Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 10
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

21. this raid upon the Campanian countryside had occasioned a great alarm in Rome; [2] and just at that time, as it happened, there came news out of Etruria, that after the withdrawal of the army of Volumnius the Etruscans had been induced to arm, that Gellius Egnatius, the Samnite general, and the Umbrians were being invited to join in the revolt, and that the Gauls were being tempted with great sums of money. [3] terrified by these reports, the senate ordered that a cessation of the courts should be proclaimed, and that a levy should be held of every sort of men. [4] not only was the oath administered to free citizens of military age, but cohorts were also formed out of older men, and freedmen were mustered into centuries. [5] plans were discussed for defending the City, and the supreme command was given to the praetor, Publius Sempronius. but the senators were relieved of a part of their anxiety by a dispatch from Lucius Volumnius, the consul, apprising them of the slaughter and dispersion of the army that had ravaged Campania. [6] they accordingly voted a thanksgiving for the victory, in the consul's name, and reopened the courts, which had been closed for eighteen days. [7] The thanksgiving was a very joyful one.

[p. 439] they next considered how they might protect¹ the region devastated by the Samnites, and resolved to plant two colonies in the Vescinian and Falernian country, [8??] one, which was named Minturnae, at the mouth of the river Liris, the other in the Vescinian forest,² hard by the Falernian district, where the Greek city of Sinope is said to have stood, thereafter called Sinuessa by the Roman settlers. [9] The tribunes of the plebs were assigned the task of obtaining a plebiscite directing Publius Sempronius the praetor to appoint three commissioners to conduct the colonists to these places; [10] yet it was not easy to find men who would enroll, since they regarded themselves as sent, not to settle on the land, but to serve almost as a perpetual outpost in a hostile territory.

[11] The senate's attention was diverted from these cares by the growing seriousness of the war in Etruria, and by a succession of dispatches from Appius, in which he warned them not to make light of the disturbance in that region. [12] four races, he said, were uniting their arms, the Etruscans, Samnites, Umbrians, and Gauls; and they had already divided their camp into two, one place not being able to hold so great a multitude. [13] for these reasons and because of the elections —the time for which was rapidly approaching —the consul Lucius Volumnius was recalled to Rome. before summoning the centuries to vote, he brought the people together in an assembly, and discoursed at length of the magnitude of the war in Etruria: [14] even earlier, when he himself and his colleague had campaigned there together, the war had been so great that one general and one army could not have conducted it; [p. 441]but it was said that the Umbrians had since then³ been added to the enemy's forces, as well as a huge army of Gauls; [15] they should remember that on that day they were choosing consuls to oppose four peoples; for his own part, were he not confident that the Roman People would unanimously choose for consul the man who was then looked upon as unquestionably the first of all commanders, he would at once have named him dictator.