dwells, and keep it well stored with supplies, and its inhabitants well
affected, so that he may resist attack till an accord be agreed on, or
he be relieved by foreign aid. All other expedients are costly in time
of peace, and in war useless.

Whoever carefully weighs all that has now been said will perceive, that
the Romans, as they were most prudent in all their other methods, so
also showed their wisdom in the measures they took with the men of
Latium and Privernum, when, without ever thinking of fortresses, they
sought security in bolder and more sagacious courses.



CHAPTER XXV.--_That he who attacks a City divided against itself, must
not think to get possession of it through its Divisions._

Violent dissensions breaking out in Rome between the commons and the
nobles, it appeared to the Veientines and Etruscans that now was their
time to deal a fatal blow to the Roman supremacy. Accordingly, they
assembled an army and invaded the territories of Rome. The senate sent
Caius Manlius and Marcus Fabius to meet them, whose forces encamping
close by the Veientines, the latter ceased not to reproach and vilify
the Roman name with every sort of taunt and abuse, and so incensed the
Romans by their unmeasured insolence that, from being divided they
became reconciled, and giving the enemy battle, broke and defeated them.
Here, again, we see, what has already been noted, how prone men are to
adopt wrong courses, and how often they miss their object when they
think to secure it. The Veientines imagined that they could conquer the
Romans by attacking them while they were at feud among themselves;
but this very attack reunited the Romans and brought ruin on their