In particular, the Roman cavalry had recently been augmented by the addition of ten new turmae of equites from among the Albans who now dwelt in Rome.
[1] According to the Fasti Triumphales, Rome's fourth king, Ancus Marcius celebrated a triumph for a victory over the Sabines and the Veientes in the seventh century BC.
Tarquinius, believing Rome's military weakness lay in its lack of horsemen, doubled the number of the equites.
The Romans, desiring to cut off the enemy's means of escape, sent rafts of burning logs down the Anio to destroy the bridge over the river by fire.
Some of the fleeing Sabines drowned in the Anio; their arms drifted down the river into the Tiber and past Rome, and the Romans recognised this as a sign of victory even before word of the outcome of the battle arrived in the city.
He firstly piled up and burnt the spoils he had vowed to Vulcan, and he sent back to Rome the prisoners and booty he had captured.
According to the historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, into this gap stepped Sextus Tarquinius (unless previously assassinated at Gabii), whose rape of Lucretia had been the event that triggered the revolution.
The Romans were victorious, and a triumph awarded to the consuls Marcus Valerius Volusus and Publius Postumius Tubertus.
Both Livy and Dionysius agree that it was during this war that that Attius Clausus, later known as Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis, moved from Sabinum to Rome, together with all of his relatives and clients, including approximately 500 fighting men.
Tarquin's plan was to launch a night attack on the camp of Valerius, filling in the ditch and scaling the wall.
However, a Sabine defector and prisoners brought in by a Roman cavalry patrol informed Valerius of the enemy plan.
In hindsight Tarquin might have guessed the danger from the lack of opposition to his inadvertently noisy operations and the total deficit of sentinels.
The Roman maniples were in fact in formation and waiting in the intervallum around the inner perimeter of the castra, invisible in the total blackness.
The moon suddenly rising, the Roman troops and the piles of slain were visible to the Sabines, whose reaction was to drop their weapons and run.
As the ambush was no longer a surprise the Roman troops all shouted together, which was the prearranged signal to Lucretius's men on the hill.
[6] Livy says simply that the consuls entered Sabinum, laid waste to the enemy territories, defeated them in battle, and returned to Rome in triumph.
[5] The Fasti triumphales only records one triumph, by the consul Valerius, being held in May, 504 BC, for victories over both the Sabines and the Veientes.
[7] In 495 BC a Sabine army marched into Roman territory, advancing as far as the river Anio, and plundering the rural areas.
Word of the invasion arrived at Rome, and immediately Aulus Postumius Albus Regillensis, the former dictator, led the cavalry to meet the enemy, and the consul Publius Servilius Priscus Structus departed shortly afterwards with the infantry.
[8] During the period of popular discontent in Rome which led to the First secessio plebis in 494 BC, each of the Volsci, Sabines and the Aequi took up arms at the same time.
[9][10] In 475 BC the Veientes together with Sabines commenced hostilities against Rome, only a year after the defeat of Veii in a previous war.
The forces of Veii then attacked from the city, but in some disorder, and a Roman cavalry charged routed the Veientes, giving Rome the overall victory.
[15] In the following year the Roman consuls Titus Numicius Priscus and Aulus Verginius Tricostus Caeliomontanus and their armies were sent against the Volsci and the Aequi respectively.