Volumnius was a beneficiary of the Conflict of the Orders, when, during a 200-year struggle, plebeians gradually gained political equality and the right to hold all such offices.
[1] The Lex Licinia Sextia of 367 BC had restored the consulship and sought to reserve one of the two consular offices for a plebeian, but in practice this failed to happen until the first election of Volumnius in 307.
Livy pointed out some discrepancies between his sources, noting that some annalists said that Romulea and Ferentium were taken by Quintus Fabius and that Publius Decius took only Murgantia, while others said that the towns were taken by the consuls of the year, and others still gave all the credit to Lucius Volumnius who, they said, had sole command in Samnium.
Almost all the Etruscan city-states voted for war, the nearest Umbrian tribes joined in and there were attempts to hire Gauls as auxiliaries.
Livy thought that Appius Claudius did not write the letter, but said that he wanted to send his colleague back to Samnium and felt that he ungratefully denied his need for help.
[6] Lucius Volumnius hurried back to Samnium because the proconsulships of Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius were about to expire.
The senate decided to establish the colonies of Minturnae on the mouth of the River Liris and Sinuessa further inland, in the former territory of the Ausoni.
Boccaccio says: "Beginning at that time, and for long thereafter, the temple of Plebeia Pudicitia was equal in sanctity to the altar of the patricians, since no one could offer a sacrifice in it unless she were of singular chastity and had had only one husband..."[8]