<P> According to Dionysius the war with the Sabines was won as follows . Tarquin's plan was to launch a night attack on the camp of Valerius, filling in the ditch and scaling the wall . The troops in Fidenae would exit the city and cover these operations against a possible attack by Lucretius . However, a Sabine defector and prisoners brought in by a Roman cavalry patrol informed Valerius of the enemy plan . Lucretius was soon advised . The attack came after midnight . The Sabines were allowed to fill the ditch and throw up brushwood ramps over the wall into a camp that seemed all too still . In hindsight Tarquin might have guessed the danger from the lack of opposition to his inadvertently noisy operations and the total deficit of sentinels . He took those circumstances to mean that the Romans were all sound asleep, a striking underestimation of his enemy . 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 . They could see enough to quietly kill all enemies who came over the wall . 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 . He sent out his cavalry, which drove the distracted Fidenates from their ambush . They were massacred by Lucretius' infantry coming up . The Sabine army dissolved into a rout of unarmed individuals . Of them 13500 were slain and 4200 taken captive . The battle was not over . Fidenae remained to be taken (see under Roman - Etruscan Wars). </P> <P> Livy says simply that the consuls entered Sabinum, laid waste to the enemy territories, defeated them in battle, and returned to Rome in triumph . 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 . </P> <P> According to the Fasti Trimphales, the consul Publius Postumius Tubertus celebrated an ovation for a victory over the Sabines on 3 April 503 BC, and on the following day his colleague Agrippa Menenius Lanatus celebrated a triumph, also for a victory over the Sabines . </P> <P> Livy reports that in 501 BC a scuffle occurred in Rome caused by a group of Sabine youths who, during the celebration of games in Rome, attempted to abduct a number of courtesans . Because also of the fear of a war with the Latins, Titus Lartius was made dictator . The Sabine ambassadors treated for peace, but the Romans refused, pointing to the continuous wars against Rome by the Sabines, and demanding that the Sabines pay restitution to Rome for the costs of the war . The Sabines refused, and war was declared, however it appears that no battle ensued . </P>

Who attacked rome to enact immediate retribution for the attack on the sabines