When the ambassadors came back, and acquainted the senate with the
answer, seeing the whole state now threatened as it were by a
tempest, a decree was made, that the whole order of their priests
should go in full procession to Marcius with their pontifical
array, and the dress and habit which they respectively used in
their several functions, and should urge him, as before, to
withdraw his forces, and then treat with his countrymen in favor
of the Volscians. He granted nothing at all, nor so much as
expressed himself more mildly; but without capitulating or
receding, bade them once for all choose whether they would yield
or fight, since the old terms were the only terms of peace. In
this great perplexity, the roman women went, some to other
temples, but the greater part, and the ladies of highest rank, tot
he altar of Jupiter Capitolinus. Among these suppliants was
Valeria, sister to the great Poplicola, who happily lighting, not
without divine guidance, on the right expedient, rose, and bade
the others rise, and went directly with them to the house of
Volumnia, the mother of Marcius. And coming in and finding her
sitting with her daughter-in-law, and with her little
grandchildren on her lap, Valeria, then surrounded by her
companions, spoke in the name of them all:--
"We, O Volumnia, and Vergilia, are come as women to women, to
request a thing on which our own and the common safety depends,
and which, if you consent to it, will raise our glory above that
of the daughters of the Sabines, who won over their fathers and
their husbands from mortal enmity to peace and friendship.
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