Brutus binds the people by oath, never to suffer any king to
reign
at Rome, obliges Tarquinius Collatinus, his colleague, to
resign
the consulship, and leave the state; beheads some young
noblemen,
and among the rest his own and his sister's sons, for a
conspiracy
to receive the kings into the city. In a war against the
Veientians
and Tarquiniensians, he engages in single combat with Aruns
the son
of Tarquin the Proud, and expires at the same time with his
adversary. The ladies mourn for him a whole year. The Capitol
dedicated. Porsena, king of Clusium, undertakes a war in
favour of
the Tarquins. Bravery of Horatius Cocles, and of Mucius.
Porsena
concludes a peace on the receipt of hostages. Conduct of
Cloelia.
Ap. Claudius removes from the country of the Sabines to Rome:
for
this reason the Claudian tribe is added to the former number,
which
by this means are increased to twenty-one. A. Posthumius the
dictator defeats at the lake Regillus Tarquin the Proud,
making war
upon the Romans with an army of Latins. Secession of the
commons to
the Sacred Mount; brought back by Menenius Agrippa. Five
tribunes
of the people created. Corioli taken by C. Martius; from that
he is
surnamed Coriolanus. Banishment and subsequent conduct of C.
M.
Coriolanus. The Agrarian law first made. Sp. Cassius condemned
and
put to death. Oppia, a vestal virgin, buried alive for
incontinence. The Fabian family undertake to carry on that war
at
their own cost and hazard, against the Veientians, and for
that
purpose send out three hundred and six men in arms, who were
all
cut off. Ap. Claudius the consul decimates his army because he
had
been unsuccessful in the war with the Veientians, by their
refusing
to obey orders. An account of the wars with the Volscians,
Æquians,
and Veientians, and the contests of the fathers with the
commons.
1. The affairs, civil and military, of the Roman people,
henceforward free, their annual magistrates, and the sovereignty of the
laws, more powerful than that of men, I shall now detail.—The haughty
insolence of the late king had caused this liberty to be the more
welcome: for the former kings reigned in such a manner that they all in
succession might be not undeservedly set down as founders of the parts,
at least of the city, which they added as new residences for the
population augmented by themselves. Nor is there a doubt but that the
very same Brutus who earned so much glory for expelling this haughty
monarch, would have done so to the greatest injury of the public weal,
if, through an over-hasty desire of liberty, he had wrested the kingdom
from any of the preceding kings. For what would have been the
consequence if that rabble of shepherds and strangers, fugitives from
their own countries, having, under the protection of an inviolable
asylum, found liberty, or at least impunity, uncontrolled by the dread
of regal authority, had begun to be distracted by tribunician storms,
and to engage in contests with the fathers in a strange city, before
the pledges of wives and children, and love of the very soil, to which
it requires a length of time to become habituated, had united their
affections. Their affairs not yet matured would have been destroyed by
discord, which the tranquil moderation of the government so cherished,
and by proper nourishment brought to such perfection, that, their
strength being now developed, they were able to produce the wholesome
fruits of liberty. But the origin of liberty you may date from this
period, rather because the consular authority was made annual, than
that any diminution was made from the kingly prerogative. The first
consuls had all their privileges and ensigns of authority, only care
was taken that the terror might not appear doubled, by both having the
fasces at the same time. Brutus was, with the consent of his colleague,
first attended by the fasces, who had not been a more zealous assertor
of liberty than he was afterwards its guardian. First of all he bound
over the people, whilst still enraptured with their newly-acquired
liberty, by an oath that they would suffer no one to be king in Rome,
lest afterwards they might be perverted by the importunities or bribes
of the royal family. Next in order, that the fulness of the house might
produce more of strength in the senate, he filled up the number of the
senators, diminished by the king's murders, to the amount of three
hundred, having elected the principal men of the equestrian rank; and
from thence it is said the custom was derived of summoning into the
senate both those who were patres and those who were conscripti.[65]
Forsooth they styled those who were elected into the new senate
Conscripti. It is wonderful how much that contributed to the concord of
the state, and to attach the affection of the commons to the
patricians.
[Footnote 65: All were called Patres conscripti. Scil. Patres
et Conscripti, the conjunction being omitted. Nieb. i. p. 517.]
2. Then attention was paid to religious matters, and as some part of
the public worship had been performed by the kings in person, that they
might not be missed in any respect, they elect a king of the
sacrifices. This office they made subject to the pontiff, that honour
being added to the name might be no infringement on their liberty,
which was now their principal care. And I know not whether by fencing
it on every side to excess, even in the most trivial matters, they may
not have exceeded bounds. For when there was nothing else to offend,
the name of one of the consuls became an object of dislike to the
state. “That the Tarquinii had been too much habituated to sovereignty;
Priscus first commenced; that Servius Tullus reigned next; that though
an interval thus intervened, that Tarquinius Superbus, not losing sight
of the kingdom as the property of another, had reclaimed it by crime
and violence, as the hereditary right of his family. That Superbus
being expelled, the government was in the hands of Collatinus: that the
Tarquinii knew not how to live in a private station; the name pleased
them not; that it was dangerous to liberty.”—Such discourses were at
first gradually circulated through the entire state by persons sounding
their dispositions; and the people, now excited by jealousy, Brutus
convenes to a meeting. There first of all he recites the people's oath:
“that they would suffer no one to be king, nor any thing to be in Rome
whence danger might result to liberty. That it ought to be maintained
with all their might, and nothing that could tend that way ought to be
overlooked; he said it with reluctance, for the sake of the individual;
and would not say it, did not his affection for the commonwealth
predominate; that the people of Rome do not believe that entire liberty
has been recovered; that the regal family, the regal name, was not only
in the state but even in the government; that was unfavourable, that
was injurious to liberty. Do you, L. Tarquinius,” says he, “do you, of
your own accord, remove this apprehension. We remember, we own it, you
expelled the royal family; complete your kindness; take hence the royal
name—your property your fellow citizens shall not only restore you, by
my advice, but if any thing is wanting they will generously supply.
Depart in amity. Relieve the state from a dread which is perhaps
groundless. So firmly are they persuaded in mind that only with the
Tarquinian race will kingly power depart hence.” Amazement at so
extraordinary and sudden an occurrence at first impeded the consul's
utterance; then, when he was commencing to speak, the chief men of the
state stand around him, and by many importunities urge the same
request. Others indeed had less weight with him. After Sp. Lucretius,
superior in age and rank, his father-in-law besides, began to try
various methods, by entreating and advising alternately, that he would
suffer himself to be prevailed on by the general feeling of the state,
the consul, apprehending lest hereafter these same things might befall
him, when again in a private station, together with loss of property
and other additional disgrace, he resigned his consulship; and removing
all his effects to Lavinium, he withdrew from the state.[66] Brutus,
according to a decree of the senate, proposed to the people, that all
the family of the Tarquins should be banished from Rome; and in an
assembly by centuries he elected P. Valerius, with whose assistance he
had expelled the kings for his colleague.
[Footnote 66: Collatinus is supposed to have earned the odium of the
people, and his consequent expulsion from Rome, by his endeavours to
save his nephews, the Aquillii, from punishment.]
3. Though nobody doubted that a war was impending from the Tarquins,
yet it broke out later than was universally expected; but liberty was
well nigh lost by treachery and fraud, a thing they had never
apprehended. There were, among the Roman youth, several young men of no
mean families, who, during the regal government, had pursued their
pleasures without any restraint; being of the same age with, and
companions of, the young Tarquins, and accustomed to live in princely
style. Longing for that licentiousness, now that the privileges of all
were equalized, they complained that the liberty of others has been
converted to their slavery: “that a king was a human being, from whom
you can obtain, where right, or where wrong may be necessary; that
there was room for favour and for kindness; that he could be angry, and
could forgive; that he knew the difference between a friend and an
enemy; that laws were a deaf, inexorable thing, more beneficial and
advantageous for the poor than the rich; that they allowed of no
relaxation or indulgence, if you transgress bounds; that it was a
perilous state, amid so so many human errors, to live solely by one's
integrity.” Whilst their minds were already thus discontented of their
own accord, ambassadors from the royal family come unexpectedly,
demanding restitution of their effects merely, without any mention of
return. After their application was heard in the senate, the
deliberation on it lasted for several days, (fearing) lest the
non-restitution might be a pretext for war, and the restitution a fund
and assistance for war. In the mean time the ambassadors were planning
different schemes; openly demanding the property, they secretly
concerted measures for recovering the throne, and soliciting them as if
for the object which appeared to be under consideration, they sound
their feelings; to those by whom their proposals were favourably
received they give letters from the Tarquins, and confer with them
about admitting the royal family into the city secretly by night.
4. The matter was first intrusted to brothers of the name of
Vitellii and those of the name of Aquilii. A sister of the Vitellii had
been married to Brutus the consul, and the issue of that marriage were
young men, Titus and Tiberius; these also their uncles admit into a
participation of the plot: several young noblemen also were taken in as
associates, the memory of whose names has been lost from distance of
time. In the mean time, when that opinion had prevailed in the senate,
which recommended the giving back of the property, and the ambassadors
made use of this as a pretext for delay in the city, because they had
obtained from the consuls time to procure modes of conveyance, by which
they might convey away the effects of the royal family; all this time
they spend in consulting with the conspirators, and by pressing they
succeed in having letters given to them for the Tarquins. For otherwise
how were they to believe that the accounts brought by the ambassadors
on matters of such importance were not idle? The letters, given to be a
pledge of their sincerity, discovered the plot; for when, the day
before the ambassadors set out to the Tarquins, they had supped by
chance at the house of the Vitellii, and the conspirators there in
private discoursed much together concerning their new design, as is
natural, one of the slaves, who had already perceived what was going
on, overheard their conversation; but waited for the occasion when the
letters should be given to the ambassadors, the detection of which
would prove the transaction; when he perceived that they were given, he
laid the whole affair before the consuls. The consuls, having left
their home to seize the ambassadors and conspirators, crushed the whole
affair without any tumult; particular care being taken of the letters,
lest they should escape them. The traitors being immediately thrown
into chains, a little doubt was entertained respecting the ambassadors,
and though they deserved to be considered as enemies, the law of
nations however prevailed.
5. The question concerning the restitution of the tyrants' effects,
which the senate had formerly voted, came again under consideration.
The fathers, fired with indignation, expressly forbad them either to be
restored or confiscated. They were given to be rifled by the people,
that after being made participators in the royal plunder, they might
lose for ever all hopes of a reconciliation with the Tarquins. A field
belonging to them, which lay between the city and the Tiber, having
been consecrated to Mars, has been called the Campus Martius. It
happened that there was a crop of corn upon it ready to be cut down,
which produce of the field, as they thought it unlawful to use, after
it was reaped, a great number of men carried the corn and straw in
baskets, and threw them into the Tiber, which then flowed with shallow
water, as is usual in the heat of summer; that thus the heaps of corn
as it stuck in the shallows became settled when covered over with mud:
by these and the afflux of other things, which the river happened to
bring thither, an island was formed by degrees. Afterwards I believe
that mounds were added, and that aid was afforded by art, that a
surface so well raised might be firm enough for sustaining temples and
porticoes. After plundering the tyrants' effects, the traitors were
condemned and capital punishment inflicted. Their punishment was the
more remarkable, because the consulship imposed on the father the
office of punishing his own children, and him who should have been
removed as a spectator, fortune assigned as the person to exact the
punishment. Young men of the highest quality stood tied to a stake; but
the consul's sons attracted the eyes of all the spectators from the
rest of the criminals, as from persons unknown; nor did the people pity
them more on account of the severity of the punishment, than the horrid
crime by which they had deserved it. “That they, in that year
particularly, should have brought themselves to betray into the hands
of Tarquin, formerly a proud tyrant, and now an exasperated exile,
their country just delivered, their father its deliverer, the consulate
which took its rise from the family of the Junii, the fathers, the
people, and whatever belonged either to the gods or the citizens of
Rome.”[67] The consuls seated themselves in their tribunal, and the
lictors, being despatched to inflict punishment, strip them naked, beat
them with rods, and strike off their heads. Whilst during all this
time, the father, his looks and his countenance, presented a touching
spectacle,[68] the feelings of the father bursting forth occasionally
during the office of superintending the public execution. Next after
the punishment of the guilty, that there might be a striking example in
either way for the prevention of crime, a sum of money was granted out
of the treasury as a reward to the discoverer; liberty also and the
rights of citizenship were granted him. He is said to have been the
first person made free by the Vindicta; some think even that the term
vindicta is derived from him. After him it was observed as a rule, that
those who were set free in this manner were supposed to be admitted to
the rights of Roman citizens.[69]
[Footnote 67: Niebuhr will have it that Brutus punished his children
by his authority as a father, and that there was no appeal to the
people from the father. See Nieb. i. p. 488.]
[Footnote 68: Animo patris, the strength of his mind, though
that of a father, being even more conspicuous, &c. So Drakenborch
understands the passage,—this sternness of mind, he says, though he
was their father, was a more remarkable spectacle than his stern
countenance. This character of Brutus, as inferrible from the words
thus interpreted, coincides with that given of him by Dionysius and
others. I prefer understanding the passage with Crevier, scil. symptoms
of paternal affection to his children displaying themselves during the
discharge of his duty in superintending the public punishment inflicted
on them.]
[Footnote 69: Previously, by the institution of Servius, only such
manumitted slaves were admitted to the rights of citizenship as were
registered by their masters in the census.]
6. On these things being announced to him, as they had occurred,
Tarquin, inflamed not only with grief for the frustration of such great
hopes, but with hatred and resentment also, when he saw that the way
was blocked up against stratagem, considering that he should have
recourse to war openly, went round as a suppliant to the cities of
Etruria, “that they should not suffer him, sprung from themselves, of
the same blood, exiled and in want, lately in possession of so great a
kingdom, to perish before their eyes, with the young men his sons. That
others had been invited to Rome from foreign lands to the throne; that
he, a king, extending the Roman empire by his arms, was driven out by
those nearest to him by a villanous conspiracy; that they had by
violence divided the parts among themselves, because no one individual
among them was deemed sufficiently deserving of the kingdom; that they
had given up his effects to the people to be pillaged by them, that no
one might be free from that guilt. That he was desirous to recover his
country and his kingdom, and to punish his ungrateful subjects. That
they should bring succour and aid him; that they might also revenge the
injuries done to them of old, their legions so often slaughtered, their
land taken from them.” These arguments prevailed on the people of Veii,
and with menaces they declare that now at least, under the conduct of a
Roman general, their former disgrace should be wiped off, and what they
had lost in war should be recovered. His name and relation to them
induced the people of Tarquinii to take part with him; it seemed an
honour that their countrymen should reign at Rome. Therefore the two
armies of these two states followed Tarquin in order to recover his
kingdom, and to take vengeance upon the Romans. When they entered the
Roman territories, the consuls marched to meet them. Valerius led up
the foot in a square battalion, and Brutus marched before with his
horse to reconnoitre (the enemy). Their cavalry likewise came up first;
Aruns, Tarquin's son, commanded it; the king himself followed with the
legions. Aruns, when he knew at a distance by the lictors that it was a
consul, and on coming nigher discovered for certain that it was Brutus
by his face, all inflamed with rage, he cried out, “There is the
villain who has banished us from our native country! see how he rides
in state adorned with the ensigns of our dignity! now assist me, gods,
the avengers of kings.” He put spurs to his horse and drove furiously
against the consul. Brutus perceived the attack made on him; as it was
honourable in these days for the generals to engage in combat, he
eagerly offered himself to the combat. They encountered one another
with such furious animosity, neither mindful of protecting his own
person, provided he could wound his adversary; so that both, transfixed
through the buckler by the blow from the opposite direction, fell
lifeless from their horses, entangled together by the two spears. The
engagement between the rest of the horse commenced at the same time,
and soon after the foot came up. There they fought with doubtful
success, and as it were with equal advantage, and the victory doubtful.
The right wings of both armies were victorious and the left worsted.
The Veientians, accustomed to be discomfited by the Roman soldiers,
were routed and put to flight. The Tarquinienses, who were a new enemy,
not only stood their ground, but even on their side obliged the Romans
to give way.
7. After the issue of this battle, so great a terror seized Tarquin
and the Etrurians, that both the armies, the Veientian and Tarquinian,
giving up the matter as impracticable, departed to their respective
homes. They annex strange incidents to this battle,—that in the
silence of the next night a loud voice was emitted from the Arsian
wood; that it was believed to be the voice of Silvanus: these words
were spoken, “that more of the Etrurians by one[70] had fallen in the
battle; that the Roman was victorious in the war.” Certainly the Romans
departed thence as victors, the Etrurians as vanquished. For as soon as
it was light, and not one of the enemy was now to be seen, P. Valerius
the consul collected the spoils, and returned thence in triumph to
Rome. His colleague's funeral he celebrated with all the magnificence
then possible. But a far greater honour to his death was the public
sorrow, singularly remarkable in this particular, that the matrons
mourned him a year,[71] as a parent, because he had been so vigorous an
avenger of violated chastity. Afterwards the consul who survived, so
changeable are the minds of the people, from great popularity,
encountered not only jealousy, but suspicion, originating in an
atrocious charge. Report represented that he aspired to the crown,
because he had not substituted a colleague in the room of Brutus, and
was building a house on the summit of Mount Velia, that there would be
there an impregnable fortress on an elevated and well-fortified place.
When these things, thus circulated and believed, affected the consul's
mind with indignation, having summoned the people to an assembly, he
mounts the rostrum, after lowering the fasces. It was a grateful sight
to the multitude that the insignia of authority were lowered to them,
and that an acknowledgment was made, that the majesty and power of the
people were greater than that of the consul. When they were called to
silence, Valerius highly extolled the good fortune of his colleague,
“who after delivering his country had died vested with the supreme
power, fighting bravely in defence of the commonwealth, when his glory
was in its maturity, and not yet converted into jealousy. That he
himself, having survived his glory, now remained as an object of
accusation and calumny; that from the liberator of his country he had
fallen to the level of the Aquilii and Vitellii. Will no merit then,
says he, ever be so tried and approved by you, as to be exempted from
the attacks of suspicion. Could I apprehend that myself, the bitterest
enemy of kings, should fall under the charge of a desire of royalty?
Could I believe that, even though I dwelt in the very citadel and the
Capitol, that I could be dreaded by my fellow citizens? Does my
character among you depend on so mere a trifle? Is my integrity so
slightly founded, that it makes more matter where I may be, than what I
may be. The house of Publius Valerius shall not stand in the way of
your liberty, Romans; the Velian mount shall be secure to you. I will
not only bring down my house into the plain, but I will build it
beneath the hill, that you may dwell above me a suspected citizen. Let
those build on the Velian mount to whom liberty is more securely
intrusted than to P. Valerius.” Immediately all the materials were
brought down to the foot of the Velian mount, and the house was built
at the foot of the hill where the temple of Victory now stands.
[Footnote 70: Uno plus Tuscorum. [Greek: Hôs heni pleious en
tê machê tethnêkasi Tyrrhênôn ê Rhômaiôn].]
[Footnote 71: A year, scil. of ten months.]
8. After this laws were passed, which not only cleared him of all
suspicions of aiming at the regal power, but had so contrary a
tendency, that they made him popular. From thence he was surnamed
Poplicola. Above all, the laws regarding an appeal to the people
against the magistrates, and that devoting the life and property of any
one who should form a design of assuming regal authority, were grateful
to the people. And after he had passed these while sole consul, so that
the merit in them was exclusively his own, he then held an assembly for
the election of a new colleague. Sp. Lucretius was elected consul, who
being very old, and his strength being inadequate to discharge the
consular duties, dies in a few days. M. Horatius Pulvillus was
substituted in the room of Lucretius. In some old writers I find no
mention of Lucretius as consul; they place Horatius immediately after
Brutus. I believe that, because no important event signalized his
consulate, it has been unnoticed. Jupiter's temple in the Capitol had
not yet been dedicated; the consuls Valerius and Horatius cast lots
which should dedicate it. It fell by lot to Horatius. Publicola
departed to the war of the Veientians. The friends of Valerius were
more annoyed than they should have been, that the dedication of so
celebrated a temple should be given to Horatius.[72] Having endeavoured
by every means to prevent that, when all other attempts had been tried
in vain, when the consul was now holding the door-post during his
offering of prayer to the gods, they suddenly announce to him the
shocking intelligence that his son was dead, and that his family being
defiled[73] he could not dedicate the temple. Whether he did not
believe the fact, or possessed such great firmness of mind, is neither
handed down for certain, nor is a conjecture easy. Diverted from his
purpose at this intelligence in no other way than to order that the
body should be buried,[74] he goes through the prayer, and dedicates
the temple. These were the transactions at home and abroad the first
year after the expulsion of the kings. After this P. Valerius, a second
time, and Titus Lucretius, were elected consuls.
[Footnote 72: The Horatii being of the minores patres. Nieb.
i. p. 533.]
[Footnote 73: Funesta familia, as having in it an unburied
corpse. Thus Misenus, whilst unburied, incestat funere classem.
Virg. Æn. vi. 150.]
[Footnote 74: He here rejected the omen. Cic. i. 7, 14.; auguria aut
oblativa sunt, quæ non poscuntur, aut impetrativa, quæ
optata veniunt. The latter could not be rejected.]
9. By this time the Tarquins had fled to Lars[75] Porsena, king of
Clusium. There, mixing advice with their entreaties, “They sometimes
besought him not to suffer them, who were descended from the Etrurians,
and of the same blood and name, to live in exile and poverty; at other
times they advised him not to let this commencing practice of expelling
kings pass unpunished. That liberty has charms enough in itself; and
unless kings defend their crowns with as much vigour as the people
pursue their liberty, that the highest must be reduced to a level with
the lowest; there will be nothing exalted, nothing distinguished above
the rest; and hence there must be an end of regal government, the most
beautiful institution both among gods and men.” Porsena, thinking that
it would be an honour to the Tuscans both that there should be a king
at Rome, and especially one of the Etrurian nation, marched towards
Rome with a hostile army. Never before on any other occasion did so
great terror seize the senate; so powerful was the state of Clusium at
the time, and so great the renown of Porsena. Nor did they only dread
their enemies, but even their own citizens, lest the common people,
through excess of fear, should, by receiving the Tarquins into the
city, accept peace even if purchased with slavery. Many conciliatory
concessions were therefore granted to the people by the senate during
that period. Their attention, in the first place, was directed to the
markets, and persons were sent, some to the Volscians, others to Cumæ,
to buy up corn. The privilege[76] of selling salt, also, because it was
farmed at a high rent, was all taken into the hands of government,[77]
and withdrawn from private individuals; and the people were freed from
port-duties and taxes; that the rich, who were adequate to bearing the
burden, should contribute; that the poor paid tax enough if they
educated their children. This indulgent care of the fathers accordingly
kept the whole state in such concord amid the subsequent severities in
the siege and famine, that the highest abhorred the name of king not
more than the lowest; nor was any single individual afterwards so
popular by intriguing practices, as the whole senate then was by their
excellent government.
[Footnote 75: Lar. This is generally understood to have been
a title of honour equivalent to our term Lord.]
[Footnote 76: Arbitrium signifies not only the “privilege,”
but the “rent” paid for such privilege, or right of monopoly.]
[Footnote 77: Was all taken into the hands of government. In
my version of this passage I have conformed to the emendation of the
original first proposed by Gronovius, and admitted by Stroth and
Bekker; scil. in publicum omne sumptum.—They did not let these
salt-works by auction, but took them into their own management, and
carried them on by means of persons employed to work on the public
account. These salt-works, first established at Ostia by Ancus, were,
like other public property, farmed out to the publicans. As they had a
high rent to pay, the price of salt was raised in proportion; but now
the patricians, to curry favour with the plebeians, did not let the
salt-pits to private tenants, but kept them in the hands of public
labourers, to collect all the salt for the public use; and appointed
salesmen to retail it to the people at a cheaper rate. See Stocker's
ed.]
10. Some parts seemed secured by the walls, others by the
interposition of the Tiber. The Sublician bridge well nigh afforded a
passage to the enemy, had there not been one man, Horatius Cocles,
(that defence the fortune of Rome had on that day,) who, happening to
be posted on guard at the bridge, when he saw the Janiculum taken by a
sudden assault, and that the enemy were pouring down from thence in
full speed, and that his own party, in terror and confusion, were
abandoning their arms and ranks, laying hold of them one by one,
standing in their way, and appealing to the faith of gods and men, he
declared, “That their flight would avail them nothing if they deserted
their post; if they passed the bridge and left it behind them, there
would soon be more of the enemy in the Palatium and Capitol than in the
Janiculum; for that reason he advised and charged them to demolish the
bridge, by their sword, by fire, or by any means whatever; that he
would stand the shock of the enemy as far as could be done by one man.”
He then advances to the first entrance of the bridge, and being easily
distinguished among those who showed their backs in retreating from the
fight, facing about to engage the foe hand to hand, by his surprising
bravery he terrified the enemy. Two indeed a sense of shame kept with
him, Sp. Lartius and T. Herminius, men eminent for their birth, and
renowned for their gallant exploits. With them he for a short time
stood the first storm of the danger, and the severest brunt of the
battle. But as they who demolished the bridge called upon them to
retire, he obliged them also to withdraw to a place of safety on a
small portion of the bridge still left. Then casting his stern eyes
round all the officers of the Etrurians in a threatening manner, he
sometimes challenged them singly, sometimes reproached them all; “the
slaves of haughty tyrants, who, regardless of their own freedom, came
to oppress the liberty of others.” They hesitated for a considerable
time, looking round one at the other, to commence the fight; shame then
put the army in motion, and a shout being raised, they hurl their
weapons from all sides on their single adversary; and when they all
stuck in the shield held before him, and he with no less obstinacy kept
possession of the bridge with firm step, they now endeavoured to thrust
him down from it by one push, when at once the crash of the falling
bridge, at the same time a shout of the Romans raised for joy at having
completed their purpose, checked their ardour with sudden panic. Then
Cocles says, “Holy father Tiberinus, I pray that thou wouldst receive
these arms, and this thy soldier, in thy propitious stream.” Armed as
he was, he leaped into the Tiber, and amid showers of darts hurled on
him, swam across safe to his party, having dared an act which is likely
to obtain more fame than credit with posterity. The state was grateful
towards such valour; a statue was erected to him in the comitium, and
as much land was given to him as he ploughed around in one day. The
zeal of private individuals also was conspicuous among the public
honours. For, amid the great scarcity, each person contributed
something to him according to his supply at home, depriving himself of
his own support.
11. Porsena being repulsed in his first attempt, having changed his
plans from a siege to a blockade, after he had placed a garrison in
Janiculum, pitched his camp in the plain and on the banks of the Tiber.
Then sending for boats from all parts, both to guard the river, so as
not to suffer any provision to be conveyed to Rome, and also to
transport his soldiers across the river, to plunder different places as
occasion required; in a short time he so harassed the entire country
round Rome, that not only every thing else from the country, but even
their cattle, was driven into the city, and nobody durst venture thence
without the gates. This liberty of action was granted to the Etrurians,
not more through fear than from policy; for Valerius, intent on an
opportunity of falling unawares upon a number of them, and when
straggling, a remiss avenger in trifling matters, reserved the weight
of his vengeance for more important occasions. Wherefore, to decoy the
pillagers, he ordered his men to drive their cattle the next day out at
the Esquiline gate, which was farthest from the enemy, presuming that
they would get intelligence of it, because during the blockade and
famine some slaves would turn traitors and desert. Accordingly they
were informed of it by a deserter, and parties more numerous than
usual, in hopes of seizing the entire body, crossed the river. Then P.
Valerius commanded T. Herminius, with a small body of men, to lie
concealed two miles from the city, on the Gabian road, and Sp. Lartius,
with a party of light-armed troops, to post himself at the Colline gate
till the enemy should pass by, and then to throw himself in their way
so that there may be no return to the river. The other consul, T.
Lucretius, marched out of the Nævian gate with some companies of
soldiers; Valerius himself led some chosen cohorts down from the
Coelian mount, and they were first descried by the enemy. Herminius,
when he perceived the alarm, rose out of the ambush and fell upon the
rear of the Tuscans, who had charged Valerius. The shout was returned
on the right and left, from the Colline gate on the one hand, and the
Nævian on the other. By this stratagem the plunderers were put to the
sword between both, they not being a match in strength for fighting,
and all the ways being blocked up to prevent escape: this put an end to
the Etrurians strolling about in so disorderly a manner.
12. Nevertheless the blockade continued, and there was a scarcity of
corn, with a very high price. Porsena entertained a hope that by
continuing the siege he should take the city, when C. Mucius, a young
nobleman, to whom it seemed a disgrace that the Roman people, when
enslaved under kings, had never been confined within their walls in any
war, nor by any enemy, should now when a free people be blocked up by
these very Etrurians whose armies they had often routed, thinking that
such indignity should be avenged by some great and daring effort, at
first designed of his own accord to penetrate into the enemy's camp.
Then, being afraid if he went without the permission of the consuls, or
the knowledge of any one, he might be seized by the Roman guards and
brought back as a deserter, the circumstances of the city at the time
justifying the charge, he went to the senate: “Fathers,” says he, “I
intend to cross the Tiber, and enter the enemy's camp, if I can; not as
a plunderer, or as an avenger in our turn of their devastations. A
greater deed is in in my mind, if the gods assist.” The senate approved
his design. He set out with a sword concealed under his garment. When
he came thither, he stationed himself among the thickest of the crowd,
near the king's tribunal. There, when the soldiers were receiving their
pay, and the king's secretary sitting by him, dressed nearly in the
same style, was busily engaged, and to him they commonly addressed
themselves, being afraid to ask which of them was Porsena, lest by not
knowing the king he should discover on himself, as fortune blindly
directed the blow, he killed the secretary instead of the king. When,
as he was going off thence where with his bloody dagger he had made his
way through the dismayed multitude, a concourse being attracted at the
noise, the king's guards immediately seized and brought him back
standing alone before the king's tribunal; even then, amid such menaces
of fortune, more capable of inspiring dread than of feeling it, “I am,”
says he, “a Roman citizen, my name is Caius Mucius; an enemy, I wished
to slay an enemy, nor have I less of resolution to suffer death than I
had to inflict it. Both to act and to suffer with fortitude is a
Roman's part. Nor have I alone harboured such feelings towards you;
there is after me a long train of persons aspiring to the same honour.
Therefore, if you choose it, prepare yourself for this peril, to
contend for your life every hour; to have the sword and the enemy in
the very entrance of your pavilion; this is the war which we the Roman
youth declare against you; dread not an army in array, nor a battle;
the affair will be to yourself alone and with each of us singly.” When
the king, highly incensed, and at the same time terrified at the
danger, in a menacing manner, commanded fires to be kindled about him,
if he did not speedily explain the plots, which, by his threats, he had
darkly insinuated against him; Mucius said, “Behold me, that you may be
sensible of how little account the body is to those who have great
glory in view;” and immediately he thrusts his right hand into the fire
that was lighted for the sacrifice. When he continued to broil it as if
he had been quite insensible, the king, astonished at this surprising
sight, after he had leaped from his throne and commanded the young man
to be removed from the altar, says, “Be gone, having acted more like an
enemy towards thyself than me. I would encourage thee to persevere in
thy valour, if that valour stood on the side of my country. I now
dismiss you untouched and unhurt, exempted from the right of war.” Then
Mucius, as if making a return for the kindness, says, “Since bravery is
honoured by you, so that you have obtained by kindness that which you
could not by threats, three hundred of us, the chief of the Roman
youth, have conspired to attack you in this manner. It was my lot
first. The rest will follow, each in his turn, according as the lot
shall set him forward, unless fortune shall afford an opportunity of
you.”
13. Mucius being dismissed, to whom the cognomen of Scævola was
afterwards given, from the loss of his right hand, ambassadors from
Porsena followed him to Rome. The risk of the first attempt, from which
nothing had saved him but the mistake of the assailant, and the risk to
be encountered so often in proportion to the number of conspirators,
made so strong an impression upon him, that of his own accord he made
propositions of peace to the Romans. Mention was made to no purpose
regarding the restoration of the Tarquinii to the throne, rather
because he had been unable to refuse that to the Tarquinii, than from
not knowing that it would be refused to him by the Romans. The
condition of restoring their territory to the Veientians was obtained
by him, and the necessity of giving hostages in case they wished the
garrison to be withdrawn from the Janiculum was extorted from the
Romans. Peace being concluded on these terms, Porsena drew his troops
out of the Janiculum, and marched out of the Roman territories. The
fathers gave Mucius, as a reward of his valour, lands on the other side
of the Tiber, which were afterwards called the Mucian meadows. By this
honour paid to valour the women were excited to merit public
distinctions. As the camp of the Etrurians had been pitched not far
from the banks of the Tiber, a young lady named Clælia, one of the
hostages, deceiving her keepers, swam over the river, amidst the darts
of the enemy, at the head of a troop of virgins, and brought them all
safe to their relations. When the king was informed of this, at first
highly incensed, he sent deputies to Rome to demand the hostage Clælia;
that he did not regard the others; and afterwards, being changed into
admiration of her courage, he said, “that this action surpassed those
of Cocles and Mucius,” and declared, “as he would consider the treaty
as broken if the hostage were not delivered up, so, if given up, he
would send her back safe to her friends.” Both sides kept their faith:
the Romans restored their pledge of peace according to treaty; and with
the king of Etruria merit found not only security, but honour; and,
after making encomiums on the young lady, promised to give her, as a
present, half of the hostages, and that she should choose whom she
pleased. When they were all brought out, she is said to have pitched
upon the young boys below puberty, which was both consonant to maiden
delicacy, and by consent of the hostages themselves it was deemed
reasonable, that that age which was most exposed to injury should be
freed from the enemy's hand. The peace being re-established, the Romans
marked the uncommon instance of bravery in the woman, by an uncommon
kind of honour, an equestrian statue; (the statue representing) a lady
sitting on horseback was placed at the top of the Via Sacra.
14. Inconsistent with this so peaceful a departure of the Etrurian
king from the city, is the custom handed down from the ancients, and
which continues down to our times among other usages at public sales,
(I mean) that of selling the goods of king Porsena; the origin[78] of
which custom must either have occurred during the war, and was not
relinquished in peace, or it must have increased from a milder source
than the form of expression imports, of selling the goods in a hostile
manner. Of the accounts handed down, the most probable is, that
Porsena, on retiring from the Janiculum, made a present to the Romans
of his camp well stored with provisions conveyed from the neighbouring
and fertile fields of Etruria, the city being then exhausted by the
long siege; that this, lest it should be carried away in a hostile
manner, by the people being admitted in, was then sold, and called the
goods of Porsena, the expression rather importing gratitude for the
gift, than an auction of the king's property, which never even was in
the power of the Roman people. Porsena, after ending the Roman war,
that his army might not seem to have been led into these parts without
effecting any thing, sent his son Aruns with a part of his forces to
besiege Aricia. The matter not being expected, the Aricians were at
first terrified; afterwards assistance, which was sent for from the
people of Latium and Cumæ, inspired so much hope, that they ventured to
meet them in the field. At the commencement of the battle the Etrurians
attacked the Aricians so furiously, that they routed them at the first
onset. But the Cuman cohorts, opposing stratagem to force, moved off a
little to one side, and when the enemy were carried beyond them in
great disorder, they faced about and charged them in the rear. By this
means the Etrurians, when they had almost got the victory, were
enclosed and cut to pieces.[79] A very small part of them, having lost
their general, because they had no nearer refuge, came to Rome without
their arms, in the condition and with the air of suppliants. There they
were kindly received and provided with lodgings. When their wounds were
cured, many of them went home and told the kind hospitality they had
met with. Affection for their hosts and for the city detained many at
Rome; a place was assigned them to dwell in, which they have ever since
called the Tuscan Street.
[Footnote 78: The origin. Niebuhr mentions a more probable
one. See Nieb. i. p. 541; ii. p. 204.]
[Footnote 79: Niebuhr thinks, that from this defeat of the Etrurians
may be dated the commencement of the recovery of their liberty by the
Romans, and that the flight of the Roman hostages, the sale of
Porsena's goods, &c. were subsequent to it.]
15. Then P. Lucretius and P. Valerius Publicola were elected
consuls. This year ambassadors came from Porsena for the last time,
regarding the restoration of Tarquin to the throne. And when they were
answered, that the senate would send deputies to the king; some of the
principal persons of that order were forthwith despatched to represent
to him “that it was not because the answer could not have been given in
a few words, that the royal family would not be received, that select
members of the senate had been deputed to him, rather than an answer
given to his ambassadors at Rome; but (it was done) that all mention of
the matter might be put an end to for evermore, and that their minds
might not be disturbed amid so many mutual acts of kindness, by his
requiring what was adverse to the liberty of the Roman people, and by
their denying to him to whom they would willingly deny nothing, unless
they would submit to their own ruin. That the Roman people were not now
under a kingly government, but in a state of freedom, and were firmly
determined rather to open their gates to enemies than to kings. That it
was the wish of all, that their city might have the same period of
existence as their freedom in that city. Wherefore, if he wished Rome
to be safe, they entreated that he would suffer it to be free.” The
king, overcome by modesty, says, “Since it is your firm and fixed
resolve, I will neither tease you by repeatedly urging these same
subjects more frequently, nor will I disappoint the Tarquinii by
holding out hopes of aid which it is not in my power to give them;
whether they have need of peace, or of war, let them seek another place
from here for their exile, that nothing may disturb the peace between
you and me.” To these kind promises he added actions still more
friendly, for he delivered up the remainder of the hostages, and
restored to them the land of the Veientians, which had been taken from
them by the treaty concluded at Janiculum. Tarquin, all hopes of return
being now cut off, went to Tusculum to live in exile with his
son-in-law Mamilius Octavius. Thus the peace between Porsena and the
Romans was inviolably preserved.
16. M. Valerius and P. Posthumius were chosen consuls. This year war
was carried on successfully against the Sabines; the consuls received
the honour of a triumph. Upon this the Sabines made preparations for
war on a larger scale. To make head against them, and lest any sudden
danger might arise from Tusculum, (whence they suspected a war, though
it was not yet declared,) P. Valerius was created consul a fourth time,
and T. Lucretius a second time. A disturbance arising among the
Sabines, between the advisers of war and of peace, transferred from
thence some additional strength to the Romans. For Attus Clausus,
afterwards called at Rome Appius Claudius, when he himself, being an
adviser of peace, was hard put to it by those who abetted the war, and
was not a match for the faction, fled from Regillum to Rome,
accompanied by a great number of clients. The rights of citizenship and
land on the other side of the Anio were conferred on them. It was
called the old Claudian tribe, and was increased by the addition of
some tribesmen who had come from that country. Appius, being chosen
into the senate, was soon after advanced, to the highest dignity of
that order. The consuls having entered the territories of the Sabines
with a hostile army, after they had, both by laying waste their
country, and afterwards by defeating them in battle, so weakened the
power of the enemy, that they had no reason to dread their taking up
arms again for a long time, returned to Rome in triumph. The following
year, Agrippa Menenius and P. Posthumius being consuls, P. Valerius,
allowed by universal consent to be the ablest man in Rome, in the arts
both of peace and war, died in the height of glory, but so poor, that
means to defray the expenses of his funeral were wanting: he was buried
at the public charge. The matrons mourned for him as they had done for
Brutus. The same year two Latin colonies, Pometia and Cora, revolted to
the Auruncians. War was commenced against the Auruncians, and after
defeating a numerous army of them who boldly met the consuls entering
their frontiers, the whole Auruncian war was confined to Pometia. Nor,
after the battle was over, did they refrain from slaughter more than in
the heat of the action; for a greater number were slain than taken, and
the prisoners they put to death indiscriminately. Nor did the enemy, in
their resentment, spare even the three hundred hostages which they had
received. This year also the consuls triumphed at Rome.
17. The following consuls, Opiter Virginius and Sp. Cassius, first
endeavoured to take Pometia by storm, and afterwards by raising vineæ
and other works. But the Auruncians, prompted more by an irreconcilable
hatred against them, than induced by hopes of success, or by a
favourable opportunity, sallied out of the town, and though more of
them were armed with lighted torches than swords, filled all places
with fire and slaughter. After they had burnt down the vineæ, slain and
wounded many of the enemy, they were near killing one of the consuls,
who had been thrown from his horse and severely wounded (which of them
authors do not mention). Upon this they returned to Rome, foiled in
their object; the consul was left among many more who were wounded with
very uncertain hopes of his recovery. After a short time, sufficient
for curing their wounds and recruiting their army, they marched against
Pometia with redoubled fury and augmented strength. When, the vineæ
having been repaired and the other apparatus of war, the soldiers were
on the point of scaling the walls, the town surrendered. Yet though the
town had surrendered, the leading men of the Auruncians, with no less
cruelty than if it had been taken by assault, were beheaded
indiscriminately; the others who were colonists were sold by auction,
the town was razed, and the land sold. The consuls obtained a triumph
more from having severely gratified their revenge, than in consequence
of the importance of the war thus brought to a close.
18. The following year had Postumus Cominius and T. Lartius for
consuls. On this year, during the celebration of the games at Rome, as
some of the courtesans were being carried off by some of the Sabine
youth in a frolic, a mob having assembled, a scuffle ensued, and almost
a battle; and from this inconsiderable affair the whole nation seemed
inclined to a renewal of hostilities. Besides the dread of the Latin
war, this accession was further made to their fears; certain
intelligence was received that thirty different states had entered into
a confederacy against them, at the instigation of Octavius Mamilius.
While the city was perplexed amid this expectation of such important
events, mention was made for the first time of nominating a dictator.
But in what year or who the consuls[80] were in whom confidence was not
reposed, because they were of the Tarquinian faction, (for that also is
recorded,) or who was elected dictator for the first time, is not
satisfactorily established. Among the oldest writers however I find
that Titus Lartius was appointed the first dictator, and Spurius
Cassius master of the horse. They chose men of consular dignity, for so
the law, made for the election of a dictator, ordained. For this
reason, I am more inclined to believe that Lartius, who was of consular
rank, was annexed to the consuls as their director and master, rather
than Manius Valerius, the son of Marcus and grandson of Volesus, who
had not yet been consul. For, had they intended to choose a dictator
from that family in particular, they would much rather have chosen his
father, Marcus Valerius, a consular person, and a man of distinguished
merit. On the creation of the dictator first at Rome, when they saw the
axes carried before him, great awe struck the common people, so that
they became more submissive to obey orders. For neither was there now,
as under the consuls who possessed equal power, the assistance of one
of the two, nor was there appeal, nor was there any resource any where
but in attentive submission. The creation of a dictator at Rome
terrified the Sabines, and the more effectually, because they thought
he was created on their account.[81] Wherefore they sent ambassadors to
sue for peace, to whom, when earnestly entreating the dictator and
senate to pardon the young men's offence, an answer was given that the
young men could easily be forgiven, but not the old men, who
continually raised one war after another. Nevertheless they continued
to treat about a peace, and it would have been granted, if the Sabines
would bring themselves to make good the expenses incurred on the war
(for that was demanded). War was proclaimed; a tacit truce kept the
year quiet.
[Footnote 80: Nec quibus consulibus parum creditum sit, scil.
fides non habita fuerit. Arnold in his Roman Hist. considers this to
have been the true cause of creating a dictator.]
[Footnote 81: Eo magis quod propter se. From this one would
be disposed to suspect that the dictator was created to take on him the
management of war. See Nieb. p. 553, and Niebhr. Epit. by Twiss,
Append. p. 355.]
19. Servius Sulpicius and M. Tullius were consuls the next year:
nothing worth mentioning happened. Then T. Æbutius and C. Vetusius. In
their consulship, Fidenæ was besieged, Crustumeria taken, and Præneste
revolted from the Latins to the Romans. Nor was the Latin war, which
had been fomenting for several years, any longer deferred. A. Postumius
dictator, and T. Æbutius his master of the horse, marching with a
numerous army of horse and foot, met the enemy's forces at the lake
Regillus, in the territory of Tusculum, and, because it was heard that
the Tarquins were in the army of the Latins, their rage could not be
restrained, but they must immediately come to an engagement.
Accordingly the battle was more obstinate and fierce than usual. For
the generals were present not only to direct matters by their orders,
but even charged one another, exposing their own persons. And there was
hardly any of the principal officers of either side who came off
unwounded except the Roman dictator. As Postumius was drawing up his
men and encouraging them in the first line, Tarquinius Superbus, though
now enfeebled by age, spurred on his horse with great fury to attack
him; but being wounded in the side, he was carried off by a party of
his own men to a place of safety. In the other wing also, Æbutius,
master of the horse, had charged Octavius Mamilius; nor was his
approach unobserved by the Tusculan general, who also briskly spurred
on his horse to encounter him. And such was their impetuosity as they
advanced with hostile spears, that Æbutius was run through the arm and
Mamilius struck on the breast. The Latins received the latter into
their second line; but as Æbutius was not able to wield his lance with
his wounded arm, he retired from the battle. The Latin general, not in
the least discouraged by his wound, stirs up the fight; and because he
saw his own men begin to give ground, sent for a company of Roman
exiles to support them, commanded by Tarquin's son. This body, inasmuch
as they fought with greater fury from having been banished from their
country, and lost their estates, restored the battle for a short time.
20. When the Romans were beginning to give ground on that side, M.
Valerius, brother to Poplicola, having observed young Tarquin boldly
figuring away at the head of his exiles, fired with the renown of his
family, that the slaying of the princes might belong to the same family
whose glory their expulsion had been, clapped spurs to his horse, and
with his javelin presented made towards Tarquin. Tarquin retired from
his violent enemy into a battalion of his own men. As Valerius rushed
rashly into the line of the exiles, one of them ran him sideways
through the body, and as the horse was in no way retarded by the wound
of his rider, the expiring Roman fell to the ground, his arms falling
over him. Postumius the dictator, on seeing so distinguished a man
slain, the exiles advancing boldly in a body, and his own men
disheartened and giving ground, gives the signal to his own cohort, a
chosen body of men which he kept for the defence of his person, to
treat every Roman soldier whom they should see fly from the battle as
an enemy. Upon this the Romans, by reason of the danger on both sides,
turned from their flight against the enemy, and, the battle being
restored, the dictator's cohort now for the first time engaged in the
fight, and with fresh vigour and undaunted resolution falling on the
wearied exiles, cut them to pieces. Here another engagement took place
between the leading officers. The Latin general, on seeing the cohort
of the exiles almost surrounded by the Roman dictator, advanced in
haste to the front with some companies of the body of reserve. T.
Herminius, a lieutenant-general, having seen them moving in a body, and
well knowing Mamilius, distinguished from the rest by his armour and
dress, encountered the leader of the enemy with a force so much
superior to that wherewith the general of the horse had lately done,
that at one thrust he ran him through the side and slew him; and while
stripping the body of his enemy, he himself received a wound with a
javelin; and though brought back to the camp victorious, yet he died
during the first dressing of it. Then the dictator flies to the
cavalry, entreating them in the most pressing terms, as the foot were
tired out with fighting, to dismount from their horses and join the
fight. They obeyed his orders, dismounted, flew to the front, and
taking their post at the first line, cover themselves with their
targets. The infantry immediately recovered courage, when they saw the
young noblemen sustaining a share of the danger with them, the mode of
fighting being now assimilated. Thus at length were the Latins beaten
back, and their line giving way,[82] they retreated. The horses were
then brought up to the cavalry that they might pursue the enemy, and
the infantry likewise followed. On this, the dictator, omitting nothing
(that could conciliate) divine or human aid, is said to have vowed a
temple to Castor, and likewise to have promised rewards to the first
and second of the soldiers who should enter the enemy's camp. And such
was their ardour, that the Romans took the camp with the same
impetuosity wherewith they had routed the enemy in the field. Such was
the engagement at the lake Regillus. The dictator and master of the
horse returned to the city in triumph.
[Footnote 82: By giving up the advantage of their horses, and
forgetting their superiority of rank.]
21. For the next three years there was neither settled peace nor
open war. The consuls were Q. Clælius and T. Lartius. After them A.
Sempronius and M. Minucius. In their consulship, a temple was dedicated
to Saturn, and the Saturnalia appointed to be kept as a festival. Then
A. Postumius and T. Virginius were chosen consuls. In some authors I
find that the battle at the lake Regillus was not fought till this
year, and that A. Postumius, because the fidelity of his colleague was
suspected, laid down his office, and thereupon was created dictator.
Such great mistakes of dates perplex one with the history of these
times, the magistrates being arranged differently in different writers,
that you cannot determine what consuls succeeded certain consuls,[83]
nor in what particular year every remarkable action happened, by reason
of the antiquity, not only of the facts, but also of the historians.
Then Ap. Claudius and P. Servilius were elected consuls. This year was
remarkable for the news of Tarquin's death. He died at Cumæ, whither he
had fled to the tyrant Aristodemus, after the reduction of the power of
the Latins. The senate and people were elated by this news. But with
the senators their satisfaction was too extravagant, for by the chief
men among them oppression began to be practised on the people to whom
they had to that day been attentive to the utmost of their power. The
same year the colony which king Tarquin had sent to Signia was
recruited by filling up the number of the colonists. The tribes at Rome
were increased to twenty-one. And the temple of Mercury was dedicated
the fifteenth of May.
[Footnote 83: Qui consules secundum quosdam, who were the consuls
that came after certain consuls.]
22. During the Latin war, there had been neither peace nor war with
the nation of the Volscians; for both the Volscians had raised
auxiliary troops to send to the Latins had not so much expedition been
used by the Roman dictator, and the Roman employed this expedition that
he might not have to contend in one and the same battle with the Latin
and the Volscian. In resentment of this, the consuls marched their army
into the Volscian territory; the unexpected proceeding alarmed the
Volscians, who dreaded no chastisement of mere intention; unmindful of
arms, they gave three hundred children of the principal men of Cora and
Pometia as hostages. Upon this the legions were withdrawn without
coming to any action. Not long after their natural disposition returned
to the Volscians, now delivered of their fears; they again make secret
preparation for war, having taken the Hernicians into an alliance with
them. They send ambassadors in every direction to stir up Latium. But
the recent defeat received at the lake Regillus, could scarcely
restrain the Latins from offering violence to the ambassadors through
resentment and hatred of any one who would advise them to take up arms.
Having seized the Volscians, they brought them to Rome. They were there
delivered up to the consuls, and information was given that the
Volscians and Hernicians were making preparations for war against the
Romans. The matter being referred to the senate, it was so gratifying
to the senators that they both sent back six thousand prisoners to the
Latins, and referred to the new magistrates the business regarding the
treaty, which had been almost absolutely refused them. Upon this indeed
the Latins were heartily glad at what they had done, the advisers of
peace were in high esteem. They send a crown of gold to the Capitol as
an offering to Jupiter. Along with the ambassadors and the offering
there came a great crowd, consisting of the prisoners who had been sent
back to their friends. They proceed to the houses of those persons with
whom each had been in servitude, and return thanks for their having
been generously kept and treated during their calamity. They then form
connexions of hospitality. And never at any former time was the Latin
name more closely united to the Roman state, either by public or
private ties.
23. But both the Volscian war was threatening, and the state, being
disturbed within itself, glowed with intestine animosity between the
senate and people, chiefly on account of those confined for debt. They
complained loudly, that whilst fighting abroad for liberty and
dominion, they were captured and oppressed at home by their fellow
citizens; and that the liberty of the people was more secure in war
than in peace, among enemies than among their fellow citizens; and this
feeling of discontent, increasing of itself, the striking sufferings of
an individual still further aggravated. A certain person advanced in
years threw himself into the forum with all the badges of his miseries
on him. His clothes were all over squalid, the figure of his body still
more shocking, being pale and emaciated. In addition, a long beard and
hair had impressed a savage wildness on his countenance; in such
wretchedness he was known notwithstanding, and they said that he had
been a centurion, and compassionating him they mentioned openly other
distinctions (obtained) in the service: he himself exhibited scars on
his breast, testimonies of honourable battles in several places. To
persons repeatedly inquiring, whence that garb, whence that ghastly
appearance of body, (the multitude having now assembled around him
almost like a popular assembly,) he says, “that whilst serving in the
Sabine war, because he had not only been deprived of the produce of his
land in consequence of the depredations of the enemy, but also his
residence had been burned down, all his effects pillaged, his cattle
driven off, a tax imposed on him at a time very distressing to him, he
had incurred debt; that this debt, aggravated by usury, had stripped
him first of his father's and grandfather's farm, then of his other
property; lastly that a pestilence, as it were, had reached his person.
That he was taken by his creditor, not into servitude, but into a house
of correction and a place of execution.” He then showed his back
disfigured with the marks of stripes still recent. At the hearing and
seeing of this a great uproar takes place. The tumult is now no longer
confined to the forum, but spreads through the entire city. Those who
were confined for debt, and those who were now at their liberty, hurry
into the streets from all quarters and implore the protection of the
people. In no place is there wanting a voluntary associate of sedition.
They run through all the streets in crowds to the forum with loud
shouts. Such of the senators as happened to be in the forum, fell in
with this mob with great peril to themselves; nor would they have
refrained from violence, had not the consuls, P. Servilius and Ap.
Claudius, hastily interfered to quell the disturbance. The multitude
turning towards them, and showing their chains and other marks of
wretchedness, said that they deserved all this, taunting them (the
consuls) each with the military services performed by himself, one in
one place, and another in another. They require them with menaces,
rather than as suppliants, to assemble the senate, and stand round the
senate-house in a body, determined themselves to be witnesses and
directors of the public counsels. Very few of the senators, whom chance
had thrown in the way, were forced to attend the consuls; fear
prevented the rest from coming not only to the house, but even to the
forum. Nor could any thing be done by reason of the thinness of the
senate. Then indeed the people began to think their demand was eluded,
and the redress of their grievances delayed; that such of the senators
as had absented themselves did so not through chance or fear, but on
purpose to obstruct the business. That the consuls themselves trifled
with them, that their miseries were now a mere subject of mockery. By
this time the sedition was come to such a height, that the majesty of
the consuls could hardly restrain the violence of the people.
Wherefore, uncertain whether they incurred greater danger by staying at
home, or venturing abroad, they came at length to the senate; but
though the house was at length full, a want of agreement manifested
itself, not only among the fathers, but even between the consuls
themselves. Appius, a man of violent temper, thought the matter was to
be done by the authority of the consuls, and that if one or two were
seized, the rest would be quiet. Servilius, more inclined to moderate
measures, thought that while their minds were in this ferment, it would
be both more safe and more easy to bend than to break them. Amidst
these debates, another terror of a more serious nature presented
itself.
24. Some Latin horse came full speed to Rome, with the alarming news
that the Volscians were marching with a hostile army, to besiege the
city, the announcement of which (so completely had discord made the
state two from one) affected the senators and people in a far different
manner. The people exulted with joy, and said, that the gods were come
as avengers of the tyranny of the fathers. They encouraged one another
not to enrol their names, that it was better that all should perish
together, than that they should perish alone. That the patricians
should serve as soldiers, that the patricians should take up arms, so
that the perils of war should remain with those with whom the
advantages were. But the senate, dejected and confounded by the
two-fold terror, that from their own countrymen, and that from the
enemy, entreated the consul Servilius, whose temper was more
conciliating, that he would extricate the commonwealth beset with such
great terrors. Then the consul, dismissing the senate, proceeds into
the assembly. There he shows them that the senate were solicitous that
care should be taken for the people's interest: but their alarm for the
whole commonwealth had interrupted their deliberation regarding that
which was no doubt the greatest part, but yet only a part; nor could
they, when the enemy were almost at the gates, allow any thing to take
precedence of war: nor, if there should be some respite, was it either
to the credit of the people not to have taken up arms in defence of
their country unless they first receive a recompence, nor consistent
with the dignity of the senators that they adopted measures of relief
for the distresses of their countrymen through fear rather than
afterwards from inclination. He gave additional confidence to the
assembly by an edict, by which he ordained that no one “should detain a
Roman citizen either in chains or in prison, so as to hinder his
enrolling his name under the consuls. And that nobody should either
seize or sell the goods of any soldier, while he was in the camp, or
arrest his children or grandchildren.” This ordinance being published,
the debtors under arrest who were present immediately entered their
names, and crowds of persons hastening from all quarters of the city
from their confinement, as their creditors had no right to detain their
persons, ran together into the forum to take the military oath. These
made up a considerable body of men, nor was the bravery or activity of
the others more conspicuous in the Volscian war. The consul led out his
army against the enemy, and pitched his camp at a little distance from
them.
25. The next night the Volscians, relying on the dissension among
the Romans, made an attempt on their camp, to see if any desertion or
treachery might be resorted to during the night. The sentinels on guard
perceived them; the army was called up, and the signal being given they
ran to arms. Thus that attempt of the Volscians was frustrated; the
remainder of the night was dedicated to repose on both sides. The next
morning at daybreak the Volscians, having filled the trenches, attacked
the rampart. And already the fortifications were being demolished on
every side, when the consul, although all on every side, and more
especially the debtors, cried out that he should give the signal,
having delayed a little while for the purpose of trying the feelings of
the soldiers, when their great ardour became sufficiently apparent,
having at length given the signal for sallying forth, he lets out the
soldiers now impatient for the fight. At the very first onset the enemy
were routed; the rear of them who fled was harassed, as long as the
infantry was able to overtake them; the cavalry drove them in
consternation to their very camp. In a little time the camp itself was
taken and plundered, the legions having surrounded it, as the panic had
driven the Volscians even from thence also. On the next day the legions
being led to Suessa Pometia, whither the enemy had retreated, in a few
days the town is taken; when taken, it was given up for plunder: by
these means the needy soldiers were somewhat relieved. The consul leads
back his victorious army to Rome with the greatest glory to himself: as
he is setting out for Rome, the deputies of the Ecetrans, (a part) of
the Volscians, alarmed for their state after the taking of Pometia,
come to him. By a decree of the senate peace is granted them, but their
land is taken from them.
26. Immediately after the Sabines also caused an alarm to the
Romans; but it was rather a tumult than a war. It was announced in the
city during the night that a Sabine army had advanced as far as the
river Anio, plundering the country: that the country houses there were
pillaged and burnt down indiscriminately. A. Postumius, who had been
dictator in the Latin war, was immediately sent against them with all
the horse. The consul Servilius followed him with a chosen body of
foot. The cavalry cut off most of the stragglers; nor did the Sabine
legion make any resistance against the foot when they came up with
them. Being tired both by their march and their plundering the country
in the night, and a great number of them being surfeited with eating
and drinking in the cottages, they had scarcely sufficient strength for
flight. The Sabine war being thus heard of and finished in one night,
on the following day, amid sanguine hope of peace being secured in
every quarter, ambassadors from the Auruncians come to the senate,
proclaiming war unless the troops are withdrawn from the Volscian
territory. The army of the Auruncians had set out from home
simultaneously with the ambassadors; the report of which having been
seen not far from Aricia, excited such a tumult among the Romans, that
neither the senate could be consulted in regular form, nor could they,
while themselves taking up arms, give a pacific answer to those
advancing against them in arms. They march to Aricia with a determined
army, come to an engagement not far from thence, and in one battle put
an end to the war.
27. After the defeat of the Auruncians, the people of Rome,
victorious in so many wars within a few days, were expecting the
promises of the consul and the engagement of the senate (to be made
good). But Appius, both through his natural pride, and in order to
undermine the credit of his colleague, issued his decrees regarding
borrowed money, with all possible severity. And from this time, both
those who had been formerly in confinement were delivered up to their
creditors, and others also were taken into custody. When this happened
to a soldier, he appealed to the colleague, and a crowd gathered about
Servilius: they represented to him his promises, severally upbraided
him with their services in war, and with the scars they had received.
They loudly called upon him to lay the matter before the senate, and
that, as consul, he would relieve his fellow citizens, as a general,
his soldiers. These remonstrances affected the consul, but the
situation of affairs obliged him to back out; so completely had not
only his colleague, but the whole body of the patricians, adopted an
entirely opposite course. And thus, by acting a middle part, he neither
escaped the odium of the people, nor gained the favour of the senators.
The fathers looked upon him as a weak, popularity-hunting consul, and
the people considered him as a deceiver. And it soon appeared that he
was as odious to them as Appius himself. A dispute had happened between
the consuls, as to which should dedicate the temple of Mercury. The
senate referred the affair from themselves to the people, and ordained
that to whichsoever of them the dedication should be granted by order
of the people, he should preside over the markets, establish a company
of merchants, and perform the functions of a pontifex maximus. The
people gave the dedication of the temple to M. Lætorius, the centurion
of the first legion, that it might plainly appear to have been done not
so much out of respect to a person on whom an honour above his rank had
been conferred, as to affront the consuls. Upon this one of the consuls
particularly, and the senators, were highly incensed. But the people
had acquired courage, and proceeded in a manner quite different from
what they had at first intended. For when they despaired of redress
from the consuls and senate, upon seeing a debtor led to the court,
they flew together from all quarters. And neither the decree of the
consul could be heard in consequence of the noise and clamour, nor,
when he had pronounced the decree, did any one obey it. All was managed
by violence, and the entire dread and danger with respect to personal
liberty, was transferred from the debtors to the creditors, who were
severally abused by the crowd in the very sight of the consul. In
addition to all this, the dread of the Sabine war spread, and when a
levy was decreed, nobody gave in his name; Appius being enraged, and
bitterly inveighing against the ambitious arts of his colleague, who by
his popular silence was betraying the republic, and besides his not
passing sentence against the debtors, likewise neglected to raise the
levies, after they had been voted by the senate. Yet he declared, that
“the commonwealth was not entirely deserted, nor the consular authority
altogether debased. That he alone would vindicate both his own dignity
and that of the senators.” When a daily mob, emboldened by
licentiousness, stood round him, he commanded a noted ringleader of the
sedition to be apprehended. He, as the lictors were carrying him off,
appealed to the people; nor would the consul have allowed the appeal,
because there was no doubt regarding the judgment of the people, had
not his obstinacy been with difficulty overcome, rather by the advice
and influence of the leading men, than by the clamours of the people;
so much resolution he had to bear the weight of their odium. The evil
gained ground daily, not only by open clamours, but, which was far more
dangerous, by a secession and by secret meetings. At length the
consuls, so odious to the commons, went out of office: Servilius liked
by neither party, Appius highly esteemed by the senators.
28. Then A. Virginius and T. Vetusius enter on the consulship. Upon
this the commons, uncertain what sort of consuls they were to have,
held nightly meetings, some of them upon the Esquiline, and others upon
the Aventine hill, that they might not be confused by hasty resolutions
in the forum, or take their measures inconsiderately and without
concert. The consuls, judging this proceeding to be of dangerous
tendency, as it really was, laid the matter before the senate. But they
were not allowed after proposing it to take the votes regularly; so
tumultuously was it received on all sides by the clamours and
indignation of the fathers, at the consuls throwing on the senate the
odium of that which should have been put down by consular authority.
“That if there really were magistrates in the republic, there would
have been no council in Rome but the public one. That the republic was
now divided and split into a thousand senate-houses and assemblies,
some of which were held on the Esquiline, others on the Aventine hill.
That one man, in truth such as Appius Claudius, for that that was more
than a consul, would in a moment disperse these private meetings.” When
the consuls, thus rebuked, asked them, “What they desired them to do,
for that they would act with as much energy and vigour as the senators
wished,” they resolve that they should push on the levies as briskly as
possible, that the people were become insolent from want of employment.
When the house broke up, the consuls ascend the tribunal and summon the
young men by name. But none of them made any answer, and the people
crowding round them, as if in a general assembly, said, “That the
people would no longer be imposed on. They should never list one
soldier till the public faith was made good. That liberty should be
restored to each before arms were given, that they might fight for
their country and fellow citizens, and not for arbitrary lords.” The
consuls fully understood the orders they had received from the senate,
but they saw none of those who had talked so big within the walls of
the senate-house present themselves to take any share with them in the
public odium. A desperate contest with the commons seemed at hand.
Therefore, before they would have recourse to extremities, they thought
it advisable to consult the senate a second time. Then indeed the
younger senators flocked in a hurry round the chairs of the consuls,
commanding them to abdicate the consulate, and resign an office which
they had not courage to support.
29. Having sufficiently tried both[84] ways, the consuls at length
said, “Conscript fathers, lest you may say that you were not
forewarned, a great disturbance is at hand. We require that they who
accuse us most severely of cowardice, would assist us in raising the
levies; we shall proceed according to the resolution of the most
intrepid amongst you, since it so pleases you.” They return to their
tribunal, and on purpose commanded one of the most factious of the
people, who stood in their view, to be called upon by name. When he
stood mute, and a number of men stood round him in a ring, to prevent
his being seized, the consuls sent a lictor to him. He being repulsed,
such of the fathers as attended the consuls, exclaiming against it as
an intolerable insult, ran in a hurry from the tribunal to assist the
lictor. But when the violence was turned from the lictor, who suffered
nothing else but being prevented from seizing him, against the fathers,
the riot was quelled by the interposition of the consuls, in which
however, without stones or weapons, there was more noise and angry
words than mischief done. The senate, called in a tumultuous manner, is
consulted in a manner still more tumultuous; such as had been beaten,
calling out for an inquiry, and the most violent members declaring
their sentiments no less by clamours and noise than by their votes. At
length, when their passion had subsided, the consuls reproaching them
with there being as much disorderly conduct in the senate as in the
forum, the house began to vote in regular order. There were three
different opinions: P. Virginius did not make the [85]matter general.
He voted that they should consider only those who, relying on the
promise of P. Servilius the consul, had served in a war against the
Auruncans and Sabines. Titius Largius was of opinion, “That it was not
now a proper time to reward services only. That all the people were
immersed in debt, and that a stop could not be put to the evil, unless
measures were adopted for all. And that if the condition of different
parties be different, the divisions would rather be thereby inflamed
than composed.” Appius Claudius, who was naturally severe, and, by the
hatred of the commons on the one hand, and praises of the senators on
the other, was become quite infuriated, said, “That these riots
proceeded not from distress, but from licentiousness. That the people
were rather wanton than violent. That this terrible mischief took its
rise from the right of appeal; since threats, not authority, was all
that belonged to the consuls, while permission was given to appeal to
those who were accomplices in the crime. Come,” added he, “let us
create a dictator from whom there lies no appeal; this madness, which
hath set every thing in a flame, will immediately subside. Let any one
dare then to strike a lictor, when he shall know that his back, and
even his life, are in the power of that person whose authority he has
insulted.”
[Footnote 84: The determination of the plebeians and senators.]
[Footnote 85: rem non vulgabat, was not for extending the
relief to all.]
30. To many the opinion of Appius appeared, as it really was, severe
and violent. On the other hand, those of Virginius and Largius were not
safe for the precedent they established; especially they thought that
of Largius so, as it would destroy all credit. The opinion of Virginius
was reckoned to be most moderate, and a happy medium between the other
two. But through the spirit of faction and a regard of private
interest, which always have and always will obstruct the public
councils, Appius prevailed, and was himself near being created
dictator; which step would certainly have alienated the commons at this
most dangerous juncture, when the Volsci, the Æqui, and the Sabines
happened to be all in arms at the same time. But the consuls and elder
senators took care that this office, in its own nature uncontrollable,
should be committed to a man of moderate temper. They choose Manius
Valerius, son of Volesus, dictator. The people, though they saw that
this magistrate was created against themselves, yet as they had got the
right of appeal by his brother's law, dreaded nothing oppressive or
tyrannical from that family. An edict of the dictator's, which was
almost the same with that published by the consul Servilius, afterwards
confirmed their minds. But judging it safer to confide in both the man
and in the absolute power with which he was vested, they gave in their
names, desisting from all contest. Ten legions were levied, a greater
army than had ever been raised before. Each of the consuls had three
legions assigned him, and the dictator commanded four. Nor could the
war be deferred any longer. The Æqui had made incursions upon the Latin
territory; the deputies of the Latins begged the senate either to send
them assistance, or to allow them to arm themselves for the purpose of
defending their own frontiers. It seemed safer that the Latins should
be defended without arming, than to allow them to take up arms again.
Wherefore Vetusius the consul was sent to their assistance; this
immediately put a stop to the devastations. The Æqui retired from the
plains, and depending more on the advantage of the ground than on their
arms, secured themselves on the summits of the mountains. The other
consul, having marched against the Volsci, in order that he too might
not waste time, challenged the enemy to pitch their camp nigh to his,
and to risk an engagement by ravaging their lands. Both armies stood in
order of battle before their lines in a plain between the two camps.
The Volsci had considerably the advantage in number. Accordingly they
rushed on to the fight, in a careless manner, and as if contemptuously.
The Roman consul neither advanced his forces, and not suffering the
enemy's shouts to be returned, he ordered them to stand still with
their spears fixed in the ground, and when the enemy came up, to draw
their swords and fall upon them with all their force. The Volsci,
wearied with running and shouting, set upon the Romans as if they had
been quite benumbed through fear; but when they found the vigorous
resistance that was made, and saw their swords glittering before their
face, they turned their backs in great disorder, just as if they had
fallen into an ambuscade. Nor had they strength sufficient even for
flight, as they had advanced to the battle in full speed. The Romans,
on the other hand, as they had not stirred from their ground in the
beginning of the action, being fresh and vigorous, easily overtook the
enemy, who were weary, took their camp by assault, and after driving
them thence, pursued them to Velitræ, into which the conquered and
conquerors entered in a body. By the promiscuous slaughter which was
here made of all ranks, there was more blood spilt than in the battle
itself. Quarter was given to a small number of them, who threw down
their arms and surrendered.
31. Whilst these things are going on among the Volsci, the dictator
routs, puts to flight, and strips of their camp, the Sabines, where by
far the most serious part of the war lay. By a charge of his cavalry he
had thrown into confusion the centre of the enemy's line, where, by the
wings extending themselves too far, they had not strengthened their
line by a suitable depth of files.[86] The infantry fell upon them in
this confusion, by one and the same charge their camp was taken and the
war concluded. There was no other battle in those times more memorable
than this since the action at the lake Regillus. The dictator is borne
into the city in triumph. Besides the usual honours, a place in the
circus was assigned to him and his descendants, to see the public
games; a curule chair was fixed in that place. The lands of Velitræ
were taken from the conquered Volsci: colonists were sent from the city
to Velitræ, and a colony planted there. Soon after there was an
engagement with the Æqui, but contrary to the wish of the consul,
because they had to approach the enemy by disadvantageous ground. But
the soldiers complaining that the war was on purpose spun out, that the
dictator might resign his office before they returned home to the city,
and so his promises might fall to the ground without effect, as those
of the consul had done before, forced him at all hazards to march his
army up the hill. This imprudent step, by the cowardice of the enemy,
turned out successfully; for before the Romans came within reach of a
dart, the Æqui, quite amazed at their boldness, abandoned their camp,
which was situated in a very strong position, and ran down into the
valleys on the opposite side.[87] In it abundance of booty was found,
and the victory was a bloodless one. Matters being thus successfully
managed in war in three different directions, anxiety respecting the
event of their domestic differences had left neither the senators nor
the people. With such powerful influence, and with such art also, had
the money-lenders made their arrangements, so as to disappoint not only
the people, but even the dictator himself. For Valerius, after the
return of the consul Vetusius, first of all matters brought before the
senate that relating to the victorious people, and proposed the
question, what it was their determination should be done with respect
to those confined for debt. And when this motion was rejected, “I am
not acceptable,” says he, “as an adviser of concord. You will ere long
wish, depend on it, that the commons of Rome had patrons similar to me.
For my part, I will neither further disappoint my fellow citizens, nor
will I be dictator to no purpose. Intestine dissensions, foreign wars,
caused the republic to require such a magistrate. Peace has been
secured abroad, it is impeded at home. I will be a witness to
disturbance as a private citizen rather than as dictator.” Then
quitting the senate-house, he abdicated his dictatorship. The case
appeared to the commons, that he had resigned his office indignant at
the treatment shown to them. Accordingly, as if his engagements to them
had been fully discharged, since it had not been his fault that they
were not made good, they attended him when returning to his home with
approbation and applause.
[Footnote 86: i. e. by deepening the files.]
[Footnote 87: “On the opposite side.” Gronovius proposes instead of
adversus to read aversas: scil. the valleys behind them, or
in their rear.]
32. Fear then seized the senators lest, if the army should be
dismissed, secret meetings and conspiracies would be renewed; wherefore
though the levy had been held by the dictator, yet supposing that, as
they had sworn obedience to the consuls, the soldiers were bound by
their oath, under the pretext of hostilities being renewed by the Æqui,
they ordered the legions to be led out of the city; by which proceeding
the sedition was hastened. And it is said that at first it was in
contemplation to put the consuls to death, that they might be
discharged from their oath: but that being afterwards informed that no
religious obligation could be dissolved by a criminal act, they, by the
advice of one Sicinius, retired, without the orders of the consuls, to
the sacred mount, beyond the river Anio, three miles from the city:
this account is more general than that which Piso has given, that the
secession was made to the Aventine. There without any leader, their
camp being fortified with a rampart and trench, remaining quiet, taking
nothing but what was necessary for sustenance, they kept themselves for
several days, neither being attacked, nor attacking others. Great was
the panic in the city, and through mutual fear all was suspense. The
people left in the city dreaded the violence of the senators; the
senators dreaded the people remaining in the city, uncertain whether
they should prefer them to stay or to depart; but how long would the
multitude which had seceded, remain quiet? what were to be the
consequences then, if, in the mean time, any foreign war should break
out? they certainly considered no hope left, save in the concord of the
citizens; this should be restored to the state by fair or by unfair
means. It was resolved therefore that there should be sent as
ambassador to the people, Menenius Agrippa, an eloquent man, and one
who was a favourite with the people, because he derived his origin from
them. He being admitted into the camp, is said to have related to them
merely the following story in that antiquated and uncouth style; “At a
time when all the parts in the human body did not, as now, agree
together, but the several members had each its own scheme, its own
language, the other parts, indignant that every thing was procured for
the belly by their care, labour, and service; that the belly, remaining
quiet in the centre, did nothing but enjoy the pleasures afforded it.
They conspired accordingly, that the hands should not convey food to
the mouth, nor the mouth receive it when presented, nor the teeth chew
it: whilst they wished under the influence of this feeling to subdue
the belly by famine, the members themselves and the entire body were
reduced to the last degree of emaciation. Thence it became apparent
that the service of the belly was by no means a slothful one; that it
did not so much receive nourishment as supply it, sending to all parts
of the body this blood by which we live and possess vigour, distributed
equally to the veins when perfected by the digestion of the food.” By
comparing in this way how similar the intestine sedition of the body
was to the resentment of the people against the senators, he made an
impression on the minds of the multitude.
33. Then a commencement was made to treat of a reconciliation, and
among the conditions it was allowed, “that the commons should have
their own magistrates, with inviolable privileges, who should have the
power of bringing assistance against the consuls, and that it should
not be lawful for any of the patricians to hold that office.” Thus two
tribunes of the commons were created, Caius Licinius and L. Albinus.
These created three colleagues for themselves. It is clear that among
these was Sicinius, the adviser of the sedition; with respect to two,
who they were is not so clear. There are some who say, that only two
tribunes were elected on the sacred mount, and that there the devoting
law was passed. During the secession of the commons, Sp. Cassius and
Postumus Cominius entered on the consulship. During their consulate,
the treaty with the Latin states was concluded. To ratify this, one of
the consuls remained at Rome; the other being sent to the Volscian war,
routs and puts to flight the Volscians of Antium, and continuing his
pursuit of them, now that they were driven into the town of Longula, he
takes possession of the town. Next he took Polusca, also belonging to
the Volscians; then he attacked Corioli with all his force. There was
then in the camp, among the young noblemen, C. Marcius, a youth
distinguished both for intelligence and courage, who afterwards
attained the cognomen of Coriolanus. When, as the Roman army was
besieging Corioli, and was wholly intent on the townspeople, whom they
kept shut up, without any apprehension of war threatening from without,
the Volscian legion, setting out from Antium, suddenly attacked them,
and, at the same time the enemy sallied forth from the town, Marcius
happened to be on guard. He with a chosen body of men not only repelled
the attack of those who had sallied out, but boldly rushed in through
the open gate, and having cut down all in the part of the city nearest
him, and having hastily seized some fire, threw it in the houses
adjoining to the wall. Upon this the shouts of the townsmen mingling
with the wailings of the women and children, occasioned by the first
fright,[88] as is usual, both increased the courage of the Romans, and
dispirited the Volscians, seeing the city captured to the relief of
which they had come. Thus the Volsci of Antium were defeated, the town
of Corioli was taken. And so much did Marcius by his valour eclipse the
reputation of the consul, that had not the treaty concluded with the
Latins by Sp. Cassius alone, because his colleague was absent, served
as a memorial of it, it would have been forgotten that Postumus
Cominius had conducted the war with the Volscians. The same year dies
Agrippa Menenius, a man during all his life equally a favourite with
the senators and commons, still more endeared to the commons after the
secession. To this man, the mediator and umpire in restoring concord
among his countrymen, the ambassador of the senators to the commons,
the person who brought back the commons to the city, were wanting the
expenses of his funeral. The people buried him by the contribution of a
sextans from each person.
[Footnote 88: I have here adopted the reading of Stacker and others,
scil. ad terrorem, ut solet, primum ortus.]
34. T. Geganius and P. Minutius were next elected consuls. In this
year, when every thing was quiet from war abroad, and the dissensions
were healed at home, another much more serious evil fell upon the
state; first a scarcity of provisions, in consequence of the lands
lying untilled during the secession of the commons; then a famine such
as befals those who are besieged. And it would have ended in the
destruction of the slaves at least, and indeed some of the commons
also, had not the consuls adopted precautionary measures, by sending
persons in every direction to buy up corn, not only into Etruria on the
coast to the right of Ostia, and through the Volscians along the coast
on the left as far as Cumas, but into Sicily also, in quest of it. So
far had the hatred of their neighbours obliged them to stand in need of
aid from distant countries. When corn had been bought up at Cumæ, the
ships were detained in lieu of the property of the Tarquinii by the
tyrant Aristodemus, who was their heir. Among the Volsci and in the
Pomptine territory it could not even be purchased. The corn dealers
themselves incurred danger from the violence of the inhabitants. Corn
came from Etruria by the Tiber: by means of this the people were
supported. Amid this distressing scarcity they would have been harassed
by a very inconvenient war, had not a dreadful pestilence attacked the
Volsci when about to commence hostilities. The minds of the enemy being
alarmed by this calamity, so that they were influenced by some terror,
even after it had abated, the Romans both augmented the number of their
colonists at Velitræ, and despatched a new colony to the mountains of
Norba, to serve as a barrier in the Pomptine district. Then in the
consulship of M. Minucius, and A. Sempronius, a great quantity of corn
was imported from Sicily, and it was debated in the senate at what rate
it should be given to the commons. Many were of opinion, that the time
was come for putting down the commons, and for recovering those rights
which had been wrested from the senators by secession and violence. In
particular, Marcius Coriolanus, an enemy to tribunitian power, says,
“If they desire the former rate of provisions, let them restore to the
senators their former rights. Why do I, after being sent under the
yoke, after being, as it were, ransomed from robbers, behold plebeian
magistrates, and Sicinius invested with power? Shall I submit to these
indignities longer than is necessary? Shall I, who would not have
endured King Tarquin, tolerate Sicinius. Let him now secede, let him
call away the commons. The road lies open to the sacred mount and to
other hills. Let them carry off the corn from our lands, as they did
three years since. Let them have the benefit of that scarcity which in
their frenzy they have occasioned. I will venture to say, that, brought
to their senses by these sufferings, they will themselves become
tillers of the lands, rather than, taking up arms and seceding, they
would prevent them from being tilled.” It is not so easy to say whether
it should have been done, as I think that it might have been
practicable for the senators, on the condition of lowering the price of
provisions, to have rid themselves of both the tribunitian power, and
all the restraints imposed on them against their will.[89]
[Footnote 89: i. e. I think it might have been done; whether it
would have been right to do so, it is not so easy to decide. Livy means
to say that it was possible enough for the senators, by lowering the
price of corn, to get rid of the tribunes, &c. Such a judgment is
easily formed; it is not, however, he says, so easy to determine,
whether it would have been expedient to follow the advice of
Coriolanus.]
35. This proposal both appeared to the senate too harsh, and from
exasperation well nigh drove the people to arms: “that they were now
assailed with famine, as if enemies, that they were defrauded of food
and sustenance, that the foreign corn, the only support which fortune
unexpectedly furnished to them, was being snatched from their mouth,
unless the tribunes were given up in chains to C. Marcius, unless he
glut his rage on the backs of the commons of Rome. That in him a new
executioner had started up, who ordered them to die or be slaves.” An
assault would have been made on him as he left the senate-house, had
not the tribunes very opportunely appointed him a day for trial; by
this their rage was suppressed, every one saw himself become the judge,
the arbiter of the life and death of his foe. At first Marcius heard
the threats of the tribunes with contempt.—“That the right to afford
aid, not to inflict punishment, had been granted to that office; that
they were tribunes of the commons and not of the senators.” But the
commons had risen with such violent determination, that the senators
were obliged to extricate themselves from danger by the punishment of
one.[90] They resisted however, in spite of popular odium, and
employed, each individual his own powers, and all those of the entire
order. And first, the trial was made whether they could upset the
affair, by posting their clients (in several places), by deterring
individuals from attending meetings and cabals. Then they all proceeded
in a body (you would suppose that all the senators were on their trial)
earnestly entreating the commons, that if they would not acquit as
innocent, they would at least pardon as guilty, one citizen, one
senator. As he did not attend on the day appointed, they persevered in
their resentment. Being condemned in his absence, he went into exile to
the Volsci, threatening his country, and even then breathing all the
resentment of an enemy. The Volsci received him kindly on his arrival,
and treated him still more kindly every day in proportion as his
resentful feelings towards his countrymen became more striking, and one
time frequent complaints, another time threats were heard. He lodged
with Attius Tullus. He was then the chief man of the Volscian people,
and always a determined enemy of the Romans. Thus, when old animosity
stimulated the one, recent resentment the other, they concert schemes
for (bringing about) a war with Rome. They did not at once believe that
their people could be persuaded to take up arms, so often
unsuccessfully tried. That by the many frequent wars, and lastly, by
the loss of their youth in the pestilence, their spirits were now
broken; that they must have recourse to art, in a case where animosity
had become blunted from length of time, that their feelings might
become exasperated by some fresh cause of resentment.
[Footnote 90: i. e. the senate found themselves reduced to the
necessity of delivering one up to the vengeance of the people, in order
to save themselves from the further consequences of plebeian rage.]
36. It happened that preparations were being made at Rome for a
repetition of the [91]great games; the cause of repeating them was
this: on the morning of the games, the show not yet being commenced, a
master of a family, after flogging his slave loaded with a neck-yoke,
had driven him through the middle of the circus; after this the games
were commenced, as if that circumstance bore no relation to religion.
Not long after Tit. Atinius, a plebeian, had a dream. Jupiter seemed to
him to say; “that the person who danced previous to the games had
displeased him; unless these games were renewed on a splendid scale,
that the city would be in danger; that he should go and announce these
things to the consuls.” Though his mind was not altogether free from
superstitious feelings, his respectful awe of the dignity of the
magistrates overcame his religious fear, lest he might pass into the
mouths of people as a laughing-stock. This delay cost him dear; for he
lost his son within a few days; and lest the cause of this sudden
calamity should be doubtful, that same phantom, presenting itself to
him sorrowful in mind, seemed to ask him, whether he had received a
sufficient requital for his contempt of the deity; that a still heavier
one awaited him, unless he went immediately and delivered the message
to the consuls. The matter was now still more pressing. Hesitating,
however, and delaying he was at length overtaken by a severe stroke of
disease, a sudden paralysis. Then indeed the anger of the gods aroused
him. Wearied out therefore by his past sufferings and by those
threatening him, having convened a meeting of his friends, after he had
detailed to them all he had seen and heard, and Jupiter's having so
often presented himself to him in his sleep, the threats and anger of
heaven realized[92] in his own calamities, by the unhesitating assent
of all who were present he is conveyed in a litter into the forum to
the consuls; from thence being conveyed into the senate-house, after he
had stated those same particulars to the senators, to the great
surprise of all, behold another miracle: he who had been conveyed into
the senate-house deprived of the use of all his limbs, is recorded to
have returned home on his own feet after he discharged his duty.
[Footnote 91: The same as the Circenses.]
[Footnote 92: Realized—repræsentatas—quasi præsentes
factas, oculis subjectas—presented as it were to the sight.—Rasch.]
37. The senate decreed that the games should be celebrated on as
grand a scale as possible. To these games a great number of Volscians
came by the advice of Attius Tullus. Before the games were commenced,
Tullus, as had been concerted at home with Marcius, comes to the
consuls. He tells them that there were matters on which he wished to
treat with them in private concerning the commonwealth. All witnesses
being removed, he says, “With reluctance I say that of my countrymen
which is rather disparaging.[93] I do not however come to allege
against them any thing as having been committed by them, but to guard
against their committing any thing. The minds of our people are far
more fickle than I could wish. We have felt that by many disasters;
seeing that we are still preserved, not through our own deserts, but
through your forbearance. There is now here a great multitude of
Volscians. The games are going on; the city will be intent on the
exhibition. I remember what has been committed in this city on a
similar occasion by the youth of the Sabines. My mind shudders lest any
thing should be committed inconsiderately and rashly. I considered,
that these matters should be mentioned before-hand to you, consuls.
With regard to myself, it is my determination to depart hence home
immediately, lest, if present, I may be affected by the contagion of
any word or deed.” Having said this, he departed. When the consuls laid
before the senate the matter, doubtful with respect to proof, though
from credible authority, the authority more than the thing itself, as
usually happens, urged them to adopt even needless precautions; and a
decree of the senate being passed, that the Volscians should quit the
city, criers are sent in different directions to order them all to
depart before night. A great panic struck them at first as they ran
about to their lodgings to carry away their effects. Afterwards, when
setting out, indignation arose in their breasts: “that they, as if
polluted with crime and contaminated, were driven away from the games,
on festival days, from the converse in a manner of men and gods.”
[Footnote 93: Sequius sit—otherwise than as it should be.]
38. As they went along in an almost continuous body, Tullus having
preceded them to the fountain of Ferentina, accosting the chiefs among
them according as each arrived, by asking questions and expressing
indignation, he led both themselves, who greedily listened to language
congenial[94] to their angry feelings, and through them the rest of the
multitude, into a plain adjoining to the road. There having commenced
an address after the manner of a public harangue, he says, “Though you
were to forget the former ill treatment of the Roman people and the
calamities of the nation of the Volsci, and all other such matters,
with what feelings do you bear this outrage offered you to-day, whereon
they have commenced their games by insulting us? Have you not felt that
a triumph has been had over you this day? that you, when departing,
were a spectacle to all, citizens, foreigners, so many neighbouring
states? that your wives, your children were exhibited before the eyes
of men? What do you suppose to have been the sentiments of those who
heard the voice of the crier? what of those who saw you departing? what
of those who met this ignominious cavalcade? what, except that we are
identified with some enormous guilt by which we should profane the
games, and render an expiation necessary; that for this reason we are
driven away from the residences of these pious people, from their
converse and meeting? what, does it not strike you that we still live
because we hastened our departure? if this is a departure and not a
flight. And do you not consider this to be the city of enemies, where
if you had delayed a single day, you must have all died? War has been
declared against you; to the heavy injury of those who declared it, if
you are men.” Thus, being both already charged with resentment, and
incited (by this harangue) they went severally to their homes, and by
instigating each his own state, they succeeded in making the entire
Volscian nation revolt.
[Footnote 94: Audientes secunda iræ verba—attentively
listening to words which fanned (or chimed in with) their anger.—St.]
39. The generals selected for that war by the unanimous choice of
all the states were Attius Tullus and Caius Marcius; in the latter of
whom their chief hope was reposed. And this hope he by no means
disappointed: so that it clearly appeared that the Roman commonwealth
was more powerful by reason of its generals than its army. Having
marched to Circeii, he expelled from thence the Roman colonists, and
delivered that city in a state of freedom to the Volscians. From thence
passing across the country through by-roads into the Latin way, he
deprived the Romans of their recently acquired towns, Satricum,
Longula, Polusca, Corioli. He next retook Lavinium: he then took in
succession Corbio, Vitellia, Trebia, Lavici, and Pedum: Lastly he
marches from Pedum to the city,[95] and having pitched his camp at the
Cluilian trenches five miles from the city, he from thence ravages the
Roman territory, guards being sent among the devastators to preserve
the lands of the patricians intact; whether as being incensed chiefly
against the plebeians, or in order that dissension might arise between
the senators and the people. And this certainly would have arisen, so
powerfully did the tribunes, by inveighing against the leading men of
the state, incite the plebeians, already sufficiently violent of
themselves; but their apprehensions of the foe, the strongest bond of
concord, united their minds, distrustful and rancorous though they
were. The only matter not agreed on was this, that the senate and
consuls rested their hopes on nothing else than on arms; the plebeians
preferred any thing to war. Sp. Nautius and Sex. Furius were now
consuls. Whilst they were reviewing the legions, posting guards along
the walls and other places where they had determined that there should
be posts and watches, a vast multitude of persons demanding peace
terrified them first by their seditious clamour; then compelled them to
convene the senate, to consider the question of sending ambassadors to
C. Marcius. The senate entertained the question, when it became evident
that the spirits of the plebeians were giving way, and ambassadors
being sent to Marcius concerning peace, brought back a harsh answer:
“If their lands were restored to the Volscians, that they might then
consider the question of peace; if they were disposed to enjoy the
plunder of war at their ease, that he, mindful both of the injurious
treatment of his countrymen, as well as of the kindness of strangers,
would do his utmost to make it appear that his spirit was irritated by
exile, not crushed.” When the same persons are sent back a second time,
they are not admitted into the camp. It is recorded that the priests
also, arrayed in their insignia, went as suppliants to the enemy's
camp; and that they did not influence his mind more than the
ambassadors.
[Footnote 95: Scil. Rome. Dionysius narrates the expedition of
Coriolanus in a different order from that given by Livy, and says that
he approached the city twice. Niebuhr, ii. p. 94, n. 535, thinks that
the words “passing across the country into the Latin way” (in Latinam
viam transversis itineribus transgressus) have been transposed from
their proper place, and that they should come in after “he then took,”
&c. (tunc deinceps).]
40. Then the matrons assemble in a body around Veturia, the mother
of Coriolanus, and his wife, Volumnia: whether that was the result of
public counsel, or of the women's fear, I cannot ascertain. They
certainly carried their point that Veturia, a lady advanced in years,
and Volumnia, leading her two sons by Marcius, should go into the camp
of the enemy, and that women should defend by entreaties and tears a
city which men were unable to defend by arms. When they reached the
camp, and it was announced to Coriolanus, that a great body of women
were approaching, he, who had been moved neither by the majesty of the
state in its ambassadors, nor by the sanctity of religion so strikingly
addressed to his eyes and understanding in its priests, was much more
obdurate against the women's tears. Then one of his acquaintances, who
recognised Veturia, distinguished from all the others by her sadness,
standing between her daughter-in-law and grand-children, says, “Unless
my eyes deceive me, your mother, children, and wife, are approaching.”
When Coriolanus, almost like one bewildered, rushing in consternation
from his seat, offered to embrace his mother as she met him, the lady,
turning from entreaties to angry rebuke, says, “Before I receive your
embrace, let me know whether I have come to an enemy or to a son;
whether I am in your camp a captive or a mother? Has length of life and
a hapless old age reserved me for this—to behold you an exile, then an
enemy? Could you lay waste this land, which gave you birth and nurtured
you? Though you had come with an incensed and vengeful mind, did not
your resentment subside when you entered its frontiers? When Rome came
within view, did it not occur to you, within these walls my house and
guardian gods are, my mother, wife, and children? So then, had I not
been a mother, Rome would not be besieged: had I not a son, I might
have died free in a free country. But I can now suffer nothing that is
not more discreditable to you than distressing to me; nor however
wretched I may be, shall I be so long. Look to these, whom, if you
persist, either an untimely death or lengthened slavery awaits.” Then
his wife and children embraced him: and the lamentation proceeding from
the entire crowd of women, and their bemoaning themselves and their
country, at length overcame the man; then, after embracing his family,
he sends them away; he moved his camp farther back from the city. Then,
after he had drawn off his troops from the Roman territory, they say
that he lost his life, overwhelmed by the odium of the proceeding:
different writers say by different modes of death: I find in Fabius,
far the most ancient writer, that he lived even to old age; he states
positively, that advanced in years he made use of this phrase, “That
exile bore much heavier on the old man.” The men of Rome were not
remiss in awarding their praises to the women, so truly did they live
without detracting from the merit of others; a temple was built also
and dedicated to female Fortune, to serve as a monument. The Volscians
afterwards returned in conjunction with the Æqui into the Roman
territory: but the Æqui would no longer have Attius Tullus as their
leader; hence from dispute, whether the Volscians or the Æqui should
give a general to the allied army, a sedition, and afterwards a furious
battle arose. There the good fortune of the Roman people destroyed the
two armies of the enemy, by a contest no less bloody than obstinate. T.
Sicinius and C. Aquillius were made consuls. The Volsci fell as a
province to Sicinius; the Hernici (for they too were in arms) to
Aquillius. That year the Hernici were defeated; they came off with
respect to the Volscians on equal terms.
41. Sp. Cassius and Proculus Virginius were next made consuls; a
treaty was struck with the Hernici; two-thirds of their land were taken
from them: of this the consul Cassius was about to distribute one half
among the Latins, the other half among the commons. To this donation he
was adding a considerable portion of land, which, though public
property, he alleged was possessed by private individuals. This
proceeding alarmed several of the senators, the actual possessors, at
the danger of their property; the senators felt, moreover, a solicitude
on public grounds, that the consul by his donation was establishing an
influence dangerous to liberty. Then, for the first time, the Agrarian
law was proposed, which even down to our own recollection was never
agitated without the greatest commotions in the state. The other consul
resisted the donation, the senators seconding him, nor were all the
commons opposed to him; they had at first begun to despise a gift which
was extended from citizens to allies: in the next place they frequently
heard the consul Virginius in the assemblies as it were
prophesying—“that the gift of his colleague was pestilential—that
those lands were sure to bring slavery to those who should receive
them; that the way was paving to a throne.” For why was it that the
allies were included, and the Latin nation? What was the object of a
third of the land that had been taken being given back to the Hernici
so lately our enemies, except that instead of Coriolanus being their
leader they may have Cassius? The dissuader and opposer of the agrarian
law now began to be popular. Both consuls then vied with each other in
humouring the commons. Virginius said that he would suffer the lands to
be assigned, provided they were assigned to no one but to a Roman
citizen. Cassius, because in the agrarian donation he sought popularity
among the allies, and was therefore lowered in the estimation of his
countrymen, in order that by another donation he might conciliate their
affections, ordered that the money received for the Sicilian corn
should be refunded to the people. That indeed the people rejected as
nothing else than a present bribe for regal authority: so strongly were
his gifts spurned in the minds of men, as if they possessed every thing
in abundance, in consequence of their inveterate suspicions of his
aiming at sovereign power. As soon as he went out of office, it is
certain that he was condemned and put to death. There are some who
represent his father as the person who inflicted the punishment: that
he, having tried him at home, scourged him and put him to death, and
consecrated his son's private property to Ceres; that out of this a
statue was set up and inscribed, “given from the Cassian family.” In
some authors I find it stated, and that is more probable, that a day of
trial was assigned him for high treason, by the questors, Kæso Fabius
and Lucius Valerius; and that he was condemned by the decision of the
people; that his house was demolished by a public decree: this is the
area before the temple of Tellus. But whether that trial was private or
public, he was condemned in the consulship of Ser. Cornelius and Q.
Fabius.
42. The resentment of the people against Cassius was not of long
duration. The allurements of the agrarian law, now that its proposer
was gone, were of themselves gaining ground in their minds; and this
feeling was further heightened by the parsimonious conduct of the
senators, who, the Volsci and Æqui having been defeated that year,
defrauded the soldiers of the booty; whatever was taken from the enemy,
the consul Fabius sold, and lodged the proceeds in the treasury. The
Fabian name was odious to the commons on account of the last consul:
the senate however succeeded in having Kæso Fabius elected consul with
L. Æmilius. The commons, still further incensed at this, stirred up
foreign war by exciting disturbance at home; civil dissensions were
then interrupted by war. The senators and commons uniting, under the
conduct of Æmilius, conquered in battle the Volsci and Æqui who renewed
hostilities. The retreat, however, destroyed more of the enemy than the
battle; so perseveringly did the horse pursue them when routed. During
the same year, on the ides of July, the temple of Castor was dedicated:
it had been vowed during the Latin war in the dictatorship of
Posthumius: his son, who was elected duumvir for that special purpose,
dedicated it. In that year also the minds of the people were excited by
the charms of the agrarian law. The tribunes of the people were for
enhancing the popular power (vested in them) by promoting the popular
law. The senators, considering that there was enough and more than
enough of frenzy in the multitude without any additional incitement,
viewed with horror largesses and all inducements to temerity: the
senators found in the consuls most energetic abettors in making
resistance. That portion of the commonwealth therefore prevailed; and
not for the present only, but for the forthcoming year they succeeded
in bringing in M. Fabius, Kæso's brother, as consul, and one still more
detested by the commons for his persecution of Sp. Cassius, L.
Valerius. In that year also there was a contest with the tribunes. The
law proved to be a vain project, and the abettors of the law mere
boasters, by their holding out a gift that was not realized. The Fabian
name was from thence held in high repute, after three successive
consulates, and all as it were uniformly exercised in contending with
the tribunes; accordingly, the honour remained for a considerable time
in that family, as being right well placed. A Veientian war was then
commenced; the Volscians, too, renewed hostilities; but for foreign
wars their strength was almost more than sufficient, and they abused it
by contending among themselves. To the distracted state of the public
mind were added prodigies from heaven, exhibiting almost daily threats
in the city and in the country, and the soothsayers, consulted by the
state and by private individuals, one while by means of entrails,
another by birds, declared that there was no other cause for the divine
anger, but that the ceremonies of religion were not duly attended to.
These terrors, however, terminated in this, that Oppia, a vestal
virgin, being found guilty of a breach of chastity, was made to suffer
punishment.
43. Quintus Fabius and C. Julius were then made consuls. During this
year the dissension at home was not abated, and the war abroad was more
desperate. Arms were taken up by the Æquans; the Veientes also entered
the territory of the Romans committing devastations; the solicitude
about which wars increasing, Kæso Fabius and Sp. Fusius are created
consuls. The Æqui were laying siege to Ortona, a Latin city. The
Veientes, now satiated with plunder, threatened that they would besiege
Rome itself. Which terrors, when they ought to assuage, increased still
further the bad feelings of the commons: and the custom of declining
the military service was now returning, not of their own accord; but
Sp. Licinius, a tribune of the people, thinking that the time was come
for forcing the agrarian law on the patricians by extreme necessity,
had taken on him the task of obstructing the military preparations. But
all the odium of the tribunitian power was turned on the author; nor
did the consuls rise up against him more zealously than his own
colleagues; and by their assistance the consuls hold the levy. An army
is raised for the two wars at the same time; one is given to Fabius to
be led against the Æqui, the other to Furius against the Veientians.
And with respect to the Veientians, nothing was done worthy of mention.
Fabius had much more trouble with his countrymen than with the enemy:
that one man himself, as consul, sustained the commonwealth, which the
army was betraying, far as in them lay, through their hatred of the
consul. For when the consul, in addition to his other military talents,
which he exhibited amply in his preparations for and conduct of war,
had so drawn up his line that he routed the enemy's army solely by a
charge of his cavalry, the infantry refused to pursue them when routed:
and though the exhortation of their general, whom they hated, could not
move them, neither could even their own infamy, and the present public
disgrace and subsequent danger, if the enemy should recover courage,
oblige them to quicken their pace, or even to stand in order of battle,
if nothing else. Without orders they face about, and with a sorrowful
air (you would suppose them beaten) they return to the camp, execrating
at one time their general, at another time the services rendered by the
cavalry. Nor were any remedies sought by the general for this so
pestilent an example; so true is it that the most distinguished talents
are more likely to be deficient in the tact of managing their
countrymen than in that of conquering an enemy. The consul returned to
Rome, not having so much increased his military glory as irritated and
exasperated the hatred of his soldiers towards him. The patricians,
however, succeeded in having the consulship remain in the Fabian
family. They elect M. Fabius consul: Cn. Manlius is assigned as a
colleague to Fabius.
44. This year also had a tribune as a proposer of the agrarian law.
It was Titus Pontificius: he pursuing the same course, as if it had
succeeded with Sp. Licinius, obstructed the levy for a little time. The
patricians being once more perplexed, Appius Claudius asserts “that the
tribunitian power was put down last year: for the present by the very
act, for the future by the precedent established, and since it was
found that it could be rendered ineffective by its own strength; for
that there never would be wanting a tribune who would both be willing
to obtain a victory for himself over his colleague, and the favour of
the better party by advancing the public weal. That both a plurality of
tribunes, if there were need of such plurality, would be ready to
assist the consuls; and that even one would be sufficient against all.
Only let the consuls and leading members of the senate take care to
gain over, if not all, at least some of the tribunes, to the
commonwealth and the senate.” The senators, convinced by the counsels
of Appius, both collectively addressed the tribunes with kindness and
civility, and the men of consular rank, according as each possessed
personal influence over them individually, partly by conciliation,
partly by authority, prevailed so far as to make them consent that the
powers of the tribunitian office should be beneficial to the state; and
by the aid of four tribunes against one obstructor of the public good,
the consuls complete the levy. They then set out to the Veientian war,
to which auxiliaries had flocked from all parts of Etruria, collected
not so much for the sake of the Veientians, as because they had formed
a hope that the Roman state might be destroyed by internal discord. And
in the councils of all the states of Etruria the leading men openly
stated, “that the Roman power was eternal, unless they were distracted
by disturbances among themselves. That this was the only poison, this
the bane discovered for powerful states, to render great empires
mortal. That this evil, a long time retarded, partly by the wise
measures of the patricians, partly by the forbearance of the commons,
had now proceeded to extremities. That two states were now formed out
of one: that each party had its own magistrates, its own laws. That
though at first they were accustomed to be turbulent during the levies,
still that these same individuals had ever been obedient to their
commanders during war; that military discipline being still retained,
no matter what might be the state of the city, it had been possible to
withstand the evil; that now the custom of not obeying their superior
followed the Roman soldier even to the camp. That in the last war in
the very field, in the very heat of battle, by consent of the army the
victory was voluntarily surrendered to the vanquished Æqui: that the
standards were deserted, the general abandoned on the field, and that
the army had returned to the camp without orders. That without doubt,
if perseverance were used, Rome might be conquered by her own soldiery.
That nothing else was necessary than to declare and make a show of war:
that the fates and the gods would of themselves manage the rest.” These
hopes had armed the Etrurians, who in many vicissitudes had been
vanquished and victors.
45. The Roman consuls also dreaded nothing else, than their own
strength, and their own arms. The recollection of the destructive
precedent set in the last war, deterred them from bringing matters to
such a pass as that they should have to fear two armies at the same
time. Accordingly they kept within their camp, avoiding this double
danger: “that delay and time itself would soften down resentment, and
bring a right way of thinking to their minds.” The Veientian enemy and
the Etrurians proceeded with so much the greater precipitation; they
provoked them to battle, first riding up to the camp and challenging
them; at length, when they produced no effect by reviling as well the
consuls themselves as the army, they stated, “that the pretence of
internal dissension was assumed as a cloak for this cowardice; and that
the consuls distrusted as much the courage as the obedience of their
soldiers. That silence and inaction among men in arms were a novel form
of sedition.” Besides this they threw out reproaches, both true as well
as false, on the upstart quality of their race and origin. Whilst they
vociferated these reproaches beneath the very rampart and gates, the
consuls bore them without impatience: but at one time indignation, at
another time shame, distracted the breasts of the ignorant multitude,
and diverted their attention from intestine evils; they were unwilling
that the enemy should come off unpunished; they were unwilling that
success should accrue to the patricians or the consuls; foreign and
domestic hatred struggled for mastery in their breasts; at length the
former prevail, so haughtily and insolently did the enemy revile them;
they crowd in a body to the general's tent; they demand battle, they
require that the signal be given. The consuls confer together as if to
deliberate; they continue the conference for a long time; they were
desirous of fighting, but that desire must be checked and concealed,
that by opposition and delay they might increase the ardour of the
soldiery once roused. An answer is returned, “that the matter in
question was premature, that it was not yet time for fighting: that
they should keep within their camp.” They then issue a proclamation,
“that they should abstain from fighting; that if any one fought without
orders, they should punish him as an enemy.” When they were thus
dismissed, their eagerness for fighting increases in proportion as they
think that the consuls were less disposed for it; the enemies moreover
come up much more insolently, as soon as it was known that the consuls
had determined not to fight. For they supposed “that they might insult
them with impunity; that their arms were not intrusted to the soldiery.
That the matter would explode in a violent mutiny; that a termination
had come to the Roman empire.” Relying on these hopes, they run up to
the gates, heap reproaches on them, with difficulty refrain from
assaulting the camp. Now indeed the Romans could no longer endure these
insults; they crowd from every quarter of the camp to the consuls: they
no longer, as formerly, make their demand with reserve, through the
mediation of the centurions of the first rank; but all proceed
indiscriminately with loud clamours. The affair was now ripe; still
they put it off. Fabius then, his colleague giving way in consequence
of his dread of mutiny being now augmented by the uproar, after he had
commanded silence by sound of trumpet, says, “that these men are able
to conquer, Cneius Manlius, I know; that they are willing they
themselves have prevented me from knowing. It is therefore resolved and
determined not to give the signal, unless they swear that they will
return victorious from this battle. The soldier has once deceived the
Roman consul in the field, the gods he never will deceive.” There was a
centurion, Marcus Flavoleius, one of the foremost in demanding battle;
he says, “M. Fabius, I will return victorious from the field.” If he
deceived, he invokes the anger of father Jove, Mars Gradivus, and of
the other gods. After him the entire army severally take the same oath.
The signal is given to them when sworn; they take up arms, go into
battle, full of rage and of hope. They bid the Etrurians now to cast
their reproaches; they severally require that the enemy, once so ready
with the tongue, should now stand before them armed as they were. On
that day the bravery of all, both commons and patricians, was
extraordinary: the Fabian name, the Fabian race shone forth most
conspicuous: they are determined to recover in that battle the
affections of the commons, which during many civil contests had been
alienated from them. The line of battle is formed; nor do the Veientian
foe and the Etrurian legions decline the contest.
46. An almost certain hope was entertained that they would no more
fight with them than they had done with the Æqui; that even some more
serious attempt was not to be despaired of, considering the irritated
state of their feelings, and the very critical occasion. The affair
turned out altogether differently; for never before in any other war
did the Roman soldiers enter the field with more determined minds (so
much had the enemy exasperated them by taunts on the one hand, and the
consuls by delay on the other). The Etrurians had scarcely time to form
their ranks, when the javelins having been thrown away at random, in
the first hurry, rather than discharged with aim, the battle had now
come to close fighting, even to swords, where the fury of war is most
desperate. Among the foremost the Fabian family was distinguished for
the sight it afforded and the example it presented to their fellow
citizens; one of these, Q. Fabius, (he had been consul two years
before,) as he was advancing at the head of his men against a dense
body of Veientians, and whilst engaged amid numerous parties of the
enemy, and therefore not prepared for it, was transfixed with a sword
through the breast by a Tuscan who presumed on his bodily strength and
skill in arms: on the weapon being extracted, Fabius fell forward on
the wound. Both armies felt the fall of this one man, and the Roman
began in consequence to give way, when the consul Marcus Fabius leaped
over the body as it lay, and holding up his buckler, said, “Is this
what you swore, soldiers, that you would return to the camp in flight?
are you thus more afraid of your most dastardly enemies, than of
Jupiter and Mars, by whom you have sworn? But I who have not sworn will
either return victorious, or will fall fighting here beside thee, Q.
Fabius.” Then Kæso Fabius, the consul of the preceding year, says to
the consul, “Brother, is it by these words you think you will prevail
on them to fight? the gods by whom they have sworn will prevail on
them. Let us also, as men of noble birth, as is worthy of the Fabian
name, enkindle the courage of the soldiers by fighting rather than by
exhorting.” Thus the two Fabii rush forward to the front with presented
spears, and brought on with them the whole line.
47. The battle being restored on one side, Cn. Manlius, the consul,
with no less ardour, encouraged the fight on the other wing. Where an
almost similar result took place; for as the soldiers undauntedly
followed Q. Fabius on the one wing, so did they follow Manlius on this,
as he was driving the enemy now nearly routed, and when he, having
received a severe wound, retired from the battle, they fell back,
supposing that he was slain, and would have given way, had not the
other consul, galloping at full speed to that quarter with some troops
of horse, supported their drooping energies, crying out that his
colleague was still alive, that he himself was now come victorious,
having routed the other wing. Manlius also shows himself to restore the
battle. The well-known voices of the two consuls rekindle the courage
of the soldiers; at the same time too the enemy's line was now
weakened, whilst, relying on their superior numbers, they draw off
their reserve and send them to storm the camp. This being assaulted
without much resistance, whilst they lose time in attending to plunder
rather than to fighting, the Roman triarii,[96] who had not been able
to sustain the first shock, having sent an account to the consuls of
the present position of affairs, return in a compact body to the
Prætorium, and of themselves renew the battle. The consul Manlius also
having returned to the camp, and posted soldiers at all the gates, had
blocked up every passage against the enemy. This desperate situation
aroused the fury rather than the bravery of the Etrurians; for when
rushing on wherever hope held out the prospect of escape, they had
frequently advanced with fruitless efforts; one body of young men makes
an attack on the consul himself, conspicuous from his arms. The first
weapons were intercepted by those who stood around him; afterwards
their force could not be sustained. The consul falls, having received a
mortal wound, and all around him are dispersed. The courage of the
Etrurians rises. Terror drives the Romans in dismay through the entire
camp; and matters would have come to extremities, had not the
lieutenant-generals, hastily seizing the body of the consul, opened a
passage for the enemy at one gate. Through this they rush out; and
going away in the utmost disorder, they fall in with the other consul
who had been victorious; there again they are slain and routed in every
direction. A glorious victory was obtained, saddened however by two so
illustrious deaths. The consul, therefore, on the senate voting him a
triumph, replied, that “if the army could triumph without their
general, he would readily accede to it in consideration of their
distinguished behaviour in that war: that for his own part, his family
being plunged in grief in consequence of the death of his brother Q.
Fabius, and the commonwealth being in some degree bereaved by the loss
of one of her consuls, he would not accept the laurel blasted by public
and private grief.” The triumph thus resigned was more distinguished
than any triumph actually enjoyed; so true it is, that glory refused in
due season sometimes returns with accumulated lustre. He next
celebrates the two funerals of his colleague and brother, one after the
other, he himself acting as panegyrist in the case of both, when by
ascribing to them his own deserts, he himself obtained the greatest
share of them. And not unmindful of that which he had conceived at the
commencement of his consulate, namely, the regaining the affection of
the people, he distributes the wounded soldiers among the patricians to
be cured. Most of them were given to the Fabii: nor were they treated
with greater attention in any other place. From this time the Fabii
began to be popular, and that not by any practices except such as were
beneficial to the state.
[Footnote 96: The triarii were veteran soldiers of approved valour:
they formed the third line, whence their name.]
48. Accordingly Kæso Fabius, having been elected consul with T.
Virginius not more with the zealous wishes of the senators than of the
commons, attended neither to wars, nor levies, nor any other object,
until the hope of concord being now in some measure commenced, the
feelings of the commons might be consolidated with those of the
senators as soon as possible. Wherefore at the commencement of the year
he proposed: “that before any tribune should stand forth as an abettor
of the agrarian law, the patricians themselves should be beforehand
with them in performing their duty; that they should distribute among
the commons the land taken from the enemy in as equal a proportion as
possible; that it was but just that those should obtain it, by whose
blood and sweat it was obtained.” The patricians rejected the proposal
with scorn; some even complained that the once brilliant talents of
Kæso were now becoming wanton, and were waning through excess of glory.
There were afterwards no factions in the city. The Latins were harassed
by the incursions of the Æqui. Kæso being sent thither with an army,
passes into the very territory of the Æqui to depopulate it. The Æqui
retired into the towns, and kept themselves within the walls: on that
account no battle worth mentioning was fought. But a blow was received
from the Veientian foe through the temerity of the other consul; and
the army would have been all cut off, had not Kæso Fabius come to their
assistance in time. From that time there was neither peace nor war with
the Veientians; their proceedings had now come very near to the form of
that of brigands. They retired from the Roman troops into the city;
when they perceived that the troops were drawn off, they made
incursions into the country, alternately evading war by quiet, quiet by
war. Thus the matter could neither be dropped altogether, nor brought
to a conclusion; and other wars were impending either at the moment, as
from the Æqui and Volsci, who remained inactive no longer than until
the recent smart of their late disaster should pass away; or it was
evident that the Sabines, ever hostile, and all Etruria would put
themselves in motion: but the Veientians, a constant rather than a
formidable enemy, kept their minds in constant uneasiness by their
insults more frequently than by any danger apprehended from them; a
matter which could at no time be neglected, and which suffered them not
to direct their attention to any other object. Then the Fabian family
addressed the senate; the consul speaks in the name of the family:
“Conscript fathers, the Veientian war requires, as you know, a constant
rather than a strong force. Do you attend to other wars: assign the
Fabii as enemies to the Veientians. We pledge ourselves that the
majesty of the Roman name shall be safe in that quarter. That war, as
the property of our family, it is our determination to conduct at our
own private expense. Let the republic be spared the expense of soldiers
and money there.” The warmest thanks were returned to them. The consul,
leaving the senate-house, accompanied by the Fabii in a body, who had
been standing in the porch of the senate-house, returned home. Being
ordered to attend on the following day in arms at the consul's gate,
they retire to their homes.
49. The rumour spreads through the entire city; they extol the Fabii
to the skies by their encomiums. “That a single family had taken on
them the burden of the state: that the Veientian war had now become a
private concern, a private quarrel. If there were two families of the
same strength in the city, let them demand, the one the Volsci for
itself, the other the Æqui; that all the neighbouring states might be
subdued, the Roman people all the time enjoying profound peace.” The
day following, the Fabii take up arms; they assemble where they had
been ordered. The consul coming forth in his paludamentum,[97] beholds
his entire family in the porch drawn up in order of march; being
received into the centre, he orders the standards to be carried
forward. Never did an army march through the city, either smaller in
number, or more distinguished in fame and in the admiration of all men.
Three hundred and six soldiers, all patricians, all of the one stock,
not one of whom the senate would reject as a leader in its palmiest
days, proceeded on their march, menacing destruction to the Veientian
state by the prowess of a single family. A crowd followed, partly
belonging to their kinsmen and friends, who contemplated in mind no
moderation either as to their hopes or anxiety, but every thing on the
highest scale; partly consisting of individuals not connected with
their family, aroused by solicitude for the public weal, all enraptured
with esteem and admiration. They bid them “proceed in the brave
resolve, proceed with happy omens, bring back results proportioned to
their undertaking: thence to expect consulships and triumphs, all
rewards, all honours from them.” As they passed the Capitol and the
citadel, and the other sacred edifices, they offer up prayers to all
the gods that presented themselves to their sight, or to their mind:
that “they would send forward that band with prosperity and success,
and soon send them back safe into their country to their parents.” In
vain were these prayers sent up. Having set out on their luckless road
by the right-hand postern of the Carmental gate, they arrive at the
river Cremera: this appeared a favourable situation for fortifying a
post. L. Æmilius and C. Servilius were then created consuls. And as
long as there was nothing else to occupy them but mutual devastations,
the Fabii were not only sufficiently able to protect their garrison,
but through the entire tract, as far as the Etrurian joins the Roman
territory, they protected all their own districts and ravaged those of
the enemy, spreading their forces along both frontiers. There was
afterwards an intermission, though not of long duration, to these
depredations: whilst both the Veientians, having sent for an army from
Etruria, assault the post at the Cremera, and the Roman troops, led
thither by L. Æmilius the consul, come to a close engagement in the
field with the Etrurians; although the Veientians had scarcely time to
draw up their line: for during the first alarm, whilst the ranks are
posting themselves behind their respective banners and they are
stationing their reserves, a brigade of Roman cavalry charging them
suddenly in flank, took away all opportunity not only of commencing the
fight, but even of standing their ground. Thus being driven back to the
Red Rocks, (there they pitched their camp,) they suppliantly sue for
peace; for the obtaining of which they were sorry, from the natural
inconsistency of their minds, before the Roman garrison was drawn off
from the Cremera.
[Footnote 97: Before a consul set out on any expedition, he offered
sacrifices and prayers in the Capitol; and then, laying aside his
consular gown, marched out of the city, dressed in a military robe of
state, called Paludamentum.]
50. Again the Veientian state had to contend with the Fabii without
any additional military armament [on either side]; and there were not
merely incursions into each other's territories, or sudden attacks on
those making the incursions, but they fought repeatedly in the open
field, and in pitched battles: and one family of the Roman people
oftentimes gained the victory over an entire Etrurian state, one of the
most powerful at that time. This at first appeared mortifying and
humiliating to the Veientians: then (they formed) a design, suggested
by the circumstance, of surprising their daring enemy by an ambuscade;
they were even glad that the confidence of the Fabii was increasing by
their great success. Wherefore cattle were frequently driven in the way
of the plundering parties, as if they had come there by mere accident,
and tracts of land were abandoned by the flight of the peasants; and
troops of armed men sent to prevent the devastations retreated more
frequently from pretended than from real fear. And now the Fabii had
such a contempt for the enemy, as to believe that their invincible arms
could not be withstood either in any place or on any occasion: this
presumption carried them so far, that at the sight of some cattle at a
distance from Cremera, with an extensive plain lying between, they ran
down to it (although few troops of the enemy were observed); and when
incautious and in disorderly haste they had passed the ambuscade placed
on either side of the very road; and when dispersed in different
directions they began to carry off the cattle straying about, as is
usual when they are frightened, the Veientians rise up suddenly from
their ambuscade, and the enemy were in front and on every side. At
first the shout that was raised terrified them; then weapons assailed
them from every side; and, the Etrurians closing, they also were
compelled, hemmed in as they now were by a compact body of soldiers, to
contract their own circle within a narrower compass; which circumstance
rendered striking both their own paucity of numbers, and the superior
numbers of the enemy, the ranks being crowded in a narrow space. Then
the plan of fighting, which they had directed equally against every
part, being now relinquished, they all incline their forces towards one
point; in that direction straining every effort both with their bodies
and arms, they forced a passage by forming a wedge. The way led to a
hill of moderate acclivity; here they first halted: presently, as soon
as the higher ground afforded them time to gain breath, and to recover
from so great a panic, they repulsed them as they advanced up; and the
small band by the advantage of the ground was gaining the victory, had
not a party of the Veientians, sent round the ridge of the hill, made
their way to the summit; thus again the enemy obtained the higher
ground; all the Fabii were killed to a man, and the fort was taken: it
is agreed on all hands that the three hundred and six were cut off;
that one[98] only, who nearly attained the age of puberty, was left as
a stock for the Fabian race; and that he was destined to prove the
greatest support in the dangerous emergencies of the Roman people both
at home and in war.
[Footnote 98: This statement is rejected by Niebuhr entirely.]
51. At the time when this disaster was received, C. Horatius and T.
Menenius were consuls. Menenius was immediately sent against the
Etrurians, elated with victory. Then too an unsuccessful battle was
fought, and the enemy took possession of the Janiculum: and the city
would have been besieged, scarcity of provisions bearing hard upon them
in addition to the war, (for the Etrurians had passed the Tiber,) had
not the consul Horatius been recalled from the Volsci; and so closely
did that war approach the very walls, that the first battle was fought
near the temple of Hope with doubtful success, and a second time at the
Colline gate. There, although the Romans had the advantage in a slight
degree only, yet that contest rendered the soldiers better for future
battles by restoring to them their former courage. Aulus Virginius and
Sp. Servilius are created consuls. After the defeat sustained in the
last battle, the Veientians declined an engagement. Ravages were
committed, and they made incursions in every direction on the Roman
territory from the Janiculum as if from a fortress; no where were the
cattle or the husbandmen safe. They were afterwards entrapped by the
same stratagem as that by which they had entrapped the Fabii: having
pursued some cattle that had been driven on designedly for the purpose
of decoying them, they fell into an ambuscade; in proportion as they
were more numerous, the slaughter was greater. The violent resentment
resulting from this disaster was the cause and commencement of one
still greater: for having crossed the Tiber by night, they attempted to
assault the camp of the consul Servilius; being repulsed from thence
with great slaughter, they with difficulty made good their retreat into
the Janiculum. The consul himself also crosses the Tiber, fortifies his
camp at the foot of the Janiculum: at break of day on the following
morning, both from being somewhat elated by the success of the battle
of the day before, more however because the scarcity of corn forced him
into measures which, though dangerous, (he adopted) because they were
more expeditious, he rashly marched his army up the steep of the
Janiculum to the camp of the enemy, and being repulsed from thence with
more disgrace than he had repulsed them on the preceding day, he was
saved, both himself and his army, by the intervention of his colleague.
The Etrurians (hemmed in) between the two armies, when they presented
their rear to the one and the other by turns, were entirely cut off.
Thus the Veientian war was crushed by a fortunate act of temerity.
52. Together with the peace, provisions returned to the city in
greater abundance, both by reason of corn having been brought in from
Campania, and, as soon as the fear felt by each of future famine left
them, that corn being brought forward which had been hoarded up. Then
their minds once more became licentious from their present abundance
and ease, and their former subjects of complaint, now that there were
none abroad, they sought for at home; the tribunes began to excite the
commons by their poison, the agrarian law: they roused them against the
senators who opposed it, and not only against them as a body, but also
against particular individuals. Q. Considius and T. Genucius, the
proposers of the agrarian law, appoint a day of trial for T. Menenius:
the loss of the fort of Cremera, whilst the consul had his standing
camp at no great distance from thence, was the charge against him. They
crushed him, though both the senators had exerted themselves in his
behalf with no less earnestness than in behalf of Coriolanus, and the
popularity of his father Agrippa was not yet forgotten. The tribunes,
however, went no further than a fine: though they had arraigned him for
a capital offence, they imposed on him, when found guilty, a fine of
two thousand asses. This proved fatal. They say that he could
not submit to the disgrace, and to the anguish of mind (occasioned by
it): that, in consequence, he was taken off by disease. Another
senator, Sp. Servilius, being soon after arraigned, as soon as he went
out of office, a day of trial having been appointed for him by the
tribunes, L. Cædicius and T. Statius, at the very commencement of the
year, in the consulship of C. Nautius and P. Valerius, did not, like
Menenius, meet the attacks of the tribunes with supplications from
himself and the patricians, but with firm reliance on his own
integrity, and his personal influence. The battle with the Etrurians at
the Janiculum was the charge against him also: but being a man of an
intrepid spirit, as he had formerly acted in the case of public peril,
so now in that which was personal to himself, he dispelled the danger
by boldly facing it, by confuting not only the tribunes but the commons
also, by a bold speech, and upbraiding them with the condemnation and
death of T. Menenius, by the good offices of whose father the commons
were formerly re-established, and were now in possession of those laws
and those magistrates, by means of which they then exercised their
insolence; his colleague Virginius also, who was brought forward as a
witness, aided him by assigning to him a share of his own deserts; the
condemnation of Menenius however was of greater service to him (so much
had they changed their minds).
53. The contests at home were now concluded. A Veientian war broke
out, with whom the Sabines had united their forces. The consul P.
Valerius, after auxiliaries were sent for from the Latins and
Hernicians, being despatched to Veii with an army, immediately attacks
the Sabine camp, which had been pitched before the walls of their
allies: and occasioned such great consternation, that while, dispersed
in different directions, they sally forth to repel the assault of the
enemy, the gate which the Romans first attacked was taken; then within
the rampart there was rather a carnage than a battle. From the camp the
alarm spreads into the city; the Veientians run to arms in as great a
panic as if Veii had been taken: some come up to the support of the
Sabines, others fall upon the Romans, who had directed all their force
against the camp. For a little while they were disconcerted and thrown
into confusion; then they too forming two fronts make a stand: and the
cavalry, being commanded by the consul to charge, routs the Etrurians
and puts them to flight; and in the same hour two armies and two of the
most influential and powerful of the neighbouring states were
vanquished. Whilst these transactions are going on at Veii, the Volsci
and Æqui had pitched their camp in the Latin territory, and laid waste
their frontiers. The Latins, by their own exertions, being joined by
the Hernicians, without either a Roman general or Roman auxiliaries,
stripped them of their camp. Besides recovering their own effects, they
obtained immense booty. The consul C. Nautius, however, was sent
against the Volsci from Rome. The custom, I suppose, was not pleasing
for allies to carry on wars with their own forces and under their own
direction without a Roman general and troops. There was no kind of
injury or indignity that was not practised against the Volsci; nor
could they be prevailed on however to come to an engagement in the
field.
54. Lucius Furius and Caius Manlius were the next consuls. The
Veientians fell to Manlius as his province. War however did not take
place: a truce for forty years was granted them at their request, corn
and pay for the soldiers being demanded of them. Disturbance at home
immediately succeeds to peace abroad: the commons were goaded by the
tribunes with the excitement of the agrarian law. The consuls, nothing
intimidated by the condemnation of Menenius, nor by the danger of
Servilius, resist with their utmost might; Cn. Genucius, a tribune of
the people, arraigned the consuls on their going out of office. Lucius
Æmilius and Opiter Virginius enter on the consulate. Instead of
Virginius I find Vopiscus Julius consul in some annals. In this year
(whatever consuls it had) Furius and Manlius, being summoned to trial
before the people, go about in suppliant garb not more to the commons
than to the younger patricians; they advise, they caution them “to keep
themselves from honours and the administration of public affairs, and
that they would consider the consular fasces, the prætexta and curule
chair, as nothing else than the decorations of a funeral; that when
covered with these fine insignia, as with fillets, they were doomed to
death. But if the charms of the consulate were so great, they should
rest satisfied that the consulate was held in captivity and crushed by
the tribunitian power; that every thing was to be done at the nod and
command of the tribune by the consul, as if he were a tribune's beadle.
If he stir, if he have reference to the patricians, if he should think
for a moment that there existed any other party in the state but the
commons, let him place before his eyes the banishment of Caius Marcius,
the condemnation and death of Menenius.” Fired by these discourses, the
patricians from that time held their consultations not in public, but
in private, and withdrawn from the knowledge of the many; where when
this one point was agreed on, that the accused must be rescued whether
by just or unjust means, every proposition that was most desperate was
most approved; nor was an actor wanted for any deed however daring.
Accordingly on the day of trial, when the people stood in the forum in
anxious expectation, they at first began to feel surprised that the
tribune did not come down; then when the delay was now becoming more
suspicious, they considered that he was deterred by the nobles, and
they complained that the public cause was abandoned and betrayed. At
length those who had been waiting before the gate of the tribune's
residence, bring word that he was found dead in his house. As soon as
rumour spread this through the whole assembly, just as an army
disperses on the fall of its general, so did they separate in different
directions. The principal panic seized the tribunes, now warned by
their colleague's death what little aid the devoting laws afforded
them. Nor did the patricians bear their joy with sufficient moderation;
and so far was any of them from feeling compunction at the guilty act,
that even those who were innocent wished to be considered to have
perpetrated it, and it was openly declared that the tribunitian power
should be subdued by chastisement.
55. Immediately after this victory of a most ruinous precedent a
levy is proclaimed; and the tribunes being now overawed, the consuls
accomplish the matter without any opposition. Then indeed the commons
became enraged more on account of the silence of the tribunes than the
command of the consuls: and they said “there was an end of their
liberty; that they were come back again to the old condition of things;
that the tribunitian power had died along with Genucius and was buried
with him; that other means must be devised and practised, by which to
resist the patricians; and that the only method for that was that the
people should defend themselves, since they now had no other aid. That
four-and-twenty lictors waited on the consuls; and that these very
individuals were from among the commons; that nothing could be more
despicable, nor weaker, if there were only persons who could despise
them; that each person magnified those things and made them objects of
terror to himself.” When they had excited each other by these
discourses, a lictor was despatched by the consuls to Volero Publilius,
a man belonging to the commons, because he stated, that having been a
centurion he ought not to be made a common soldier. Volero appeals to
the tribunes. When one came to his assistance, the consuls order the
man to be stripped and the rods to be got ready. “I appeal to the
people,” says Volero, “since tribunes had rather see a Roman citizen
scourged before their eyes, than themselves be butchered by you in
their bed.” The more vehemently he cried out, the more violently did
the lictor tear off his clothes and strip him. Then Volero, being both
himself of great bodily strength, and being aided by his partisans,
having repulsed the lictor, when the shouts of those indignant in his
behalf became very intense, betook himself into the thickest part of
the crowd, crying out, “I appeal, and implore the protection of the
commons; assist me, fellow citizens; assist me, fellow soldiers; there
is no use in waiting for the tribunes, who themselves stand in need of
your aid.” The men, being much excited, prepare as it were for battle;
and it became manifest that there was urgent danger, that nothing would
be held sacred by any one, that there would no longer exist any public
or private right. When the consuls faced this so violent storm, they
soon experienced that majesty without strength had but little security;
the lictors being maltreated, the fasces broken, they are driven from
the forum into the senate-house, uncertain how far Volero would push
his victory. After that, the disturbance subsiding, when they had
ordered the senate to be convened, they complain of the outrages
committed on themselves, of the violence of the people, the daring of
Volero. Many violent measures having been proposed, the elder members
prevailed, who recommended that the unthinking rashness of the commons
should not be met by the passionate resentment of the patricians.
56. The commons having espoused the interest of Volero, with great
warmth choose him, at the next election, tribune of the people for that
year, which had Lucius Pinarius and Publius Furius for consuls; and,
contrary to the opinion of all men, who thought that he would let loose
his tribuneship in harassing the consuls of the preceding year,
postponing private resentment to the public interest, without assailing
the consuls even by a single word, he proposed a law to the people that
plebeian magistrates should be elected at the comitia by tribes. A
matter of no trifling moment was now being brought forward, under an
aspect at first sight by no means alarming; but one which in reality
deprived the patricians of all power to elect whatever tribunes they
pleased by the suffrages of their clients. The patricians used all
their energies in resisting this proposition, which was most pleasing
to the commons; and though none of the college could be induced by the
influence either of the consuls or of the chief members of the senate
to enter a protest against it, the only means of resistance which now
existed; yet the matter, important as it was by its own weight, is spun
out by contention till the following year. The commons re-elect Volero
as tribune. The senators, considering that the question would be
carried to the very extreme of a struggle, elect to the consulate
Appius Claudius, the son of Appius, who was both hated by and hated the
commons, ever since the contests between them and his father. Titus
Quintius is assigned to him as his colleague. In the very commencement
of the year no other question took precedence of that regarding the
law. But though Volero was the inventor of it, his colleague, Lætorius,
was both a more recent abettor of it, as well as a more energetic one.
Whilst Volero confined himself to the subject of the law, avoiding all
abuse of the consuls, he commenced with accusing Appius and his family,
as having ever been most overbearing and cruel towards the Roman
commons, contending that he had been elected by the senators, not as
consul, but as executioner, to harass and torture the people; his rude
tongue, he being a military man, was not sufficient to express the
freedom of his sentiments. Language therefore failing him, he says,
“Romans, since I do not speak with as much readiness as I make good
what I have spoken, attend here to-morrow. I will either die here
before your eyes, or will carry the law.” On the following day the
tribunes take possession of the temple; the consuls and the nobility
take their places in the assembly to obstruct the law. Lætorius orders
all persons to be removed, except those going to vote; the young nobles
kept their places, paying no regard to the officer; then Lætorius
orders some of them to be seized. The consul Appius insisted “that the
tribune had no jurisdiction over any one except a plebeian; for that he
was not a magistrate of the people in general, but only of the commons;
for that even he himself could not, according to the usage of their
ancestors, by virtue of his authority remove any person; because the
words run thus, if ye think proper, depart, Romans.” He was able
to disconcert Lætorius by arguing fluently and contemptuously
concerning the right. The tribune therefore, burning with rage, sends
his beadle to the consul; the consul sends his lictor to the tribune,
exclaiming that he was a private individual, without power and without
magistracy; and the tribune would have been roughly treated, had not
both the entire assembly risen up with great warmth in behalf of the
tribune against the consul, and a rush of persons belonging to the
multitude, which was now much excited, taken place from the entire city
into the forum. Appius, however, withstood so great a storm with
obstinacy, and the contest would have ended in a battle, not without
blood, had not Quintius, the other consul, after giving it in charge to
the men of consular dignity to remove his colleague from the forum by
force, if they could not do it otherwise, himself assuaged the enraged
people by entreaties, and implored the tribunes to dismiss the
assembly. “That they should give their passion time to cool; that delay
would not deprive them of their power, but would add prudence to
strength; and that the senators would be under the control of the
people, and the consul under that of the senators.”
57. With difficulty the people were pacified by Quintius: with much
more difficulty was the other consul by the patricians. The assembly of
the people being at length dismissed, the consuls convene the senate;
where, though fear and resentment by turns had produced a diversity of
opinions, the more they were recalled, after the lapse of time, from
violence to reflection, the more averse did they become to a
continuance of the dispute, so that they returned thanks to Quintius,
because by his exertions the disturbance had been quieted. Appius is
requested “to consent that the consular dignity should be merely so
great as it could be in a peaceably conducted state; that as long as
the tribune and consuls were drawing all power, each to his own side,
no strength was left between; that the object aimed at was in whose
hands the commonwealth should be, distracted and torn as it was, rather
than that it should be safe.” Appius, on the contrary, called gods and
men to witness that “the commonwealth was betrayed and abandoned
through cowardice; that it was not the consul that was wanting to the
senate, but the senate to the consul; that more oppressive laws were
now being submitted to than were sanctioned on the sacred mount.”
Overcome however by the unanimous feeling of the senators, he desisted:
the law is carried without opposition.
58. Then for the first time the tribunes were elected in the comitia
by tribes. Piso said that three were added to the number, whereas there
had been only two before. He names the tribunes also, Caius Sicinius,
Lucius Numitorius, Marcus Duilius, Spurius Icilius, Lucius Mecilius.
During the disturbance at Rome, a war with the Volscians and Æquans
broke out; they had laid waste the lands, so that if any secession of
the people should take place, they might find a refuge with them. The
differences being afterwards settled, they removed their camp
backwards. Appius Claudius was sent against the Volscians; the Æquans
fell to Quintius as his province. The severity of Appius was the same
in war as at home, being more unrestrained because he was free from
tribunitian control. He hated the commons with more than his father's
hatred: he had been defeated by them: when he was set up as the only
consul to oppose the tribunitian influence, a law was passed, which
former consuls obstructed with less effort, amid hopes of the senators
by no means so great (as those formed of him). His resentment and
indignation at this, excited his imperious temper to harass the army by
the rigour of his command; nor could it (the army) however be subdued
by any means; such a spirit of opposition had they imbibed. They
executed every measure slowly, indolently, negligently, and with
stubbornness: neither shame nor fear restrained them. If he wished the
army to move on with expedition, they designedly went more slowly: if
he came up to them to encourage them in their work, they all relaxed
the energy which they before exerted of their own accord: when he was
present they cast down their eyes, they silently cursed him as he
passed by; so that his mind, invulnerable to plebeian hatred, was
sometimes moved. All kind of harsh treatment being tried in vain, he no
longer held any intercourse with the soldiers; he said the army was
corrupted by the centurions; he sometimes gibingly called them tribunes
of the people and Voleros.
59. None of these circumstances were unknown to the Volscians, and
they pressed on with so much the more vigour, hoping that the Roman
army would entertain the same spirit of opposition against Appius,
which they had formerly entertained against the consul Fabius. But they
were much more violent against Appius than against Fabius. For they
were not only unwilling to conquer, like Fabius' army, but they wished
to be conquered. When led out to the field, they made for their camp in
an ignominious flight, nor did they stand their ground until they saw
the Volscians advancing to their fortifications, and making dreadful
havoc on the rear of their army. Then the obligation to fight was wrung
from them, in order that the victorious enemy should be dislodged from
their lines; yet it was sufficiently plain that the Roman soldiers were
only unwilling that their camp should be taken; some of them gloried in
their own defeat and disgrace. When the determined spirit of Appius,
undaunted by these things, wished to exercise severity still further,
and he summoned a meeting, the lieutenant-generals and tribunes flock
around him, advising him “that he would not determine on venturing a
trial of an authority, the entire strength of which lay in the
acquiescence of those who were to obey. That the soldiers generally
refused to come to the assembly, and that their clamours were heard in
every direction demanding that the camp should be removed from the
Volscian territory. That the victorious enemy were but a little time
ago almost at the very gates and rampart; and that not merely a
suspicion, but a manifest indication of a grievous disaster presented
itself to their eyes.” Yielding at length, (since they would gain
nothing save a delay of punishment,) having prorogued the assembly,
after he had given orders that their march should be proclaimed for the
following day, he, at the first dawn, gave the signal for departure by
sound of trumpet. When the army, having just got clear of the camp,
were forming themselves, the Volscians, as being aroused by the same
signal, fall upon those in the rear; from whom the alarm spreading to
the van, confounded both the battalions and ranks with such
consternation, that neither the generals' orders could be distinctly
heard, nor the lines be drawn up, no one thinking of any thing but
flight. In such confusion did they make their way through heaps of dead
bodies and of arms, that the enemy ceased to pursue sooner than the
Romans to fly. The soldiers being at length collected from their
scattered rout, the consul, after he had in vain followed his men for
the purpose of rallying them, pitched his camp in a peaceful part of
the country; and an assembly being convened, after inveighing not
without good reason against the army, as traitors to military
discipline, deserters of their posts, frequently asking them, one by
one, where were their standards, where their arms; he first beat with
rods and then beheaded those soldiers who had thrown down their arms,
the standard-bearers who had lost their standards, and moreover the
centurions, and those with the double allowance, who had left their
ranks. With respect to the rest of the multitude, every tenth man was
drawn by lot for punishment.
60. In a contrary manner to this, the consul and soldiers in the
country of the Æquans vied with each other in courtesy and acts of
kindness: both Quintius was naturally milder in disposition, and the
ill-fated severity of his colleague caused him to indulge more in his
own good temper. This, such great cordiality between the general and
his army, the Æquans did not venture to meet; they suffered the enemy
to go through their lands committing devastations in every direction.
Nor were depredations committed more extensively in that quarter in any
preceding war. Praises were also added, in which the minds of soldiers
find no less pleasure than in rewards. The army returned more
reconciled both to their general, and also on account of the general to
the patricians; stating that a parent was assigned to them, a master to
the other army by the senate. The year now passed, with varied success
in war, and furious dissensions at home and abroad, was rendered
memorable chiefly by the elections by tribes; the matter was more
important from the victory in the contest entered into, than from any
real advantage; for there was more of dignity abstracted from the
elections themselves by the exclusion of the patricians, than there was
influence either added to the commons or taken from the patricians.
61. A more turbulent year[99] next followed, Lucius Valerius,
Tiberius Æmilius being consuls, both by reason of the struggles between
the different orders concerning the agrarian law, as well as on account
of the trial of Appius Claudius; for whom, as a most active opposer of
the law, and as one who supported the cause of the possessors of the
public land, as if a third consul, Marcus Duilius and Caius Sicinius
appointed a day of trial.[100] Never before was an accused person so
hateful to the commons brought to trial before the people; overwhelmed
with their resentment on his own account,[101] and also on account of
his father. The patricians too seldom made equal exertions in behalf of
any one: “that the champion of the senate, and the assertor of their
dignity, opposed to all the storms of the tribunes and commons, was
exposed to the resentment of the commons, merely for having exceeded
bounds in the contest.” Appius Claudius himself was the only one of the
patricians who made light both of the tribunes and commons and his own
trial. Neither the threats of the commons, nor the entreaties of the
senate, could ever persuade him not only to change his garb, or address
persons as a suppliant, but not even so far as to soften or relax any
thing from the usual asperity of his style, when his cause was to be
pleaded before the people. The expression of his countenance was the
same; the same stubbornness in his looks, the same spirit of pride in
his language; so that a great part of the commons felt no less awe of
Appius when arraigned, than they had felt of him when consul. He
pleaded his cause once, and with the same spirit of an accuser which he
had been accustomed to adopt on all occasions: and he so far astounded
both the tribunes and the commons by his intrepidity, that, of their
own accord, they postponed the day of trial; then they allowed the
matter to be protracted. Nor was the time now very distant; before,
however, the appointed day came, he dies of some disease; and when the
tribunes of the people endeavoured to impede his funeral
panegyric,[102] the commons would not allow that the last day of so
great a man should be defrauded of the usual honours; and they listened
to the panegyric of him when dead with as patient ears, as they had
listened to the charges brought against him when living, and attended
his funeral in vast numbers.
[Footnote 99: Niebuhr, ii. p. 231, thinks that it was in this year
the Icilian law was passed, according to which, any person interrupting
the proceedings of the tribunes, rendered himself liable to capital
punishment.—Twiss.]
[Footnote 100: Several charges were brought against Appius,
according to Dion. ix. 54, who also states that he did not die of any
disease, but that he laid violent hands on himself.—Ruperti.]
[Footnote 101: The original has plenus suarum—irarum,—that is, the anger not of Appius against the commons, but of the
commons against him.]
[Footnote 102: Conf. Nieb. ii. n. 754. It may be well to mention
that Niebuhr considered that this account regarding the death of Appius
was all fictitious. The Greek writers, scil. Dion. ix. 54, Zonar. vii.
17, state that he laid violent hands on himself.]
62. In the same year the consul Valerius, having marched an army
against the Æquans, when he could not entice the enemy to an
engagement, set about assaulting their camp. A violent storm sent down
from heaven with thunder and hail prevented him. Then, on a signal for
a retreat being given, their surprise was excited by the return of such
fair weather, that they felt a scruple a second time to attack a camp
which was defended as it were by some divine power; all the rage of war
was turned on the devastation of the land. The other consul, Æmilius,
conducted the war against the Sabines. There also, because the enemy
confined themselves within their walls, the lands were laid waste.
Then, by the burning not only of the country-houses, but of the
villages also, which were thickly inhabited, the Sabines being aroused,
after they met the depredators, on retreating from an engagement left
undecided, on the following day removed their camp into a safer
situation. This seemed a sufficient reason to the consul why he should
leave the enemy as conquered, departing thence the war being still
unfinished.
63. During these wars, whilst dissensions still continued at home,
Titus Numicius Priscus, Aulus Virginius, were elected consuls. The
commons appeared determined no longer to brook a delay of the agrarian
law, and extreme violence was on the eve of being resorted to, when it
was ascertained from the burning of the country-houses and the flight
of the peasants that the Volscians were at hand: this circumstance
checked the sedition that was now ripe and almost breaking out. The
consuls, having been instantly forced to the war by the senate,[103]
after leading forth the youth from the city, rendered the rest of the
commons more quiet. And the enemy indeed, having done nothing else
except alarming the Romans by groundless fear, depart with great
precipitation. Numicius marched to Antium against the Volscians,
Virginius against the Æquans. Here a signal overthrow being well nigh
received from an ambuscade, the bravery of the soldiers restored (the
Roman) superiority, which had been endangered through the carelessness
of the consul. The general conducted affairs better against the
Volscians. The enemy were routed in the first engagement, and forced to
fly into the city of Antium, a very wealthy place considering those
times; the consul, not venturing to attack it, took from the people of
Antium another town, Ceno, which was by no means so wealthy. Whilst the
Æquans and Volscians engage the attention of the Roman armies, the
Sabines advanced in their devastations even to the gates of the city:
then they themselves, a few days after, received from the two armies
heavier losses than they had occasioned, the two consuls having entered
their territories under exasperated feelings.
[Footnote 103: In the original we read coacti extemplo ab senatu. Niebuhr considers this reading to be corrupt, and is satisfied that
the correct reading is coacto extemplo senatu. See ii. n. 555.]
64. Towards the close of the year there was some peace, but, as
frequently at other times, disturbed by contests between the patricians
and commons. The exasperated commons refused to attend the consular
elections: Titus Quintius, Quintus Servilius, were elected consuls by
the patricians and their dependents: the consuls have a year similar to
the preceding, the commencement embroiled, and afterwards tranquil by
external war. The Sabines marching across the plains of Crustuminum
with great rapidity, after carrying fire and sword along the banks of
the Anio, being repulsed when they had come up nearly to the Colline
gate and the walls, drove off however great booty of men and cattle:
the consul Servilius, having pursued them with a determined army, was
unable to come up with the main body itself on the campaign country; he
carried his devastation however so extensively, that he left nothing
unmolested by war, and returned after obtaining plunder much exceeding
that carried off by the enemy. The public interest was supported
extremely well against the Volscians also by the exertions as well of
the general as of the soldiers. First they fought a pitched battle, on
equal ground, with great slaughter and much bloodshed on both sides:
and the Romans, because the fewness of their numbers was more likely to
make the loss felt, would have given way, had not the consul, by a
well-timed fiction, re-animated the army, crying out that the enemy
were flying on the other wing; making a charge, they, by supposing that
they were victorious, became so. The consul, fearing lest by pressing
too far he might renew the contest, gave the signal for a retreat. A
few days intervened; rest being taken on both sides as if by a tacit
suspension of arms; during these days a vast number of persons from all
the states of the Volscians and Æquans came to the camp, certain that
the Romans would depart during the night, if they should perceive them.
Accordingly about the third watch they come to attack the camp.
Quintius having allayed the confusion which the sudden panic had
occasioned, after ordering the soldiers to remain quiet in their tents,
leads out a cohort of the Hernicians for an advance guard: the
trumpeters and horneteers he mounts on horseback, and commands them to
sound their trumpets before the rampart, and to keep the enemy in
suspense till daylight: during the rest of the night every thing was so
quiet in the camp, that the Romans had even the advantage of sleep. The
sight of the armed infantry, whom they both considered to be more
numerous than they were, and to be Romans, the bustle and neighing of
the horses, which became restless, both from the strange riders placed
on them, and moreover from the sound of the trumpets frightening them,
kept the Volscians intently awaiting an attack of the enemy.
65. When day dawned, the Romans, invigorated and refreshed with
sleep, on being marched out to battle, at the first onset overpowered
the Volscians, wearied from standing and want of rest; though the enemy
rather retired than were routed, because in the rear there were hills
to which there was a secure retreat, the ranks behind the first line
being unbroken. The consul, when they came to the uneven ground, halts
his army; the soldiers were kept back with difficulty; they cried out
and demanded to be allowed to pursue the enemy now discomfited. The
cavalry, crowding around the general, proceed more violently: they cry
out that they would proceed before the first line. Whilst the consul
hesitates, relying on the valour of his men, yet having little
confidence in the place, they all cry out that they would proceed; and
execution followed the shout. Fixing their spears in the ground, in
order that they may be lighter to ascend the steeps, they run upwards.
The Volscians, having discharged their missile weapons at the first
onset, fling the stones lying at their feet on them as they advanced
upwards, and having thrown them into confusion by incessant blows, they
drove them from the higher ground: thus the left wing of the Romans was
nearly overborne, had not the consul dispelled their fear by exciting a
sense of shame as they were just retreating, chiding at the same time
their temerity and their cowardice. At first they stood their ground
with determined firmness; then, according as their strength carried
them against those in possession of the ground, they venture to advance
themselves; and by renewing the shout they encourage the whole body to
move on; then again making a new effort, they force their way up and
surmount the disadvantage of the ground. They were on the point of
gaining the summit of the eminence, when the enemy turned their backs,
and the pursued and pursuers with precipitate speed rushed into the
camp almost in a body. In this consternation the camp is taken; such of
the Volscians as were able to make their escape, take the road to
Antium. The Roman army also was led to Antium; after being invested for
a few days it surrenders without any additional force of the
besiegers,[104] but because their spirits had sunk ever since the
unsuccessful battle and the loss of their camp.
[Footnote 104: Additional force of the, &c. Crovier
understands this to signify that the Romans did not employ a greater
force for besieging Antium, than they had employed the preceding year,
and which at that time seemed insufficient for the purpose. Others
understand the words to signify that they surrendered without waiting
for the Romans to make any additional efforts to take the town.]