Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- The Licinian Rogations
- The new curule Dignities of the year 384
- Internal History down to the complete establishment of the plebeian Consulship
- On the Uncial Rate of Interest
- History of the Wars from 384 to 406
- Rome in Alliance with Latium
- The earliest Constitution of the manipular Legion
- The first Samnite War
- The Latin War
- The Laws of the Dictator Q. Publilius
- Internal History down to the Caudine Peace
- Alexander of Epirus
- Forein Relations down to the second Samnite War
- The second Samnite War
- Relations between Rome and the Nations bordering on Samnium after the Peace
- The Etruscan Wars down to the beginning of the third Samnite War
- Internal History from the Caudine Peace down to the third Samnite War
- Cn. Flavius
- The Censorship of Q. Fabius and P. Decius
- The Ogulnian Law
- Various Occurrences of the same Period
- The third Samnite War and the Others of the same Period
- Internal History from the Beginning of the second Samnite War down to the Lucanian
- Miscellaneous Occurrences of the same Period
- The Etruscan and Gallic War
- The Lucanian, Bruttian, fourth Samnite, and Tarentine Wars
- Epirus and Pyrrhus
- The Roman and Macedonian Tactics
- The War with Pyrrhus
- Entire Subjugation of Italy, and the Political Rights of the Italian Allies
- Internal History and Miscellaneous Occurrences of the Period from the Lucanian down to the first Punic War
- The first Punic War
- Index
- ERRATA
Internal History from the Beginning of the second Samnite War down to the Lucanian
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- The Licinian Rogations
- The new curule Dignities of the year 384
- Internal History down to the complete establishment of the plebeian Consulship
- On the Uncial Rate of Interest
- History of the Wars from 384 to 406
- Rome in Alliance with Latium
- The earliest Constitution of the manipular Legion
- The first Samnite War
- The Latin War
- The Laws of the Dictator Q. Publilius
- Internal History down to the Caudine Peace
- Alexander of Epirus
- Forein Relations down to the second Samnite War
- The second Samnite War
- Relations between Rome and the Nations bordering on Samnium after the Peace
- The Etruscan Wars down to the beginning of the third Samnite War
- Internal History from the Caudine Peace down to the third Samnite War
- Cn. Flavius
- The Censorship of Q. Fabius and P. Decius
- The Ogulnian Law
- Various Occurrences of the same Period
- The third Samnite War and the Others of the same Period
- Internal History from the Beginning of the second Samnite War down to the Lucanian
- Miscellaneous Occurrences of the same Period
- The Etruscan and Gallic War
- The Lucanian, Bruttian, fourth Samnite, and Tarentine Wars
- Epirus and Pyrrhus
- The Roman and Macedonian Tactics
- The War with Pyrrhus
- Entire Subjugation of Italy, and the Political Rights of the Italian Allies
- Internal History and Miscellaneous Occurrences of the Period from the Lucanian down to the first Punic War
- The first Punic War
- Index
- ERRATA
Summary
The miraculous signs, which preceded the Gallic war, and their interpretation by the aruspex Manius, are equivalent to an historical testimony, that Rome was visited by famine and pestilence during very brilliant years of war. In accordance with the interpretation of those signs the famine rose to such a highth, that hunger was appeased by grass and the most loathsome food. According to the order in which they are mentioned, the pestilence must have preceded the famine, and then it could only have been spoken of in Livy's eleventh book: else the contrary succession is all the more probable, as the epidemic, which visited Rome this time, seems to have been nothing else but an ordinary typhus. Earlier ones, which I have pointed out as true pestilences, were contemporaneous with equally murderous epidemics on the other coasts of the Mediterranean: this one stands isolated, and no one is mentioned who was carried off by it. The war, from the manner in which it was carried on in those years, might have occasioned both calamities: famine, if there was a bad harvest during the repeated devastations of Campania, and typhus in the armies, which had to endure all imaginable privations in districts that had been laid waste far and wide, although they still continued to obtain booty in places taken by storm.
When this epidemic was raging in the third year of the war in 453 (459), the Sibylline books were consulted, and in accordance with their oracle, which prescribed that Æsculapius should be brought from Epidaurus to Rome, ten embassadors were sent thither with a trireme.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The History of Rome , pp. 407 - 422Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010