The senate decreed that the games should be celebrated on as

magnificent a scale as possible. To those games a great number of

Volscians came at the suggestion of Attius Tullius. Before the games

had commenced, Tullius, as had been arranged privately with Marcius,

approached the consuls, and said that there were certain matters

concerning the common-wealth about which he wished to treat with them

in private. When all witnesses had been ordered to retire, he said:

"I am reluctant to say anything of my countrymen that may seem

disparaging. I do not, however, come to accuse them of any crime

actually committed by them, but to see to it that they do not commit

one. The minds of our people are far more fickle than I could wish.

We have learned that by many disasters; seeing that we are still

preserved, not through our own merits, but thanks to your forbearance.

There is now here a great multitude of Volscians; the games are going

on: the city will be intent on the exhibition. I remember what was

done in this city on a similar occasion by the youth of the Sabines.

My mind shudders at the thought that anything should be done

inconsiderately and rashly. I have deemed it right that these matters

should be mentioned beforehand to you, consuls, both for your sakes

and ours. With regard to myself, it is my determination to depart

hence home immediately, that I may not be tainted with the suspicion

of any word or deed if I remain." Having said this, he departed. When

the consuls had laid the matter before the senate, a matter that was

doubtful, though vouched for by a thoroughly reliable authority, the

authority, more than the matter itself, as usually happens, urged them

to adopt even needless precautions; and a decree of the senate having

been passed that the Volscians should quit the city, criers were sent

in different directions to order them all to depart before night.

They were at first smitten with great panic, as they ran in different

directions to their lodgings to carry away their effects. Afterward,

when setting out, indignation arose in their breasts, to think that

they, as if polluted with crime and contaminated, had been driven away

from the games on festival days, a meeting, so to speak, both of gods

and men.

As they went along in an almost unbroken line, Tullius, who had

preceded them to the fountain of Ferentina, [46]received the chief

men, as each arrived, and, complaining and giving vent to expressions

of indignation, led both those, who eagerly listened to language that

favoured their resentment, and through them the rest of the multitude,

into a plain adjoining the road. There, having begun an address after

the manner of a public harangue, he said: "Though you were to forget

the former wrongs inflicted upon you by the Roman people, the

calamities of the nation of the Volscians, and all other such matters,

with what feelings, pray, do you regard this outrage offered you

to-day, whereby they have opened the games by insulting us? Did you

not feel that a triumph has been gained over you this day? That you,

when leaving, were the observed of all, citizens, foreigners, and so

many neighbouring states? That your wives, your children were led in

mockery before the eyes of men? What do you suppose were the feelings

of those who heard the voice of the crier? what of those who saw us

departing? What of those who met this ignominious cavalcade? What,

except that it is assuredly a matter of some offence against the gods:

and that, because, if we were present at the show, we should profane

the games, and be guilty of an act that would need expiation, for this

reason we are driven away from the dwellings of these pious people,

from their meeting and assembly? What then? Does it not occur to you

that we still live, because we have hastened our departure?--if indeed

this is a departure and not rather a flight. And do you not consider

this to be the city of enemies, in which, if you had delayed a single

day, you must all have died? War has been declared against you, to the

great injury of those who declared it, if you be men." Thus, being

both on their own account filled with resentment, and further incited

by this harangue, they severally departed to their homes, and by

stirring up each his own state, succeeded in bringing about the revolt

of the entire Volscian nation.

The generals selected to take command in that war by theunanimous

choice of all the states were Attius Tullius and Gnaeus Marcius, an

exile from Rome, in the latter of whom far greater hopes were reposed.

These hopes he by no means disappointed, so that it was clearly seen

that the Roman commonwealth was powerful by reason of its generals

rather than its military force. Having marched to Circeii, he first

expelled from thence the Roman colonists, and handed over that city in

a state of freedom to the Volscians. From thence passing across the

country through by-roads into the Latin way, he deprived the Romans

of the following recently acquired towns, Satricum, Longula, Polusca,

Corioli. He next himself master of Lavinium, and then took in

succession Corbio, Vitellia, Trebia, Labici, and Pedum.[47]

Lastly he marched from Pedum toward Rome, and having pitched his camp

at the Cluilian trenches five miles from the city, he openly ravaged

the Roman territory, guards being sent among the devastators to

preserve the lands of the patricians uninjured, whether it was that he

was chiefly incensed against the plebeians, or whether his object was

that dissension might arise between the senators and the people. And

it certainly would have arisen--so powerfully did the tribunes, by

inveighing against the leading men of the state, incite the plebeians,

already exasperated in themselves--had not apprehension of danger

from abroad, the strongest bond of union, united their minds, though

distrustful and mutually hostile. The only matter in which they were

not agreed was this: that, while the senate and consuls rested their

hopes on nothing else but arms, the plebeians preferred anything to

war. Spurius Nautius and Sextus Furius were now consuls. While they

were reviewing the legions, posting guards along the walls and other

places where they had determined that there should be outposts and

watches, a vast multitude of persons demanding peace terrified them

first by their seditious clamouring, and then compelled them to

convene the senate, to consider the question of sending ambassadors to

Gnaeus Marcius. The senate approved the proposal, when it was evident

that the spirits of the plebeians were giving way, ambassadors, sent

to Marcius to treat concerning peace, brought back the haughty answer:

If their lands were restored to the Volscians, the question of peace

might then be considered; if they were minded to enjoy the plunder of

war at their ease, he, remembering both the injurious treatment of his

countrymen, as well as the kindness of strangers, would do his utmost

to make it appear that his spirit was irritated by exile, not crushed.

The same envoys, being sent a second time, were not admitted into the

camp. It is recorded that the priests also, arrayed in the vestments

of their office, went as suppliants to the enemy's camp, but that they

did not influence his mind any more than the ambassadors.

Then the matrons assembled in a body around Veturia, the mother of

Coriolanus, and his wife, Volumnia: whether that was the result of

public counsel, or of women's fear, I can not clearly ascertain.

Anyhow, they succeeded in inducing Veturia, a woman advanced in years,

and Volumnia with her two sons by Marcius, to go into the camp of the

enemy, and in prevailing upon women to defend the city by entreaties

and tears, since men were unable to defend it by arms. When they

reached the camp, and it was announced to Coriolanus that a great

crowd of women was approaching, he, as one who had been affected

neither by the public majesty of the state, as represented by its

ambassadors, nor by the sanctity of religion so strikingly spread

before his eyes and understanding in the person of its priests, was

at first much more obdurate against women's tears. Then one of his

acquaintances, who had recognised Veturia, distinguished beyond

all the rest by her sorrowful mien, standing in the midst with her

daughter-in-law and grandchildren, said, "Unless my eyes deceive

me, your mother, and wife and children, are at hand." Coriolanus,

bewildered, almost like one who had lost his reason, rushed from his

seat, and offered to embrace his mother as she met him; but she,

turning from entreaties to wrath, said: "Before I permit your embrace,

let me know whether I have come to an enemy or to a son, whether I am

in your camp a captive or a mother? Has length of life and a hapless

old age reserved me for this--to behold you first an exile, then an

enemy? Have you had the heart to lay waste this land, which gave

you birth and nurtured you? Though you had come in an incensed and

vengeful spirit, did not your resentment abate when you entered its

borders? When Rome came within view, did not the thought enter your

mind--within those walls are my house and household gods, my mother,

wife, and children? So then, had I not been a mother, Rome would not

now be besieged: had I not a son, I might have died free in a free

country. But I can now suffer nothing that will not bring more

disgrace on you than misery on me; nor, most wretched as I am, shall

I be so for long. Look to these, whom, if you persist, either an

untimely death or lengthened slavery awaits." Then his wife and

children embraced him: and the lamentation proceeding from the entire

crowd of women and their bemoaning their own lot and their country's,

at length overcame the man. Then, having embraced his family, he sent

them away; he himself withdrew his camp from the city. After he had

drawn off his troops from Roman territory, they say that he died

overwhelmed by the hatred excited against him on account of this act;

different writers give different accounts of his death: I find in

Fabius,[48] far the most ancient authority, that he lived to an

advanced age: at any rate, this writer states, that in his old age he

often made use of the expression, "that exile was far more miserable

to the aged." The men of Rome were not grudging in the award of their

due praise to the women, so truly did they live without disparaging

the merit of others: a temple was built, and dedicated to female

Fortune, to serve also as a record of the event.

The Volscians afterward returned, having been joined by the Aequans,

into Roman territory: the latter, however, would no longer have Attius

Tullius as their leader; hence from a dispute, whether the Volscians

or the Aequans should give the general to the allied army, a quarrel,

and afterward a furious battle, broke out. Therein the good fortune of

the Roman people destroyed the two armies of the enemy, by a contest

no less ruinous than obstinate. Titus Sicinius and Gaius Aquilius were

made consuls. The Volscians fell to Sicinius as his province; the

Hernicans--for they, too, were in arms--to Aquilius. That year the

Hernicans were completely defeated; they met and parted with the

Volscians without any advantage being gained on either side.

Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius were next made consuls; a

treaty was concluded with the Hernicans; two thirds of their land were

taken from them: of this the consul Cassius proposed to distribute

one half among the Latins, the other half among the commons. To this

donation he desired to add a considerable portion of land, which,

though public property, [49] he alleged was possessed by private

individuals. This proceeding alarmed several of the senators, the

actual possessors, at the danger that threatened their property; the

senators moreover felt anxiety on public grounds, fearing that the

consul by his donation was establishing an influence dangerous to

liberty. Then, for the first time, an agrarian law was proposed, which

from that time down to the memory of our own days has never been

discussed without the greatest civil disturbances. The other consul

opposed the donation, supported by the senators, nor, indeed, were all

the commons opposed to him: they had at first begun to feel disgust

that this gift had been extended from the citizens to the allies, and

thus rendered common: in the next place they frequently heard the

consul Verginius in the assemblies as it were prophesying, that the

gift of his colleague was pestilential: that those lands were sure to

bring slavery to those who received them: that the way was being paved

to a throne. Else why were it that the allies were thus included, and

the Latin nation? What was the object of a third of the land that had

been taken being restored to the Hernicans, so lately their enemies,

except that those nations might have Cassius for their leader instead

of Coriolanus? The dissuader and opposer of the agrarian law now began

to be popular. Both consuls then vied with each other in humouring the

commons. Verginius said that he would suffer the lands to be assigned,

provided they were assigned to no one but a Roman citizen. Cassius,

because in the agrarian donation he sought popularity among the

allies, and was therefore lowered in the estimation of his countrymen,

commanded, in order that by another gift he might win the affections

of the citizens, that the money received for the Sicilian corn should

be refunded to the people. That, however, the people spurned as

nothing else than a ready money bribe for regal authority: so

uncompromisingly were his gifts rejected, as if there was abundance of

everything, in consequence of their inveterate suspicion that he was

aiming at sovereign power. As soon as he went out of office, it is

certain that he was condemned and put to death. There are some

who represent that his father was the person who carried out the

punishment: that he, having tried the case at home, scourged him and

put him to death, and consecrated his son's private property to Ceres;

that out of this a statue was set up and inscribed, "Presented out of

the property of the Cassian family." In some authors I find it stated,

which is more probable, that a day was assigned him to stand his

trial for high treason, by the quaestors,[50] Caeso Fabius and Lucius

Valerius, and that he was condemned by the decision of the people;

that his house was demolished by a public decree: this is the spot

where there is now an open space before the Temple of Tellus.[51]

However, whether the trial was held in private or public, he was

condemned in the consulship of Servius Cornelius and Quintus Fabius.

The resentment of the people against Cassius was not lasting. The

charm of the agrarian law, now that its proposer was removed, of

itself entered their minds: and their desire of it was further kindled

by the meanness of the senators, who, after the Volscians and Æquans

had been completely defeated in that year, defrauded the soldiers of

their share of the booty; whatever was taken from the enemy, was sold

by the consul Fabius, and the proceeds lodged in the public treasury.

All who bore the name of Fabius became odious to the commons on

account of the last consul: the patricians, however, succeeded in

getting Cæso Fabius elected consul with Lucius Æmilius. The commons,

still further aggravated at this, provoked war abroad by exciting

disturbance at home;[52] in consequence of the war civil dissensions

were then discontinued. Patricians and commons uniting, under the

command of Æmilius, overcame the Volscians and Æquans, who renewed

hostilities, in a successful engagement. The retreat, however,

destroyed more of the enemy than the battle; so perseveringly did the

cavalry pursue them when routed. During the same year, on the ides of

July,[53]the Temple of Castor was dedicated: it had been vowed during

the Latin war in the dictatorship of Postumius: his son, who was

elected duumvir for that special purpose, dedicated it.

In that year, also, the minds of the people were excited by the

allurements of the agrarian law. The tribunes of the people

endeavoured to enhance their authority, in itself agreeable to the

people, by promoting a popular law. The patricians, considering that

there was enough and more than enough frenzy in the multitude without

any additional incitement, viewed with horror largesses and all

inducements to ill-considered action: the patricians found in the

consuls most energetic abettors in resistance. That portion of the

commonwealth therefore prevailed; and not for the moment only, but for

the coming year also they succeeded in securing the election of Marcus

Fabius, Cæso's brother, as consul, and one still more detested by the

commons for his persecution of Cassius--namely, Lucius Valerius.

In that year also was a contest with the tribunes. The law came to

nothing, and the supporters of the law proved to be mere boasters, by

their frequent promises of a gift that was never granted. The Fabian

name was thenceforward held in high repute, after three successive

consulates, and all as it were uniformly tested in contending with the

tribunes; accordingly, the honour remained for a considerable time

in that family, as being right well placed. A war with Veii was then

begun: the Volscians also renewed hostilities; but, while their

strength was almost more than sufficient for foreign wars, they

only abused it by contending among themselves. In addition to the

distracted state of the public mind prodigies from heaven increased

the general alarm, exhibiting almost daily threats in the city and in

the country, and the soothsayers, being consulted by the state and by

private individuals, declared, at one time by means of entrails, at

another by birds, that there was no other cause for the deity having

been roused to anger, save that the ceremonies of religion were not

duly performed. These terrors, however, terminated in this, that

Oppia, a vestal virgin, being found guilty of a breach of chastity,

suffered punishment. [54] Quintus Fabius and Gaius Julius were next

elected consuls. During this year the dissension at home was not

abated, while the war abroad was more desperate. The Æquans took up

arms: the Veientines also invaded and plundered the Roman territory:

as the anxiety about these wars increased, Cæso Fabius and Spurius

Furius were appointed consuls. The Æquans were laying siege to Ortona,

a Latin city. The Veientines, now sated with plunder, threatened to

besiege Rome itself. These terrors, which ought to have assuaged the

feelings of the commons, increased them still further: and the people

resumed the practice of declining military service, not of their own

accord, as before, but Spurius Licinius, a tribune of the people,

thinking that the time had come for forcing the agrarian law on

the patricians by extreme necessity, had undertaken the task of

obstructing the military preparations. However, all the odium against

the tribunician power was directed against the author of this

proceeding: and even his own colleagues rose up against him as

vigorously as the consuls; and by their assistance the consuls held

the levy. An army was raised for the two wars simultaneously; one was

intrusted to Fabius to be led against the Veientines, the other to

Furius to operate against the Æquans. In regard to the latter, indeed,

nothing took place worthy of mention. Fabius had considerably more

trouble with his countrymen than with the enemy: that one man alone,

as consul, sustained the commonwealth, which the army was doing its

best to betray, as far as in it lay, from hatred of the consul. For

when the consul, in addition to his other military talents, of which

he had exhibited abundant instances in his preparations for and in his

conduct of war, had so drawn up his line that he routed the enemy's

army solely by a charge of his cavalry, the infantry refused to pursue

them when routed; nor, although the exhortation of their general, whom

they hated, had no effect upon them, could even their own infamy, and

the immediate public disgrace and subsequent danger likely to arise,

if the enemy recovered their courage, induce them to quicken their

pace, or even, if nothing else, to stand in order of battle. Without

orders they faced about, and with a sorrowful air (one would have

thought them defeated) they returned to camp, execrating at one time

their general, at another the vigour displayed by the cavalry. Nor

did the general know where to look for any remedies for so harmful a

precedent: so true is it that the most distinguished talents will be

more likely found deficient in the art of managing a countryman, than

in that of conquering an enemy. The consul returned to Rome, not

having so much increased his military glory as irritated and

exasperated the hatred of his soldiers toward him. The patricians,

however, succeeded in keeping the consulship in the Fabian family.

They elected Marcus Fabius consul; Gnaeus Manlius was assigned as a

colleague to Fabius.

This year also found a tribune to support an agrarian law. This was

Tiberius Pontificius, who, pursuing the same tactics, as if it had

succeeded in the case of Spurius Licinius, obstructed the levy for a

little time. The patricians being once more perplexed, Appius Claudius

declared that the tribunician power had been put down the year

before, for the moment by the fact, for the future by the precedent

established, since it was found that it could be rendered ineffective

by its own strength; for that there never would be wanting a tribune

who would both be willing to obtain a victory for himself over his

colleague, and the good-will of the better party to on advancement of

the public weal: that more tribunes than one, if there were need of

more than one, would be ready to assist the consuls: and that in fact

one would be sufficient even against all.[55] Only let the consuls and

leading members of the senate take care to win over, if not all, at

least some of the tribunes, to the side of the commonwealth and the

senate. The senators, instructed by the counsels of Appius, both

collectively addressed the tribunes with kindness and courtesy, and

the men of consular rank, according as each possessed private personal

influence over them individually, and, partly by conciliation, partly

by authority, prevailed so far as to make them consent that the powers

of the tribunician office should be beneficial to the state; and by

the aid of four tribunes against one obstructor of the public good,

the consuls carried out the levy. They then set out to the war against

Veii, to which auxiliaries had assembled from all parts of Etruria,

not so much influenced by feelings of regard for the Veientines,

as because they had formed a hope that the power of Rome could be

destroyed by internal discord. And in the general councils of all the

states of Etruria the leading men murmured that the power of Rome

would last forever, unless they were distracted by disturbances among

themselves: that this was the only poison, this the bane discovered

for powerful states, to render mighty empires mortal: that this evil,

a long time checked, partly by the wise measures of the patricians,

partly by the forbearance of the commons, had now proceeded to

extremities: that two states were now formed out of one: that each

party had its own magistrates, its own laws: that, although at first

they were accustomed to be turbulent during the levies, still these

same individuals had notwithstanding ever been obedient to their

commanders during war: that as long as military discipline was

retained, no matter what might be the state of the city, the evil

might have been withstood: but that now the custom of not obeying

their officers followed the Roman soldier even to the camp: that in

the last war, even in a regular engagement and in the very heat of

battle, by consent of the army the victory had been voluntarily

surrendered to the vanquished Aequans: that the standards had been

deserted, the general abandoned on the field, and that the army had

returned to camp without orders: without doubt, if they persevered,

Rome might be conquered by means of her own soldiery: nothing else was

necessary save a declaration and show of war: the fates and the

gods would of themselves manage the rest. These hopes had armed the

Etruscans, who by many changes of fortune had been vanquished and

victors in turn.

The Roman consuls also dreaded nothing else but their own strength and

their own arms. The recollection of the most mischievous precedent set

in the last war was a terrible warning to them not to let matters

go so far that they would have two armies to fear at the same time.

Accordingly, they kept within their camp, avoiding battle, owing to

the two-fold danger that threatened them, thinking that length of time

and circumstances themselves would perchance soften down resentment,

and bring them to a healthy frame of mind. The Veientine enemy and the

Etruscans proceeded with proportionately greater precipitation;

they provoked them to battle, at first by riding up to the camp and

challenging them; at length when they produced no effect, by reviling

the consuls and the army alike, they declared that the pretence of

internal dissension was assumed as a cloak for cowardice: and that the

consuls rather distrusted the courage than disbelieved the sincerity

of their soldiers: that inaction and idleness among men in arms were a

novel form of sedition. Besides this they uttered insinuations, partly

true and partly false, as to the upstart nature of their race and

origin. While they loudly proclaimed this close to the very rampart

and gates, the consuls bore it without impatience: but at one time

indignation, at another shame, agitated the breasts of the ignorant

multitude, and diverted their attention from intestine evils; they

were unwilling that the enemy should remain unpunished; they did not

wish success either to the patricians or the consuls; foreign and

domestic hatred struggled for the mastery in their minds: at length

the former prevailed, so haughty and insolent were the jeers of the

enemy; they crowded in a body to the general's tent; they desired

battle, they demanded that the signal should be given. The consuls

conferred together as if to deliberate; they continued the conference

for a long time: they were desirous of fighting, but that desire they

considered should be checked and concealed, that by opposition and

delay they might increase the ardour of the soldiery now that it was

once roused. The answer was returned that the matter in question was

premature, that it was not yet time for fighting: let them keep within

their camp. They then issued a proclamation that they should abstain

from fighting: if any one fought without orders, they would punish

him as an enemy. When they were thus dismissed, their eagerness for

fighting increased in proportion as they believed the consuls were

less disposed for it; the enemy, moreover, who now showed themselves

with greater boldness, as soon as it was known that the consuls had

determined not to fight, further kindled their ardour. For they

supposed that they could insult them with impunity; that the soldiers

were not trusted with arms; that the affair would explode in a violent

mutiny; that an end had come to the Roman Empire. Relying on these

hopes, they ran up to the gates, heaped abuse on the Romans, and with

difficulty refrained from assaulting the camp. Then indeed the Romans

could no longer endure their insults: they ran from every quarter of

the camp to the consuls: they no longer, as formerly, put forth their

demands with reserve, through the mediation of the centurions of the

first rank, but all proceeded indiscriminately with loud clamours. The

affair was now ripe; yet still they hesitated. Then Fabius, as his

colleague was now inclined to give way in consequence of his dread of

mutiny in face of the increasing uproar, having commanded silence

by sound of trumpet, said: "I know that those soldiers are able to

conquer, Gneius Manlius: by their own conduct they themselves have

prevented me from knowing that they are willing. Accordingly, I have

resolved and determined not to give the signal, unless they swear that

they will return from this battle victorious. The soldier has once

deceived the Roman consul in the field, the gods he will never

deceive." There was a centurion, Marcus Flavoleius, one of the

foremost in demanding battle: said he, "Marcus Fabius, I will return

victorious from the field." He invoked upon himself, should he deceive

them, the wrath of Father Jove, Mars Gradivus, and the other gods.

After him in succession the whole army severally took the same oath.

After they had been sworn, the signal was given: they took up arms and

marched into battle, full of rage and of hope. They bade the Etruscans

now utter their reproaches: now severally demanded that the enemy, so

ready of tongue, should face them, now that they were armed. On that

day, both commons and patricians alike showed distinguished bravery:

the Fabian family shone forth most conspicuous: they were determined

to recover in that battle the affections of the commons, estranged by

many civil contests.

The army was drawn up in order of battle; nor did the Veientine foe

and the Etruscan legions decline the contest. They entertained an

almost certain hope that the Romans would no more fight with them than

they had with the Aequans; that even some more serious attempt was not

to be despaired of, considering the sorely irritated state of their

feelings, and the critical condition of affairs. The result turned out

altogether different: for never before in any other war did the Roman

soldiers enter the field with greater fury, so exasperated were they

by the taunts of the enemy on the one hand, and the dilatoriness of

the consuls on the other. Before the Etruscans had time to form their

ranks, their javelins having been rather thrown away at random, in

the first confusion, than aimed at the enemy, the battle had become

a hand-to-hand encounter, even with swords, in which the fury of

war rages most fiercely. Among the foremost the Fabian family was

distinguished for the sight it afforded and the example it presented

to its fellow-citizens; one of these, Quintus Fabius, who had been

consul two years before, as he advanced at the head of his men against

a dense body of Veientines, and incautiously engaged amid numerous

parties of the enemy, received a sword-thrust through the breast at

the hands of a Tuscan emboldened by his bodily strength and skill in

arms: on the weapon being extracted, Fabius fell forward on the

wound. Both armies felt the fall of this one man, and the Romans in

consequence were beginning to give way, when the consul Marcus Fabius

leaped over the body of his prostrate kinsman, and, holding his

buckler in front, cried out: "Is this what you swore, soldiers, that

you would return to the camp in flight? Are you so afraid of your

most cowardly foes, rather than of Jupiter and Mars, by whom you have

sworn? Well, then, I, who have taken no oath, will either return

victorious, or will fall fighting here beside thee, Quintus Fabius."

Then Caeso Fabius, the consul of the preceding year, addressed the

consul: "Brother, is it by these words you think you will prevail on

them to fight? The gods, by whom they have sworn, will bring it about.

Let us also, as becomes men of noble birth, as is worthy of the Fabian

name, kindle the courage of the soldiers by fighting rather than by

exhortation." Thus the two Fabii rushed forward to the front with

spears presented, and carried the whole line with them.

The battle being thus restored in one quarter, Gnaeus Manlius, the

consul, with no less ardour, encouraged the fight on the other wing,

where the course of the fortune of war was almost identical. For, as

the soldiers eagerly followed Quintus Fabius on the one wing, so did

they follow the consul Manlius on this, as he was driving the enemy

before him now nearly routed. When, having received a severe wound, he

retired from the battle, they fell back, supposing that he was slain,

and would have abandoned the position had not the other consul,

galloping at full speed to that quarter with some troops of horse,

supported their drooping fortune, crying out that his colleague was

still alive, that he himself was now at hand victorious, having routed

the other wing. Manlius also showed himself in sight of all to restore

the battle. The well-known faces of the two consuls kindled the

courage of the soldiers: at the same time, too, the enemy's line was

now thinner, since, relying on their superior numbers, they had drawn

off their reserves and despatched them to storm the camp This was

assaulted without much resistance: and, while they wasted time,

bethinking themselves of plunder rather than fighting, the Roman

triarii,[56] who had not been able to sustain the first shock, having

sent a report to the consuls of the position of affairs, returned in a

compact body to the prætorium,[57] and of their own accord renewed

the battle. The consul Manlius also having returned to the camp, and

posted soldiers at all the gates, had blocked up every passage against

the enemy. This desperate situation aroused the fury rather than the

bravery of the Etruscans; for when, rushing on wherever hope held

out the prospect of escape, they had advanced with several fruitless

efforts, a body of young men attacked the consul himself, who was

conspicuous by his arms. The first missiles were intercepted by those

who stood around him; afterward their violence could not be withstood.

The consul fell, smitten with a mortal wound, and all around him were

put to flight. The courage of the Etruscans increased. Terror drove

the Romans in dismay through the entire camp; and matters would have

come to extremities had not the lieutenants,[58] hastily seizing the

body of the consul opened a passage for the enemy at one gate.[59]

Through this they rushed out; and going away in the utmost disorder,

they fell in with the other consul, who had been victorious; there

a second time they were cut down and routed in every direction. A

glorious victory was won, saddened, however, by two such illustrious

deaths. The consul, therefore, on the senate voting him a triumph,

replied, that if the army could triumph without its general, he would

readily accede to it in consideration of its distinguished service in

that war: that for his own part, as his family was plunged in grief

in consequence of the death of his brother Quintus Fabius, and the

commonwealth in some degree bereaved by the loss of one of her

consuls, he would not accept the laurel disfigured by public and

private grief. The triumph thus declined was more illustrious than

any triumph actually enjoyed; so true it is, that glory refused at

a fitting moment sometimes returns with accumulated lustre. He next

celebrated the two funerals of his colleague and brother, one after

the other, himself delivering the funeral oration over both, wherein,

by yielding up to them the praise that was his own due, he himself

obtained the greatest share of it; and, not unmindful of that which

he had determined upon at the beginning of his consulate, namely, the

regaining the affection of the people, he distributed the wounded

soldiers among the patricians to be attended to. Most of them were

given to the Fabii: nor were they treated with greater attention

anywhere else. From this time the Fabii began to be popular, and that

not by aught save such conduct as was beneficial to the state.

Accordingly, Caeso Fabius, having been elected consul with Titus

Verginius not more with the good-will of the senators than of the

commons, gave no attention either to wars, or levies, or anything else

in preference, until, the hope of concord being now in some measure

assured, the feelings of the commons should be united with those

of the senators at the earliest opportunity. Accordingly, at the

beginning of the year he proposed that before any tribune should stand

forth as a supporter of the agrarian law, the patricians themselves

should be beforehand in bestowing the gift unasked and making it their

own: that they should distribute among the commons the land taken from

the enemy in as equal a proportion as possible; that it was but just

that those should enjoy it by whose blood and labour it had been won.

The patricians rejected the proposal with scorn: some even complained

that the once vigorous spirit of Caeso was running riot, and decaying

through a surfeit of glory. There were afterward no party struggles in

the city. The Latins, however, were harassed by the incursions of

the Aequans. Caeso being sent thither with an army, crossed into the

territory of the Aequans themselves to lay it waste. The Aequans

retired into the towns, and kept themselves within the walls: on that

account no battle worth mentioning was fought.

However, a reverse was sustained at the hands of the Veientine foe

owing to the rashness of the other consul; and the army would have

been all cut off, had not Caeso Fabius come to their assistance

in time. From that time there was neither peace nor war with the

Veientines: their mode of operation had now come very near to the form

of brigandage. They retired before the Roman troops into the city;

when they perceived that the troops were drawn off, they made

incursions into the country, alternately mocking war with peace and

peace with war. Thus the matter could neither be dropped altogether,

nor brought to a conclusion. Besides, other wars were threatening

either at the moment, as from the Aequans and Volscians, who remained

inactive no longer than was necessary, to allow the recent smart of

their late disaster to pass away, or at no distant date, as it was

evident that the Sabines, ever hostile, and all Etruria would soon

begin to stir up war: but the Veientines, a constant rather than a

formidable enemy, kept their minds in a state of perpetual uneasiness

by petty annoyances more frequently than by any real danger to be

apprehended from them, because they could at no time be neglected, and

did not suffer the Romans to turn their attention elsewhere. Then the

Fabian family approached the senate: the consul spoke in the name of

the family: "Conscript fathers, the Veientine war requires, as you

know, an unremitting rather than a strong defence. Do you attend to

other wars: assign the Fabii as enemies to the Veientines. We pledge

ourselves that the majesty of the Roman name shall be safe in

that quarter. That war, as if it were a family matter, it is our

determination to conduct at our own private expense. In regard to it

let the republic be spared the expense of soldiers and money."

The warmest thanks were returned to them. The consul, leaving the

senate-house, accompanied by the Fabii in a body, who had been

standing in the porch of the senate-house, awaiting the decree of the

senate, returned home. They were ordered to attend on the following

day in arms at the consul's gate: they then retired to their homes.

The report spread through the entire city; they extolled the Fabii

to the skies: that a single family had undertaken the burden of the

state; that the Veientine war had now become a private concern, a

private quarrel. If there were two families of the same strength in

the city, let them demand, the one the Volscians for itself, the other

the Aequans; that all the neighbouring states could be subdued,

while the Roman people all the time enjoyed profound peace. The day

following, the Fabii took up arms; they assembled where they had been

ordered. The consul, coming forth in his military robe, beheld the

whole family in the porch drawn up in order of march; being received

into the centre, he ordered the standards to be advanced. Never did

an army march through the city, either smaller in number, or more

distinguished in renown and more admired by all. Three hundred and six

soldiers, all patricians, all of one family, not one of whom an honest

senate would reject as a leader under any circumstances whatever,

proceeded on their march, threatening the Veientine state with

destruction by the might of a single family. A crowd followed,

one part belonging to themselves, consisting of their kinsmen and

comrades, who contemplated no half measures, either as to their hope

or anxiety, but everything on a grand scale:[60] the other aroused by

solicitude for the public weal, unable to express their esteem and

admiration. They bade them proceed in their brave resolve, proceed

with happy omens, and render the issue proportionate to the

undertaking: thence to expect consulships and triumphs, all rewards,

all honours from them. As they passed the Capitol and the citadel, and

the other sacred edifices, they offered up prayers to all the gods

that presented themselves to their sight, or to their mind, that they

would send forward that band with prosperity and success, and soon

send them back safe into their country to their parents. In vain were

these prayers uttered. Having set out on their luckless road by the

right-hand arch of the Carmental gate,[61] they arrived at the river

Cremera:[62] this appeared a favourable situation for fortifying an

outpost.

Lucius Aemilius and Gaius Servilius were then created consuls. And as

long as there was nothing else to occupy them but mutual devastations,

the Fabii were not only able to protect their garrison, but through

the entire tract, where the Tuscan territory adjoins the Roman, they

protected all their own districts and ravaged those of the enemy,

spreading their forces along both frontiers. There was afterward a

cessation, though not for long, of these depredations: while both the

Veientines, having sent for an army from Etruria,[63] assaulted the

outpost at the Cremera, and the Roman troops, brought up by the consul

Lucius Aemilius, came to a close engagement in the field with the

Etruscans; the Veientines, however, had scarcely time to draw up their

line: for, during the first alarm, while they were entering the lines

behind their colours, and they were stationing their reserves, a

brigade of Roman cavalry, charging them suddenly in flank, deprived

them of all opportunity not only of opening the fight, but even of

standing their ground. Thus being driven back to the Red Rocks [64].

(where they had pitched their camp), as suppliants they sued for

peace; and, after it was granted, owing to the natural inconsistency

of their minds, they regretted it even before the Roman garrison was

withdrawn from the Cremera.

Again the Veientine state had to contend with the Fabii without any

additional military armament: and not merely did they make raids into

each other's territories, or sudden attacks upon those carrying on

the raids, but they fought repeatedly on level ground, and in pitched

battles: and one family of the Roman people oftentimes gained the

victory over an entire Etruscan state, and a most powerful one for

those times. This at first appeared mortifying and humiliating to the

Veientines: then they conceived the design, suggested by the state of

affairs, of surprising their daring enemy by an ambuscade; they were

even glad that the confidence of the Fabii was increasing owing to

their great success. Wherefore cattle were frequently driven in the

path of the plundering parties, as if they had fallen in their way

by accident, and tracts of land left abandoned by the flight of

the peasants: and reserve bodies of armed men, sent to prevent the

devastations, retreated more frequently in pretended than in real

alarm. By this time the Fabii had conceived such contempt for the

enemy that they believed that their arms, as yet invincible, could not

be resisted either in any place or on any occasion: this presumption

carried them so far that at the sight of some cattle at a distance

from Cremera, with an extensive plain lying between, they ran down to

them, in spite of the fact that some scattered bodies of the enemy

were visible: and when, anticipating nothing, and in disorderly haste,

they had passed the ambuscade placed on either side of the road

itself, and, dispersed in different directions, had begun to carry off

the cattle that were straying about, as is usual when frightened, the

enemy started suddenly in a body from their ambuscade, and surrounded

them both in front and on every side. At first the noise of their

shouts, spreading, terrified them; then weapons assailed them from

every side: and, as the Etruscans closed in, they also were compelled,

hemmed in as they were by an unbroken body of armed men, to form

themselves into a square of narrower compass the more the enemy

pressed on: this circumstance rendered both their own scarcity of

numbers noticeable and the superior numbers of the Etruscans, whose

ranks were crowded in a narrow space. Then, having abandoned the

plan of fighting, which they had directed with equal effort in every

quarter, they all turned their forces toward one point; straining

every effort in that direction, both with their arms and bodies, and

forming themselves into a wedge, they forced a passage. The way led to

a gradually ascending hill: here they first halted: presently, as soon

as the higher ground afforded them time to gain breath, and to recover

from so great a panic, they repulsed the foe as they ascended: and the

small band, assisted by the advantages of the ground, was gaining the

victory, had not a party of the Veientines, sent round the ridge of

the hill, made their way to the summit: thus the enemy again got

possession of the higher ground; all the Fabii were cut down to a man,

and the fort was taken by assault: it is generally agreed that three

hundred and six were slain; that one only, who had nearly attained

the age of puberty, survived, who was to be the stock for the Fabian

family, and was destined to prove the greatest support of the Roman

people in dangerous emergencies on many occasions both at home and in

war.[65]

At the time when this disaster was sustained, Gaius Horatius and Titus

Menenius were consuls. Menenius was immediately sent against

the Tuscans, now elated with victory. On that occasion also an

unsuccessful battle was fought, and the enemy took possession of the

Janiculum: and the city would have been besieged, since scarcity of

provisions distressed them in addition to the war--for the Etruscans

had passed the Tiber--had not the consul Horatius been recalled from

the Volscians; and so closely did that war approach the very walls,

that the first battle was fought near the Temple of Hope[66] with

doubtful success, and a second at the Colline gate. There, although

the Romans gained the upper hand by only a trifling advantage, yet

that contest rendered the soldiers more serviceable for future battles

by the restoration of their former courage.

Aulus Verginius and Spurius Servilius were next chosen consuls. After

the defeat sustained in the last battle, the Veientines declined an

engagement.[67] Ravages were committed, and they made repeated attacks

in every direction upon the Roman territory from the Janiculum, as if

from a fortress: nowhere were cattle or husbandmen safe. They were

afterward entrapped by the same stratagem as that by which they

had entrapped the Fabii: having pursued cattle which had been

intentionally driven on in all directions to decoy them, they fell

into an ambuscade; in proportion as they were more numerous,[68] the

slaughter was greater. The violent resentment resulting from this

disaster was the cause and beginning of one still greater: for having

crossed the Tiber by night, they attempted to assault the camp of the

consul Servilius; being repulsed from thence with great slaughter,

they with difficulty made good their retreat to the Janiculum. The

consul himself also immediately crossed the Tiber, and fortified

his camp at the foot of the Janiculum: at daybreak on the following

morning, being both somewhat elated by the success of the battle of

the day before, more, however, because the scarcity of corn forced him

to adopt measures, however dangerous, provided only they were more

expeditious, he rashly marched his army up the steep of the Janiculum

to the camp of the enemy, and, being repulsed from thence with more

disgrace than when he had repulsed them on the preceding day, he

was saved, both himself and his army, by the intervention of his

colleague. The Etruscans, hemmed in between the two armies, and

presenting their rear to the one and the other by turns, were

completely destroyed. Thus the Veientine war was crushed by a

successful piece of audacity. [69]

Together with peace, provisions came in to the city in greater

abundance, both by reason of corn having been brought in from

Campania, and, as soon as the fear of want, which every one felt was

likely to befall himself, left them, by the corn being brought out,

which had been stored. Then their minds once more became wanton from

plenty and ease, and they sought at home their former subjects of

complaint, now that there was none abroad; the tribunes began to

excite the commons by their poisonous charm, the agrarian law: they

roused them against the senators who opposed it, and not only against

them as a body, but against particular individuals. Quintus Considius

and Titus Genucius, the proposers of the agrarian law, appointed a day

of trial for Titus Menenius: the loss of the fort of Cremera, while

the consul had his standing camp at no great distance from thence,

was the cause of his unpopularity. This crushed him, though both the

senators had exerted themselves in his behalf with no less earnestness

than in behalf of Coriolanus, and the popularity of his father Agrippa

was not yet forgotten. The tribunes, however, acted leniently in

the matter of the fine: though they had arraigned him for a capital

offence, they imposed on him, when found guilty, a fine of only two

thousand asses. This proved fatal to him. They say that he could not

brook disgrace and anguish of mind: and that, in consequence, he was

carried off by disease. Another senator, Spurius Servilius was soon

after arraigned, as soon as he went out of office a day of trial

having been appointed for him by the tribunes, Lucius Caedicius and

Titus Statius, immediately at the beginning of the year, in the

consulship of Gaius Nautius and Publius Valerius: he did not, however,

like Menenius, meet the attacks of the tribunes with supplications on

the part of himself and the patricians, but with firm reliance on his

own integrity and his personal popularity. The battle with the Tuscans

at the Janiculum was also the charge brought against him: but being

a man of impetuous spirit, as he had formerly done in time of public

peril, so now in the danger which threatened himself, he dispelled

it by boldly meeting it, by confuting not only the tribunes but the

commons also, in a haughty speech, and upbraiding them with the

condemnation and death of Titus Menenius, by the good offices of whose

father the commons had formerly been re-established, and now had those

magistrates and enjoyed those laws, by virtue of which they then acted

so insolently: his colleague Verginius also, who was brought forward

as a witness, aided him by assigning to him a share of his own glory:

however--so had they changed their mind--the condemnation of Menenius

was of greater service to him.

The contests at home were now concluded. A war against the Veientines,

with whom the Sabines had united their forces, broke out afresh. The

consul Publius Valerius, after auxiliaries had been sent for from

the Latins and Hernicans, being despatched to Veii with an army,

immediately attacked the Sabine camp, which had been pitched before

the walls of their allies, and occasioned such great consternation

that, while scattered in different directions, they sallied forth in

small parties to repel the assault of the enemy, the gate which he

first atacked was taken: then within the rampart a massacre rather

than a battle took place. From within the camp the alarm spread also

into the city; the Veientines ran to arms in as great a panic as if

Veii had been taken: some came up to the support of the Sabines,

others fell upon the Romans, who had directed all their force against

the camp. For a little while they were disconcerted and thrown into

confusion; then they in like manner formed two fronts and made a

stand: and the cavalry, being commanded by the consul to charge,

routed the Tuscans and put them to flight; and in the self-same

hour two armies and two of the most influential and powerful of the

neighbouring states were vanquished. While these events were taking

place at Veii, the Volscians and Æquans had pitched their camp in

Latin territory, and laid waste their frontiers. The Latins, being

joined by the Hernicans, without either a Roman general or Roman

auxiliaries, by their own efforts, stripped them of their camp.

Besides recovering their own effects, they obtained immense booty. The

consul Gaius Nautius, however, was sent against the Volscians from

Rome. The custom, I suppose, was not approved of, that the allies

should carry on wars with their own forces and according to their own

plans without a Roman general and troops. There was no kind of injury

and petty annoyance that was not practised against the Volscians; they

could not, however, be prevailed on to come to an engagement in the

field.

Lucius Furius and Gaius Manlius were the next consuls. The Veientines

fell to Manlius as his province. No war, however, followed: a truce

for forty years was granted them at their request, but they were

ordered to provide corn and pay for the soldiers. Disturbance at home

immediately followed in close succession on peace abroad: the commons

were goaded by the spur employed by the tribunes in the shape of the

agrarian law. The consuls, no whit intimidated by the condemnation of

Menenius, nor by the danger of Servilius, resisted with their utmost

might; Gnæus Genucius, a tribune of the people, dragged the consuls

before the court on their going out of office. Lucius Æmilius and

Opiter Verginius entered upon the consulate. Instead of Verginius I

find Vopiscus Julius given as consul in some annals. In this year

(whoever were the consuls) Furius and Manlius, being summoned to trial

before the people, in sordid garb solicited the aid of the younger

patricians as much as that of the commons: they advised, they

cautioned them to keep themselves from public offices and the

administration of public affairs, and indeed to consider the consular

fasces, the toga prætexta and curule chair, as nothing else but a

funeral parade: that when decked with these splendid insignia, as with

fillets, [70] they were doomed to death. But if the charms of the

consulate were so great they should even now rest satisfied that the

consulate was held in captivity and crushed by the tribunician power;

that everything had to be done by the consul, at the beck and command

of the tribune, as if he were a tribune's beadle. If he stirred, if he

regarded the patricians at all, if he thought that there existed any

other party in the state but the commons, let him set before his

eyes the banishment of Gnæeus Marcius, the condemnation and death of

Menenius. Fired by these words, the patricians from that time held

their consultations not in public, but in private houses, and remote

from the knowledge of the majority, at which, when this one point only

was agreed on, that the accused must be rescued either by fair means

or foul, the most desperate proposals were most approved; nor did any

deed, however daring, lack a supporter.[71] Accordingly, on the day of

trial, when the people stood in the forum on tiptoe of expectation,

they at first began to feel surprised that the tribune did not come

down; then, the delay now becoming more suspicious, they believed that

he was hindered by the nobles, and complained that the public cause

was abandoned and betrayed. At length those who had been waiting

before the entrance of the tribune's residence announced that he

had been found dead in his house. As soon as rumour spread the news

through the whole assembly, just as an army disperses on the fall

of its general, so did they scatter in different directions. Panic

chiefly seized the tribunes, now taught by their colleague's death how

utterly ineffectual was the aid the devoting laws afforded them.[72]

Nor did the patricians display their exultation with due moderation;

and so far was any of them from feeling compunction at the guilty act,

that even those who were innocent wished to be considered to have

perpetrated it, and it was openly declared that the tribunician power

ought to be subdued by chastisement.

Immediately after this victory, that involved a most ruinous

precedent, a levy was proclaimed; and, the tribunes being now

overawed, the consuls accomplished their object without any

opposition. Then indeed the commons became enraged more at the

inactivity of the tribunes than at the authority of the consuls: they

declared there was an end of their liberty: that things had returned

to their old condition: that the tribunician power had died along with

Genucius and was buried with him; that other means must be devised and

adopted, by which the patricians might be resisted: and that the only

means to that end was for the people to defend themselves, since they

had no other help: that four-and-twenty lictors waited on the consuls,

and they men of the common people: that nothing could be more

despicable, or weaker, if only there were persons to despise them;

that each person magnified those things and made them objects of

terror to himself. When they had excited one another by these words,

a lictor was despatched by the consuls to Volero Publilius, a man

belonging to the commons, because he declared that, having been a

centurion, he ought not to be made a common soldier. Volero appealed

to the tribunes. When no one came to his assistance, the consuls

ordered the man to be stripped and the rods to be got ready. "I appeal

to the people," said Volero, "since the tribunes prefer to see a Roman

citizen scourged before their eyes, than themselves to be butchered

by you each in his bed." The more vehemently he cried out, the more

violently did the lictor tear off his clothes and strip him. Then

Volero, being both himself a man of great bodily strength, and aided

by his partisans, having thrust back the lictor, retired into the

thickest part of the crowd, where the outcry of those who expressed

their indignation was loudest, crying out: "I appeal, and implore the

protection of the commons; assist me, fellow-citizens: assist me,

fellow-soldiers: it is no use to wait for the tribunes, who themselves

stand in need of your aid." The men, excited, made ready as if for

battle: and it was clear that a general crisis was at hand, that no

one would have respect for anything, either public or private right.

When the consuls had faced this violent storm, they soon found out

that authority unsupported by strength had but little security; the

lictors being maltreated, and the fasces broken, they were driven from

the forum into the senate-house, uncertain how far Volero would follow

up his victory. After that, the disturbance subsiding, having ordered

the members to be summoned to the senate, they complained of the

insults offered to themselves, of the violence of the people, of

the daring conduct of Volero. After many violent measures had been

proposed, the older members prevailed, who did not approve of the

rash behaviour of the commons being met by the resentment of the

patricians.

The commons having warmly espoused the cause of Volero, at the next

meeting, secured his election as tribune of the people for that

year, in which Lucius Pinarius and Publics Furius were consuls: and,

contrary to the opinion of all, who thought that he would make free

use of his tribuneship to harass the consuls of the preceding year,

postponing private resentment to the public interest, without the

consuls being attacked even by a single word, he brought a bill before

the people that plebeian magistrates should be elected at the comitia

tributa.[73] A measure of no small importance was now proposed, under

an aspect at first sight by no means alarming; but one of such a

nature that it really deprived the patricians of all power of electing

whatever tribunes they pleased by the suffrage of their clients. The

patricians resisted to the utmost this proposal, which met with the

greatest approval of the commons: and though none of the college[74]

could be induced by the influence either of the consuls or of the

chief members of the senate to enter a protest against it, which was

the only means of effectual resistance, yet the matter, a weighty one

from its own importance, was spun out by party struggles for a

whole year. The commons re-elected Volero as tribune. The senators,

considering that the matter would end in a desperate struggle, elected

as Consul Appius Claudius, the son of Appius, who was both hated by

and had hated the commons, ever since the contests between them and

his father. Titus Quinctius was assigned to him as his colleague.

Immediately, at the beginning of the year,[75]no other question took

precedence of that regarding the law. But like Volero, the originator

of it, so his colleague, Lætorius, was both a more recent, as well as

a more energetic, supporter of it. His great renown in war made him

overbearing, because, in the age in which he lived, no one was more

prompt in action. He, while Volero confined himself to the discussion

of the law, avoiding all abuse of the consuls, broke out into

accusations against Appius and his family, as having ever been most

overbearing and cruel toward the Roman commons, contending that he had

been elected by the senators, not as consul, but as executioner, to

harass and torture the people: his tongue, unskilled in speech, as was

natural in a soldier, was unable to give adequate expression to the

freedom of his sentiments. When, therefore, language failed him, he

said: "Romans, since I do not speak with as much readiness as I make

good what I have spoken, attend here to-morrow. I will either die

before your eyes, or will carry the law." On the following day the

tribunes took possession of the platform: the consuls and the nobles

took their places together in the assembly to obstruct the law.

Lætorius ordered all persons to be removed, except those going to

vote. The young nobles kept their places, paying no regard to the

officer; then Lætorius ordered some of them to be seized. The consul

Appius insisted that the tribune had no jurisdiction over any one

except a plebeian; for that he was not a magistrate of the people in

general, but only of the commons; and that even he himself could not,

according to the usage of their ancestors, by virtue of his authority

remove any person, because the words were as follows: "If ye think

proper, depart, Quirites." He was easily able to disconcert Lætorius

by discussing his right thus contemptuously. The tribune, therefore,

burning with rage, sent his officer to the consul; the consul sent his

lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual,

without military office and without civil authority: and the tribune

would have been roughly handled, had not both the entire assembly

risen up with great warmth in behalf of the tribune against the

consul, and a crowd of people belonging to the excited multitude,

rushed from all parts of the city into the forum. Appius, however,

withstood this great storm with obstinacy, and the contest would have

ended in a battle, not without bloodshed, had not Quinctius, the other

consul, having intrusted the men of consular rank with the task of

removing his colleague from the forum by force, if they could not

do so in any other way, himself now assuaged the raging people by

entreaties, now implored the tribunes to dismiss the assembly. Let

them, said he, give their passion time to cool: delay would not in

any respect deprive them of their power, but would add prudence to

strength; and the senators would be under the control of the people,

and the consul under that of the senators.

The people were with difficulty pacified by Quinctius; the other

consul with much more difficulty by the patricians. The assembly of

the people having been at length dismissed, the consuls convened the

senate; in which, though fear and resentment by turns had produced a

diversity of opinions, the more their minds were called off, by lapse

of time, from passion to reflection, the more adverse did they become

to contentiousness, so that they returned thanks to Quinctius, because

it was owing to his exertions that the disturbance had been quieted.

Appius was requested to give his consent that the consular dignity

should be merely so great as it could be in a state if it was to be

united: it was declared that, as long as the tribunes and consuls

claimed all power, each for his own side, no strength was left

between: that the commonwealth was distracted and torn asunder: that

the object aimed at was rather to whom it should belong, than that

it should be safe. Appius, on the contrary, called gods and men to

witness that the commonwealth was being betrayed and abandoned through

cowardice; that it was not the consul who had failed to support the

senate, but the senate the consul: that more oppressive conditions

were now being submitted to than had been submitted to on the Sacred

Mount. Overcome, however, by the unanimous feeling of the senators, he

desisted: the law was carried without opposition.

Then for the first time the tribunes were elected in the comita

tributa. Piso is the authority for the statement that three were added

to the number, as if there had been only two before. He also gives

the names of the tribunes, Gnæus Siccius, Lucius Numitorius, Marcus

Duellius, Spurius Icilius, Lucius Mecilius. During the disturbance

at Rome, a war broke out with the Volscians and Æquans, who had laid

waste the country, so that, if any secession of the people took place,

they might find a refuge with them. Afterward, when matters were

settled, they moved back their camp. Appius Claudius was sent against

the Volscians; the Æquans fell to Quinctius as his province. Appius

exhibited the same severity in war as at home, only more unrestrained,

because it was free from the control of the tribunes. He hated the

commons with a hatred greater than that inherited from his father: he

had been defeated by them: when he had been chosen consul as the only

man able to oppose the influence of the tribunes, a law had been

passed, which former consuls had obstructed with less effect, amid

hopes of the senators by no means so great as those now placed in him.

His resentment and indignation at this stirred his imperious temper to

harass the army by the severity of his command; it could not, however,

be subdued by any exercise of authority, with such a spirit of

opposition were the soldiers filled. They carried out all orders

slowly, indolently, carelessly, and stubbornly: neither shame nor

fear restrained them. If he wished the march to be accelerated, they

designedly went more slowly: if he came up to them to encourage them

in their work, they all relaxed the energy which they had before

exerted of their own accord: they cast down their eyes in his

presence, they silently cursed him as he passed by; so that that

spirit, unconquered by plebeian hatred, was sometimes moved. Every

kind of severity having been tried without effect, he no longer held

any intercourse with the soldiers; he said the army was corrupted by

the centurions; he sometimes gibingly called them tribunes of the

people and Voleros.

None of these circumstances were unknown to the Volscians, and they

pressed on with so much the more vigour, hoping that the Roman

soldiers would entertain the same spirit of opposition against Appius

as they had formerly exhibited against the consul Fabius. However,

they showed themselves still more embittered against Appius than

against Fabius. For they were not only unwilling to conquer, like the

army of Fabius, but even wished to be conquered. When led forth into

the field, they made for their camp in ignominious flight, and did

not stand their ground until they saw the Volscians advancing against

their fortifications, and the dreadful havoc in the rear of their

army. Then they were compelled to put forth their strength for battle,

in order that the now victorious enemy might be dislodged from their

lines; while, however, it was sufficiently clear that the Roman

soldiers were only unwilling that the camp should be taken, in regard

to all else they gloried in their own defeat and disgrace. When the

haughty spirit of Appius, in no wise broken by this behaviour of the

soldiers, purposed to act with still greater severity, and summoned a

meeting, the lieutenants and tribunes flocked around him, recommending

him by no means to decide to put his authority to the proof, the

entire strength of which lay in unanimous obedience, saying that the

soldiers generally refused to come to the assembly, and that their

voices were heard on all sides, demanding that the camp should be

removed from the Volscian territory: that the victorious enemy were

but a little time ago almost at the very gates and rampart, and that

not merely a suspicion but the visible form of a grievous disaster

presented itself to their eyes. Yielding at last--since they gained

nothing save a respite from punishment--having prorogued the assembly,

and given orders that their march should be proclaimed for the

following day, at daybreak he gave the signal for departure by sound

of trumpet. At the very moment when the army, having got clear of the

camp, was forming itself, the Volscians, as if they had been aroused

by the same signal, fell upon those in the rear: from these the alarm

spreading to the van, threw both the battalions and companies into

such a state of consternation, that neither could the general's

orders be distinctly heard, nor the lines drawn up. No one thought

of anything but flight. In such loose order did they make their way

through heaps of dead bodies and arms, that the enemy ceased their

pursuit sooner than the Romans their flight. The soldiers having at

length rallied from their disordered flight, the consul, after he had

in vain followed his men, bidding them return, pitched his camp in a

peaceful part of the country; and having convened an assembly, after

inveighing not without good reason against the army, as traitors to

military discipline, deserters of their posts, asking them, one by one

where were their standards, where their arms, he first beat with rods

and then beheaded those soldiers who had thrown down their arms,

the standard-bearers who had lost their standards, and also the

centurions, and those who received double allowance,[76] who had

deserted their ranks. With respect to the rest of the rank and file,

every tenth man was drawn by lot for punishment.

On the other hand, the consul and soldiers among the Æquans vied with

each other in courtesy and acts of kindness: Quinctius was naturally

milder in disposition, and the ill-fated severity of his colleague had

caused him to give freer vent to his own good temper. This remarkable

agreement between the general and his army the Æquans did not venture

to meet, but suffered the enemy to go through their country committing

devastations in every direction. Nor were depredations committed more

extensively in that quarter in any preceding war. The whole of the

booty was given to the soldiers. In addition, they received praise, in

which the minds of soldiers find no less pleasure than in rewards. The

army returned more reconciled both to their general, and also, thanks

to the general, to the patricians, declaring that a parent had been

given to them, a tyrant to the other army by the senate. The year

which had passed with varied success in war, and violent dissensions

at home and abroad, was rendered memorable chiefly by the elections

of tribes, a matter which was more important from the victory in the

contest[77] that was undertaken than from any real advantage; for more

dignity was withdrawn from the elections themselves by the fact that

the patricians were excluded from the council, than influence either

added to the commons or taken from the patricians.[78]

A still more stormy year followed, when Lucius Valerius and Titus

Æmilius were consuls, both by reason of the struggles between the

different orders concerning the agrarian law, as well as on account

of the trial of Appius Claudius, for whom Marcus Duilius and Gnæus

Siccius appointed a day of trial, as a most active opposer of the law,

and one who supported the cause of the possessors of the public land,

as if he were a third consul [79]. Never before was an accused

person so hateful to the commons brought to trial before the people,

overwhelmed with their resentment against himself and also against his

father. The patricians too seldom made equal exertions so readily on

one's behalf: they declared that the champion of the senate, and the

upholder of their dignity, set up as a barrier against all the storms

of the tribunes and commons, was exposed to the resentment of the

commons, although he had only exceeded the bounds of moderation in the

contest. Appius Claudius himself was the only one of the patricians

who made light both of the tribunes and commons and his own trial.

Neither the threats of the commons, nor the entreaties of the senate,

could ever persuade him even to change his garb, or accost persons

as a suppliant, or even to soften or moderate his usual harshness of

speech in the least degree, when his cause was to be pleaded before

the people. The expression of his countenance was the same; the same

stubbornness in his looks, the same spirit of pride in his language:

so that a great part of the commons felt no less awe of Appius when on

his trial than they had felt for him when consul. He pleaded his cause

only once, and in the same haughty style of an accuser which he had

been accustomed to adopt on all occasions: and he so astounded both

the tribunes and the commons by his intrepidity, that, of their own

accord, they postponed the day of trial, and then allowed the matter

to die out. No long interval elapsed: before, however, the appointed

day came, he died of some disease; and when the tribunes of the people

endeavoured to put a stop to his funeral panegyric, the commons would

not allow the burial day of so great a man to be defrauded of the

customary honours: and they listened to his eulogy when dead as

patiently as they had listened to the charges brought against him when

living, and attended his obsequies in vast numbers.

In the same year the consul Valerius, having marched with an army

against the Aequans, and being unable to draw out the enemy to an

engagement, proceeded to attack their camp. A dreadful storm coming

down from heaven accompanied by thunder and hail prevented him. Then,

on a signal for a retreat being given, their surprise was excited

by the return of such fair weather, that they felt scruples about

attacking a second time a camp which was defended as it were by some

divine power: all the violence of the war was directed to plundering

the country. The other consul, Aemilius, conducted the war in Sabine

territory. There also, because the enemy confined themselves within

their walls, the lands were laid waste. Then the Sabines, roused by

the burning not only of the farms, but of the villages also, which

were thickly inhabited, after they had fallen in with the raiders

retired from an engagement the issue of which was left undecided, and

on the following day removed their camp into a safer situation. This

seemed a sufficient reason to the consul why he should leave the

enemy as conquered, and depart thence, although the war was as yet

unfinished.

During these wars, while dissensions still continued at home, Titus

Numicius Priscus and Aulus Verginius were elected consuls. The commons

appeared determined no longer to brook the delay in accepting the

agrarian law, and extreme violence was on the point of being resorted

to, when it became known by the smoke from the burning farms and

the flight of the peasants that the Volscians were at hand; this

circumstance checked the sedition that was now ripe and on the point

of breaking out. The consuls, under the immediate compulsion of the

senate, led forth the youth from the city to war, and thereby rendered

the rest of the commons more quiet. And the enemy indeed, having

merely filled the Romans with fear that proved groundless, departed

in great haste. Numicius marched to Antium against the Volscians,

Verginius against the Aequans. There, after they had nearly met with

a great disaster in an attack from an ambuscade, the bravery of the

soldiers restored their fortunes, which had been endangered through

the carelessness of the consul. Affairs were conducted better in the

case of the Volscians. The enemy were routed in the first engagement,

and driven in flight into the city of Antium, a very wealthy place,

considering the times: the consul, not venturing to attack it, took

from the people of Antium another town, Caeno,[80] which was by no

means so wealthy While the Aequans and Volscians engaged the attention

of the Roman armies, the Sabines advanced in their depredations even

to the gates of the city: then they themselves, a few days later,

sustained from the two armies heavier losses than they had inflicted,

both the consuls having entered their territories under the influence

of exasperation.

At the close of the year to some extent there was peace, but, as

frequently at other times, a peace disturbed by contests between the

patricians and commons. The exasperated commons refused to attend the

consular elections: Titus Quinctius and Quintus Servilius were elected

consuls through the influence of the patricians and their dependents:

the consuls had a year similar to the preceding, disturbed at the

beginning, and afterward tranquil by reason of war abroad. The Sabines

crossing the plains of Crustumerium by forced marches, after carrying

fire and sword along the banks of the Anio, being repulsed when they

had nearly come up to the Colline gate and the walls, drove off,

however, great booty of men and cattle: the consul Servilius, having

pursued them with an army bent on attacking them, was unable to

overtake the main body itself in the level country: he, however,

extended his devastations over such a wide area, that he left nothing

unmolested by war, and returned after having obtained booty many times

greater than that carried off by the enemy. The public cause was also

extremely well supported among the Volscians by the exertions both of

the general and the soldiers. First a pitched battle was fought, on

level ground, with great slaughter and much bloodshed on both sides:

and the Romans, because their small numbers caused their loss to be

more keenly felt, would have given way, had not the consul, by a

well-timed fiction, reanimated the army, by crying out that the enemy

was in flight on the other wing; having charged, they, by believing

themselves victorious, became so. The consul, fearing lest, by

pressing on too far, he might renew the contest, gave the signal for

retreat. A few days intervened, both sides resting as if by tacit

suspension of hostilities: during these days a vast number of persons

from all the states of the Volscians and Equans came to the camp,

feeling no doubt that the Romans would depart during the night, if

they perceived them. Accordingly, about the third watch [81], they

came to attack the camp. Quinctius having allayed the confusion which

the sudden panic had occasioned, and ordered the soldiers to remain

quiet in their tents, led out a cohort of the Hernicans for an advance

guard: the trumpeters and horn blowers he mounted on horseback, and

commanded them to sound their trumpets before the rampart, and to keep

the enemy in suspense till daylight: during the rest of the night

everything was so quiet in the camp, that the Romans had even the

opportunity of sleeping.[82] The sight of the armed infantry, whom

they both considered to be more numerous than they were, and at the

same time Romans, the bustle and neighing of the horses, which became

restless, both from the fact of strange riders being mounted on them,

and moreover from the sound of the trumpets frightening them, kept the

Volscians intently awaiting an attack of the enemy.

When the day dawned, the Romans, invigorated and having enjoyed a full

sleep, on being marched out to battle, at the first onset caused the

Volscians to give way, wearied as they were from standing and keeping

watch: though indeed the enemy rather retired than were routed,

because in the rear there were hills to which the unbroken ranks

behind the first line had a safe retreat. The consul, when he came to

the uneven ground, halted his army; the infantry were kept back

with difficulty; they loudly demanded to be allowed to pursue the

discomfited foe. The cavalry were more violent: crowding round the

general, they cried out that they would proceed in front of the first

line. While the consul hesitated, relying on the valour of his men,

yet having little confidence in the nature of the ground, they all

cried out that they would proceed; and execution followed the shout.

Fixing their spears in the ground, in order that they might be lighter

to mount the heights, they advanced uphill at a run. The Volscians,

having discharged their missile weapons at the first onset, hurled

down the stones that lay at their feet upon the Romans as they

were making their way up, and having thrown them into confusion by

incessant blows, strove to drive them from the higher ground: thus

the left wing of the Romans was nearly overborne, had not the consul

dispelled their fear by rousing them to a sense of shame as they were

on the point of retreating, chiding at the same time their temerity

and their cowardice. At first they stood their ground with determined

firmness; then, as they recovered their strength by still holding

their position, they ventured to advance of themselves, and, renewing

their shouts, they encouraged the whole body to advance: then having

made a fresh attack, they forced their way up and surmounted the

unfavourable ground. They were now on the point of gaining the summit

of the hill, when the enemy turned their backs, and pursued and

pursuer at full speed rushed into the camp almost in one body. During

this panic the camp was taken; such of the Volscians as were able to

make good their escape, made for Antium. The Roman army also was

led thither; after having been invested for a few days, the town

surrendered, not in consequence of any new efforts on the part of the

besiegers, but because the spirits of the inhabitants had sunk ever

since the unsuccessful battle and the loss of their camp.

[Footnote 1: The functions of the old priest-king were divided, the

political being assigned to the consuls, the duty of sacrificing

to the newly-created rex sacrificulus, who was chosen from the

patricians: he was, nevertheless, subject to the control of the

Pontifex Maximus, by whom he was chosen from several nominees of the

college of priests.]

[Footnote 2: This, of course applied only to patricians. Plebians were

accounted nobodies.--D.O.]

[Footnote 3: The insula Tiberina between Rome and the Janiculum.]

[Footnote 4: Vindicta was properly the rod which was laid on the head

of a slave by the magistrate who emancipated him, or by one of his

attendants: the word is supposed to be derived from vim dicere

(to declare authority).]

[Footnote 5: Near the Janiculum, between the Via Aurelia and the Via

Claudia.]

[Footnote 6: A part of the Palatine.--D.O.]

[Footnote 7: The goddess of victory [vi(n)co-pot(is)].]

[Footnote 8: Practically a sentence of combined excommunication and

outlawry.--D.O.]

[Footnote 9: Now Chiusi.]

[Footnote 10: They did not let these salt-works by auction, but took

them under their own management, and carried them on by means

of persons employed to work on the public account. These

salt-works, first established at Ostia by Ancus, were, like other

public property, farmed out to the publicans. As they had a high

rent to pay, the price of salt was raised in proportion; but now the

patricians, to curry favour with the plebeians, did not let the salt-pits

to private tenants, but kept them in the hands of public labourers, to

collect all the salt for the public use; and appointed salesmen to

retail it to the people at a cheaper rate.]

[Footnote 11: Just below the sole remaining pillar of the Pons

Aemilius.--D.O.]

[Footnote 12: Macaulay, in his "Lays of Ancient Rome," has made

this incident the basis of one of the most stirring poems in the

English language. Though familiar to all, it does not seem out of

place to quote from his "Horatius" in connection with the story as

told by Livy:

"Alone stood brave Horatius,

But constant still in mind;

Thrice thirty thousand foes before

And the broad flood behind.

'Down with him!' cried false Sextus,

With smile on his pale face.

'Now yield thee,' cried Lars Porsena,

'Now yield thee to our grace.'

* * * * *

'O Tiber! father Tiber!

To whom the Romans pray,

A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,

Take thou in charge this day!'

So he spake, and speaking, sheathed

The good sword by his side,

And with his harness on his back

Plunged headlong in the tide.

No sound of joy or sorrow

Was heard from either bank,

But friends and foes, in dumb surprise,

With parted lips and straining eyes,

Stood gazing where he sank;

And when above the surges

They saw his crest appear,

All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry,

And even the ranks of Tuscany

Could scarce forbear to cheer.

But fiercely ran the current,

Swollen high by months of rain;

And fast his blood was flowing,

And he was sore in pain,

And heavy with his armour,

And spent with changing blows;

And oft they thought him sinking,

But still again he rose.

* * * * *

'Curse on him!' quoth false Sextus,

'Will not the villain drown?

But for this stay, ere close of day,

We should have sacked the town!'

'Heaven help him!' quoth Lars Porsena

'And bring him safe to shore;

For such a gallant feat of arms

Was never seen before.'

And now he feels the bottom;

Now on dry earth he stands;

Now round him throng the fathers

To press his gory hands;

And now with shouts and clapping,

And noise of weeping loud,

He enters through the River-gate

Borne by the joyous crowd.

* * * * *

When the goodman mends his armour,

And trims his helmet's plume;

When the good wife's shuttle merrily

Goes flashing through the loom;

With weeping and with laughter

Still is the story told,

How well Horatius kept the bridge

In the brave days of old." ]

[Footnote 13: Of the left hand.--D.O.]

[Footnote 14: Probably where the Cliva Capitolina begins to ascend the

slope of the Capitol.--D.O.]

[Footnote 15: The most ancient of the Greek colonies in Italy. Its

ruins are on the coast north of the Promontory of Miseno.--D.O.]

[Footnote 16: Leading from the forum to the Velabrum.]

[Footnote 17: It was situated in the Alban Hills about ten miles from

Rome, on the site of the modern Frascati.--D.O.]

[Footnote 18: Suessa-Pometia, mentioned in former note. Cora is now

Cori.--D.O.]

[Footnote 19: Their home was in Campania.--D.O.]

[Footnote 20: Wooden roofs covered with earth or wet hides, and rolled

forward on wheels for the protection of those engaged in battering or

mining the walls.--D.O.]

[Footnote 21: That is, the Romans'.]

[Footnote 22: Perhaps because the twenty-four axes of both consuls

went to the dictator.--D.O.]

[Footnote 23: Now Palestrina]

[Footnote 24: See Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome": The Battle of

Lake Regillus.]

[Footnote 25: The bound (by the law of debt), from nexo, to join or

connect.--D.O.]

[Footnote 26: That is, for allowing themselves to suffer it and yet

fight for their oppressors.--D.O.]

[Footnote 27: For military service.]

[Footnote:28 Known as Mercuriales. Mercury was the patron of

merchants.--D.O.]

[Footnote 29: That is, over the senate.--D.O.]

[Footnote 30: About 40,000 men.--D.O.]

[Footnote 31: That is, like Vetusius, watching the Aequans, who

uncrippled were lying in their mountain fastnesses in northern Latium,

waiting a chance to renew their ravages.--D.O.]

[Footnote 32: Modern Velletri.]

[Footnote 33: a chair-shaped X .Its use was an insignia first of

royalty, then of the higher magistracies.--D.O.]

[Footnote 34: Supposed to be the hill beyond and to the right of the

Ponte Nomentano.--D.O.]

[Footnote 35: Lucius Calpurnius Piso, the historian.]

[Footnote 36: This fable is of very great antiquity. Max Müller says

it is found among the Hindus.]

[Footnote 37: The law which declared the persons of the tribunes

inviolate and him who transgressed it accursed.--D.O.]

[Footnote 38: Modern Anzio, south of Ostia on the coast of

Latium.--D.O.]

[Footnote 39: Between Ardea and Aricia.]

[Footnote 40: The sixth part of the as, the Roman money unit, which

represented a pound's weight of copper.--D.O.]

[Footnote 41: Its ruins lie on the road to Terracina, near Norma, and

about forty-five miles from Rome.--D.O.]

[Footnote 42: The clientes formed a distinct class; they were the

hereditary dependents of certain patrician families (their patroni) to

whom they were under various obligations; they naturally sided with

the patricians.]

[Footnote 43: Dionysius and Plutarch give an account of the

prosecution much more favourable to the defendant.--D. O.]

[Footnote 44: Celebrated annually in the Circus Maximus, September 4th

to 12th, in honour of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, or, according to

some authorities, of Consus and Neptunus Equestus.--D.O.]

[Footnote 45: A >-shaped yoke placed on the slave's neck, with his

hands tied to the ends.--D.O.]

[Footnote 46: In a grove at the foot of the Alban Hill.--D.O.]

[Footnote 47: There seems to be something wrong here, as Satricum,

etc., were situated west of the Via Appia, while Livy places them on

the Via Latina. Niebuhr thinks that the words "passing across ...

Latin way," should be transposed, and inserted after the words "he

then took in succession." For the position of these towns, see Map.]

[Footnote 48: Quintus Fabius Pictor, the historian.--D.O.]

[Footnote 49: The ager publicus consisted of the landed estates which

had belonged to the kings, and were increased by land taken from

enemies who had been conquered in war. The patricians, having the

chief political power, gained exclusive occupation (possessio) of this

ager publicus, for which they paid a nominal rent in the shape of

produce and tithes. The nature of the charge brought by Cassius was

not the fact of its being occupied by privati, but by patricians to

the exclusion of plebeians.]

[Footnote 50: "Quaestors," this is the first mention of these officers

in Livy; in early times it appears to have been part of their duty

to prosecute those who were guilty of treason, and to carry out the

punishment.]

[Footnote 51: On the west slope of the Esquiline.--D.O.]

[Footnote 52: There seems to be something wrong in the text here, as

the subterfuge was distinctively a patrician one, and the commons had

nothing to gain and all to lose by it. If Livy means that the commons

provoked war by giving cause for the patricians to seek refuge in it,

he certainly puts it very vaguely.--D. O.]

[Footnote 53: July 15th.]

[Footnote 54: By being buried alive. The idea being that the

ceremonies could not be duly performed by an unchaste vestal.--D. O.]

[Footnote 55: By his power of veto.--D.O.]

[Footnote 56: These were veterans and formed the third line. The first

were the "hastati," so called from their carrying long spears,

which were later discarded for heavy javelins. The second were the

"principes," the main line.--D. O.]

[Footnote 57: The space assigned for the general's tent.--D. O.]

[Footnote 58: The legati of a general were at once his council of war

and his staff.--D. O.]

[Footnote 59: There is much in the description of this battle not easy

to understand, and I am inclined to believe it was at least no better

than drawn. The plundered camp, the defeat of the triarii, and

the failure to mention pursuit or consequences, all favour this

supposition.--D. O.]

[Footnote 60: It was to be victory or annihilation.--D. O.]

[Footnote 61: so called from the altar of Carmenta, which stood near

it. It was located in or near what is now the Piazza Montanara, and

was always after considered a gate of evil omen.--D. O.]

[Footnote 62: Now the Valchetta.--D. O.]

[Footnote 63: Probably of mercenaries, as the Veientines are alluded

to throughout the paragraph as commanding, and it was apparently not a

case of alliance.--D. O.]

[Footnote 64: On the Via Flaminia (near the grotta rossa).]

[Footnote 65: This story has been much questioned by learned

commentators. I see nothing improbable in it if we pare down the

exploits a little, and the evidence, such as it is all pro.--D.O.]

[Footnote 66: As this temple was about a mile from the city, it is

probable the Romans were defeated and that the second fight at the

gate means simply that they repulsed an assault on the walls.--D.O.]

[Footnote 67: That is, did not renew their assault on the

walls.--D.O.]

[Footnote 68: Evidently only a small detatchment, since they were

in condition to assault a fortified consular camp despite their

defeat.--D.O.]

[Footnote 69: The story of this war is much more doubtful than the

exploit of the Fabii, and Livy, as usual, furnishes the material for

his own criticism.--D.O.]

[Footnote 70: After the manner of animals about to be

sacrificed.--D.O.]

[Footnote 71: This was probably the origin of the "clubs" of young

patricians, to which so much of the later violance was due.--D.O.]

[Footnote 72: The lex sacrata, which declared their persons

inviolate.--D.O.]

[Footnote 73: The assembly of the plebeians by tribes.--D.O.]

[Footnote 74: Of tribunes.]

[Footnote 75: The consular year.]

[Footnote 76: One of the rewards of good conduct was double

rations.--D.O.]

[Footnote 77: That is, the contest to obtain the reform.--D.O.]

[Footnote 78: While the plebeians lost the dignity conferred on the

assembly by the presence of distinguished patricians, they gained

nothing, as, in the mere matter of votes, they already had a majority;

and the patricians lost nothing, as the number of their votes would

not be sufficient to render them of much importance.]

[Footnote 79: There were other specific charges, but Livy confines

himself to the spirit of the prosecution.--D.O.]

[Footnote 80: The port of Antium, now Nettuno.--D.O.]

[Footnote 81: Midnight.--D. O.]

[Footnote 82: The rendering of the rest of this section is vague and

unsatisfactory.--D. O.]