This is the war which Dion charges the patricians; with having excited for the sake of employing the commonalty: the Fabii, at that time the heads of the oligarchy, must accordingly have been the authors of this piece of statecraft: this guilt they expiated fearfully, and that too, as not seldom happens, after having done everything to atone for it.

During the first two years, 271 and 272, the hostilities seem to have been of little importance. I have already mentioned the unfortunate turn they took in 273, owing to the internal dissensions of the Romans. The infantry under Cæso Fabius agreed together that their general, whom they did not acknowledge as consul, should gain no triumph in a war which he and his house had stirred up, and which the centuries had not decreed. The cavalry, part of them as patricians, part carried along by the spirit which characterizes such troops, had broken the Etruscan line: but the cohorts refused to follow; and in spite of the consul's vehement exhortations that at least they would maintain their ground, in spite of his entreaties, of his threats, they gave way, abandoned their camp to the enemy, and soon fled in disgraceful confusion to Rome.