The state of peace with the Etruscans ever since the taking of the city by the Gauls is the more surprising, since the two nations up to that time had struggled against each other with a vehemence and an exertion, such as never had been manifested in the conduct of the Latin wars. During the first half century after the expulsion of the kings it was the Etruscan wars, which brought Rome down more than any others; and the destruction of one of the great Etruscan towns and the possession of its whole territory, as well as the alienation of another allied city, Capua, were occasions which might have induced even a peaceful nation, which the Etruscans in former times by no means appear to have been, to seize every opportunity for recovering what was lost: and those wounds were still quite fresh, when Rome's fall and weakness gave the greatest hopes. Yet all their attempts are confined to the attack upon Sutrium and Nepete, four years after the taking of Rome; and this war is carried on so feebly, that it is clear, that it can only have been the enterprise of a single town, the neighbouring Volsinii. Just as little do the Romans repeat those campaigns against Volsinii, which previous to the Gallic calamity had to overcome such few difficulties; and it is only in the last years of the fourth century that a war arises with any of the Etruscan people and then with the Tarquinians alone; for the Faliscans were Æquians.