In Construction

Events in Etruria During the Dictatorship: Conclusions

Livy made no secret that he had a number of sources for the events of Papirius’ dictatorship, and that there were important variances between them.  He had earlier made an interesting observation about his various sources for the events of 322 BC:

1. “ ... it is not easy to choose between these accounts ... I think that the records have been vitiated by funeral eulogies and by lying inscriptions under portraits, every family endeavouring mendaciously to appropriate victories and magistracies to itself, a practice that has certainly wrought confusion in the achievements of individuals and in the public memorials of events.  Nor is there extant any writer contemporary with that period on whose authority we may safely take our stand”, (‘History of Rome’, 8: 40: 3-5).
   

It seems to me that he faced the same problems when he grappled with the sources for the events of Papirius’ dictatorship.

In this case, it is easy to identify the families that were ‘endeavouring ... to appropriate victories and magistracies’: they would obviously have been (or, at least, included) the Fabii and the Papirii: thus, William Everton Heitland (referenced below, at p. 145), in his fascinating book written in 1909, observed (in the context of the putative animosity between Fabius and Papirius during the Second Samnite War) that:

1. “... our tradition is no doubt largely derived from the partial [as in biased] records of these and other great houses.”
   

We can surely detect these partial sources in Livy’s account of Papirius’ dictatorship of 310/9 BC:

1. ✴As noted above, Livy began his account of the events of Papirius’ dictatorship with the process by which he was appointed:
   

2. “Nobody could doubt that Papirius Cursor, who was regarded as the foremost soldier of his time, would be designated.  ...  Since ... Fabius, had a private grudge against [him], ... the Senate decided to send a deputation of former consuls to [Fabius, presumably at his camp in Etruria ... in order to] induce him to forget those quarrels in the national interest.  ... [Fabius did so, but with such little grace] that it was clearly seen what agony his great heart was suppressing”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 38: 10-5).
   

3. 
   

4. 
   

Turning now to Fabius’ engagements in Etruria:

1. ✴Diodorus’ record a final battle that Fabius fought after the surrender of Arretium Cortona and Perusia: he laid siege to the now-unknown Castola and thereby raised the Etruscan siege of Siutrium.  Both Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 457) and Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at: p. 36, note 37; and at p. 34, Figure 1), for example, accepted this account of what was presumably a ‘mopping up’ exercise.
   

2. ✴However, many scholars have pointed out that Livy’s account of the events of Fabius’ second consulship is impossibly crowded and, in particular, his two engagements during Papirius’ dictatorship are often questioned.  Thus, for example:
   

3. •While Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at: p. 36, note 37; and p. 34, Figure 1) was inclined to accept the possibility that Fabius defeated another Etruscan army at the lacus Vadimonis on his march south from Perusia, he rejected Livy’s record of Fabius’ last and ‘easy’ victory at Perusia as a doublet.
   

4. •Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 457) asserted that:
   

5. “... much of Livy’s Etruscan narrative after 37: 12 [in which30 year truces were agreed with Arretium, Cortona and Perusia] duplicates what he recounts between 35:1 and 37:12  ...; all of it is likely to be fictional.”
   

In other words, the likelihood is that, during Fabius’ second year as consul:

1. ✴Papirius, as dictator, did little more than ‘hold the fort’ in Samnium during a period when Marcius (Fabius’ colleague) was incapacitated in some way.
   

2. ✴Fabius himself :
   

3. •defeated an Etruscan army that was besieging Sutrium;
   

4. •secured an alliance with the Umbrian Camertes in order to protect his flank from the Gallic Senones; and then
   

5. •met with considerable success in upper Etruria. 
   

6. The ‘famous battle’ that ended in a decisive victory, after which he agreed 30 year truces with Arretium, Cortona and Perusia, probably took place near Perusia.
   

Clearly, Papirius’ achievements had been elaborated in some of Livy’s  sources, a situation that is also reflected in the entries in the ‘fasti Triumphales’ in the ‘dictator year’ 309 BC. in which:

1. ✴Papirius, as dictator, was awarded a triumph over the Samnites; and
   

2. ✴Fabius, as proconsul, was awarded a triumph over the Etruscans.
   

In fact, as explained above, the likelihood is that, if these triumphs were actually awarded at all, they belong to the later part of Fabius’ second consulship: there is certainly no other evidence that he served as proconsul in a period between his second and third consulships.  There

However, this record of Papirius’ triumph, as dictator, over the Samnites must be open to question.

It seems to me that we can also see partisanship at work in Livy’s sources for Fabius’ achievements in this period, probably in reaction to the putative lionisation of the elder Papirius.  Thus, for example:

1. ✴Livy laid great stress on Fabius’ longstanding  quarrel with the elder Papirius and ‘the agony that his great heart was suppressing’ when he appointed him as dictator;
   

2. ✴he expanded on the dictator’s propensity to steal his colleagues’ glory by having Junius destroy the corps of consecrated men in the Samnite army of 310/9 BC and by giving the consulars Valerius and Decius other major roles in securing the Roman victory; and
   

3. ✴he had a now-unnamed commander, presumably Fabius, defeat an Etruscan army that had been raised the procedure of vir virum legere, a procedure that was implied for the selection of the corp of self-consecrated Samnites who wore linen tunics during Papirius’ contemporary victory.  This detail was almost certainly borrowed in both cases from sources that described the selection of the Samnite Linen Legion in 293 BC.
   

However, the most explicit indication of Livy’s reliance on partisanship in his sources, as mediated by his own views, comes in his account of Fabius’ triumph, having gained:

1. “... a success more brilliant even than the dictator's: indeed the glory of conquering the Samnites was largely diverted [from Papirius to his] lieutenants, Publius Decius and Marcus Valerius, of whom, at the next election, the people, with great enthusiasm, made the one consul and the other praetor”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 18-21).  
   

I suggest that Livy felt that he could not ignore the existing sources that lionised the success of the elder Papirius in 310/9 BC, but that the main purpose of chapters 9: 38-40 was to correct their excessive bias.  Having done so, he could begin chapter 41 by asserting that:

1. “In recognition of his remarkable conquest of Etruria, Fabius was continued in the consulship, and was given Decius for his colleague.  Valerius was for the fourth time chosen praetor”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 41: 1-2).
   

Livy had the younger Papirius urging his men not to be intimidated by the magnificence of the enemy armour: 

1. “My father ... annihilated a Samnite army all in gold and silver [in 310/9 BC], and those [enemy] trappings brought more glory to the victors as spoils than ... to the wearers.   It might, perhaps, be a special privilege granted to my name and family that the greatest efforts that the Samnites ever made should be frustrated and defeated under our  generalship, and that the spoils that we brought back should be sufficiently splendid to serve as decorations for the public places of Rome”, (‘History of Rome’, 10: 39: 9-13).
   

Referring specifically to the participation of Publius Decius Mus, he commented (at p. 342) that:

1. “He is ... said to have been a legate of Papirius in 310/9C, but this may be one of the many invented details that cluster around Livy’s narrative for this year.”
   

Finally he noted (at p. 526) that, by having Valerius and Decius participating in Papirius’ victory, he paves the way for Livy to assert that, in Etruria, Fabius gained:

1. “... a success more brilliant even than the dictator's: indeed the glory of conquering the Samnites was largely diverted upon the lieutenants, Publius Decius and Marcus Valerius, of whom, at the next election, the people, with great enthusiasm, made the one consul and the other praetor”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 18-21).  
   

I return below to this comparison between the triumphs of Papirius and Fabius in 310/9 BC.

A Second Engagement with the Perusians ??

Having described Papirius’ triumph over the Samnites, Livy recorded that:

1. “In the same year, the consul Fabius fought a battle with the remnants of the Etruscan forces near Perusia, which, together with other cities, had broken the truce.  [He] gained an easy and decisive victory.  After the battle, he marched up to the walls of the city and would have taken the city itself had not ambassadors come out and surrendered the place.  [He] placed a garrison in Perusia, and ... sent on before him to the Senate in Rome the Etruscan deputations that had come to him amicitiam petentibus (seeking friendship) ...”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 18-20).  
   

Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 455) asserted that

1. “... despite Livy’s comment that [‘Perusia, together with other Etruscan cities, had broken the truce’, this engagement] follows oddly on [the agreement of the 30 year truces] agreed earlier in the year with Arretium, Cortona and Perusia.”
   

It also seems odd that Livy did not record the Senate’s answer to ’the Etruscan deputations that had come to Fabius seeking friendship’.  The Romans’ apparently easy victory over Perusia seems equally odd: as Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 455) observed:

1. “This is [Livy’s] only report of the surrender of a major Etruscan settlement in the war of 311-308 BC ...[and] it is doubtful whether ... the Romans had an army strong enough to capture or force the surrender of any of the major Etruscan cities [at this time].  One cannot prove finally that this section is a doublet ..., but this does seem extremely probable. ”
   

Simoni Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 35) agreed, and suggested that  the memory of Livy’s second version of Fabius victory of 310 BC, which located it to the north of the Ciminian Forest, near Perusia:

1. “... must have been so strong as to push Livy to include it [again] at the end of the interminable 310 BC, thereby duplicating the facts of the engagement that, shortly before, had taken place near the Ciminian Forest and had led to the truces with the centres of northern Etruria” (my translation).
   

Events in Etruria During the Dictatorship: Conclusions

Livy made no secret that he had a number of sources for the events of Papirius’ dictatorship, and that there were important variances between them.  He had earlier made an interesting observation about his various sources for the events of 322 BC:

1. “ ... it is not easy to choose between these accounts ... I think that the records have been vitiated by funeral eulogies and by lying inscriptions under portraits, every family endeavouring mendaciously to appropriate victories and magistracies to itself, a practice that has certainly wrought confusion in the achievements of individuals and in the public memorials of events.  Nor is there extant any writer contemporary with that period on whose authority we may safely take our stand”, (‘History of Rome’, 8: 40: 3-5).
   

It seems to me that he faced the same problems when he grappled with the sources for the events of Papirius’ dictatorship.

In this case, it is easy to identify the families that were ‘endeavouring ... to appropriate victories and magistracies’: they would obviously have been (or, at least, included) the Fabii and the Papirii: thus, William Everton Heitland (referenced below, at p. 145), in his fascinating book written in 1909, observed (in the context of the putative animosity between Fabius and Papirius during the Second Samnite War) that:

1. “... our tradition is no doubt largely derived from the partial [as in biased] records  of these and other great houses.”
   

We can surely detect these partial sources in Livy’s account of Papirius’ dictatorship of 310/9 BC:

1. ✴As noted above, Livy began his account of the events of Papirius’ dictatorship with the process by which he was appointed:
   

2. “Nobody could doubt that Papirius Cursor, who was regarded as the foremost soldier of his time, would be designated.  ...  Since ... Fabius, had a private grudge against [him], ... the Senate decided to send a deputation of former consuls to [Fabius, presumably at his camp in Etruria ... in order to] induce him to forget those quarrels in the national interest.  ... [Fabius did so, but with such little grace] that it was clearly seen what agony his great heart was suppressing”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 38: 10-5).
   

3. ✴In his final comments on the events of this period, Livy recorded the award of triumphs to both Fabius and Papirius, and then asserted that Fabius had gained:
   

4. “... a success more brilliant even than that of Papirius; indeed the glory of conquering the Samnites was largely diverted [from Papirius to his] lieutenants, Publius Decius and Marcus Valerius, of whom, at the next election, the people with great enthusiasm made the one [Decius] consul and the other [Valerius] praetor”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 21).  
   

As noted above, Livy’s account of the Etruscan War prior to the appointment of Papirius as dictator can be broadly reconciled with Diodorus’ parallel account, up to and including the truces agreed with Arretium, Cortona and Perusia:

1. ✴Diodorus:
   

2. “Thereafter, defeating the Etruscans in a second battle near the place called Perusia and destroying many of them, he overawed the nation, since he was the first of the Romans to have invaded that region with an army.  He also made truces with the peoples of: Arretium and [Cortona]; and likewise with those of Perusia”, (‘Library of History’, 20: 35: 4-5). 
   

3. ✴Livy:
   

4. “... the Romans were the victors [in a battle that was located either at Sutrium or Perusia].  And so, ambassadors from Perusia and Cortona and Arretium, which, at that time, were effectively capita Etruriae populorum (the chief cities of the Etruscan people), came to Rome to sue for peace and a foedus (treaty).  They obtained truces for 30 years”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 37: 12).
   

Thereafter, the accounts of Diodorus and Livy diverge:

1. ✴Diodorus (‘Library of History’, 20: 35: 5) recorded that Fabius laid siege to a now-unknown Etruscan city called Castola, which forced the Etruscans to raise the siege of Sutrium.  Castola must therefore have been   of sufficient importance to have merited the service of the Etruscan army that was (according to Diodorus) still besieging  Sutrium.
   

2. ✴Livy recorded an engagement with the Umbrians (discussed in the following section) and three others that were discussed above:
   

3. •An unnamed Roman commander defeated an Etruscan army that had been raised under a lex sacrata  and selected by the procedure of vir virum legere (which probably implied self-consecration).  The battle took place in Etruria, possibly at the lacus Vadimonis, and:
   

4. “That day, for the first time, [a Roman army] broke the might of the Etruscans ...”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 39: 11).
   

5. It is not clear which Etruscan cities had taken part in this engagement, but there is no indication that any of Arretium, Cortona or Perusia had broken its recently-agreed truce.
   

6. •Papirius defeated a Samnite army that included a corps of men who:
   

7. “... had consecrated themselves, as was their custom, and, for that reason, were resplendent in white [linen] clothing and equally white armour”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 9).
   

8. The honour of breaking through this corps belonged to the master of horse, Junius, while two other consulars, Valerius and Decius, ‘seizing a share of glory’, led cavalry charges against the enemy flanks.  At this, the Samnites crumbled and Papirius was awarded a triumph.
   

9. •Fabius defeated:
   

10. “... the remnants of the Etruscan forces near Perusia, which, together with other cities, had broken the truce.  [He] gained an easy and decisive victory.  ... Having sent on before him to the Senate ... the Etruscan deputations at had come to him amicitiam petentibus (seeking friendship), [he] was borne in triumph into Rome”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 18-20).  
    

If we start with Livy’s account of Papirius’ decisive victory in Samnium:

1. ✴ Edward Salmon (referenced below, 1967, at pp. 245-6 and note 1) was of this opinion:
   

2. “... if not entirely fictitious, was, at most, merely a local success that helped maintain Roman diversionary pressure on the western borders of Samnium.”
   

3. ✴Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 461) expressed a similar (albeit more nuanced) opinion :
   

4. “Even though Diodorus ignored Papirius’ campaign against the Samnites [in 310/9 BC], it would probably be an excess of scepticism to reject it out of hand; ...  Nevertheless, the details of the fighting offered by Livy are unlikely to be sound... [and] it is possible that [they] are all unauthentic ...”
   

Turning now to Fabius’ engagements in Etruria:

1. ✴Diodorus’ record a final battle that Fabius fought after the surrender of Arretium Cortona and Perusia: he laid siege to the now-unknown Castola and thereby raised the Etruscan siege of Siutrium.  Both Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 457) and Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at: p. 36, note 37; and at p. 34, Figure 1), for example, accepted this account of what was presumably a ‘mopping up’ exercise.
   

2. ✴However, many scholars have pointed out that Livy’s account of the events of Fabius’ second consulship is impossibly crowded and, in particular, his two engagements during Papirius’ dictatorship are often questioned.  Thus, for example:
   

3. •While Simone Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at: p. 36, note 37; and p. 34, Figure 1) was inclined to accept the possibility that Fabius defeated another Etruscan army at the lacus Vadimonis on his march south from Perusia, he rejected Livy’s record of Fabius’ last and ‘easy’ victory at Perusia as a doublet.
   

4. •Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 457) asserted that:
   

5. “... much of Livy’s Etruscan narrative after 37: 12 [in which30 year truces were agreed with Arretium, Cortona and Perusia] duplicates what he recounts between 35:1 and 37:12  ...; all of it is likely to be fictional.”
   

In other words, the likelihood is that, during Fabius’ second year as consul:

1. ✴Papirius, as dictator, did little more than ‘hold the fort’ in Samnium during a period when Marcius (Fabius’ colleague) was incapacitated in some way.
   

2. ✴Fabius himself :
   

3. •defeated an Etruscan army that was besieging Sutrium;
   

4. •secured an alliance with the Umbrian Camertes in order to protect his flank from the Gallic Senones; and then
   

5. •met with considerable success in upper Etruria. 
   

6. The ‘famous battle’ that ended in a decisive victory, after which he agreed 30 year truces with Arretium, Cortona and Perusia, probably took place near Perusia.
   

Clearly, Papirius’ achievements had been elaborated in some of Livy’s  sources, a situation that is also reflected in the entries in the ‘fasti Triumphales’ in the ‘dictator year’ 309 BC. in which:

1. ✴Papirius, as dictator, was awarded a triumph over the Samnites; and
   

2. ✴Fabius, as proconsul, was awarded a triumph over the Etruscans.
   

In fact, as explained above, the likelihood is that, if these triumphs were actually awarded at all, they belong to the later part of Fabius’ second consulship: there is certainly no other evidence that he served as proconsul in a period between his second and third consulships.  There is certainly likely that Fabius’ second consulship culminated in the award of a triumph: as Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 456) pointed out, he:

1. “... was the most important Roman general of the Samnite wars and, among his exploits, his campaign in [his second year as consul]  had a significance second only to his great victory [over the Samnites, Gauls and Etruscans] at Sentinum in 295 BC.”
   

However, this record of Papirius’ triumph, as dictator, over the Samnites must be open to question.

The obvious conclusion is that partisan sources that recorded Papirius’ achievements in 310/9 BC reproduced elements of surviving accounts of the victory and triumph of his homonymous son in 293 BC.  Indeed, as is often pointed out, passages in Livy’s account of these later  events betray his awareness of this possibility:

1. ✴He started his account by observing that: 
   

2. ‘The triumph that [the younger Papirius] celebrated while still in office was a brilliant one for those days.  ... The spoils of the Samnites attracted much attention; their splendour and beauty were compared with that of the spoils that his father had won [in 310/9 BC], which were familiar to all through their being used as decorations of public places”, (‘History of Rome’, 10: 46: 2-4).  
   

3. ✴He noted that the younger Papirius dedicated the temple of Quirinus, presumably at the time of his triumph, and added:
   

4. “I do not find in any ancient author that it was he who had vowed this temple in the crisis of a battle, and certainly he could not have completed it in so short a time; it [must have been] vowed by his father when dictator [in 310/9 BC]: the son dedicated [the completed temple] when consul, and adorned it with the spoils of the enemy.  There was such a vast quantity of these spoils that, not only were the temple and the Forum adorned with them, but they were distributed amongst the allied peoples and the nearest colonies to decorate their public spaces and temples”, (‘History of Rome’, 10: 46: 7-8).
   

5. ✴He had the younger Papirius urging his men not to be intimidated by the magnificence of the enemy armour by pointing out that: 
   

6. “My father ... annihilated a Samnite army all in gold and silver [in 310/9 BC], and those [enemy] trappings brought more glory to the victors as spoils than ... to the wearers.   It might, perhaps, be a special privilege granted to my name and family that the greatest efforts that the Samnites ever made should be frustrated and defeated under our  generalship, and that the spoils that we brought back should be sufficiently splendid to serve as decorations for the public places of Rome”, (‘History of Rome’, 10: 39: 9-13).
   

As Stephen Oakley  (referenced below, 2005, at p. 506) pointed out:

1. “There is no difficulty [in principal] in believing that two Papirii Cursores won important victories over the Samnites, but it is harder to have confidence that these two victories were won in such similar circumstances ... [Furthermore,] Livy’s awareness of the similarities only increases the suspicion that ... the details of one victory were merged with those of the other.  If this did happen, then it is more likely that a large quantity of Samnite arms was brought to the city in 293 BC than in 310/9 BC, since:
   

2. ✴the victory ...at Aquilonia was more celebrated and more important [in strategic terms];
   

3. ✴the description of the triumph [that followed it] is one of the more reliable features of [Livy’s Book 10]; and
   

4. ✴Livy’s testimony for that year is reinforced by that of Pliny [the Elder - see above].”
   

It seems to me that we can also see partisanship at work in Livy’s sources for Fabius’ achievements in this period, probably in reaction to the putative lionisation of the elder Papirius.  Thus, for example:

1. ✴Livy laid great stress on Fabius’ longstanding  quarrel with the elder Papirius and ‘the agony that his great heart was suppressing’ when he appointed him as dictator;
   

2. ✴he expanded on the dictator’s propensity to steal his colleagues’ glory by having Junius destroy the corps of consecrated men in the Samnite army of 310/9 BC and by giving the consulars Valerius and Decius other major roles in securing the Roman victory; and
   

3. ✴he had a now-unnamed commander, presumably Fabius, defeat an Etruscan army that had been raised the procedure of vir virum legere, a procedure that was implied for the selection of the corp of self-consecrated Samnites who wore linen tunics during Papirius’ contemporary victory.  This detail was almost certainly borrowed in both cases from sources that described the selection of the Samnite Linen Legion in 293 BC.
   

However, the most explicit indication of Livy’s reliance on partisanship in his sources, as mediated by his own views, comes in his account of Fabius’ triumph, having gained:

1. “... a success more brilliant even than the dictator's: indeed the glory of conquering the Samnites was largely diverted [from Papirius to his] lieutenants, Publius Decius and Marcus Valerius, of whom, at the next election, the people, with great enthusiasm, made the one consul and the other praetor”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 18-21).  
   

I suggest that Livy felt that he could not ignore the existing sources that lionised the success of the elder Papirius in 310/9 BC, but that the main purpose of chapters 9: 38-40 was to correct their excessive bias.  Having done so, he could begin chapter 41 by asserting that:

1. “In recognition of his remarkable conquest of Etruria, Fabius was continued in the consulship, and was given Decius for his colleague.  Valerius was for the fourth time chosen praetor”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 41: 1-2).
   

Livy had the younger Papirius urging his men not to be intimidated by the magnificence of the enemy armour: 

1. “My father ... annihilated a Samnite army all in gold and silver [in 310/9 BC], and those [enemy] trappings brought more glory to the victors as spoils than ... to the wearers.   It might, perhaps, be a special privilege granted to my name and family that the greatest efforts that the Samnites ever made should be frustrated and defeated under our  generalship, and that the spoils that we brought back should be sufficiently splendid to serve as decorations for the public places of Rome”, (‘History of Rome’, 10: 39: 9-13).
   

Referring specifically to the participation of Publius Decius Mus, he commented (at p. 342) that:

1. “He is ... said to have been a legate of Papirius in 310/9C, but this may be one of the many invented details that cluster around Livy’s narrative for this year.”
   

Finally he noted (at p. 526) that, by having Valerius and Decius participating in Papirius’ victory, he paves the way for Livy to assert that, in Etruria, Fabius gained:

1. “... a success more brilliant even than the dictator's: indeed the glory of conquering the Samnites was largely diverted upon the lieutenants, Publius Decius and Marcus Valerius, of whom, at the next election, the people, with great enthusiasm, made the one consul and the other praetor”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 18-21).  
   

I return below to this comparison between the triumphs of Papirius and Fabius in 310/9 BC.

Another Victory for Fabius near Perusia??

According to Livy, Fabius achieve one more victory in Etruria during his second consulshipconsulship:

1. “In the same year, the consul Fabius fought a battle with the remnants of the Etruscan forces near Perusia, which, together with other cities, had broken the truce.  [He] gained an easy and decisive victory.  After the battle, he marched up to the walls of the city and would have taken it, had not ambassadors come out and surrendered the place.  [He] installed a garrison in Perusia, and ... sent on before him to the Senate in Rome the Etruscan deputations that had come to him amicitiam petentibus (seeking friendship) ...”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 18-20).  
   

Only now was Fabius’ Etruscan War finally over:

1. “Having placed a garrison in Perusia and having sent on before him to the Senate in Rome the Etruscan deputations that had come to him seeking friendship, Fabius was borne in triumph into the City”, (‘History of Rome’, 9: 40: 20-21).
   

Stephen Oakley (referenced below, 2005, at p. 455) pointed to two reasons why this account should be discounted:

1. ✴“This is [Livy’s] only report of the surrender of a major Etruscan settlement in the wars of 311-308 BC ...[and] it is doubtful whether ... the Romans had an army strong enough to capture or force the surrender of any of the major Etruscan cities [at this time]’. 
   

2. ✴“... despite Livy’s comment that [‘Perusia, together with other Etruscan cities, had broken the truce’, the surrender of Perusia] follows oddly on [the agreement of the 30 year truces] earlier in the year with Arretium, Cortona and Perusia.”
   

He concluded that:

1. “One cannot prove finally that this section is a doublet ..., but this does seem extremely probable. ”
   

Simoni Sisani (referenced below, 2007, at p. 35) agreed, and suggested that the memory of Fabius’ victory near Perusia in 310/9 BC:

1. “... must have been so strong as to push Livy to include [a victory at Perusia] at the end of the interminable 310/9 BC, thereby duplicating the facts of the engagement that had taken place shortly before [south of] the Ciminian Forest and had led to the truces with the centres of northern Etruria” (my translation). 
   

If this is a doublet of Fabius’ “famous’ battle, then it follows that Fabius’ triumph was awarded immediately after the victory that led to the agreement of 30 year truces with Arretium, Cortona and Perusia.  (I return to the subject of Fabius’ triumph below).

In order to explore this further, we might look again at Livy’s account of the circumstances in which Papirius had been appointed dictator just before this battle.  According to Livy:

1. “... great the alarm [was] created in Rome by Fabius' expedition through the Ciminian forest.  This was matched by] the pleasure felt by the Samnites when they heard of it ..., [until] they reflected that fortune might transfer the glory of [winning] the Roman war from the Samnites to the Etruscans.  So. they concentrated their whole strength:
   

2. ✴on crushing Marcius; or,
   

3. ✴if he did not give them a chance of fighting, to march through the country of the Marsi and Sabines into Etruria.
   

4. [In the event], Marcius met them [at an unspecified location], and the battle was fiercely contested on both sides, but without a decision being reached.  However, ... , the report gained ground that the Romans had been worsted ... and, .... [that] Marcius himself was wounded. These reverses ... were further exaggerated in the telling, and the Senate...  determined on the appointment of a  dictator (‘History of Rome’, 9: 38: 4-10).
   

In short, Papirius was appointed as dictator at a moment when (at least according to Livy or his sources) the Romans feared a simultaneous attack by the Samnites and the Etruscans.  There are interesting parallels here with Livy’s account of the appointment of Postumius as dictator in 431 BC:

1. “After a levy had been raised under the lex sacrata ,... the armies of the Aequi and the Volsci]  advanced and joined forces joined forces on the mons Algidus,  ... The reports of this increased the alarm in Rome.  In view of the fact that these two nations, after their numerous defeats. were now renewing the war with greater energy than they had ever done before and that a considerable number of the Romans of military age had been carried off by the epidemic, the Senate decided upon the nomination of a dictator”, (‘History of Rome’, 4: 26: 4-6).
   

Postumius orchestrated what proved to be the Romans’ definitive victory over the the Aequi and the Volsci and:

1. “After placing the consul [Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus] in command of the camp, he entered Rome in triumph and then laid down his dictatorship”, (‘History of Rome’, 4: 29: 4).
   

It seems to me that later admirers of Papirius might well have developed their account of Papirius’ dictatorship of 310/9 BC on that of Postumius in 431 BC: if so, then they might well have had him rescuing Rome from two armies that had been raised under leges sacratae:

1. ✴the Etruscan army mustered at (?) the lacus Vadimonis; and
   

2. ✴as we shall see, a Samnite army mustered at (?) Longula.