the Aequi and Volsci took up arms, partly because their leaders, eager for plunder, had persuaded them that two years earlier the levy proclaimed could not be held, since the plebs now refused obedience; 4that was why armies had not been sent against them.
4Military custom was being dissolved by licence, and Rome was no longer a common fatherland. 4Whatever anger and quarrels they had had with foreigners were being turned against themselves. 4Now was the chance to crush the wolves, blinded by their own internal frenzy. 5With their armies joined they first laid waste the Latin territory; 5then, when no defender confronted them there, then indeed, to the delight of the instigators of the war, they came ravaging right up to the walls of Rome in the region of the Esquiline gate, insultingly displaying to the city the devastation of its fields. 6When they had marched back from there to Corbio unpunished, driving their plunder before them, the consul Quinctius called the people to an assembly.