present, and the right of being fed in the temple, was restored to
those who played at the sacrifices. These incidents occurred while the
public attention was deeply engaged by two most important wars.

31. The consuls adjusting the provinces between them, the Samnites
fell by lot to Junius, the new war of Etruria to Aemilius. In Samnium
the Samnites had blockaded and reduced by famine Cluvia, a Roman
garrison, because they had been unable to take it by storm; and, after
torturing with stripes, in a shocking manner, the townsmen who
surrendered, they had put them to death. Enraged at this cruelty,
Junius determined to postpone every thing else to the attacking of
Cluvia; and, on the first day that he assaulted the walls, took it by
storm, and slew all who were grown to man's estate. The victorious
troops were led from thence to Bovianum; this was the capital of the
Pentrian Samnites, by far the most opulent of their cities, and the
most powerful both in men and arms. The soldiers, stimulated by the
hope of plunder, for their resentment was not so violent, soon made
themselves masters of the town: where there was less severity
exercised on the enemy; but a quantity of spoil was carried off,
greater almost than had ever been collected out of all Samnium, and
the whole was liberally bestowed on the assailants. And when neither
armies, camps, or cities could now withstand the vast superiority of
the Romans in arms; the attention of all the leading men in Samnium
became intent on this, that an opportunity should be sought for some
stratagem, if by any chance the army, proceeding with incautious
eagerness for plunder, could be caught in a snare and overpowered.
Peasants who deserted and some prisoners (some thrown in their way by
accident, some purposely) reporting to the consul a statement in which
they concurred, and one which was at the same time true, that a vast
quantity of cattle had been driven together into a defile of difficult