In mien,
carriage, and countenance, he bore the appearance of entire
composure, and while all his friends were full of distress, seemed
the only man that was not touched with his misfortune. On his
return home, after saluting his mother and his wife, who were in
tears and full of loud lamentations, and exhorting them to
moderate the sense they had of his calamity, he proceeded at once
to the city gates, whither all the nobility came to attend him;
and not taking anything with him, or making any request to the
company, he departed from them, having only three or four clients
with him. He continued solitary for a few days in a place in the
country, distracted with a variety of counsels, such as rage and
indignation suggested to him; and proposing to himself no
honorable or useful end, but only how he might best satisfy his
revenge on the Romans, he resolved at length to arouse a heavy war
against them from their nearest neighbors. He determined, first to
make trial of the Volscians, whom he knew to be still vigorous and
flourishing, both in men and treasure, and he imagined their force
and power was not so much abated, as their spite and anger
increased, by the late overthrows they had received from the
Romans.
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