Then the Carthaginians sent in headlong haste to the consul Lutatius and then to Rome: they begged for peace, which they at once obtained on the terms previously proposed.
1 Tunc Carthaginienses praecipiti festinatione ad Lutatium consulem ac deinde Romam mittunt: orant pacem, quam condicionibus ante propositis ilico consequuntur.
The terms were that they should withdraw from Sicily and Sardinia, and, for the costs of the war, pay three thousand Euboic talents of pure silver in equal instalments over twenty years.
2 condiciones autem erant, ut Sicilia Sardiniaque decederent proque inpensis bellicis puri argenti tria milia talentum Euboicorum aequis pensionibus per annos uiginti penderent.
This peace was concluded in the twenty-third year after the First Punic War had begun.
3 huius pacis condicio habita est post annum tertium et uicensimum, ex quo bellum Punicum primum fuerat inchoatum.
Who, I ask, could set forth in words one war between two cities waged for twenty-three years — how many kings of the Carthaginians, how many consuls of the Romans, how many columns of armies, what a number of ships it gathered, routed and destroyed? And only then, when those things are seen to have been weighed in full, let judgement be passed upon the present.
4 Quis, rogo, duarum ciuitatum unum bellum per annos tres et uiginti gestum fando explicet, quot reges Carthaginiensium, quot consules Romanorum, quot agmina exercituum, quantum numerum nauium contraxerit profligarit oppresserit? et tunc demum, si illa ad plenum perpensa uideantur, de praesentibus iudicetur.
In the year 507 from the founding of the City, a sudden overthrow of Rome itself forestalled the triumph of the Romans; for I could not readily say when it was that the most grievous mourning did not suddenly come upon even a moderate joy at Rome and crush it.
5 Anno ab urbe condita DVII repentina subuersio ipsius Romae praeuenit triumphum Romanorum; neque enim temere dixerim, quando non uel modicam laetitiam Romae superueniens repente quam grauissimus luctus oppresserit.
For in the consulship of Quintus Lutatius Catulus and Aulus Manlius, diverse disasters of fire and water almost consumed the City. The Tiber, swollen by unusual rains and overflowing beyond belief in both duration and magnitude, destroyed all the buildings of Rome that stood on level ground.
6 siquidem Q. Lutatio Catulo A. Manlio consulibus diuersae ignium aquarumque clades paene absumpsere urbem. nam Tiberis insolitis auctus imbribus et ultra opinionem uel diuturnitate uel magnitudine redundans omnia Romae aedificia in plano posita deleuit.
The different characters of the places came together in a single ruin: for what the more sluggish flooding held fast it soaked and dissolved, and what the course of the torrent met it struck and threw down.
7 diuersae qualitates locorum ad unam conuenere perniciem, quoniam et, quae segnior redundatio tenuit, madefacta dissoluit et, quae cursus torrentis inuenit, inpulsa deiecit.
The most grievous disaster of the waters was followed by a still more grievous devastation by fire. This fire — it is uncertain whence it arose — ranged over very many parts of the city, and not only wrought a pitiable destruction of men and houses, but also consumed in a single blaze as much wealth as very many foreign victories could not have brought in.
8 aquarum grauissimam cladem grauior ignis secuta uastatio est; qui ignis, incertum unde surrexerit, plurimas ciuitatis partes peruagatus cum hominum domorumque miserabilem stragem fecit tum etiam tantum opum uno consumpsit incendio quantum plurimae et peregrinae uictoriae conferre non possent.
Then, as it ravaged everything around the Forum, it seized the temple of Vesta; and, since the gods did not come even to their own aid, that fire which was thought to be eternal was overwhelmed by a temporary fire. And so Metellus too, while snatching away the gods who were about to burn, barely escaped with his arm half-burnt.
9 dehinc cum omnia in circuitu fori popularetur, aedem Vestae corripuit et ne sibi quidem dis subuenientibus ignem illum, qui aeternus putabatur, temporarius ignis oppressit; unde etiam Metellus, dum arsuros deos eripit, uix bracchio semiustilatus aufugit.
In the consulship of Titus Sempronius Gracchus and Gaius Valerius Falco, the Romans made war on the Faliscans, and in that battle fifteen thousand Faliscans were killed.
10 T. Sempronio Graccho C. Valerio Falcone consulibus cum Faliscis bellauere Romani, eoque proelio quindecim milia Faliscorum interfecta sunt.