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2.1
It is of a Rome henceforth free that I am to write the history-her civil
administration and the conduct of her wars, her annually elected magistrates,
the authority of her laws supreme over all her citizens. The tyranny of
the last king made this liberty all the more welcome, for such had been
the rule of the former kings that they might not undeservedly be counted
as founders of parts, at all events, of the city; for the additions they
made were required as abodes for the increased population which they themselves
had augmented. There is no question that the Brutus who won such glory
through the expulsion of Superbus would have inflicted the gravest injury
on the State had he wrested the sovereignty from any of the former kings,
through desire of a liberty for which the people were not ripe. What would
have been the result if that horde of shepherds and immigrants, fugitives
from their own cities, who had secured liberty, or at all events impunity,
in the shelter of an inviolable sanctuary,-if, I say, they had been freed
from the restraining power of kings and, agitated by tribunician storms,
had begun to foment quarrels with the patricians in a City where they were
aliens before sufficient time had elapsed for either family ties or a growing
love for the very soil to effect a union of hearts? The infant State would
have been torn to pieces by internal dissension. As it was, however, the
moderate and tranquilising authority of the kings had so fostered it that
it was at last able to bring forth the fair fruits of liberty in the maturity
of its strength. But the origin of liberty may be referred to this time
rather because the consular authority was limited to one year than because
there was any weakening of the authority which the kings had possessed.
The first consuls retained all the old jurisdiction and insignia of office,
one only, however, had the "fasces," to prevent the fear which might have
been inspired by the sight of both with those dread symbols. Through the
concession of his colleague, Brutus had them first, and he was not less
zealous in guarding the public liberty than he had been in achieving it.
His first act was to secure the people, who were now jealous of their newly-recovered
liberty, from being influenced by any entreaties or bribes from the king.
He therefore made them take an oath that they would not suffer any man
to reign in Rome. The senate had been thinned by the murderous cruelty
of Tarquin, and Brutus' next care was to strengthen its influence by selecting
some of the leading men of equestrian rank to fill the vacancies; by this
means he brought it up to the old number of three hundred. The new members
were known as "conscripti," the old ones retained their designation of
"patres." This measure had a wonderful effect in promoting harmony in the
State and bringing the patricians and plebeians together.
2.2
He next gave his attention to the affairs of religion. Certain public functions
had hitherto been executed by the kings in person; with the view of supplying
their place a "king for sacrifices" was created, and lest he should become
king in anything more than name, and so threaten that liberty which was
their first care, his office was made subordinate to the Pontifex Maximus.
I think that they went to unreasonable lengths in devising safeguards for
their liberty, in all, even the smallest points. The second consul-L. Tarquinius
Collatinus-bore an unpopular name- this was his sole offence-and men said
that the Tarquins had been too long in power. They began with Priscus;
then Servius Tullius reigned, and Superbus Tarquinius, who even after this
interruption had not lost sight of the throne which another filled, regained
it by crime and violence as the hereditary possession of his house. And
now that he was expelled, their power was being wielded by Collatinus;
the Tarquins did not know how to live in a private station, the very name
was a danger to liberty. What were at first whispered hints became the
common talk of the City, and as the people were becoming suspicious and
alarmed, Brutus summoned an assembly. He first of all rehearsed the people's
oath, that they would suffer no man to reign or to live in Rome by whom
the public liberty might be imperilled. This was to be guarded with the
utmost care, no means of doing so were to be neglected. Personal regard
made him reluctant to speak, nor would he have spoken had not his affection
for the commonwealth compelled him. The Roman people did consider that
their freedom was not yet fully won; the royal race, the royal name, was
still there, not only amongst the citizens but in the government; in that
fact lay an injury, an obstacle to full liberty. Turning to his brother
consul: "These apprehensions it is for you, L. Tarquinius, to banish of
your own free will. We have not forgotten, I assure you, that you expelled
the king's family, complete your good work, remove their very name. Your
fellow-citizens will, on my authority, not only hand over your property,
but if you need anything, they will add to it with lavish generosity. Go,
as our friend, relieve the commonwealth from a, perhaps groundless, fear:
men are persuaded that only with the family will the tyranny of the Tarquins
depart." At first the consul was struck dumb with astonishment at this
extraordinary request; then, when he was beginning to speak, the foremost
men in the commonwealth gathered round him and repeatedly urged the same
plea, but with little success. It was not till Spurius Lucretius, his superior
in age and rank, and also his father-in-law, began to use every method
of entreaty and persuasion that he yielded to the universal wish. The consul,
fearing lest after his year of office had expired and he returned to private
life, the same demand should be made upon him, accompanied with loss of
property and the ignominy of banishment, formally laid down the consulship,
and after transferring all his effects to Lanuvium, withdrew from the State.
A decree of the senate empowered Brutus to propose to the people a measure
exiling all the members of the house of Tarquin. He conducted the election
of a new consul, and the centuries elected as his colleague Publius Valerius,
who had acted with him in the expulsion of the royal family.
2.3
Though no one doubted that war with the Tarquins was imminent, it did not
come as soon as was universally expected. What was not expected, however,
was that through intrigue and treachery the new-won liberty was almost
lost. There were some young men of high birth in Rome who during the late
reign had done pretty much what they pleased, and being boon companions
of the young Tarquins were accustomed to live in royal fashion. Now that
all were equal before the law, they missed their former licence and complained
that the liberty which others enjoyed had become slavery for them; as long
as there was a king, there was a person from whom they could get what they
wanted, whether lawful or not, there was room for personal influence and
kindness, he could show severity or indulgence, could discriminate between
his friends and his enemies. But the law was a thing, deaf and inexorable,
more favourable to the weak than to the powerful, showing no indulgence
or forgiveness to those who transgressed; human nature being what it was,
it was a dangerous plan to trust solely to one's innocence. When they had
worked themselves into a state of disaffection, envoys from the royal family
arrived, bringing a demand for the restoration of their property without
any allusion to their possible return. An audience was granted them by
the senate, and the matter was discussed for some days; fears were expressed
that the non-surrender would be taken as a pretext for war, while if surrendered
it might provide the means of war. The envoys, meantime, were engaged on
another task: whilst ostensibly seeking only the surrender of the property
they were secretly hatching schemes for regaining the crown. Whilst canvassing
the young nobility in favour of their apparent object, they sounded them
as to their other proposals, and meeting with a favourable reception, they
brought letters addressed to them by the Tarquins and discussed plans for
admitting them secretly at night into the City.
2.4
The project was at first entrusted to the brothers Vitellii and Aquilii.
The sister of the Vitellii was married to the consul Brutus, and there
were grown-up children from this marriage-Titus and Tiberius. Their uncles
took them into the conspiracy, there were others besides, whose names have
been lost. In the meantime the opinion that the property ought to be restored
was adopted by the majority of the senate, and this enabled the envoys
to prolong their stay, as the consuls required time to provide vehicles
for conveying the goods. They employed their time in consultations with
the conspirators and they insisted on getting a letter which they were
to give to the Tarquins, for without such a guarantee, they argued, how
could they be sure that their envoys had not brought back empty promises
in a matter of such vast importance? A letter was accordingly given as
a pledge of good faith, and this it was that led to the discovery of the
plot. The day previous to the departure of the envoys they happened to
be dining at the house of the Vitellii. After all who were not in the secret
had left, the conspirators discussed many details respecting their projected
treason, which were overheard by one of the slaves who had previously suspected
that something was afoot, but was waiting for the moment when the letter
should be given, as its seizure would be a complete proof of the plot.
When he found that it had been given, he disclosed the affair to the consuls.
They at once proceeded to arrest the envoys and the conspirators, and crushed
the whole plot without exciting any alarm. Their first care was to secure
the letter before it was destroyed. The traitors were forthwith thrown
into prison; there was some hesitation in dealing with the envoys, and
although they had evidently been guilty of a hostile act, the rights of
international law were accorded them.
2.5
The question of the restoration of the property was referred anew to the
senate, who yielding to their feelings of resentment prohibited its restoration,
and forbade its being brought into the treasury; it was given as plunder
to the plebs, that their share in this spoliation might destroy for ever
any prospect of peaceable relations with the Tarquins. The land of the
Tarquins, which lay between the City and the Tiber, was henceforth sacred
to Mars and known as the Campus Martius. There happened, it is said, to
be a crop of corn there which was ripe for the harvest, and as it would
have been sacrilege to consume what was growing on the Campus, a large
body of men were sent to cut it. They carried it, straw and all, in baskets
to the Tiber and threw it into the river. It was the height of the summer
and the stream was low, consequently the corn stuck in the shallows, and
heaps of it were covered with mud; gradually as the debris which the river
brought down collected there, an island was formed. I believe that it was
subsequently raised and strengthened so that the surface might be high
enough above the water and firm enough to carry temples and colonnades.
After the royal property had been disposed of, the traitors were sentenced
and executed. Their punishment created a great sensation owing to the fact
that the consular office imposed upon a father the duty of inflicting punishment
on his own children; he who ought not to have witnessed it was destined
to be the one to see it duly carried out. Youths belonging to the noblest
families were standing tied to the post, but all eyes were turned to the
consul's children, the others were unnoticed. Men did not grieve more for
their punishment than for the crime which had incurred it-that they should
have conceived the idea, in that year above all, of betraying to one, who
had been a ruthless tyrant and was now an exile and an enemy, a newly liberated
country, their father who had liberated it, the consulship which had originated
in the Junian house, the senate, the plebs, all that Rome possessed of
human or divine. The consuls took their seats, the lictors were told off
to inflict the penalty; they scourged their bared backs with rods and then
beheaded them. During the whole time, the father's countenance betrayed
his feelings, but the father's stern resolution was still more apparent
as he superintended the public execution. After the guilty had paid the
penalty, a notable example of a different nature was provided to act as
a deterrent of crime, the informer was assigned a sum of money from the
treasury and he was given his liberty and the rights of citizenship. He
is said to have been the first to be made free by the "vindicta." Some
suppose this designation to have been derived from him, his name being
Vindicius. After him it was the rule that those who were made free in this
way were considered to be admitted to the citizenship.
2.6
A detailed report of these matters reached Tarquin. He was not only furious
at the failure of plans from which he had hoped so much, but he was filled
with rage at finding the way blocked against secret intrigues; and consequently
determined upon open war. He visited the cities of Etruria and appealed
for help; in particular, he implored the people of Veii and Tarquinii not
to allow one to perish before their eyes who was of the same blood with
them, and from being a powerful monarch was now, with his children, homeless
and destitute. Others, he said, had been invited from abroad to reign in
Rome; he, the king, whilst extending the rule of Rome by a successful war,
had been driven out by the infamous conspiracy of his nearest kinsmen.
They had no single person amongst them deemed worthy to reign, so they
had distributed the kingly authority amongst themselves, and had given
his property as plunder to the people, that all might be involved in the
crime. He wanted to recover his country and his throne and punish his ungrateful
subjects. The Veientines must help him and furnish him with resources,
they must set about avenging their own wrongs also, their legions so often
cut to pieces, their territory torn from them. This appeal decided the
Veientines, they one and all loudly demanded that their former humiliations
should be wiped out and their losses made good, now that they had a Roman
to lead them. The people of Tarquinii were won over by the name and nationality
of the exile; they were proud of having a countryman as king in Rome. So
two armies from these cities followed Tarquin to recover his crown and
chastise the Romans. When they had entered the Roman territory the consuls
advanced against them; Valerius with the infantry in phalanx formation,
Brutus reconnoitring in advance with the cavalry. Similarly the enemy's
cavalry was in front of his main body, Arruns Tarquin, the king's son,
in command; the king himself followed with the legionaries. Whilst still
at a distance Arruns distinguished the consul by his escort of lictors;
as they drew nearer he clearly recognised Brutus by his features, and in
a transport of rage exclaimed, "That is the man who drove us from our country;
see him proudly advancing, adorned with our insignia! Ye gods, avengers
of kings, aid me!" With these words, he dug spurs into his horse and rode
straight at the consul. Brutus saw that he was making for him. It was a
point of honour in those days for the leaders to engage in single combat,
so he eagerly accepted the challenge, and they charged with such fury,
neither of them thinking of protecting himself, if only he could wound
his foe, that each drove his spear at the same moment through the other's
shield, and they fell dying from their horses, with the spears sticking
in them. The rest of the cavalry at once engaged, and not long after the
infantry came up. The battle raged with varying fortune, the two armies
being fairly matched; the right wing of each was victorious, the left defeated.
The Veientes, accustomed to defeat at the hands of the Romans, were scattered
in flight, but the Tarquinians, a new foe, not only held their ground,
but forced the Romans to give way.
2.7
After the battle had gone in this way, so great a panic seized Tarquin
and the Etruscans that the two armies of Veii and Tarquinii, on the approach
of night, despairing of success, left the field and departed for their
homes. The story of the battle was enriched by marvels. In the silence
of the next night a great voice is said to have come from the forest of
Arsia, believed to be the voice of Silvanus, which spoke thus: "The fallen
of the Tusci are one more than those of their foe; the Roman is conqueror."
At all events the Romans left the field as victors; the Etruscans regarded
themselves as vanquished, for when daylight appeared not a single enemy
was in sight. P. Valerius, the consul, collected the spoils and returned
in triumph to Rome. He celebrated his colleague's obsequies with all the
pomp possible in those days, but far greater honour was done to the dead
by the universal mourning, which was rendered specially noteworthy by the
fact that the matrons were a whole year in mourning for him, because he
had been such a determined avenger of violated chastity. After this the
surviving consul, who had been in such favour with the multitude, found
himself-such is its fickleness-not only unpopular but an object of suspicion,
and that of a very grave character. It was rumoured that he was aiming
at monarchy, for he had held no election to fill Brutus' place, and he
was building a house on the top of the Velia, an impregnable fortress was
being constructed on that high and strong position. The consul felt hurt
at finding these rumours so widely believed, and summoned the people to
an assembly. As he entered the "fasces" were lowered, to the great delight
of the multitude, who understood that it was to them that they were lowered
as an open avowal that the dignity and might of the people were greater
than those of the consul. Then, after securing silence, he began to eulogise
the good fortune of his colleague who had met his death, as a liberator
of his country, possessing the highest honour it could bestow, fighting
for the commonwealth, whilst his glory was as yet undimmed by jealousy
and distrust. Whereas he himself had outlived his glory and fallen on days
of suspicion and opprobrium; from being a liberator of his country he had
sunk to the level of the Aquilii and Vitellii. "Will you," he cried, "never
deem any man's merit so assured that it cannot be tainted by suspicion?
Am I, the most determined foe to kings to dread the suspicion of desiring
to be one myself? Even if I were dwelling in the Citadel on the Capitol,
am I to believe it possible that I should be feared by my fellow-citizens?
Does my reputation amongst you hang on so slight a thread? Does your confidence
rest upon such a weak foundation that it is of greater moment where I am
than who I am? The house of Publius Valerius shall be no check upon your
freedom, your Velia shall be safe. I will not only move my house to level
ground, but I will move it to the bottom of the hill that you may dwell
above the citizen whom you suspect. Let those dwell on the Velia who are
regarded as truer friends of liberty than Publius Valerius." All the materials
were forthwith carried below the Velia and his house was built at the very
bottom of the hill where now stands the temple of Vica Pota.
2.8
Laws were passed which not only cleared the consul from suspicion but produced
such a reaction that he won the people's affections, hence his soubriquet
of Publicola. The most popular of these laws were those which granted a
right of appeal from the magistrate to the people and devoted to the gods
the person and property of any one who entertained projects of becoming
king. Valerius secured the passing of these laws while still sole consul,
that the people might feel grateful solely to him; afterwards he held the
elections for the appointment of a colleague. The consul elected was Sp.
Lucretius. But he had not, owing to his great age, strength enough to discharge
the duties of his office, and within a few days he died. M. Horatius Pulvillus
was elected in his place. In some ancient authors I find no mention of
Lucretius, Horatius being named immediately after Brutus; as he did nothing
of any note during his office, I suppose, his memory has perished. The
temple of Jupiter on the Capitol had not yet been dedicated, and the consuls
drew lots to decide which should dedicate it. The lot fell to Horatius.
Publicola set out for the Veientine war. His friends showed unseemly annoyance
at the dedication of so illustrious a fane being assigned to Horatius,
and tried every means of preventing it. When all else failed, they tried
to alarm the consul, whilst he was actually holding the door-post during
the dedicatory prayer, by a wicked message that his son was dead, and he
could not dedicate a temple while death was in his house. As to whether
he disbelieved the message, or whether his conduct simply showed extraordinary
self-control, there is no definite tradition, and it is not easy to decide
from the records. He only allowed the message to interrupt him so far that
he gave orders for the body to be burnt; then, with his hand still on the
door-post, he finished the prayer and dedicated the temple. These were
the principal incidents at home and in the field during the first year
after the expulsion of the royal family. The consuls elected for the next
year were P. Valerius, for the second time, and T. Lucretius.
2.9
The Tarquins had now taken refuge with Porsena, the king of Clusium, whom
they sought to influence by entreaty mixed with warnings. At one time they
entreated him not to allow men of Etruscan race, of the same blood as himself,
to wander as penniless exiles; at another they would warn him not to let
the new fashion of expelling kings go unpunished. Liberty, they urged,
possessed fascination enough in itself; unless kings defend their authority
with as much energy as their subjects show in quest of liberty, all things
come to a dead level, there will be no one thing pre-eminent or superior
to all else in the State; there will soon be an end of kingly power, which
is the most beautiful thing, whether amongst gods or amongst mortal men.
Porsena considered that the presence of an Etruscan upon the Roman throne
would be an honour to his nation; accordingly he advanced with an army
against Rome. Never before had the senate been in such a state of alarm,
so great at that time was the power of Clusium and the reputation of Porsena.
They feared not only the enemy but even their own fellow-citizens, lest
the plebs, overcome by their fears, should admit the Tarquins into the
City, and accept peace even though it meant slavery. Many concessions were
made at that time to the plebs by the senate. Their first care was to lay
in a stock of corn, and commissioners were despatched to Vulsi and Cumae
to collect supplies. The sale of salt, hitherto in the hands of private
individuals who had raised the price to a high figure, was now wholly transferred
to the State. The plebs were exempted from the payment of harbour-dues
and the war-tax, so that they might fall on the rich, who could bear the
burden; the poor were held to pay sufficient to the State if they brought
up their children. This generous action of the senate maintained the harmony
of the commonwealth through the subsequent stress of siege and famine so
completely that the name of king was not more abhorrent to the highest
than it was to the lowest, nor did any demagogue ever succeed in becoming
so popular in after times as the senate was then by its beneficent legislation.
2.10
On the appearance of the enemy the country people fled into the City as
best they could. The weak places in the defences were occupied by military
posts; elsewhere the walls and the Tiber were deemed sufficient protection.
The enemy would have forced their way over the Sublician bridge had it
not been for one man, Horatius Cocles. The good fortune of Rome provided
him as her bulwark on that memorable day. He happened to be on guard at
the bridge when he saw the Janiculum taken by a sudden assault and the
enemy rushing down from it to the river, whilst his own men, a panic-struck
mob, were deserting their posts and throwing away their arms. He reproached
them one after another for their cowardice, tried to stop them, appealed
to them in heaven's name to stand, declared that it was in vain for them
to seek safety in flight whilst leaving the bridge open behind them, there
would very soon be more of the enemy on the Palatine and the Capitol than
there were on the Janiculum. So he shouted to them to break down the bridge
by sword or fire, or by whatever means they could, he would meet the enemies'
attack so far as one man could keep them at bay. He advanced to the head
of the bridge. Amongst the fugitives, whose backs alone were visible to
the enemy, he was conspicuous as he fronted them armed for fight at close
quarters. The enemy were astounded at his preternatural courage. Two men
were kept by a sense of shame from deserting him-Sp. Lartius and T. Herminius-both
of them men of high birth and renowned courage. With them he sustained
the first tempestuous shock and wild confused onset, for a brief interval.
Then, whilst only a small portion of the bridge remained and those who
were cutting it down called upon them to retire, he insisted upon these,
too, retreating. Looking round with eyes dark with menace upon the Etruscan
chiefs, he challenged them to single combat, and reproached them all with
being the slaves of tyrant kings, and whilst unmindful of their own liberty
coming to attack that of others. For some time they hesitated, each looking
round upon the others to begin. At length shame roused them to action,
and raising a shout they hurled their javelins from all sides on their
solitary foe. He caught them on his outstretched shield, and with unshaken
resolution kept his place on the bridge with firmly planted foot. They
were just attempting to dislodge him by a charge when the crash of the
broken bridge and the shout which the Romans raised at seeing the work
completed stayed the attack by filling them with sudden panic. Then Cocles
said, "Tiberinus, holy father, I pray thee to receive into thy propitious
stream these arms and this thy warrior." So, fully armed, he leaped into
the Tiber, and though many missiles fell over him he swam across in safety
to his friends: an act of daring more famous than credible with posterity.
The State showed its gratitude for such courage; his statue was set up
in the Comitium, and as much land given to him as he could drive the plough
round in one day. Besides this public honour, the citizens individually
showed their feeling; for, in spite of the great scarcity, each, in proportion
to his means, sacrificed what he could from his own store as a gift to
Cocles.
2.11
Repulsed in his first attempt, Porsena changed his plans from assault to
blockade. After placing a detachment to hold the Janiculum he fixed his
camp on the plain between that hill and the Tiber, and sent everywhere
for boats, partly to intercept any attempt to get corn into Rome and partly
to carry his troops across to different spots for plunder, as opportunity
might serve. In a short time he made the whole of the district round Rome
so insecure that not only were all the crops removed from the fields but
even the cattle were all driven into the City, nor did any one venture
to take them outside the gates. The impunity with which the Etruscans committed
their depredations was due to strategy on the part of the Romans more than
to fear. For the consul Valerius, determined to get an opportunity of attacking
them when they were scattered in large numbers over the fields, allowed
small forages to pass unnoticed, whilst he was reserving himself for vengeance
on a larger scale. So to draw on the pillagers, he gave orders to a considerable
body of his men to drive cattle out of the Esquiline gate, which was the
furthest from the enemy, in the expectation that they would gain intelligence
of it through the slaves who were deserting, owing to the scarcity produced
by the blockade. The information was duly conveyed, and in consequence
they crossed the river in larger numbers than usual in the hope of securing
the whole lot. P. Valerius ordered T. Herminius with a small body of troops
to take up a concealed position at a distance of two miles on the Gabian
road, whilst Sp. Lartius with some light-armed infantry was to post himself
at the Colline gate until the enemy had passed him and then to intercept
their retreat to the river. The other consul, T. Lucretius, with a few
maniples made a sortie from the Naevian gate; Valerius himself led some
picked cohorts from the Caelian hill, and these were the first to attract
the enemy's notice. When Herminius became aware that fighting was begun,
he rose from ambush and took the enemy who were engaged with Valerius in
rear. Answering cheers arose right and left, from the Colline and the Naevian
gates and the pillagers, hemmed in, unequal to the fight, and with every
way of escape blocked, were cut to pieces. That put an end to these irregular
and scattered excursions on the part of the Etruscans.
2.12
The blockade, however, continued, and with it a growing scarcity of corn
at famine prices. Porsena still cherished hopes of capturing the City by
keeping up the investment. There was a young noble, C. Mucius, who regarded
it as a disgrace that whilst Rome in the days of servitude under her kings
had never been blockaded in any war or by any foe, she should now, in the
day of her freedom, be besieged by those very Etruscans whose armies she
had often routed. Thinking that this disgrace ought to be avenged by some
great deed of daring, he determined in the first instance to penetrate
into the enemy's camp on his own responsibility. On second thoughts, however,
he became apprehensive that if he went without orders from the consuls,
or unknown to any one, and happened to be arrested by the Roman outposts,
he might be brought back as a deserter, a charge which the condition of
the City at the time would make only too probable. So he went to the senate.
"I wish," he said, "Fathers, to swim the Tiber, and, if I can, enter the
enemy's camp, not as a pillager nor to inflict retaliation for their pillagings.
I am purposing, with heaven's help, a greater deed." The senate gave their
approval. Concealing a sword in his robe, he started. When he reached the
camp he took his stand in the densest part of the crowd near the royal
tribunal. It happened to be the soldiers' pay-day, and a secretary, sitting
by the king and dressed almost exactly like him, was busily engaged, as
the soldiers kept coming to him incessantly. Afraid to ask which of the
two was the king, lest his ignorance should betray him, Mucius struck as
fortune directed the blow and killed the secretary instead of the king.
He tried to force his way back with his blood-stained dagger through the
dismayed crowd, but the shouting caused a rush to be made to the spot;
he was seized and dragged back by the king's bodyguard to the royal tribunal.
Here, alone and helpless, and in the utmost peril, he was still able to
inspire more fear than he felt. "I am a citizen of Rome," he said, "men
call me C. Mucius. As an enemy I wished to kill an enemy, and I have as
much courage to meet death as I had to inflict it. It is the Roman nature
to act bravely and to suffer bravely. I am not alone in having made this
resolve against you, behind me there is a long list of those who aspire
to the same distinction. If then it is your pleasure, make up your mind
for a struggle in which you will every hour have to fight for your life
and find an armed foe on the threshold of your royal tent. This is the
war which we the youth of Rome, declare against you. You have no serried
ranks, no pitched battle to fear, the matter will be settled between you
alone and each one of us singly." The king, furious with anger, and at
the same time terrified at the unknown danger, threatened that if he did
not promptly explain the nature of the plot which he was darkly hinting
at he should be roasted alive. "Look," Mucius cried, "and learn how lightly
those regard their bodies who have some great glory in view." Then he plunged
his right hand into a fire burning on the altar. Whilst he kept it roasting
there as if he were devoid of all sensation, the king, astounded at his
preternatural conduct, sprang from his seat and ordered the youth to be
removed from the altar. "Go," he said, "you have been a worse enemy to
yourself than to me. I would invoke blessings on your courage if it were
displayed on behalf of my country; as it is, I send you away exempt from
all rights of war, unhurt, and safe." Then Mucius, reciprocating, as it
were, this generous treatment, said, "Since you honour courage, know that
what you could not gain by threats you have obtained by kindness. Three
hundred of us, the foremost amongst the Roman youth, have sworn to attack
you in this way. The lot fell to me first, the rest, in the order of their
lot, will come each in his turn, till fortune shall give us a favourable
chance against you."
2.13
Mucius was accordingly dismissed; afterwards he received the soubriquet
of Scaevola, from the loss of his right hand. Envoys from Porsena followed
him to Rome. The king's narrow escape from the first of many attempts;
which was owing solely to the mistake of his assailant, and the prospect
of having to meet as many attacks as there were conspirators, so unnerved
him that he made proposals of peace to Rome. One for the restoration of
the Tarquins was put forward, more because he could not well refuse their
request than because he had any hope of its being granted. The demand for
the restitution of their territory to the Veientines, and that for the
surrender of hostages as a condition of the withdrawal of the detachment
from the Janiculum, were felt by the Romans to be inevitable, and on their
being accepted and peace concluded, Porsena moved his troops from the Janiculum
and evacuated the Roman territory. As a recognition of his courage the
senate gave C. Mucius a piece of land across the river, which was afterwards
known as the Mucian Meadows. The honour thus paid to courage incited even
women to do glorious things for the State. The Etruscan camp was situated
not far from the river, and the maiden Cloelia, one of the hostages, escaped,
unobserved, through the guards and at the head of her sister hostages swam
across the river amidst a shower of javelins and restored them all safe
to their relatives. When the news of this incident reached him, the king
was at first exceedingly angry and sent to demand the surrender of Cloelia;
the others he did not care about. Afterwards his feelings changed to admiration;
he said that the exploit surpassed those of Cocles and Mucius, and announced
that whilst on the one hand he should consider the treaty broken if she
were not surrendered, he would on the other hand, if she were surrendered,
send her back to her people unhurt. Both sides behaved honourably; the
Romans surrendered her as a pledge of loyalty to the terms of the treaty;
the Etruscan king showed that with him courage was not only safe but honoured,
and after eulogising the girl's conduct, told her that he would make her
a present of half the remaining hostages, she was to choose whom she would.
It is said that after all had been brought before her, she chose the boys
of tender age; a choice in keeping with maidenly modesty, and one approved
by the hostages themselves, since they felt that the age which was most
liable to ill-treatment should have the preference in being rescued from
hostile hands. After peace was thus re-established, the Romans rewarded
the unprecedented courage shown by a woman by an unprecedented honour,
namely an equestrian statue. On the highest part of the Sacred Way a statue
was erected representing the maiden sitting on horseback.
2.14
Quite inconsistent with this peaceful withdrawal from the City on the part
of the Etruscan king is the custom which, with other formalities, has been
handed down from antiquity to our own age of "selling the goods of King
Porsena." This custom must either have been introduced during the war and
kept up after peace was made, or else it must have a less bellicose origin
than would be implied by the description of the goods sold as "taken from
the enemy." The most probable tradition is that Porsena, knowing the City
to be without food owing to the long investment, made the Romans a present
of his richly-stored camp, in which provisions had been collected from
the neighbouring fertile fields of Etruria. Then, to prevent the people
seizing them indiscriminately as spoils of war, they were regularly sold,
under the description of "the goods of Porsena," a description indicating
rather the gratitude of the people than an auction of the king's personal
property, which had never been at the disposal of the Romans. To prevent
his expedition from appearing entirely fruitless, Porsena, after bringing
the war with Rome to a close, sent his son Aruns with a part of his force
to attack Aricia. At first the Aricians were dismayed by the unexpected
movement, but the succours which in response to their request were sent
from the Latin towns and from Cumae so far encouraged them that they ventured
to offer battle. At the commencement of the action the Etruscans attacked
with such vigour that they routed the Aricians at the first charge. The
Cuman cohorts made a strategical flank movement, and when the enemy had
pressed forward in disordered pursuit, they wheeled round and attacked
them in the rear. Thus the Etruscans, now all but victorious, were hemmed
in and cut to pieces. A very small remnant, after losing their general,
made for Rome, as there was no nearer place of safety. Without arms, and
in the guise of suppliants, they were kindly received and distributed amongst
different houses. After recovering from their wounds, some left for their
homes, to tell of the kind hospitality they had received; many remained
behind out of affection for their hosts and the City. A district was assigned
to them to dwell in, which subsequently bore the designation of "the Tuscan
quarter."
2.15
The new consuls were Sp. Lartius and T. Herminius. This year Porsena made
the last attempt to effect the restoration of the Tarquins. The ambassadors
whom he had despatched to Rome with this object were informed that the
senate were going to send an embassy to the king, and the most honourable
of the senators were forthwith despatched. They stated that the reason
why a select number of senators had been sent to him in preference to a
reply being given to his ambassadors at Rome was not that they had been
unable to give the brief answer that kings would never be allowed in Rome,
but simply that all mention of the matter might be for ever dropped, that
after the interchange of so many kindly acts there might be no cause of
irritation, for he, Porsena, was asking for what would be against the liberty
of Rome. The Romans, if they did not wish to hasten their own ruin, would
have to refuse the request of one to whom they wished to refuse nothing.
Rome was not a monarchy, but a free City, and they had made up their minds
to open their gates even to an enemy sooner than to a king. It was the
universal wish that whatever put an end to liberty in the City should put
an end to the City itself. They begged him, if he wished Rome to be safe,
to allow it to be free. Touched with a feeling of sympathy and respect,
the king replied, "Since this is your fixed and unalterable determination,
I will not harass you by fruitless proposals, nor will I deceive the Tarquins
by holding out hopes of an assistance which I am powerless to render. Whether
they insist on war or are prepared to live quietly, in either case they
must seek another place of exile than this, to prevent any interruption
of the peace between you and me." He followed up his words by still stronger
practical proofs of friendship, for he returned the remainder of the hostages
and restored the Veientine territory which had been taken away under the
treaty. As all hope of restoration was cut off, Tarquin went to his son-in-law
Mamilius Octavius at Tusculum. So the peace between Rome and Porsena remained
unbroken.
2.16
The new consuls were M. Valerius and P. Postumius. This year a successful
action was fought with the Sabines; the consuls celebrated a triumph. Then
the Sabines made preparations for war on a larger scale. To oppose them
and also at the same time to guard against danger in the direction of Tusculum,
from which place war, though not openly declared, was still apprehended,
the consuls elected were P. Valerius for the fourth time and T. Lucretius
for the second. A conflict which broke out amongst the Sabines between
the peace party and the war party brought an accession of strength to the
Romans. Attius Clausus, who was afterwards known in Rome as Appius Claudius,
was an advocate for peace, but, unable to maintain his ground against the
opposing faction, who were stirring up war, he fled to Rome with a large
body of clients. They were admitted to the citizenship and received a grant
of land lying beyond the Anio. They were called the Old Claudian tribe,
and their numbers were added to by fresh tribesmen from that district.
After his election into the senate it was not long before Appius gained
a prominent position in that body. The consuls marched into the Sabine
territory, and by their devastation of the country and the defeats which
they inflicted so weakened the enemy that no renewal of the war was to
be feared for a long time. The Romans returned home in triumph. The following
year, in the consulship of Agrippa Menenius and P. Postumius, P. Valerius
died. He was universally admitted to be first in the conduct of war and
the arts of peace, but though he enjoyed such an immense reputation, his
private fortune was so scanty that it could not defray the expenses of
his funeral. They were met by the State. The matrons mourned for him as
a second Brutus. In the same year two Latin colonies, Pometia and Cora,
revolted to the Auruncans. War commenced, and after the defeat of an immense
army which had sought to oppose the advance of the consuls into their territory,
the whole war was centered round Pometia. There was no respite from bloodshed
after the battle any more than during the fighting, many more were killed
than were taken prisoners; the prisoners were everywhere butchered; even
the hostages, three hundred of whom they had in their hands, fell a victim
to the enemy's bloodthirsty rage. This year also there was a triumph in
Rome.
2.17
The consuls who succeeded, Opiter Verginius and Sp. Cassius, tried at first
to take Pometia by storm, then they had recourse to regular siege-works.
Actuated more by a spirit of mortal hatred than by any hope or chance of
success, the Auruncans made a sortie. The greater number were armed with
blazing torches, and they carried flames and death everywhere. The "vineae"
were burnt, great numbers of the besiegers were killed and wounded, they
nearly killed one of the consuls-the authorities do not give his name-
after he had fallen from his horse severely wounded. After this disaster
the Romans returned home, with a large number of wounded, amongst them
the consul, whose condition was critical. After an interval, long enough
for the recovery of the wounded and the filling up of the ranks, operations
were resumed at Pometia in stronger force and in a more angry temper. The
vineae were repaired and the other vast works were made good, and when
everything was ready for the soldiers to mount the walls, the place surrendered.
The Auruncans, however, were treated with no less rigour after they had
surrendered the city than if it had been taken by assault; the principal
men were beheaded, the rest of the townsfolk sold as slaves. The town was
razed, the land put up for sale. The consuls celebrated a triumph more
because of the terrible vengeance they had inflicted than on account of
the importance of the war now terminated.
2.18
The following year had as consuls Postumius Cominius and T. Lartius. During
this year an incident occurred which, though small in itself, threatened
to lead to the renewal of a war more formidable than the Latin war which
was dreaded. During the games at Rome some courtesans were carried off
by Sabine youths in sheer wantonness. A crowd gathered, and a quarrel arose
which became almost a pitched battle. The alarm was increased by the authentic
report that at the instigation of Octavius Mamilius the thirty Latin towns
had formed a league. The apprehensions felt by the State at such a serious
crisis led to suggestions being made for the first time for the appointment
of a dictator. It is not, however, clearly ascertained in what year this
office was created, or who the consuls were who had forfeited the confidence
of the people owing to their being adherents of the Tarquins-for this,
too, is part of the tradition-or who was the first dictator. In the most
ancient authorities I find that it was T. Lartius, and that Sp. Cassius
was his master of the horse. Only men of consular rank were eligible under
the law governing the appointment. This makes me more inclined to believe
that Lartius, who was of consular rank, was set over the consuls to restrain
and direct them rather than Manlius Valerius, the son of Marcus and grandson
of Volesus. Besides, if they wanted the dictator to be chosen from that
family especially, they would have much sooner chosen the father, M. Valerius,
a man of proved worth and also of consular rank. When, for the first time,
a Dictator was created in Rome, a great fear fell on the people, after
they saw the axes borne before him, and consequently they were more careful
to obey his orders. For there was not, as in the case of the consuls, each
of whom possessed the same authority, any chance of securing the aid of
one against the other, nor was there any right of appeal, nor in short
was there any safety anywhere except in punctilious obedience. The Sabines
were even more alarmed at the appointment of a Dictator than the Romans,
because they were convinced that it was in their account that he had been
created. Accordingly envoys were sent with proposals for peace. They begged
the Dictator and the senate to pardon what was a youthful escapade, but
were told in reply that young men could be pardoned, but not old men, who
were continually stirring up fresh wars. However, the negotiations continued
and peace would have been secured if the Sabines could have made up their
minds to comply with the demand to make good the expenses of the war. War
was proclaimed; an informal truce kept the year undisturbed.
2.19
The next consuls were Ser. Sulpicius and Manlius Tullius. Nothing worth
recording took place. The consuls of the following year were T. Aebutius
and C. Vetusius. During their consulship Fidenae was besieged; Crustumeria
captured; Praeneste revolted from the Latins to Rome. The Latin war which
had been threatening for some years now at last broke out. A. Postumius,
the Dictator, and T. Aebutius, Master of the Horse, advanced with a large
force of infantry and cavalry to the Lake Regillus in the district of Tusculum
and came upon the main army of the enemy. On hearing that the Tarquins
were in the army of the Latins, the passions of the Romans were so roused
that they determined to engage at once. The battle that followed was more
obstinately and desperately fought than any previous ones had been. For
the commanders not only took their part in directing the action, they fought
personally against each other, and hardly one of the leaders in either
army, with the exception of the Roman Dictator, left the field unwounded.
Tarquinius Superbus, though now enfeebled by age, spurred his horse against
Postumius, who in the front of the line was addressing and forming his
men. He was struck in the side and carried off by a body of his followers
into a place of safety. Similarly on the other wing Aebutius, Master of
the Horse, directed his attack against Octavius Mamilius; the Tusculan
leader saw him coming and rode at him full speed. So terrific was the shock
that Aebutius' arm was pierced, Mamilius was speared in the breast, and
led off by the Latins into their second line. Aebutius, unable to hold
a weapon with his wounded arm, retired from the fighting. The Latin leader,
in no way deterred by his wound, infused fresh energy into the combat,
for, seeing that his own men were wavering, he called up the cohort of
Roman exiles, who were led by Lucius Tarquinius. The loss of country and
fortune made them fight all the more desperately; for a short time they
restored the battle, and the Romans who were opposed to them began to give
ground.
2.20
M. Valerius, the brother of Publicola, catching sight of the fiery young
Tarquin conspicuous in the front line, dug spurs into his horse and made
for him with levelled lance, eager to enhance the pride of his house, that
the family who boasted of having expelled the Tarquins might have the glory
of killing them. Tarquin evaded his foe by retiring behind his men. Valerius,
riding headlong into the ranks of the exiles, was run through by a spear
from behind. This did not check the horse's speed, and the Roman sank dying
to the ground, his arms falling upon him. When the Dictator Postumius saw
that one of his principal officers had fallen, and that the exiles were
rushing on furiously in a compact mass whilst his men were shaken and giving
ground, he ordered his own cohort -a picked force who formed his bodyguard-to
treat any of their own side whom they saw in flight as enemy. Threatened
in front and rear the Romans turned and faced the foe, and closed their
ranks. The Dictator's cohort, fresh in mind and body, now came into action
and attacked the exhausted exiles with great slaughter. Another single
combat between the leaders took place; the Latin commander saw the cohort
of exiles almost hemmed in by the Roman Dictator, and hurried to the front
with some maniples of the reserves. T. Herminius saw them coming, and recognised
Mamilius by his dress and arms. He attacked the enemies' commander much
more fiercely than the Master of the Horse had previously done, so much
so, in fact, that he killed him by a single spear-thrust through his side.
Whilst despoiling the body he himself was struck by a javelin, and after
being carried back to the camp, expired whilst his wound was being dressed.
Then the Dictator hurried up to the cavalry and appealed to them to relieve
the infantry, who were worn out with the struggle, by dismounting and fighting
on foot. They obeyed, leaped from their horses, and protecting themselves
with their targes, fought in front of the standards. The infantry recovered
their courage at once when they saw the flower of the nobility fighting
on equal terms and sharing the same dangers with themselves. At last the
Latins were forced back, wavered, and finally broke their ranks. The cavalry
had their horses brought up that they might commence the pursuit, the infantry
followed. It is said that the Dictator, omitting nothing that could secure
divine or human aid, vowed, during the battle, a temple to Castor and promised
rewards to those who should be the first and second to enter the enemies'
camp. Such was the ardour which the Romans displayed that in the same charge
which routed the enemy they carried their camp. Thus was the battle fought
at Lake Regillus. The Dictator and the Master of the Horse returned in
triumph to the City.
2.21
For the next three years there was neither settled peace nor open war.
The consuls were Q. Cloelius and T. Larcius. They were succeeded by A.
Sempronius and M. Minucius. During their consulship a temple was dedicated
to Saturn and the festival of the Saturnalia instituted. The next consuls
were A. Postumius and T. Verginius. I find in some authors this year given
as the date of the battle at Lake Regillus, and that A. Postumius laid
down his consulship because the fidelity of his colleague was suspected,
on which a Dictator was appointed. So many errors as to dates occur, owing
to the order in which the consuls succeeded being variously given, that
the remoteness in time of both the events and the authorities make it impossible
to determine either which consuls succeeded which, or in what year any
particular event occurred. Ap. Claudius and P. Servilius were the next
consuls. This year is memorable for the news of Tarquin's death. His death
took place at Cuma, whither he had retired, to seek the protection of the
tyrant Aristodemus after the power of the Latins was broken. The news was
received with delight by both senate and plebs. But the elation of the
patricians was carried to excess. Up to that time they had treated the
commons with the utmost deference, now their leaders began to practice
injustice upon them. The same year a fresh batch of colonists was sent
to complete the number at Signia, a colony founded by King Tarquin. The
number of tribes at Rome was increased to twenty-one. The temple of Mercury
was dedicated on May 15.
2.22
The relations with the Volscians during the Latin war were neither friendly
nor openly hostile. The Volscians had collected a force which they were
intending to send to the aid of the Latins had not the Dictator forestalled
them by the rapidity of his movements, a rapidity due to his anxiety to
avoid a battle with the combined armies. To punish them the consuls led
the legions into the Volscian country. This unexpected movement paralysed
the Volscians, who were not expecting retribution for what had been only
an intention. Unable to offer resistance, they gave as hostages three hundred
children belonging to their nobility, drawn from Cora and Pometia. The
legions, accordingly, were marched back without fighting. Relieved from
the immediate danger, the Volscians soon fell back on their old policy,
and after forming an armed alliance with the Hernicans, made secret preparations
for war. They also despatched envoys through the length and breadth of
Latium to induce that nation to join them. But after their defeat at Lake
Regillus the Latins were so incensed against every one who advocated a
resumption of hostilities that they did not even spare the Volscian envoys,
who were arrested and conducted to Rome. There they were handed over to
the consuls and evidence was produced showing that the Volscians and Hernicans
were preparing for war with Rome. When the matter was brought before the
senate, they were so gratified by the action of the Latins that they sent
back six thousand prisoners who had been sold into slavery, and also referred
to the new magistrates the question of a treaty which they had hitherto
persistently refused to consider. The Latins congratulated themselves upon
the course they had adopted, and the advocates of peace were in high honour.
They sent a golden crown as a gift to the Capitoline Jupiter. The deputation
who brought the gift were accompanied by a large number of the released
prisoners, who visited the houses where they had worked as slaves to thank
their former masters for the kindness and consideration shown them in their
misfortunes, and to form ties of hospitality with them. At no previous
period had the Latin nation been on more friendly terms both politically
and personally with the Roman government.
2.23
But a war with the Volscians was imminent, and the State was torn with
internal dissensions; the patricians and the plebeians were bitterly hostile
to one another, owing mainly to the desperate condition of the debtors.
They loudly complained that whilst fighting in the field for liberty and
empire they were oppressed and enslaved by their fellow-citizens at home;
their freedom was more secure in war than in peace, safer amongst the enemy
than amongst their own people. The discontent, which was becoming of itself
continually more embittered, was still further inflamed by the signal misfortunes
of one individual. An old man, bearing visible proofs of all the evils
he had suffered, suddenly appeared in the Forum. His clothing was covered
with filth, his personal appearance was made still more loathsome by a
corpse-like pallor and emaciation, his unkempt beard and hair made him
look like a savage. In spite of this disfigurement he was recognised by
the pitying bystanders; they said that he had been a centurion, and mentioned
other military distinctions he possessed. He bared his breast and showed
the scars which witnessed to many fights in which he had borne an honourable
part. The crowd had now almost grown to the dimensions of an Assembly of
the people. He was asked, "Whence came that garb, whence that disfigurement?"
He stated that whilst serving in the Sabine war he had not only lost the
produce of his land through the depredations of the enemy, but his farm
had been burnt, all his property plundered, his cattle driven away, the
war-tax demanded when he was least able to pay it, and he had got into
debt. This debt had been vastly increased through usury and had stripped
him first of his father's and grandfather's farm, then of his other property,
and at last like a pestilence had reached his person. He had been carried
off by his creditor, not into slavery only, but into an underground workshop,
a living death. Then he showed his back scored with recent marks of the
lash.
On seeing and hearing all this a great outcry arose; the excitement
was not confined to the Forum, it spread everywhere throughout the City.
Men who were in bondage for debt and those who had been released rushed
from all sides into the public streets and invoked "the protection of the
Quirites." Every one was eager to join the malcontents, numerous bodies
ran shouting through all the streets to the Forum. Those of the senators
who happened to be in the Forum and fell in with the mob were in great
danger of their lives. Open violence would have been resorted to, had not
the consuls, P. Servilius and Ap. Claudius, promptly intervened to quell
the outbreak. The crowd surged round them, showed their chains and other
marks of degradation. These, they said, were their rewards for having served
their country; they tauntingly reminded the consuls of the various campaigns
in which they had fought, and peremptorily demanded rather than petitioned
that the senate should be called together. Then they closed round the Senate-house,
determined to be themselves the arbiters and directors of public policy.
A very small number of senators, who happened to be available, were got
together by the consuls, the rest were afraid to go even to the Forum,
much more to the Senate-house. No business could be transacted owing to
the requisite number not being present. The people began to think that
they were being played with and put off, that the absent senators were
not kept away by accident or by fear, but in order to prevent any redress
of their grievances, and that the consuls themselves were shuffling and
laughing at their misery. Matters were reaching the point at which not
even the majesty of the consuls could keep the enraged people in check,
when the absentees, uncertain whether they ran the greater risk by staying
away or coming, at last entered the Senate-house. The House was now full,
and a division of opinion showed itself not only amongst the senators but
even between the two consuls. Appius, a man of passionate temperament,
was of opinion that the matter ought to be settled by a display of authority
on the part of the consuls; if one or two were brought up for trial, the
rest would calm down. Servilius, more inclined to gentle measures, thought
that when men's passions are aroused it was safer and easier to bend them
than to break them.
2.24
In the middle of these disturbances, fresh alarm was created by some Latin
horsemen who galloped in with the disquieting tidings that a Volscian army
was on the march to attack the City. This intelligence affected the patricians
and the plebeians very differently; to such an extent had civic discord
rent the State in twain. The plebeians were exultant, they said that the
gods were preparing to avenge the tyranny of the patricians; they encouraged
each other to evade enrolment, for it was better for all to die together
than to perish one by one. "Let the patricians take up arms, let the patricians
serve as common soldiers, that those who get the spoils of war may share
its perils." The senate, on the other hand, filled with gloomy apprehensions
by the twofold danger from their own fellow-citizens and from their enemy,
implored the consul Servilius, who was more sympathetic towards the people,
to extricate the State from the perils that beset it on all sides. He dismissed
the senate and went into the Assembly of the plebs. There he pointed out
how anxious the senate were to consult the interests of the plebs, but
their deliberations respecting what was certainly the largest part, though
still only a part, of the State had been cut short by fears for the safety
of the State as a whole. The enemy were almost at their gates, nothing
could be allowed to take precedence of the war, but even if the attack
were postponed, it would not be honourable on the part of the plebeians
to refuse to take up arms for their country till they had been paid for
doing so, nor would it be compatible with the self-respect of the senate
to be actuated by fear rather than by good-will in devising measures for
the relief of their distressed fellow-citizens. He convinced the Assembly
of his sincerity by issuing an edict that none should keep a Roman citizen
in chains or duress whereby he would be prevented from enrolling for military
service, none should distrain or sell the goods of a soldier as long as
he was in camp, or detain his children or grandchildren. On the promulgation
of this edict those debtors who were present at once gave in their names
for enrolment, and crowds of persons running in all quarters of the City
from the houses where they were confined, as their creditors had no longer
the right to detain them, gathered together in the Forum to take the military
oath. These formed a considerable force, and none were more conspicuous
for courage and activity in the Volscian war. The consul led his troops
against the enemy and encamped a short distance from them.
2.25
The very next night the Volscians, trusting to the dissensions amongst
the Romans, made an attempt on the camp, on the chance of desertions taking
place, or the camp being betrayed, in the darkness. The outposts perceived
them, the army was aroused, and on the alarm being sounded they rushed
to arms, so the Volscian attempt was foiled; for the rest of the night
both sides kept quiet. The following day, at dawn, the Volscians filled
up the trenches and attacked the rampart. This was already being torn down
on all sides while the consul, in spite of the shouts of the whole army-of
the debtors most of all- demanding the signal for action, delayed for a
few minutes, in order to test the temper of his men. When he was quite
satisfied as to their ardour and determination, he gave the signal to charge
and launched his soldiery, eager to engage, upon the foe. They were routed
at the very first onset, the fugitives were cut down as far as the infantry
could pursue them, then the cavalry drove them in confusion to their camp.
They evacuated it in their panic, the legions soon came up, surrounded
it, captured and plundered it. The following day the legions marched to
Suessa Pometia, whither the enemy had fled, and in a few days it was captured
and given up to the soldiers to pillage. This to some extent relieved the
poverty of the soldiers. The consul, covered with glory, led his victorious
army back to Rome. Whilst on the march he was visited by envoys from the
Volscians of Ecetra, who were concerned for their own safety after the
capture of Pometia. By a decree of the senate, peace was granted to them,
some territory was taken from them.
2.26
Immediately afterwards a fresh alarm was created at Rome by the Sabines,
but it was more a sudden raid than a regular war. News was brought during
the night that a Sabine army had advanced as far as the Anio on a predatory
expedition, and that the farms in that neighbourhood were being harried
and burnt. A. Postumius, who had been the Dictator in the Latin war, was
at once sent there with the whole of the cavalry force; the consul Servilius
followed with a picked body of infantry. Most of the enemy were surrounded
by the cavalry while scattered in the fields; the Sabine legion offered
no resistance to the advance of the infantry. Tired out with their march
and the nocturnal plundering-a large proportion of them were in the farms
full of food and wine-they had hardly sufficient strength to flee. The
Sabine war was announced and concluded in one night, and strong hopes were
entertained that peace had now been secured everywhere. The next day, however,
envoys from the Auruncans came with a demand for the evacuation of the
Volscian territory, otherwise they were to proclaim war. The army of the
Auruncans had begun their advance when the envoys left home, and the report
of its having been seen not far from Aricia created so much excitement
and confusion amongst the Romans that it was impossible either for the
senate to take the matter into formal consideration, or for a favourable
reply to be given to those who were commencing hostilities, since they
were themselves taking up arms to repel them. They marched to Aricia; not
far from there they engaged the Auruncans and in one battle finished the
war.
2.27
After the defeat of the Auruncans, the Romans, who had, within a few days,
fought so many successful wars, were expecting the fulfilment of the promises
which the consul had made on the authority of the senate. Appius, partly
from his innate love of tyranny and partly to undermine the confidence
felt in his colleague, gave the harshest sentences he could when debtors
were brought before him. One after another those who had before pledged
their persons as security were now handed over to their creditors, and
others were compelled to give such security. A soldier to whom this happened
appealed to the colleague of Appius. A crowd gathered round Servilius,
they reminded him of his promises, upbraided him with their services in
war and the scars they had received, and demanded that he should either
get an ordinance passed by the senate, or, as consul, protect his people;
as commander, his soldiers. The consul sympathised with them, but under
the circumstances he was compelled to temporise; the opposite policy was
so recklessly insisted on not only by his colleague but by the entire party
of the nobility. By taking a middle course he did not escape the odium
of the plebs nor did he win the favour of the patricians. These regarded
him as a weak popularity-hunting consul, the plebeians considered him false,
and it soon became apparent that he was as much detested as Appius.
A dispute had arisen between the consuls as to which of them should
dedicate the temple of Mercury. The senate referred the question to the
people, and issued orders that the one to whom the dedication was assigned
by the people should preside over the corn-market and form a guild of merchants
and discharge functions in the presence of the Pontifex Maximus. The people
assigned the dedication of the temple to M. Laetorius, the first centurion
of the legion, a choice obviously made not so much to honour the man, by
conferring upon him an office so far above his station, as to bring discredit
on the consuls. One of them, at all events, was excessively angry, as were
the senate, but the courage of the plebs had risen, and they went to work
in a very different method from that which they had adopted at first. For
as any prospect of help from the consuls or the senate was hopeless, they
took matters into their own hands, and whenever they saw a debtor brought
before the court, they rushed there from all sides, and by their shouts
and uproar prevented the consul's sentence from being heard, and when it
was pronounced no one obeyed it. They resorted to violence, and all the
fear and danger to personal liberty was transferred from the debtors to
the creditors, who were roughly handled before the eyes of the consul.
In addition to all this there were growing apprehensions of a Sabine war.
A levy was decreed, but no one gave in his name. Appius was furious; he
accused his colleague of courting the favour of the people, denounced him
as a traitor to the commonwealth because he refused to give sentence where
debtors were brought before him, and moreover he refused to raise troops
after the senate had ordered a levy. Still, he declared, the ship of State
was not entirely deserted nor the consular authority thrown to the winds;
he, single-handed, would vindicate his own dignity and that of the senate.
Whilst the usual daily crowd were standing round him, growing ever bolder
in licence, he ordered one conspicuous leader of the agitation to be arrested.
As he was being dragged away by the lictors, he appealed. There was no
doubt as to what judgment the people would give, and he would not have
allowed the appeal had not his obstinacy been with great difficulty overcome
more by the prudence and authority of the senate than by the clamour of
the people, so determined was he to brave the popular odium. From that
time the mischief became more serious every day, not only through open
clamour but, what was far more dangerous, through secession and secret
meetings. At length the consuls, detested as they were by the plebs, went
out of office-Servilius equally hated by both orders, Appius in wonderful
favour with the patricians.
2.28
Then A. Verginius and T. Vetusius took office. As the plebeians were doubtful
as to what sort of consuls they would have, and were anxious to avoid any
precipitate and ill-considered action which might result from hastily adopted
resolutions in the Forum, they began to hold meetings at night, some on
the Esquiline and others on the Aventine. The consuls considered this state
of things to be fraught with danger, as it really was, and made a formal
report to the senate. But any orderly discussion of their report was out
of the question, owing to the excitement and clamour with which the senators
received it, and the indignation they felt at the consuls throwing upon
them the odium of measures which they ought to have carried on their own
authority as consuls. "Surely," it was said, "if there were really magistrates
in the State, there would have been no meetings in Rome beyond the public
Assembly; now the State was broken up into a thousand senates and assemblies,
since some councils were being held on the Esquiline and others on the
Aventine. Why, one man like Appius Claudius, who was worth more than a
consul, would have dispersed these gatherings in a moment." When the consuls,
after being thus censured, asked what they wished them to do, as they were
prepared to act with all the energy and determination that the senate desired,
a decree was passed that the levy should be raised as speedily as possible,
for the plebs was waxing wanton through idleness. After dismissing the
senate, the consuls ascended the tribunal and called out the names of those
liable to active service. Not a single man answered to his name. The people,
standing round as though in formal assembly, declared that the plebs could
no longer be imposed upon, the consuls should not get a single soldier
until the promise made in the name of the State was fulfilled. Before arms
were put into their hands, every man's liberty must be restored to him,
that they might fight for their country and their fellow-citizens and not
for tyrannical masters. The consuls were quite aware of the instructions
they had received from the senate, but they were also aware that none of
those who had spoken so bravely within the walls of the Senate-house were
now present to share the odium which they were incurring. A desperate conflict
with the plebs seemed inevitable. Before proceeding to extremities they
decided to consult the senate again. Thereupon all the younger senators
rushed from their seats, and crowding round the chairs of the consuls,
ordered them to resign their office and lay down an authority which they
had not the courage to maintain.
2.29
Having had quite enough of trying to coerce the plebs on the one hand and
persuading the senate to adopt a milder course on the other, the consuls
at last said: "Senators, that you may not say you have not been forewarned,
we tell you that a very serious disturbance is at hand. We demand that
those who are the loudest in charging us with cowardice shall support us
whilst we conduct the levy. We will act as the most resolute may wish,
since such is your pleasure." They returned to the tribunal and purposely
ordered one of those who were in view to be called up by name. As he stood
silent, and a number of men had closed round him to prevent his being seized,
the consuls sent a lictor to him. The lictor was pushed away, and those
senators who were with the consuls exclaimed that it was an outrageous
insult and rushed down from the tribunal to assist the lictor. The hostility
of the crowd was diverted from the lictor, who had simply been prevented
from making the arrest, to the senators. The interposition of the consuls
finally allayed the conflict. There had, however, been no stones thrown
or weapons used, it had resulted in more noise and angry words than personal
injury. The senate was summoned and assembled in disorder; its proceedings
were still more disorderly. Those who had been roughly handled demanded
an inquiry, and all the more violent members supported the demand by shouting
and uproar quite as much as by their votes. When at last the excitement
had subsided, the consuls censured them for showing as little calm judgment
in the senate as there was in the Forum. Then the debate proceeded in order.
Three different policies were advocated. P. Valerius did not think the
general question ought to be raised; he thought they ought only to consider
the case of those who, in reliance on the promise of the consul P. Servilius,
had served in the Volscian, Auruncan, and Sabine wars. Titus Larcius considered
that the time had passed for rewarding only men who had served, the whole
plebs was overwhelmed with debt, the evil could not be arrested unless
there was a measure for universal relief. Any attempt to differentiate
between the various classes would only kindle fresh discord instead of
allaying it. Appius Claudius, harsh by nature, and now maddened by the
hatred of the plebs on the one hand and the praises of the senate on the
other, asserted that these riotous gatherings were not the result of misery
but of licence, the plebeians were actuated by wantonness more than by
anger. This was the mischief which had sprung from the right of appeal,
for the consuls could only threaten without the power to execute their
threats as long as a criminal was allowed to appeal to his fellow-criminals.
"Come," said he, "let us create a Dictator from whom there is no appeal,
then this madness which is setting everything on fire will soon die down.
Let me see any one strike a lictor then, when he knows that his back and
even his life are in the sole power of the man whose authority he attacks."
2.30
To many the sentiments which Appius uttered seemed cruel and monstrous,
as they really were. On the other hand, the proposals of Verginius and
Larcius would set a dangerous precedent, that of Larcius at all events,
as it would destroy all credit. The advice given by Verginius was regarded
as the most moderate, being a middle course between the other two. But
through the strength of his party, and the consideration of personal interests
which always have injured and always will injure public policy, Appius
won the day. He was very nearly being himself appointed Dictator, an appointment
which would more than anything have alienated the plebs, and that too at
a most critical time when the Volscians, the Aequi, and the Sabines were
all in arms together. The consuls and the older patricians, however, took
care that a magistracy clothed with such tremendous powers should be entrusted
to a man of moderate temper. They created M. Valerius, the son of Volesus,
Dictator. Though the plebeians recognised that it was against them that
a Dictator had been created, still, as they held their right of appeal
under a law which his brother had passed, they did not fear any harsh or
tyrannical treatment from that family. Their hopes were confirmed by an
edict issued by the Dictator, very similar to the one made by Servilius.
That edict had been ineffective, but they thought that more confidence
could be placed in the person and power of the Dictator, so, dropping all
opposition, they gave in their names for enrolment. Ten legions, were formed,
a larger army than had ever before been assembled. Three of them were assigned
to each of the consuls, the Dictator took command of four.
The war could no longer be delayed. The Aequi had invaded the Latin
territory. Envoys sent by the Latins asked the senate either to send help
or allow them to arm for the purpose of defending their frontier. It was
thought safer to defend the unarmed Latins than to allow them to re-arm
themselves. The consul Vetusius was despatched, and that was the end of
the raids. The Aequi withdrew from the plains, and trusting more to the
nature of the country than to their arms, sought safety on the mountain
ridges. The other consul advanced against the Volscians, and to avoid loss
of time, he devastated their fields with the object of forcing them to
move their camp nearer to his and so bringing on an engagement. The two
armies stood facing each other, in front of their respective lines, on
the level space between the camps. The Volscians had considerably the advantage
in numbers, and accordingly showed their contempt for their foe by coming
on in disorder. The Roman consul kept his army motionless, forbade their
raising an answering shout, and ordered them to stand with their spears
fixed in the ground, and when the enemy came to close quarters, to spring
forward and make all possible use of their swords. The Volscians, wearied
with their running and shouting, threw themselves upon the Romans as upon
men benumbed with fear, but when they felt the strength of the counter-attack
and saw the swords flashing before them, they retreated in confusion just
as if they had been caught in an ambush, and owing to the speed at which
they had come into action, they had not even strength to flee. The Romans,
on the other hand, who at the beginning of the battle had remained quietly
standing, were fresh and vigorous, and easily overtook the exhausted Volscians,
rushed their camp, drove them out, and pursued them as far as Velitrae,
victors and vanquished bursting pell-mell into the city. A greater slaughter
of all ranks took place there than in the actual battle; a few who threw
down their arms and surrendered received quarter.
2.31
Whilst these events were occurring amongst the Volscians, the Dictator,
after entering the Sabine territory, where the most serious part of the
war lay, defeated and routed the enemy and chased them out of their camp.
A cavalry charge had broken the enemy's centre which, owing to the excessive
lengthening of the wings, was weakened by an insufficient depth of files,
and while thus disordered the infantry charged them. In the same charge
the camp was captured and the war brought to a close. Since the battle
at Lake Regillus no more brilliant action had been fought in those years.
The Dictator rode in triumph into the City. In addition to the customary
distinctions, a place was assigned in the Circus Maximus to him and to
his posterity, from which to view the Games, and the sella curulis was
placed there. After the subjugation of the Volscians, the territory of
Velitrae was annexed and a body of Roman citizens was sent out to colonise
it. Some time later, an engagement took place with the Aequi. The consul
was reluctant to fight as he would have to attack on unfavourable ground,
but his soldiers forced him into action. They accused him of protracting
the war in order that the Dictator's term of office might expire before
they returned home, in which case his promises would fall to the ground,
as those of the consul had previously done. They compelled him to march
his army up the mountain at all hazards; but owing to the cowardice of
the enemy this unwise step resulted in success. They were so astounded
at the daring of the Romans that before they came within range of their
weapons they abandoned their camp, which was in a very strong position,
and dashed down into the valley in the rear. So the victors gained a bloodless
victory and ample spoil.
Whilst these three wars were thus brought to a successful issue, the
course which domestic affairs were taking continued to be a source of anxiety
to both the patricians and the plebeians. The money-lenders possessed such
influence and had taken such skilful precautions that they rendered the
commons and even the Dictator himself powerless. After the consul Vetusius
had returned, Valerius introduced, as the very first business of the senate,
the treatment of the men who had been marching to victory, and moved a
resolution as to what decision they ought to come to with regard to the
debtors. His motion was negatived, on which he said, "I am not acceptable
as an advocate of concord. Depend upon it, you will very soon wish that
the Roman plebs had champions like me. As far as I am concerned, I will
no longer encourage my fellow-citizens in vain hopes nor will I be Dictator
in vain. Internal dissensions and foreign wars have made this office necessary
to the commonwealth; peace has now been secured abroad, at home it is made
impossible. I would rather be involved in the revolution as a private citizen
than as Dictator." So saying, he left the House and resigned his dictatorship.
The reason was quite clear to the plebs; he had resigned office because
he was indignant at the way they were treated. The non-fulfilment of his
pledge was not due to him, they considered that he had practically kept
his word, and on his way home they followed him with approving cheers.
2.32
The senate now began to feel apprehensive lest on the disbandment of the
army there should be a recurrence of the secret conclaves and conspiracies.
Although the Dictator had actually conducted the enrolment, the soldiers
had sworn obedience to the consuls. Regarding them as still bound by their
oath, the senate ordered the legions to be marched out of the City on the
pretext that war had been recommenced by the Aequi. This step brought the
revolution to a head. It is said that the first idea was to put the consuls
to death that the men might be discharged from their oath; then, on learning
that no religious obligation could be dissolved by a crime, they decided,
at the instigation of a certain Sicinius, to ignore the consuls and withdraw
to the Sacred Mount, which lay on the other side of the Anio, three miles
from the City. This is a more generally accepted tradition than the one
adopted by Piso that the secession was made to the Aventine. There, without
any commander in a regularly entrenched camp, taking nothing with them
but the necessaries of life, they quietly maintained themselves for some
days, neither receiving nor giving any provocation. A great panic seized
the City, mutual distrust led to a state of universal suspense. Those plebeians
who had been left by their comrades in the City feared violence from the
patricians; the patricians feared the plebeians who still remained in the
City, and could not make up their minds whether they would rather have
them go or stay. "How long," it was asked, "would the multitude who had
seceded remain quiet? What would happen if a foreign war broke out in the
meantime?" They felt that all their hopes rested on concord amongst the
citizens, and that this must be restored at any cost.
The senate decided, therefore, to send as their spokesman Menenius Agrippa,
an eloquent man, and acceptable to the plebs as being himself of plebeian
origin. He was admitted into the camp, and it is reported that he simply
told them the following fable in primitive and uncouth fashion. "In the
days when all the parts of the human body were not as now agreeing together,
but each member took its own course and spoke its own speech, the other
members, indignant at seeing that everything acquired by their care and
labour and ministry went to the belly, whilst it, undisturbed in the middle
of them all, did nothing but enjoy the pleasures provided for it, entered
into a conspiracy; the hands were not to bring food to the mouth, the mouth
was not to accept it when offered, the teeth were not to masticate it.
Whilst, in their resentment, they were anxious to coerce the belly by starving
it, the members themselves wasted away, and the whole body was reduced
to the last stage of exhaustion. Then it became evident that the belly
rendered no idle service, and the nourishment it received was no greater
than that which it bestowed by returning to all parts of the body this
blood by which we live and are strong, equally distributed into the veins,
after being matured by the digestion of the food." By using this comparison,
and showing how the internal disaffection amongst the parts of the body
resembled the animosity of the plebeians against the patricians, he succeeded
in winning over his audience.
2.33
Negotiations were then entered upon for a reconciliation. An agreement
was arrived at, the terms being that the plebs should have its own magistrates,
whose persons were to be inviolable, and who should have the right of affording
protection against the consuls. And further, no patrician should be allowed
to hold that office. Two "tribunes of the plebs" were elected, C. Licinius
and L. Albinus. These chose three colleagues. It is generally agreed that
Sicinius, the instigator of the secession, was amongst them, but who the
other two were is not settled. Some say that only two tribunes were created
on the Sacred Hill and that it was there that the lex sacrata was passed.
During the secession of the plebs Sp. Cassius and Postumius Cominius entered
on their consulship. In their year of office a treaty was concluded with
the Latin towns, and one of the consuls remained in Rome for the purpose.
The other was sent to the Volscian war. He routed a force of Volscians
from Antium, and pursued them to Longula, which he gained possession of.
Then he advanced to Polusca, also belonging to the Volscians, which he
captured, after which he attacked Corioli in great force.
Amongst the most distinguished of the young soldiers in the camp at
that time was Cnaeus Marcius, a young man prompt in counsel and action,
who afterwards received the epithet of Coriolanus. During the progress
of the siege, while the Roman army was devoting its whole attention to
the townspeople whom it had shut up within their walls, and not in the
least apprehending any danger from hostile movements without, it was suddenly
attacked by Volscian legions who had marched from Antium. At the same moment
a sortie was made from the town. Marcius happened to be on guard, and with
a picked body of men not only repelled the sortie but made a bold dash
through the open gate, and after cutting down many in the part of the city
nearest to him, seized some fire and hurled it on the buildings which abutted
on the walls. The shouts of the townsmen mingled with the shrieks of the
terrified women and children encouraged the Romans and dismayed the Volscians,
who thought that the city which they had come to assist was already captured.
So the troops from Antium were routed and Corioli taken. The renown which
Marcius won so completely eclipsed that of the consul, that, had not the
treaty with the Latins-which owing to his colleague's absence had been
concluded by Sp. Cassius alone-been inscribed on a brazen column, and so
permanently recorded, all memory of Postumius Cominius having carried on
a war with the Volscians would have perished. In the same year Agrippa
Menenius died, a man who all through his life was equally beloved by the
patricians and the plebeians, and made himself still more endeared to the
plebeians after their secession. Yet he, the negotiator and arbitrator
of the reconciliation, who acted as the ambassador of the patricians to
the plebs, and brought them back to the City, did not possess money enough
to defray the cost of his funeral. He was interred by the plebeians, each
man contributing a sextans towards the expense.
2.34
The new consuls were T. Geganius and P. Minucius. In this year, whilst
all abroad was undisturbed by war and the civic dissensions at home were
healed, the commonwealth was attacked by another much more serious evil:
first, dearness of food, owing to the fields remaining uncultivated during
the secession, and following on this a famine such as visits a besieged
city. It would have led to the perishing of the slaves in any case, and
probably the plebeians would have died, had not the consuls provided for
the emergency by sending men in various directions to buy corn. They penetrated
not only along the coast to the right of Ostia into Etruria, but also along
the sea to the left past the Volscian country as far as Cumae. Their search
extended even as far as Sicily; to such an extent did the hostility of
their neighbours compel them to seek distant help. When corn had been bought
at Cumae, the ships were detained by the tyrant Aristodemus, in lieu of
the property of Tarquin, to whom he was heir. Amongst the Volscians and
in the Pomptine district it was even impossible to purchase corn, the corn
merchants were in danger of being attacked by the population. Some corn
came from Etruria up the Tiber; this served for the support of the plebeians.
They would have been harassed by a war, doubly unwelcome when provisions
were so scarce, if the Volscians, who were already on the march, had not
been attacked by a frightful pestilence. This disaster cowed the enemy
so effectually that even when it had abated its violence they remained
to some extent in a state of terror; the Romans increased the number of
colonists at Velitrae and sent a new colony to Norba, up in the mountains,
to serve as a stronghold in the Pomptine district.
During the consulship of M. Minucius and A. Sempronius, a large quantity
of corn was brought from Sicily, and the question was discussed in the
senate at what price it should be given to the plebs. Many were of opinion
that the moment had come for putting pressure on the plebeians, and recovering
the rights which had been wrested from the senate through the secession
and the violence which accompanied it. Foremost among these was Marcius
Coriolanus, a determined foe to the tribunitian power. "If," he argued,
"they want their corn at the old price, let them restore to the senate
its old powers. Why, then, do I, after being sent under the yoke, ransomed
as it were from brigands, see plebeian magistrates, why do I see a Sicinius
in power? Am I to endure these indignities a moment longer than I can help?
Am I, who could not put up with a Tarquin as king, to put up with a Sicinius?
Let him secede now! let him call out his plebeians, the way lies open to
the Sacred Hill and to other hills. Let them carry off the corn from our
fields as they did two years ago; let them enjoy the scarcity which in
their madness they have produced! I will venture to say that after they
have been tamed by these sufferings, they will rather work as labourers
themselves in the fields than prevent their being cultivated by an armed
secession." It is not so easy to say whether they ought to have done this
as it is to express one's belief that it could have been done, and the
senators might have made it a condition of lowering the price of the corn
that they should abrogate the tribunitian power and all the legal restrictions
imposed upon them against their will.
2.35
The senate considered these sentiments too bitter, the plebeians in their
exasperation almost flew to arms. Famine, they said, was being used as
a weapon against them, as though they were enemies; they were being cheated
out of food and sustenance; the foreign corn, which fortune had unexpectedly
given them as their sole means of support, was to be snatched from their
mouths unless their tribunes were given up in chains to Cn. Marcius, unless
he could work his will on the backs of the Roman plebeians. In him a new
executioner had sprung up, who ordered them either to die or live as slaves.
He would have been attacked on leaving the Senate-house had not the tribunes
most opportunely fixed a day for his impeachment. This allayed the excitement,
every man saw himself a judge with the power of life and death over his
enemy. At first Marcius treated the threats of the tribunes with contempt;
they had the right of protecting not of punishing, they were the tribunes
of the plebs not of the patricians. But the anger of the plebeians was
so thoroughly roused that the patricians could only save themselves by
the punishment of one of their order. They resisted, however, in spite
of the odium: they incurred, and exercised all the powers they possessed
both collectively and individually. At first they attempted to thwart proceedings
by posting pickets of their clients to deter individuals from frequenting
meetings and conclaves. Then they proceeded in a body-you might suppose
that every patrician was impeached-and implored the plebeians, if they
refused to acquit a man who was innocent, at least to give up to them,
as guilty, one citizen, one senator. As he did not put in an appearance
on the day of trial, their resentment remained unabated, and he was condemned
in his absence. He went into exile amongst the Volscians, uttering threats
against his country, and even then entertaining hostile designs against
it. The Volscians welcomed his arrival, and he became more popular as his
resentment against his countrymen became more bitter, and his complaints
and threats were more frequently heard. He enjoyed the hospitality of Attius
Tullius, who was by far the most important man at that time amongst the
Volscians and a life-long enemy of the Romans. Impelled each by similar
motives, the one by old-standing hatred, the other by newly-provoked resentment,
they formed joint plans for war with Rome. They were under the impression
that the people could not easily be induced, after so many defeats, to
take up arms again, and that after their losses in their numerous wars
and recently through the pestilence, their spirits were broken. The hostility
had now had time to die down; it was necessary, therefore, to adopt some
artifice by which fresh irritation might be produced.
2.36
It so happened that preparations were being made for a repetition of the
"Great Games." The reason for their repetition was that early in the morning,
prior to the commencement of the Games, a householder after flogging his
slave had driven him through the middle of the Circus Maximus. Then the
Games commenced, as though the incident had no religious significance.
Not long afterwards, Titus Latinius, a member of the plebs, had a dream.
Jupiter appeared to him and said that the dancer who commenced the Games
was displeasing to him, adding that unless those Games were repeated with
due magnificence, disaster would overtake the City, and he was to go and
report this to the consuls. Though he was by no means free from religious
scruples, still his fears gave way before his awe of the magistrates, lest
he should become an object of public ridicule. This hesitation cost him
dear, for within a few days he lost his son. That he might have no doubt
as to the cause of this sudden calamity, the same form again appeared to
the distressed father in his sleep, and demanded of him whether he had
been sufficiently repaid for his neglect of the divine will, for a more
terrible recompense was impending if he did not speedily go and inform
the consuls. Though the matter was becoming more urgent, he still delayed,
and while thus procrastinating he was attacked by a serious illness in
the form of sudden paralysis. Now the divine wrath thoroughly alarmed him,
and wearied out by his past misfortune and the one from which he was suffering
he called his relations together and explained what he had seen and heard,
the repeated appearance of Jupiter in his sleep, the threatening wrath
of heaven brought home to him by his calamities. On the strong advice of
all present he was carried in a litter to the consuls in the Forum, and
from there by the consuls' order into the Senate-house. After repeating
the same story to the senators, to the intense surprise of all, another
marvel occurred. The tradition runs that he who had been carried into the
Senate-house paralysed in every limb, returned home, after performing his
duty, on his own feet.
2.37
The senate decreed that the Games should be celebrated on the most splendid
scale. At the suggestion of Attius Tullius, a large number of Volscians
came to them. In accordance with a previous arrangement with Marcius, Tullius
came to the consuls, before the proceedings commenced, and said that there
were certain matters touching the State which he wished to discuss privately
with them. When all the bystanders had been removed, he began: "It is with
great reluctance that I say anything to the disparagement of my people.
I do not come, however, to charge them with having actually committed any
offence, but to take precautions against their committing one. The character
of our citizens is more fickle than I should wish; we have experienced
this in many defeats, for we owe our present security not to our own deserts
but to your forbearance. Here at this moment are a great multitude of Volscians,
the Games are going on, the whole City will be intent on the spectacle.
I remember what an outrage was committed by the young Sabines on a similar
occasion, I shudder lest any ill-advised and reckless incident should occur.
For our sakes, and yours, consuls, I thought it right to give you this
warning. As far as I am concerned, it is my intention to start at once
for home, lest, if I stay, I should be involved in some mischief either
of speech or act." With these words he departed. These vague hints, uttered
apparently on good authority, were laid by the consuls before the senate.
As generally happens, the authority rather than the facts of the case induced
them to take even excessive precautions. A decree was passed that the Volscians
should leave the City, criers were sent round ordering them all to depart
before nightfall. Their first feeling was one of panic as they ran off
to their respective lodgings to take away their effects, but when they
had started a feeling of indignation arose at their being driven away from
the Games, from a festival which was in a manner a meeting of gods and
men, as though they were under the curse of heaven and unfit for human
society.
2.38
As they were going along in an almost continuous stream, Tullius, who had
gone on in advance, waited for them at the Ferentine Fountain. Accosting
their chief men as they came up in tones of complaint and indignation,
he led them, eagerly listening to words which accorded with their own angry
feelings, and through them the multitude, down to the plain which stretched
below the road. There he began a speech: "Even though you should forget
the wrongs that Rome has inflicted and the defeats which the Volscian nation
has suffered, though you should forget everything else, with what temper,
I should like to know, do you brook this insult of yesterday, when they
commenced their Games by treating us with ignominy? Have you not felt that
they have won a triumph over you to-day, that as you departed you were
a spectacle to the townsfolk, to the strangers, to all those neighbouring
populations; that your wives, your children, were paraded as a gazing-stock
before men's eyes? What do you suppose were the thoughts of those who heard
the voice of the criers, those who watched us depart, those who met this
ignominious cavalcade? What could they have thought but that there was
some awful guilt cleaving to us, so that if we had been present at the
Games we should have profaned them and made an expiation necessary, and
that this was the reason why we were driven away from the abodes of these
good and religious people and from all intercourse and association with
them? Does it not occur to you that we owe our lives to the haste with
which we departed, if we may call it a departure and not a flight? And
do you count this City as anything else than the City of your enemies,
where, had you lingered a single day, you would all have been put to death?
War has been declared against you-to the great misery of those who have
declared it, if you are really men." So they dispersed to their homes,
with their feelings of resentment embittered by this harangue. They so
worked upon the feelings of their fellow-countrymen, each in his own city,
that the whole Volscian nation revolted.
2.39
By the unanimous vote of the states, the conduct of the war was entrusted
to Attius Tullius and Cn. Marcius, the Roman exile, on whom their hopes
chiefly rested. He fully justified their expectations, so that it became
quite evident that the strength of Rome lay in her generals rather than
in her army. He first marched against Cerceii, expelled the Roman colony
and handed it over to the Volscians as a free city. Then he took Satricum,
Longula, Polusca, and Corioli, towns which the Romans had recently acquired.
Marching across country into the Latin road, he recovered Lavinium, and
then, in succession, Corbio, Vetellia, Trebium Labici, and Pedum. Finally,
he advanced from Pedum against the City. He entrenched his camp at the
Cluilian Dykes, about five miles distant, and from there he ravaged the
Roman territory. The raiding parties were accompanied by men whose business
it was to see that the lands of the patricians were not touched; a measure
due either to his rage being especially directed against the plebeians,
or to his hope that dissensions might arise between them and the patricians.
These certainly would have arisen- to such a pitch were the tribunes exciting
the plebs by their attacks on the chief men of the State-had not the fear
of the enemy outside-the strongest bond of union-brought men together in
spite of their mutual suspicions and aversion. On one point they disagreed;
the senate and the consuls placed their hopes solely in arms, the plebeians
preferred anything to war. Sp. Nautius and Sex. Furius were now consuls.
Whilst they were reviewing the legions and manning the walls and stationing
troops m various places, an enormous crowd gathered together. At first
they alarmed the consuls by seditious shouts, and at last they compelled
them to convene the senate and submit a motion for sending ambassadors
to Cn. Marcius. As the courage of the plebeians was evidently giving way,
the senate accepted the motion, and a deputation was sent to Marcius with
proposals for peace. They brought back the stern reply: If the territory
were restored to the Volscians, the question of peace could be discussed;
but if they wished to enjoy the spoils of war at their ease, he had not
forgotten the wrongs inflicted by his countrymen nor the kindness shown
by those who were now his hosts, and would strive to make it clear that
his spirit had been roused, not broken, by his exile. The same envoys were
sent on a second mission, but were not admitted into the camp. According
to the tradition, the priests also in their robes went as suppliants to
the enemies' camp, but they had no more influence with him than the previous
deputation.
2.40
Then the matrons went in a body to Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and
Volumnia his wife. Whether this was in consequence of a decree of the senate,
or simply the prompting of womanly fear, I am unable to ascertain, but
at all events they succeeded in inducing the aged Veturia to go with Volumnia
and her two little sons to the enemies' camp. As men were powerless to
protect the City by their arms, the women sought to do so by their tears
and prayers. On their arrival at the camp a message was sent to Coriolanus
that a large body of women were present. He had remained unmoved by the
majesty of the State in the persons of its ambassadors, and by the appeal
made to his eyes and mind in the persons of its priests; he was still more
obdurate to the tears of the women. Then one of his friends, who had recognised
Veturia, standing between her daughter-in-law and her grandsons, and conspicuous
amongst them all in the greatness of her grief, said to him, "Unless my
eyes deceive me, your mother and wife and children are here." Coriolanus,
almost like one demented, sprung from his seat to embrace his mother. She,
changing her tone from entreaty to anger, said, "Before I admit your embrace
suffer me to know whether it is to an enemy or a son that I have come,
whether it is as your prisoner or as your mother that I am in your camp.
Has a long life and an unhappy old age brought me to this, that I have
to see you an exile and from that an enemy? Had you the heart to ravage
this land, which has borne and nourished you? However hostile and menacing
the spirit in which you came, did not your anger subside as you entered
its borders? Did you not say to yourself when your eye rested on Rome,
'Within those walls are my home, my household gods, my mother, my wife,
my children?' Must it then be that, had I remained childless, no attack
would have been made on Rome; had I never had a son, I should have ended
my days a free woman in a free country? But there is nothing which I can
suffer now that will not bring more disgrace to you than wretchedness to
me;
whatever unhappiness awaits me it will not be for long. Look to these,
whom, if you persist in your present course, an untimely death awaits,
or a long life of bondage." When she ceased, his wife and children embraced
him, and all the women wept and bewailed their own and their country's
fate. At last his resolution gave way. He embraced his family and dismissed
them, and moved his camp away from the City. After withdrawing his legions
from the Roman territory, he is said to have fallen a victim to the resentment
which his action aroused, but as to the time and circumstances of his death
the traditions vary. I find in Fabius, who is by far the oldest authority,
that he lived to be an old man; he relates a saying of his, which he often
uttered in his later years, that it is not till a man is old that he feels
the full misery of exile. The Roman husbands did not grudge their wives
the glory they had won, so completely were their lives free from the spirit
of detraction and envy. A temple was built and dedicated to Fortuna Muliebris,
to serve as a memorial of their deed. Subsequently the combined forces
of the Volscians and Aequi re-entered the Roman territory. The Aequi, however,
refused any longer to accept the generalship of Attius Tullius, a quarrel
arose as to which nation should furnish the commander of the combined army,
and this resulted in a bloody battle. Here the good fortune of Rome destroyed
the two armies of her enemies in a conflict no less ruinous than obstinate.
The new consuls were T. Sicinius and C. Aquilius. To Sicinius was assigned
the campaign against the Volscians, to Aquilius that against the Hernici,
for they also were in arms. In that year the Hernici were subjugated, the
campaign against the Volscians ended indecisively.
2.41
For the next year Sp. Cassius and Proculus Verginius were elected consuls.
A treaty was concluded with the Hernici, two-thirds of their territory
was taken from them. Of this Cassius intended to give half to the Latins
and half to the Roman plebs. He contemplated adding to this a quantity
of land which, he alleged, though State land, was occupied by private individuals.
This alarmed many of the patricians, the actual occupiers, as endangering,
the security of their property. On public grounds, too, they felt anxious,
as they considered that by this largess the consul was building up a power
dangerous to liberty. Then for the first time an Agrarian Law was proposed,
and never, from that day to the times within our own memory, has one been
mooted without the most tremendous commotions. The other consul resisted
the proposed grant. In this he was supported by the senate, whilst the
plebs was far from unanimous in its favour. They were beginning to look
askance at a boon so cheap as to be shared between citizens and allies,
and they often heard the consul Verginius in his public speeches predicting
that his colleague's gift was fraught with mischief, the land in question
would bring slavery on those who took it, the way was being prepared for
a throne. Why were the allies, he asked, and the Latin league included?
What necessity was there for a third part of the territory of the Hernici,
so lately our foes, being restored to them, unless it was that these nations
might have Cassius as their leader in place of Coriolanus?' The opponent
of the Agrarian Law began to be popular. Then both consuls tried who could
go furthest in humouring the plebs. Verginius said that he would consent
to the assignment of the lands provided they were assigned to none but:
Roman citizens. Cassius had courted popularity amongst the allies by including
them in the distribution and had thereby sunk in the estimation of his
fellow-citizens. To recover their favour he gave orders for the money which
had been received for the corn from Sicily to be refunded to the people.
This offer the plebeians treated with scorn as nothing else than the price
of a throne. Owing to their innate suspicion that he was aiming at monarchy,
his
gifts were rejected as completely as if they had abundance of everything.
It is generally asserted that immediately upon his vacating office he was
condemned and put to death. Some assert that his own father was the author
of his punishment, that he tried him privately at home, and after scourging
him put him to death and devoted his private property to Ceres. From the
proceeds a statue of her was made with an inscription, "Given from the
Cassian family." I find in some authors a much more probable account, viz.,
that he was arraigned by the quaestors Caeso Fabius and L. Valerius before
the people and convicted of treason, and his house ordered to be demolished.
It stood on the open space in front of the temple of Tellus. In any case,
whether the trial was a public or a private one, his condemnation took
place in the consulship of Servius Cornelius and Q. Fabius.
2.42
The popular anger against Cassius did not last long. The attractiveness
of the Agrarian Law, though its author was removed, was in itself sufficient
to make the plebeians desire it, and their eagerness for it was intensified
by the unscrupulousness of the senate, who cheated the soldiers out of
their share of the spoil which they had won that year from the Volscians
and Aequi. Everything taken from the enemy was sold by the consul Fabius
and the amount realised paid into the treasury. In spite of the hatred
which this produced in the plebs against the whole Fabian house, the patricians
succeeded in getting Caeso Fabius elected with L. Aemilius as consuls for
the next year. This still further embittered the plebeians, and domestic
disturbances brought on a foreign war. For the time civic quarrels were
suspended, patricians and plebeians were of one mind in resisting the Aequi
and Volscians, and a victorious action was fought under Aemilius. The enemy
lost more in the retreat than in the battle, so hotly did the cavalry pursue
their routed foe. In the same year the temple of Castor was dedicated on
the 15th of July. It had been vowed by the Dictator Postumius in the Latin
war; his son was appointed "duumvir" for its dedication. In this year,
too, the minds of the plebeians were much exercised by the attractions
which the Agrarian Law held out for them, and the tribunes made their office
more popular by constantly dwelling on this popular measure. The patricians,
believing that there was enough and more than enough madness in the multitude
as it was, viewed with horror these bribes and incentives to recklessness.
The consuls led the way in offering a most determined resistance, and the
senate won the day. Nor was the victory only a momentary one, for they
elected as consuls for the following year M. Fabius, the brother of Caeso,
and L. Valerius, who was an object of special hatred on the part of the
plebs through his prosecution of Sp. Cassius. The contest with the tribunes
went on through the year; the Law remained a dead letter, and the tribunes,
with their fruitless promises, turned out to be idle boasters. The Fabian
house gained an immense reputation through the three successive consulships
of its members, all of whom had been uniformly successful in their resistance
to the tribunes. The office remained like a safe investment, for some time
in the family. War now began with Veii, and the Volscians rose again. The
people possessed more than sufficient strength for their foreign wars,
but they wasted it in domestic strife. The universal anxiety was aggravated
by supernatural portents, menacing almost daily City and country alike.
The soothsayers, who were consulted by the State and by private persons,
declared that the divine wrath was due to nothing else but the profanation
of sacred functions. These alarms resulted in the punishment of Oppia,
a Vestal virgin who was convicted of unchastity.
2.43
The next consuls were Q. Fabius and C. Julius. During this year the civic
dissensions were as lively as ever, and the war assumed a more serious
form.
The Aequi took up arms, and the Veientines made depredations on Roman territory.
Amidst the growing anxiety about these wars Caeso Fabius and Sp. Furius
were made consuls. The Aequi were attacking Ortona, a Latin city; the Veientines,
laden with plunder, were now threatening to attack Rome itself. This alarming
condition of affairs ought to have restrained, whereas it actually increased,
the hostility of the plebs, and they resumed the old method of refusing
military service. This was not spontaneous on their part; Sp. Licinius,
one of their tribunes, thinking that it was a good time for forcing the
Agrarian Law upon the senate through sheer necessity, had taken upon him
the obstruction of the levy. All the odium, however, aroused by this misuse
of the tribunitian power recoiled upon the author, his own colleagues were
as much opposed to him as the consuls; through their assistance the consuls
completed the enrolment. An army was raised for two wars at the same time,
one against the Veientines under Fabius, the other against the Aequi under
Furius. In this latter campaign nothing happened worth recording. Fabius,
however, had considerably more trouble with his own men than with the enemy.
He, the consul, single-handed, sustained the commonwealth, while his army
through their hatred of the consul were doing their best to betray it.
For, besides all the other instances of his skill as a commander, which
he had so abundantly furnished in his preparation for the war and his conduct
of it, he had so disposed his troops that he routed the enemy by sending
only his cavalry against them. The infantry refused to take up the pursuit;
not only were they deaf to the appeals of their hated general, but even
the public disgrace and infamy which they were bringing upon themselves
at the moment, and the danger which would come if the enemy were to rally
were powerless to make them quicken their pace, or, failing that, even
to keep their formation. Against orders they retired, and with gloomy looks-you
would suppose that they had been defeated-they returned to camp, cursing
now their commander, now the work which the cavalry had done. Against this
example of demoralisation the general was unable to devise any remedy;
to such an extent may men of commanding ability be more deficient in the
art of managing their own people than in that of conquering the enemy.
The consul returned to Rome, but he had not enhanced his military reputation
so much as he had aggravated and embittered the hatred of his soldiers
towards him. The senate, however, succeeded in keeping the consulship in
the family of the Fabii; they made M. Fabius consul, Gnaeus Manlius was
elected as his colleague.
2.44
This year also found a tribune advocating the Agrarian Law. It was Tiberius
Pontificius. He adopted the same course as Sp. Licinius and for a short
time stopped the enrolment. The senate were again perturbed, but Appius
Claudius told them that the power of the tribunes had been overcome in
the previous year, it was actually so at the present moment, and the precedent
thus set would govern the future, since it had been discovered that its
very strength was breaking it down. For there would never be wanting a
tribune who would be glad to triumph over his colleague and secure the
favour of the better party for the good of the State. If more were needed,
more were ready to come to the assistance of the consuls, even one was
sufficient, against the rest. The consuls and leaders of the senate had
only to take the trouble to secure, if not all, at least some of the tribunes
on the side of the commonwealth and the senate. The senators followed this
advice, and whilst, as a body, they treated the tribunes with courtesy
and kindness, the men of consular rank, in each private suit which they
instituted, succeeded, partly by personal influence, partly by the authority
their rank gave them. in getting the tribunes to exert their power for
the welfare of the State. Four of the tribunes were opposed to the one
who was a hindrance to the public good; by their aid the consuls raised
the levy.
Then they set out for the campaign against Veii. Succours had reached
this city from all parts of Etruria, not so much out of regard for the
Veientines as because hopes were entertained of the possible dissolution
of the Roman State through intestine discord. In the public assemblies
throughout the cities of Etruria the chiefs were loudly proclaiming that
the Roman power would be eternal unless its citizens fell into the madness
of mutual strife. This, they said, had proved to be the one poison, the
one bane in powerful states which made great empires mortal. That mischief
had been for a long time checked, partly by the wise policy of the senate,
partly by the forbearance of the plebs, but now things had reached extremities.
The one State had been severed into two, each with its own magistrates
and its own laws. At first the enrolments were the cause of the quarrel,
but when actually on service the men obeyed their generals. As long as
military discipline was maintained the evil could be arrested, whatever
the state of affairs in the City, but now the fashion of disobedience to
the magistrates was following the Roman soldier even into the camp. During
the last war, in the battle itself, at the crisis of the engagement, the
victory was by the common action of the whole army transferred to the vanquished
Aequi, the standards were abandoned, the commander left alone on the field,
the troops returned against orders into camp. In fact, if matters were
pressed, Rome could be vanquished through her own soldiers, nothing else
was needful than a declaration of war, a show of military activity, the
Fates and the gods would do the rest.
2.45
Anticipations like these had given the Etruscans fresh energy after their
many vicissitudes of defeat and victory. The Roman consuls, too, dreaded
nothing but their own strength and their own arms. The recollection of
the fatal precedent set in the last war deterred them from any action whereby
they would have to fear a simultaneous attack from two armies. They confined
themselves to their camp, and in face of the double danger avoided an engagement,
hoping that time and circumstances might perhaps calm the angry passions
and bring about a more healthy state of mind. The Veientines and Etruscans
were all the more energetic in forcing an engagement; they rode up to the
camp and challenged the Romans to fight. At last, as they produced no effect
by the taunts and insults levelled at the army and consuls alike, they
declared that the consuls were using the pretext of internal dissensions
to veil the cowardice of their men, they distrusted their courage more
than they doubted their loyalty. Silence and inactivity amongst men in
arms was a novel kind of sedition. They also made reflections, true as
well as false, on the upstart quality of their nationality and descent.
They shouted all this out close up to the ramparts and gates of the camp.
The consuls took it with composure, but the simple soldiery were filled
with indignation and shame, and their thoughts were diverted from their
domestic troubles. They were unwilling that the enemy should go on with
impunity, they were equally unwilling that the patricians and the consuls
should win the day, hatred against the enemy and hatred against their fellow-countrymen
struggled in their minds for the mastery. At length the former prevailed,
so contemptuous and insolent did the mockery of the enemy become. They
gathered in crowds round the generals' quarters, they insisted upon fighting,
they demanded the signal for action. The consuls put their heads together
as though deliberating, and remained for some time in conference. They
were anxious to fight, but their anxiety had to be repressed and concealed
in order that the eagerness of the soldiers, once roused, might be intensified
by opposition and delay. They replied that matters were not ripe, the time
for battle had not come, they must remain within their camp. They then
issued an order that there must be no fighting, any one fighting against
orders would be treated as an enemy. The soldiers, dismissed with this
reply, became the more eager for battle the less they thought the consuls
wished for it. The enemy became much more exasperating when it was known
that the consuls had determined not to fight, they imagined that they could
now insult with impunity, that the soldiers were not entrusted with arms,
matters would reach the stage of mutiny, and the dominion of Rome had come
to an end. In this confidence they ran up to the gates, flung opprobrious
epithets and hardly stopped short of storming the camp. Naturally the Romans
could brook these insults no longer, they ran from all parts of the camp
to the consuls, they did not now prefer their demand quietly through the
first centurions as before, they shouted them in all directions. Matters
were ripe, still the consuls hung back. At last Cn. Manlius, fearing lest
the increasing disturbance might lead to open mutiny, gave way, and Fabius,
after ordering the trumpets to command silence, addressed his colleague
thus: "I know, Cn. Manlius, that these men can conquer; it is their own
fault that I did not know whether they wished to do so. It has, therefore,
been resolved and determined not to give the signal for battle unless they
swear that they will come out of this battle victorious. A Roman consul
was once deceived by his soldiers, they cannot deceive the gods." Amongst
the centurions of the first rank who had demanded to be led to battle was
M. Flavoleius. "M. Fabius," he said, "I will come back from the battle
victorious." He invoked the wrath of Father Jupiter and Mars Gradivus and
other deities if he broke his oath. The whole army took the oath, man by
man, after him. When they had sworn, the signal was given, they seized
their weapons, and went into action, furious with rage and confident of
victory. They told the Etruscans to continue their insults, and begged
the enemy so ready with the tongue to stand up to them now they were armed.
All, patricians and plebeians alike, showed conspicuous courage on that
day, the Fabian house especially covered itself with glory. They determined
in that battle to win back the affection of the plebs, which had been alienated
through many political contests.
2.46
The battle-line was formed; neither the Veientines nor the legions of Etruria
declined the contest. They were almost certain that the Romans would no
more fight with them than they fought with the Aequi, and they did not
despair of something still more serious happening, considering the state
of irritation they were in and the double opportunity which now presented
itself. Things took a very different course, for in no previous war had
the Romans gone into action with more grim determination, so exasperated
were they by the insults of the enemy and the procrastination of the consuls.
The Etruscans had scarcely time to form their ranks when, after the javelins
had in the first confusion been flung at random rather than thrown regularly,
the combatants came to a hand-to-hand encounter with swords, the most desperate
kind of fighting. Amongst the foremost were the Fabii, who set a splendid
example for their countrymen to behold. Quintus Fabius-the one who had
been consul two years previously-charged, regardless of danger, the massed
Veientines, and whilst he was engaged with vast numbers of the enemy, a
Tuscan of vast strength and splendidly armed plunged his sword into his
breast, and as he drew it out Fabius fell forward on the wound. Both armies
felt the fall of this one man, and the Romans were beginning to give ground,
when M. Fabius, the consul, sprang over the body as it lay, and holding
up his buckler, shouted, "Is this what you swore, soldiers, that you would
go back to camp as fugitives? Are you more afraid of this cowardly foe
than of Jupiter and Mars, by whom you swore? I, who did not swear, will
either go back victorious, or will fall fighting by you, Quintus Fabius."
Then Caeso Fabius, the consul of the previous year, said to the consul,
"Is it by words like these, my brother, that you think you will make them
fight? The gods, by whom they swore, will do that; our duty as chiefs,
if we are to be worthy of the Fabian name, is to kindle our soldiers' courage
by fighting rather than haranguing." So the two Fabii dashed forward with
levelled spears, and carried the whole line with them.
2.47
Whilst the battle was restored in one direction, the consul Cn. Manlius
was showing no less energy on the other wing, where the fortunes of the
day took a similar turn. For, like Q. Fabius on the other wing, the consul
Manlius was here driving the enemy before him and his soldiers were following
up with great vigour, when he was seriously wounded and retired from the
front. Thinking that he was killed, they fell back, and would have abandoned
their ground had not the other consul ridden up at full gallop with some
troops of cavalry, and, crying out that his colleague was alive and that
he had himself routed the other wing of the enemy, succeeded in checking
the retreat. Manlius also showed himself amongst them, to rally his men.
The well-known voices of the two consuls gave the soldiers fresh courage.
At the same time the enemies' line was now weakened, for, trusting to their
superiority in numbers, they had detached their reserves and sent them
to storm the camp. These met with but slight resistance, and whilst they
were wasting time by thinking more about plundering than about fighting,
the Roman triarii, who had been unable to withstand the first assault,
despatched messengers to the consul to tell him the position of affairs,
and then, retiring in close order to the headquarters tent, renewed the
fighting without waiting for orders. The consul Manlius had ridden back
to the camp and posted troops at all the gates to block the enemies' escape.
The desperate situation roused the Tuscans to madness rather than courage;
they rushed in every direction where there seemed any hope of escape, and
for some time their efforts were fruitless.
At last a compact body of young soldiers made an attack on the consul
himself, conspicuous from his arms. The first weapons were intercepted
by those who stood round him, but the violence of the onset could not long
be withstood. The consul fell mortally wounded and all around him were
scattered. The Tuscans were encouraged, the Romans fled in panic through
the length of the camp, and matters would have come to extremities had
not the members of the consul's staff hurriedly taken up his body and opened
a way for the enemy through one gate. They burst through it, and in a confused
mass fell in with the other consul who had won the battle; here they were
again cut to pieces and scattered in all directions. A glorious victory
was won, though saddened by the death of two illustrious men. The senate
decreed a triumph, but the consul replied that if the army could celebrate
a triumph without its commander, he would gladly allow them to do so in
return for their splendid service in the war. But as his family were in
mourning for his brother, Quintus Fabius, and the State had suffered partial
bereavement through the loss of one of its consuls, he could not accept
laurels for himself which were blighted by public and private grief. The
triumph he declined was more brilliant than any actually celebrated, so
much does glory laid by for the moment return sometimes with added splendour.
Afterwards he conducted the obsequies of his colleague and his brother,
and pronounced the funeral oration over each. The greatest share of the
praise which he conceded to them rested upon himself. He had not lost sight
of the object which he set before him at the beginning of his consulship,
the conciliation of the plebs. To further this, he distributed amongst
the patricians the care of the wounded. The Fabii took charge of a large
number,
and nowhere was greater care showed them. From this time they began to
be popular; their popularity was won by no methods which were inconsistent
with the welfare of the State.
2.48
Consequently the election of Caeso Fabius as consul, together with Titus
Verginius, was welcomed by the plebs as much as by the patricians. Now
that there was a favourable prospect of concord, he subordinated all military
projects to the task of bringing the patricians and the plebs into union
at the earliest possible moment. At the beginning of his year of office
he proposed that before any tribune came forward to advocate the Agrarian
Law, the senate should anticipate him by themselves undertaking what was
their own work and distributing the territory taken in war to the plebeians
as fairly as possible. It was only right that those should have it by whose
sweat and blood it had been won. The patricians treated the proposal with
scorn, some even complained that the once energetic mind of Caeso was becoming
wanton and enfeebled through the excess of glory which he had won. There
were no party struggles in the City. The Latins were being harassed by
the inroads of the Aequi. Caeso was despatched thither with an army, and
crossed over into the territory of the Aequi to ravage it. The Aequi withdrew
into their towns and remained behind their walls. No battle of any importance
took place. But the rashness of the other consul incurred a defeat at the
hands of the Veientines, and it was only the arrival of Caeso Fabius with
reinforcements that saved the army from destruction. From that time there
was neither peace nor war with the Veientines, whose methods closely resembled
those of brigands. They retired before the Roman legions into their city;
then when they found that they were withdrawn they made inroads on the
fields, evading war by keeping quiet, and then making quiet impossible
by war. So the business could neither be dropped nor completed. Wars were
threatening in other quarters also; some seemed imminent as in the case
of the Aequi and Volscians, who were only keeping quiet till the effect
of their recent defeat should pass away, whilst it was evident that the
Sabines, perpetual enemies of Rome, and the whole of Etruria would soon
be in motion. But the Veientines, a persistent rather than a formidable
foe, created more irritation than alarm because it was never safe to neglect
them or to turn the attention elsewhere. Under these circumstances the
Fabii came to the senate, and the consul, on behalf of his house, spoke
as follows: "As you are aware, senators, the Veientine war does not require
a large force so much as one constantly in the field. Let the other wars
be your care, leave the Fabii to deal with the Veientines. We will guarantee
that the majesty of Rome shall be safe in that quarter. We propose to carry
on that war as a private war of our own at our own cost. Let the State
be spared money and men there. "A very hearty vote of thanks was passed;
the consul left the House and returned home accompanied by the Fabii, who
had been standing in the vestibule awaiting the senate's decision. After
receiving instructions to meet on the morrow, fully armed, before the consul's
house, they separated for their homes.
2.49
News of what had happened spread through the whole City, the Fabii were
praised up to the skies; people said, "One family had taken up the burden
of the State, the Veientine war had become a private concern, a private
quarrel. If there were two houses of the same strength in the City, and
the one claimed the Volscians for themselves, the other the Aequi, then
all the neighbouring states could be subjugated while Rome itself remained
in profound tranquillity." The next day the Fabii took their arms and assembled
at the appointed place. The consul, wearing his "paludamentum," went out
into the vestibule and saw the whole of his house drawn up in order of
march. Taking his place in the centre, he gave the word of advance. Never
has an army marched through the City smaller in numbers or with a more
brilliant reputation or more universally admired. Three hundred and six
soldiers, all patricians, all members of one house, not a single man of
whom the senate even in its palmiest days would deem unfitted for high
command, went forth, threatening ruin to the Veientines through the strength
of a single family. They were followed by a crowd; made up partly of their
own relatives and friends, whose minds were not occupied with ordinary
hope and anxiety, but filled with the loftiest anticipations; partly of
those who shared the public anxiety, and could not find words to express
their affection and admiration. "Go on," they cried, "you gallant band,
go on, and may you be fortunate; bring back results equal to this beginning,
then look to us for consulships and triumphs and every possible reward."
As they passed the Citadel and the Capitol and other temples, their friends
prayed to each deity, whose statue or whose shrine they saw, that they
would send that band with all favourable omens to success, and in a short
time restore them safe to their country and their kindred. In vain were
those prayers sent up! They proceeded on their ill-starred way by the right
postern of the Carmental gate, and reached the banks of the Cremera. This
seemed to them a suitable position for a fortified post. L. Aemilius and
C. Servilius were the next consuls. As long as it was only a question of
forays and raids, the Fabii were quite strong enough not only to protect
their own fortified post, but, by patrolling both sides of the border-line
between the Roman and Tuscan territories, to make the whole district safe
for themselves and dangerous for the enemy. There was a brief interruption
to these raids, when the Veientines, after summoning an army from Etruria,
assaulted the fortified post at the Cremera. The Roman legions were brought
up by the consul L. Aemilius and fought a regular engagement with the Etruscan
troops. The Veientines, however, had not time to complete their formation,
and during the confusion, whilst the men were getting into line and the
reserves were being stationed, a squadron of Roman cavalry suddenly made
a flank attack, and gave them no chance of commencing a battle or even
of standing their ground. They were driven back to their camp at the Saxa
Rubra, and sued for peace. They obtained it, but their natural inconstancy
made them regret it before the Roman garrison was recalled from the Cremera.
2.50
The conflicts between the Fabii and the State of Veii were resumed without
any more extensive military preparations than before. There were not only
forays into each other's territories and surprise attacks upon the forayers,
but sometimes they fought regular engagements, and this single Roman house
often won the victory over what was at that time the most powerful city
in Etruria. This was a bitter mortification to the Veientines, and they
were led by circumstances to adopt the plan of trapping their daring enemy
in an ambuscade; they were even glad that the numerous successes of the
Fabii had increased their confidence. Accordingly they drove herds of cattle,
as if by accident, in the way of the foraying parties, the fields were
abandoned by the peasants, and the bodies of troops sent to repel the raiders
fled in a panic more often assumed than genuine. By this time the Fabii
had conceived such a contempt for their foe as to be convinced that under
no circumstances of either time or place could their invincible arms be
resisted. This presumption carried them so far that at the sight of some
distant cattle on the other side of the wide plain stretching from the
camp they ran down to secure them, although but few of the enemy were visible.
Suspecting no danger and keeping no order they passed the ambuscade which
was set on each side of the road, and whilst they were scattered in trying
to catch the cattle, which in their fright were rushing wildly about, the
enemy suddenly rose from their concealment and attacked them on all sides.
At first they were startled by the shouts round them, then javelins fell
on them from every direction. As the Etruscans closed round them, they
were hemmed by a continuous ring of men, and the more the enemy pressed
upon them, the less the space in which they were forced to form their ever-narrowing
square. This brought out strongly the contrast between their scanty numbers
and the host of Etruscans, whose ranks were multiplied through being narrowed.
After a time they abandoned their plan of presenting a front on all sides;
facing in one direction they formed themselves into a wedge and by the
utmost exertion of sword and muscle forced a passage through. The road
led up to gentle eminence, and here they halted. When the higher ground
gave them room to breathe freely and to recover from the feeling of despair,
they repelled those who mounted to the attack, and through the advantage
of position the little band were beginning to win the day, when some Veientines
who had been sent round the hill emerged on the summit. So the enemy again
had the advantage. The Fabii were all cut down to a man, and their fort
taken. It is generally agreed that three hundred and six men perished,
and that one only, an immature youth, was left as a stock for the Fabian
house to be Rome's greatest helper in her hour of danger both at home and
in the field.
2.51
When this disaster occurred, C. Horatius and T. Menenius were consuls.
Menenius was at once sent against the Tuscans, flushed with their recent
victory. Another unsuccessful action was fought, and the enemy took possession
of the Janiculum. The City, which was suffering from scarcity as well as
from the war, would have been invested-for the Etruscans had crossed the
Tiber-had not the consul Horatius been recalled from the Volsci. The fighting
approached so near the walls that the first battle, an indecisive one,
took place near the temple of Spes, and the second at the Colline gate.
In the latter, although the Romans gained only a slight advantage, the
soldiers recovered something of their old courage and were better prepared
for future campaigns. The next consuls were A. Verginius and Sp. Servilius.
After their defeat in the last battle, the Veientines declined an engagement.
There were forays. From the Janiculum as from a citadel they made raids
in all directions on the Roman territory; nowhere were the cattle or the
country-folk safe. They were ultimately caught by the same stratagem by
which they had caught the Fabii. Some cattle were purposely driven in different
directions as a decoy; they followed them and fell into an ambuscade; and
as their numbers were greater, the slaughter was greater. Their rage at
this defeat was the cause and commencement of a more serious one. They
crossed the Tiber by night and marched up to an attack on Servilius' camp,
but were routed with great loss, and with great difficulty reached the
Janiculum. The consul himself forthwith crossed the Tiber and entrenched
himself at the foot of the Janiculum. The confidence inspired by his victory
of the previous day, but still more the scarcity of corn, made him decide
upon an immediate but precipitate move. He led his army at daybreak up
the side of the Janiculum to the enemies' camp; but he met with a more
disastrous repulse than the one he had inflicted the day before. It was
only by the intervention of his colleague that he and his army were saved.
The Etruscans, caught between the two armies, and retreating from each
alternately, were annihilated. So the Veientine war was brought to a sudden
close by an act of happy rashness.
2.52
Together with peace, food came more freely into the City. Corn was brought
from Campania, and as the fear of future scarcity had disappeared, each
individual brought out what he had hoarded. The result of ease and plenty
was fresh restlessness, and as the old evils no longer existed abroad,
men began to look for them at home. The tribunes began to poison the minds
of the plebeians with the Agrarian Law and inflamed them against the senators
who resisted it, not only against the whole body, but individual members.
Q. Considius and T. Genucius, who were advocating the Law, appointed a
day for the trial of T. Menenius. Popular feeling was roused against him
by the loss of the fort at the Cremera, since, as consul, he had his standing
camp not far from it. This crushed him, though the senators exerted themselves
for him no less than they had done for Coriolanus, and the popularity of
his father Agrippa had not died away. The tribunes contented themselves
with a fine, though they had arraigned him on a capital charge; the amount
was fixed at 2000 "ases." This proved to be a death-sentence, for they
say that he was unable to endure the disgrace and grief, and was carried
off by a fatal malady. Sp. Servilius was the next to be impeached. His
prosecution, conducted by the tribunes L. Caedicius and T. Statius, took
place immediately after his year had expired, at the commencement of the
consulship of C. Nautius and P. Valerius. When the day of trial came, he
did not, like Menenius, meet the attacks of the tribunes by appeals for
mercy, whether his own or those of the senators, he relied absolutely on
his innocence and personal influence. The charge against him was his conduct
in the battle with the Tuscans on the Janiculum; but the same courage which
he then displayed, when the State was in danger, he now displayed when
his own life was in danger. Meeting charge by counter-charge, he boldly
laid upon the tribunes and the whole of the plebs the guilt of the condemnation
and death of T. Menenius; the son, he reminded them, of the man through
whose efforts the plebeians had been restored to their position in the
State, and were enjoying those very magistracies and laws which now allowed
them to be cruel and vindictive. By his boldness he dispelled the danger,
and his colleague Verginius, who came forward as a witness, assisted him
by crediting him with some of his own services to the State. The thing
that helped him more, however, was the sentence passed on Menenius, so
completely had the popular sentiment changed.
2.53
The domestic conflicts came to an end; war began again with the Veientines,
with whom the Sabines had formed an armed league. The Latin and Hernican
auxiliaries were summoned, and the consul P. Valerius was sent with an
army to Veii. He at once attacked the Sabine camp, which was situated in
front of the walls of their allies, and created such confusion that while
small bodies of the defenders were making sorties in various directions
to repel the attack, the gate against which the assault had been first
made was forced, and once inside the rampart it became a massacre rather
than a battle. The noise in the camp penetrated even to the city, and the
Veientines flew to arms, in a state of as great alarm as if Veii itself
was taken. Some went to the help of the Sabines, others attacked the Romans,
who were wholly occupied with their assault on the camp. For a few moments
they were checked and thrown into confusion; then, forming front in both
directions, they offered a steady resistance while the cavalry whom the
consul had ordered to charge routed the Tuscans and put them to flight.
In the same hour, two armies, the two most powerful of the neighbouring
states, were overcome. Whilst this was going on at Veii, the Volscians
and Aequi had encamped in the Latin territory and were ravaging their borders.
The Latins, in conjunction with the Hernici, drove them out of their camp
without either a Roman general or Roman troops. They recovered their own
property and obtained immense booty in addition. Nevertheless, the consul
C. Nautius was sent from Rome against the Volscians. They did not approve,
I think, of the custom of allies carrying on war in their own strength
and on their own methods, without any Roman general or army. There was
no kind of injury or insult that was not practiced against the Volscians;
they could not, however, be driven to fight a regular battle.
2.54
L. Furius and C. Manlius were the next consuls. The Veientines fell to
Manlius as his province. There was no war, however; a forty years' truce
was granted on their request; they were ordered to furnish corn and pay
for the troops. Peace abroad was at once followed by discord at home. The
tribunes employed the Agrarian Law to goad the plebs into a state of dangerous
excitement. The consuls, nowise intimidated by the condemnation of Menenius
or the danger in which Servilius had stood, resisted them with the utmost
violence. On their vacating office the tribune Genucius impeached them.
They were succeeded by L. Aemilius and Opiter Verginius. I find in some
annals Vopiscus Julius instead of Verginius. Whoever the consuls were,
it was in this year that Furius and Manlius, who were to be tried before
the people, went about in mourning garb amongst the younger members of
the senate quite as much as amongst the plebs. They urged them to keep
clear of the high offices of State and the administration of affairs, and
to regard the consular "fasces," the "praetexta," and the curule chair
as nothing but the pomp of death, for when invested with these insignia
they were like victims adorned for sacrifice. If the consulship possessed
such attractions for them, they must clearly understand that this office
had been captured and crushed by the tribunician power; the consul had
to do everything at the beck and call of the tribune just as if he were
his apparitor. If he took an active line, if he showed any regard for the
patricians, if he thought that anything besides the plebs formed part of
the commonwealth, he should keep before his eyes the banishment of Cn.
Marcius, the condemnation and death of Menenius. Fired by these appeals
the senators held meetings not in the Senate-house but in private, only
a few being invited. As the one point on which they were agreed was that
the two who were impeached were to be rescued, by lawful or unlawful means,
the most desperate plan was the most acceptable, and men were found who
advocated the most daring crime. Accordingly, on the day of the trial,
whilst the plebs were standing in the Forum on the tiptoe of expectation,
they were surprised that the tribune did not come down to them. Further
delay made them suspicious; they believed that he had been intimidated
by the leaders of the senate, and they complained that the cause of the
people had been abandoned and betrayed. At last some who had been waiting
in the vestibule of the tribune's house sent word that he had been found
dead in his house. As this news spread throughout the assembly, they at
once dispersed in all directions, like a routed army that has lost its
general. The tribunes especially were alarmed, for they were warned by
their colleague's death how absolutely ineffective the Sacred Laws were
for their protection. The patricians, on the other hand, showed extravagant
delight; so far was any one of them from regretting the crime, that even
those who had taken no part in it were anxious to appear as though they
had, and it was openly asserted that the tribunitian power must be chastised
into submission.
2.55
Whilst the impression produced by this frightful instance of triumphant
crime was still fresh, orders were issued for a levy, and as the tribunes
were thoroughly intimidated, the consuls carried it out without any interruption
from them. But now the plebeians were more angry at the silence of the
tribunes than at the exercise of authority on the part of the consuls.
They said that it was all over with their liberty, they had gone back to
the old state of things, the tribunitian power was dead and buried with
Genucius. Some other method must be thought out and adopted by which they
could resist the patricians, and the only possible course was for the commons
to defend themselves, as they had no other help. Four-and-twenty lictors
attended on the consuls, and these very men were drawn from the plebs.
Nothing was more contemptible and feeble than they were, if there were
any that would treat them with contempt, but every one imagined them to
be great and awful things. After they had excited one another by these
speeches, Volero Publilius, a plebeian, said that he ought not to be made
a common soldier after serving as a centurion. The consuls sent a lictor
to him. Volero appealed to the tribunes. None came to his assistance, so
the consuls ordered him to be stripped and the rods got ready. "I appeal
to the people," he said, "since the tribunes would rather see a Roman citizen
scourged before their eyes than be murdered in their beds by you." The
more excitedly he called out, the more violently did the lictor tear off
his toga, to strip him. Then Volero, himself a man of unusual strength,
and helped by those to whom he called, drove the lictor off, and amidst
the indignant remonstrances of his supporters, retreated into the thickest
part of the crowd, crying out, "I appeal to the plebs for protection. Help,
fellow-citizens! help, fellow-soldiers! You have nothing to expect from
the tribunes; they themselves need your aid." The men, greatly excited,
got ready as if for battle, and a most critical struggle was evidently
impending, where no one would show the slightest respect for either public
or private rights. The consuls tried to check the fury of the storm, but
they soon found that there is little safety for authority without strength.
The lictors were mobbed, the fasces broken, and the consuls driven from
the Forum into the Senate-house, uncertain how far Volero would push his
victory. As the tumult was subsiding they ordered the senate to be convened,
and when it was assembled they complained of the outrage done to them,
the violence of the plebeians, the audacious insolence of Volero. After
many violent speeches had been made, the opinion of the older senators
prevailed; they disapproved of the intemperance of the plebs being met
by angry resentment on the part of the patricians.
2.56
Volero was now in high favour with the plebs, and they made him a tribune
at the next election. Lucius Pinarius and P. Furius were the consuls for
that year. Everybody supposed that Volero would use all the power of his
tribuneship to harass the consuls of the preceding year. On the contrary,
he subordinated his private grievances to the interests of the State, and
without uttering a single word which could reflect on the consuls, he proposed
to the people a measure providing that the magistrates of the plebs should
be elected by the Assembly of the Tribes. At first sight this measure appeared
to be of a very harmless description, but it would deprive the patricians
of all power of electing through their clients' votes those whom they wanted
as tribunes. It was most welcome to the plebeians, but the patricians resisted
it to the utmost. They were unable to secure the one effectual means of
resistance, namely, inducing one of the tribunes, through the influence
of the consuls or the leading patricians, to interpose his veto. The weight
and importance of the question led to protracted controversy throughout
the year. The plebs re-elected Volero. The patricians, feeling that the
question was rapidly approaching a crisis, appointed Appius Claudius, the
son of Appius, who, ever since his father's contests with them, had been
hated by them and cordially hated them in return. From the very commencement
of the year the Law took precedence of all other matters. Volero had been
the first to bring it forward, but his colleague, Laetorius, though a later,
was a still more energetic supporter of it. He had won an immense reputation
in war, for no man was a better fighter, and this made him a stronger opponent.
Volero in his speeches confined himself strictly to discussing the Law
and abstained from all abuse of the consuls. But Laetorius began by accusing
Appius and his family of tyranny and cruelty towards the plebs; he said
it was not a consul who had been elected, but an executioner, to harass
and torture the plebeians. The untrained tongue of the soldier was unable
to express the freedom of his sentiments; as words failed him, he said,
"I cannot speak so easily as I can prove the truth of what I have said;
come here tomorrow, I will either perish before your eyes or carry the
Law."
Next day the tribunes took their places on the "templum," the consuls
and the nobility stood about in the Assembly to prevent the passage of
the Law. Laetorius gave orders for all, except actual voters, to withdraw.
The young patricians kept their places and paid no attention to the tribune's
officer, whereupon Laetorius ordered some of them to be arrested. Appius
insisted that the tribunes had no jurisdiction over any but plebeians,
they were not magistrates of the whole people, but only of the plebs; even
he himself could not, according to the usage of their ancestors, remove
any man by virtue of his authority, for the formula ran, "If it seems good
to you, Quirites, depart! "By making contemptuous remarks about his jurisdiction,
he was easily able to disconcert Laetorius. The tribune, in a burning rage,
sent his officer to the consul, the consul sent a lictor to the tribune,
exclaiming that he was a private citizen without any magisterial authority.
The tribune would have been treated with indignity had not the whole Assembly
risen angrily to defend the tribune against the consul, whilst people rushed
from all parts of the City in excited crowds to the Forum. Appius braved
the storm with inflexible determination, and the conflict would have ended
in bloodshed had not the other consul, Quinctius, entrusted the consulars
with the duty of removing, by force if necessary, his colleague from the
Forum. He entreated the furious plebeians to be calm, and implored the
tribunes to dismiss the Assembly; they should give their passions time
to cool, delay would not deprive them of their power, but would add prudence
to their strength; the senate would submit to the authority of the people,
and the consuls to that of the senate.
2.57
With difficulty Quinctius succeeded in quieting the plebeians; the senators
had much greater difficulty in pacifying Appius. At length the Assembly
was dismissed and the consuls held a meeting of the senate. Very divergent
opinions were expressed according as the emotions of fear or anger predominated,
but the longer the interval during which they were called away from impulsive
action to calm deliberation, the more averse did they become to a prolongation
of the conflict; so much so, indeed, that they passed a vote of thanks
to Quinctius for having through his exertions allayed the disturbance.
Appius was called upon to consent to the consular authority being so far
limited as to be compatible with a harmonious commonwealth. It was urged
that whilst the tribunes and the consuls each tried to bring everything
under their respective authority, there was no basis for common action;
the State was torn in two, and the one thing aimed at was, who should be
its rulers, not how could its security be preserved. Appius, on the other
hand, called gods and men to witness that the State was being betrayed
and abandoned through fear; it was not the consul who was failing the senate,
the senate was failing the consul; worse conditions were being submitted
to than those which had been accepted on the Sacred Hill. However, he was
overborne by the unanimous feeling of the senate and became quiet. The
Law was passed in silence. Then for the first time the tribunes were elected
by the Assembly of the Tribes. According to Piso three were added, as though
there had only been two before. He gives their names as Cn. Siccius, L.
Numitorius, M. Duellius, Sp. Icilius, and L. Mecilius.
2.58
During the disturbances in Rome, the war with the Volscians and Aequi broke
out afresh. They had laid waste the fields, in order that if there were
a secession of the plebs they might find refuge with them. When quiet had
been restored they moved their camp further away. Appius Claudius was sent
against the Volscians, the Aequi were left for Quinctius to deal with.
Appius displayed the same savage temper in the field that he had shown
at home, only it was more unrestrained because he was not now fettered
by the tribunes. He hated the commons with a more intense hatred than his
father had felt, for they had got the better of him and had carried their
Law though he had been elected consul as being the one man who could thwart
the tribunitian power-a Law, too, which former consuls, from whom the senate
expected less than from him, had obstructed with less trouble. Anger and
indignation at all this goaded his imperious nature into harassing his
army by ruthless discipline. No violent measures, however, could subdue
them, such was the spirit of opposition with which they were filled. They
did everything in a perfunctory, leisurely, careless, defiant way; no feeling
of shame or fear restrained them. If he wished the column to move more
quickly they deliberately marched more slowly, if he came up to urge them
on in their work they all relaxed the energy they had been previously exerting
of their own accord; in his presence they cast their eyes down to the ground,
when he passed by they silently cursed him, so that the courage which had
not quailed before the hatred of the plebs was sometimes shaken. After
vainly employing harsh measures of every kind, he abstained from any further
intercourse with his soldiers, said that the army had been corrupted by
the centurions, and sometimes called them, in jeering tones, tribunes of
the plebs, and Voleros.
2.59
None of this escaped the notice of the Veientines, and they pressed on
more vigorously in the hope that the Roman army would show the same spirit
of disaffection towards Appius which it had shown towards Fabius. But it
was much more violent towards Appius than it had been towards Fabius, for
the soldiers not only refused to conquer, like the army of Fabius, but
they wished to be conquered. When led into action they broke into a disgraceful
flight and made for their camp, and offered no resistance till they saw
the Volscians actually attacking their entrenchments and doing frightful
execution in their rear. Then they were compelled to fight, in order that
the victorious enemy might be dislodged from their rampart; it was, however,
quite evident that the Roman soldiers only fought to prevent the capture
of the camp; otherwise they rejoiced in their ignominious defeat. Appius'
determination was in no way weakened by this, but when he was meditating
more severe measures and ordering an assembly of his troops, the officers
of his staff and the military tribunes gathered round him and warned him
on no account to try how far he could stretch his authority, for its force
wholly depended upon the free consent of those who obeyed it. They said
that the soldiers as a body refused to come to the assembly, and demands
were heard on all sides for the camp to be removed from the Volscian territory;
only a short time before the victorious enemy had all but forced his way
into the camp. There were not only suspicions of a serious mutiny, the
evidence was before their eyes.
Appius yielded at last to their remonstrances. He knew that they would
gain nothing but a delay of punishment, and consented to forego the assembly.
Orders were issued for an advance on the morrow, and the trumpet gave the
signal for starting at dawn. When the army had got clear of the camp and
was forming in marching order, the Volscians, aroused, apparently, by the
same signal, fell upon the rear. The confusion thus created extended to
the leading ranks, and set up such a panic in the whole army that it was
impossible for either orders to be heard or a fighting line to be formed.
No one thought of anything but flight. They made their way over heaps of
bodies and arms in such wild haste that the enemy gave up the pursuit before
the Romans abandoned their flight. At last, after the consul had vainly
endeavoured to follow up and rally his men, the scattered troops were gradually
got together again, and he fixed his camp on territory undisturbed by war.
He called up the men for an assembly, and after inveighing, with perfect
justice, against an army which had been false to military discipline and
had deserted its standards, he asked them individually where the standards
were, where their arms were. The soldiers who had thrown away their arms,
the standard-bearers who had lost their standards, and in addition to these
the centurions and duplicarii who had deserted their ranks, he ordered
to be scourged and beheaded. Of the rank and file every tenth man was drawn
by lot for punishment.
2.60
Just the opposite state of things prevailed in the army campaigning amongst
the Aequi, where the consul and his soldiers vied with each other in acts
of kindness and comradeship. Quinctius was naturally milder, and the unfortunate
severity of his colleague made him all the more inclined to follow the
bent of his gentle disposition. The Aequi did not venture to meet an army
where such harmony prevailed between the general and his men, and they
allowed their enemy to ravage their territory in all directions. In no
previous war had plunder been gathered from a wider area. The whole of
it was given to the soldiers, and with it those words of praise which,
no less than material rewards, delight the soldier's heart. The army returned
home on better terms with their general, and through him with the patricians;
they said that whilst the senate had given them a father it had given the
other army a tyrant. The year, which had been passed in varying fortunes
of war and furious dissensions both at home and abroad, was chiefly memorable
for the Assembly of Tribes, which were important rather for the victory
won in a prolonged contest than for any real advantage gained. For through
the withdrawal of the patricians from their council the Assembly lost more
in dignity than either the plebs gained, or the patricians lost, in strength.
2.61
L. Valerius and T. Aemilius were consuls for the next year, which was a
still stormier one, owing, in the first place to the struggle between the
two orders over the Agrarian Law, and secondly to the prosecution of Appius
Claudius. He was impeached by the tribunes, M. Duellius and Cn. Siccius,
on the ground of his determined opposition to the Law, and also because
he defended the cause of the occupiers of the public land, as if he were
a third consul. Never before had any one been brought to trial before the
people whom the plebs so thoroughly detested, both on his own and his father's
account. For hardly any one had the patricians exerted themselves more
than for him whom they regarded as the champion of the senate and the vindicator
of its authority, the stout bulwark against disturbances of tribunes or
plebs, and now saw exposed to the rage of the plebeians simply for having
gone too far in the struggle. Appius Claudius himself, alone of all the
patricians, looked upon the tribunes, the plebs, and his own trial as of
no account. Neither the threats of the plebeians nor the entreaties of
the senate could induce him-I will not say to change his attire and accost
men as a suppliant, but-even to soften and subdue to some extent his wonted
asperity of language when he had to make his defence before the people.
There was the same expression, the same defiant look, the same proud tones
of speech, so that a large number of the plebeians were no less afraid
of Appius on his trial than they had been when he was consul. He only spoke
in his defence once, but in the same aggressive tone that he always adopted,
and his firmness so dumbfounded the tribunes and the plebs, that they adjourned
the case of their own accord, and then allowed it to drag on. There was
not a very long interval, however. Before the date of the adjourned trial
arrived he was carried off by illness. The tribunes tried to prevent any
funeral oration being pronounced over him, but the plebeians would not
allow the obsequies of so great a man to be robbed of the customary honours.
They listened to the panegyric of the dead as attentively as they had listened
to the indictment of the living, and vast crowds followed him to the tomb.
2.62
In the same year the consul Valerius advanced with an army against the
Aequi, but failing to draw the enemy into an engagement he commenced an
attack on their camp. A terrible storm, sent down from heaven, of thunder
and hail prevented him from continuing the attack. The surprise was heightened
when, after the retreat had been sounded, calm and bright weather returned.
He felt that it would be an act of impiety to attack a second time a camp
defended by some divine power. His warlike energies were turned to the
devastation of the country. The other consul, Aemilius, conducted a campaign
amongst the Sabines. There, too, as the enemy kept behind their walls,
their fields were laid waste. The burning not only of scattered homesteads
but also of villages with numerous populations roused the Sabines to action.
They met the depredators, an indecisive action was fought, after which
they moved their camp into a safer locality. The consul thought this a
sufficient reason for leaving the enemy as though defeated, and coming
away without finishing the war.
2.63
T. Numicius Priscus and A. Verginius were the new consuls. The domestic
disturbance continued through these wars, and the plebeians were evidently
not going to tolerate any further delay with regard to the Agrarian Law,
and were preparing for extreme measures, when the smoke of burning farms
and the flight of the country folk announced the approach of the Volscians.
This checked the revolution which was now ripe and on the point of breaking
out. The senate was hastily summoned, and the consuls led the men liable
for active service out to the war, thereby making the rest of the plebs
more peaceably disposed. The enemy retired precipitately, having effected
nothing beyond filling the Romans with groundless fears. Numicius advanced
against the Volscians to Antium, Verginius against the Aequi. Here he was
ambushed and narrowly escaped a serious defeat; the valour of the soldiers
restored the fortunes of the day, which the consul's negligence had imperilled.
More skilful generalship was shown against the Volscians; the enemy were
routed in the first engagement and driven in flight to Antium, which was,
for those days, a very wealthy city. The consul did not venture to attack
it, but he took Caeno from the Antiates, not by any means so wealthy a
place. Whilst the Aequi and Volscians were keeping the Roman armies engaged,
the Sabines extended their ravages up to the gates of the City. In a few
days the consuls invaded their territory, and, attacked fiercely by both
armies, they suffered heavier losses than they had inflicted.
2.64
Towards the close of the year there was a short interval of peace, but,
as usual, it was marred by the struggle between the patricians and the
plebeians. The plebs, in their exasperation, refused to take any part in
the election of consuls; T. Quinctius and Q. Servilius were elected consuls
by the patricians and their clients. They had a year similar to the previous
one: agitation during the first part, then the calming of this by foreign
war. The Sabines hurriedly traversed the plains of Crustumerium, and carried
fire and sword into the district watered by the Anio, but were repulsed
when almost close to the Colline gate and the walls of the City. They succeeded,
however, in carrying off immense spoil both in men and cattle. The consul
Servilius followed them up with an army bent on revenge, and though unable
to
come up with their main body in the open country, he carried on his ravages
on such an extensive scale that he left no part unmolested by war, and
returned with spoil many times greater than that of the enemy. Amongst
the Volscians also the cause of Rome was splendidly upheld by the exertions
of general and soldiers alike. To begin with, they met on level ground
and a pitched battle was fought with immense losses on both sides in killed
and wounded. The Romans, whose paucity of numbers made them more sensible
of their loss, would have retreated had not the consul called out that
the enemy on the other wing were in flight, and by this well-timed falsehood
roused the army to fresh effort. They made a charge and converted a supposed
victory into a real one. The consul, fearing lest by pressing the attack
too far he might force a renewal of the combat, gave the signal for retiring.
For the next few days both sides kept quiet, as though there were a tacit
understanding. During this interval, an immense body of men from all the
Volscian and Aequian cities came into camp, fully expecting that when the
Romans heard of their arrival they would make a nocturnal retreat. Accordingly,
about the third watch they moved out to attack the camp. After allaying
the confusion caused by the sudden alarm, Quinctius ordered the soldiers
to remain quietly in their quarters, marched out a cohort of Hernicans
to the outposts, mounted the buglers and trumpeters on horseback, and ordered
them to sound their calls and keep the enemy on the alert till dawn. For
the remainder of the night all was so quiet in the camp that the Romans
even enjoyed ample sleep. The sight of the armed infantry whom the Volscians
took to be Romans and more numerous than they really were, the noise and
neighing of the horses, restless under their inexperienced riders and excited
by the sound of the trumpets, kept the enemy in constant apprehension of
an attack.
2.65
At daybreak the Romans, fresh from their undisturbed sleep, were led into
action, and at the first charge broke the Volscians, worn out as they were
with standing and want of sleep. It was, however, a retreat rather than
a rout, for in their rear there were hills to which all behind the front
ranks safely retired. When they reached the rising ground, the consul halted
his army. The soldiers were with difficulty restrained, they clamoured
to be allowed to follow up the beaten foe. The cavalry were much more insistent,
they crowded round the general and loudly declared that they would go on
in advance of the infantry. While the consul, sure of the courage of his
men, but not reassured as to the nature of the ground, was still hesitating,
they shouted that they would go on, and followed up their shouts by making
an advance. Fixing their spears in the ground that they might be more lightly
equipped for the ascent, they went up at a run. The Volscians hurled their
javelins at the first onset, and then flung the stones lying at their feet
upon the enemy as they came up. Many were hit, and through the disorder
thus created they were forced back from the higher ground. In this way
the Roman left wing was nearly overwhelmed, but through the reproaches
which the consul cast upon his retreating men for their rashness as well
as their cowardice, he made their fear give way to the sense of shame.
At first they stood and offered a firm resistance, then when by holding
their ground they had recovered their energies they ventured upon an advance.
With a renewed shout the whole line went forward, and pressing on in a
second charge they surmounted the difficulties of the ascent, and were
just on the point of reaching the summit when the enemy turned and fled.
With a wild rush, pursuers and fugitives almost in one mass dashed into
the camp, which was taken. Those of the Volscians who succeeded in escaping
made for Antium; thither the Roman army was led. After a few days' investment
the place was surrendered, not owing to any unusual efforts on the part
of the besiegers, but simply because after the unsuccessful battle and
the loss of their camp the enemy had lost heart.
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