Aequi

Then came the great emergency.

A Roman army under the consul Minucius had been trapped by a neighboring people, the Aequi, on Mount Algidus in the hills southeast of Rome.

The Aequi had hemmed them in with an earthen rampart.

They couldn't get out.

Their food was running low.

When everyone was in position, his men raised a great shout all at once and began driving in their stakes to throw up a palisade.

The trapped Romans heard the shout, realized that help had come, and attacked from within.

The Aequi, who had surrounded one army, found themselves surrounded by two.

In these early decades, Rome's survival was far from secure.

Neighboring peoples, the Latins, the Sabines, the Volsci, the Aequi, the Etruscans, watched the fledgling republic with wary eyes.

Some saw opportunity in Rome's internal struggles.

Others sought to reclaim lands lost in earlier wars.

The years that followed were a crucible of constant warfare.

Rome, still small compared to the great powers around it, faced relentless threats from neighbors.

The Volsci, Aequi, Etruscans, and Samnites tested its strength again and again.

Each year, consuls marched out at the head of citizen armies, calling farmers from their fields to take up shields and spears.

The only excuse, therefore, for going to war is that we may live in peace unharmed, and when the victory is won, we should spare those who have not been bloodthirsty and barbarous in their warfare.

For instance, our forefathers actually admitted to full rights of citizenship the Tusculans, Aequians, Volscians, Sabines, and Hernicians.

But they raised Carthage and Numantia to the ground.

I wish they had not destroyed Corinth, but I believe they had some special reason for what they did.

Not long after the Battle of the Allia, traditionally placed in 390, but possibly a few years earlier, the Romans had just started to rebuild and were back at war with their neighbors.

The Etruscan League partnered with the Volsci and Aequi, Italic tribes to the south and east of Latium, to try and exploit Rome's moment of weakness.

Initially, this incursion gained some ground, besieging Roman allies.

only for the Latins to rally and spend the next three years not only beating the alliance out of their territory, but ultimately mounting their own invasion of southern Etruria, the Etruscan country, and capturing another neighboring city.

The only excuse, therefore, for going to war is that we may live in peace unharmed, and when the victory is won, we should spare those who have not been bloodthirsty and barbarous in their warfare.

For instance, our forefathers actually admitted to full rights of citizenship the Tusculans, Aequians, Volscians, Sabines, and Hernicians.

But they raised Carthage and Numantia to the ground.

I wish they had not destroyed Corinth, but I believe they had some special reason for what they did.

The only excuse therefore for going to war is that we may live in peace unharmed, and when the victory is won, we should spare those who have not been bloodthirsty and barbarous in their warfare.

For instance, our forefathers actually admitted to full rights of citizenship the Tusculans, Aequians, Volscians, Sabines, and Hernicians.

But they raised Carthage and Numantia to the ground.

I wish they had not destroyed Corinth, but I believe they had some special reason for what they did.

The only excuse therefore for going to war is that we may live in peace unharmed, and when the victory is won, we should spare those who have not been bloodthirsty and barbarous in their warfare.

For instance, our forefathers actually admitted to full rights of citizenship the Tusculans, Aequians, Volscians, Sabines, and Hernicians.

But they raised Carthage and Numantia to the ground.

I wish they had not destroyed Corinth, but I believe they had some special reason for what they did.