THE DECEMVIRATE
After the capture of Antium, Titus Æmilius and Quintus Fabius became
consuls. This was the Fabius who was the sole survivor of the family
that had been annihilated at the Cremera. Æmilius had already in his
former consulship recommended the bestowal of land on the people.
Accordingly, in his second consulship also, both the advocates of the
agrarian law encouraged themselves to hope for the passing of the
measure, and the tribunes took it up, thinking that a result, that
had been frequently attempted in opposition to the consuls, might be
obtained now that at any rate one consul supported it: the consul
remained firm in his opinion. The possessors of state land [1]--and
these a considerable part of the patricians--transferred the odium of
the entire affair from the tribunes to the consul, complaining that a
man, who held the first office in the state, was busying himself with
proposals more befitting the tribunes, and was gaining popularity by
making presents out of other people's property. A violent contest
was at hand; had not Fabius compromised the matter by a suggestion
disagreeable to neither party. That under the conduct and auspices of
Titus Quinctius a considerable tract of land had been taken in the
preceding year from the Volscians: that a colony might be sent to
Antium, a neighbouring and conveniently situated maritime city: in
this manner the commons would come in for lands without any complaints
on the part of the present occupiers, and the state remain at peace.
This proposition was accepted. He secured the appointment of Titus
Quinctius, Aulus Verginius, and Publius Furius as triumvirs for
distributing the land: such as wished to receive land were ordered to
give in their names. The attainment of their object created disgust
immediately, as usually happens, and so few gave in their names that
Volscian colonists were added to fill up the number: the rest of the
people preferred to ask for land in Rome, rather than to receive it
elsewhere. The Aequans sued for peace from Quintus Fabius (he had
gone thither with an army), and they themselves broke it by a sudden
incursion into Latin territory.
In the following year Quintus Servilius (for he was consul with
Spurius Postumius), being sent against the Aequans, pitched his camp
permanently in Latin territory: unavoidable inaction held the army in
check, since it was attacked by illness. The war was protracted to the
third year, when Quintus Fabius and Titus Quinctius were consuls. To
Fabius, because he, as conqueror, had granted peace to the Aequans
that sphere of action was assigned in an unusual manner.[2]He, setting
out with a sure hope that his name and renown would reduce the Aequans
to submission, sent ambassadors to the council of the nation, and
ordered them to announce that Quintus Fabius, the consul, stated that
he had brought peace to Rome from the Aequans, that from Rome he now
brought them war, with that same right hand, but now armed, which he
had formerly given to them in amity; that the gods were now witnesses,
and would presently take vengeance on those by whose perfidy and
perjury that had come to pass. That he, however, be matters as they
might, even now preferred that the Aequans should repent of their own
accord rather than suffer the vengeance of an enemy. If they repented,
they would have a safe retreat in the clemency they had already
experienced; but if they still took pleasure in perjury, they would
wage war with the gods enraged against them rather than their enemies.
These words had so little effect on any of them that the ambassadors
were near being ill-treated, and an army was sent to Algidum[3]
against the Romans. When news of this was brought to Rome, the
indignity of the affair, rather than the danger, caused the other
consul to be summoned from the city; thus two consular armies advanced
against the enemy in order of battle, intending to come to an
engagement at once. But as it happened that not much of the day
remained, one of the advance guard of the enemy cried out: "This is
making a show of war, Romans, not waging it: you draw up your army
in line of battle, when night is at hand; we need a longer period of
daylight for the contest which is to come. Tomorrow at sunrise return
to the field: you shall have an opportunity of fighting, never fear."
The soldiers, stung by these taunts, were marched back into camp till
the following day, thinking that a long night was approaching, which
would cause the contest to be delayed. Then indeed they refreshed
their bodies with food and sleep: on the following day, when it was
light, the Roman army took up their position some considerable time
before. At length the Aequans also advanced. The battle was hotly
contested on both sides, because the Romans fought under the influence
of resentment and hatred, while the Aequans were compelled by a
consciousness of danger incurred by misconduct, and despair of any
confidence being reposed in them hereafter, to venture and to have
recourse to the most desperate efforts. The Aequans, however, did
not withstand the attack of the Roman troops, and when, having been
defeated, they had retired to their own territories, the savage
multitude, with feelings not at all more disposed to peace, began to
rebuke their leaders: that their fortunes had been intrusted to the
hazard of a pitched battle, in which mode of fighting the Romans were
superior. That the Aequans were better adapted for depredations and
incursions, and that several parties, acting in different directions,
conducted wars with greater success than the unwieldy mass of a single
army.
Accordingly, having left a guard over the camp, they marched out and
attacked the Roman frontiers with such fury that they carried terror
even to the city: the fact that this was unexpected also caused
more alarm, because it was least of all to be feared that an enemy,
vanquished and almost besieged in their camp, should entertain
thoughts of depredation: and the peasants, rushing through the gates
in a state of panic, cried out that it was not a mere raid, nor
small parties of plunderers, but, exaggerating everything in their
groundless fear, whole armies and legions of the enemy that were close
at hand, and that they were hastening toward the city in hostile
array. Those who were nearest carried to others the reports heard from
these, reports vague and on that account more groundless: and the
hurry and clamour of those calling to arms bore no distant resemblance
to the panic that arises when a city has been taken by storm. It so
happened that the consul Quinctius had returned to Rome from Algidum:
this brought some relief to their terror; and, the tumult being
calmed, after chiding them for their dread of a vanquished enemy, he
set a guard on the gates. Then a meeting of the senate was summoned,
and a suspension of business proclaimed by their authority: he
himself, having set out to defend the frontiers, leaving behind
Quintus Servilius as prefect of the city, found no enemy in the
country. Affairs were conducted with distinguished success by the
other consul; who, having attacked the enemy, where he knew that they
would arrive, laden with booty, and therefore marching with their
army the more encumbered, caused their depredation to prove their
destruction. Few of the enemy escaped from the ambuscade; all the
booty was recovered. Thus the return of the consul Quinctius to the
city put an end to the suspension of business, which lasted four days.
A census[4] was then held, and the lustrum [Footnote: The ceremony of
purification took place every five years, hence "Justrum" came to be
used for a period of five years.] closed by Quinctius: the number of
citizens rated is said to have been one hundred and four thousand
seven hundred and fourteen, not counting orphans of both sexes.
Nothing memorable occurred afterward among the Æquans; they retired
into their towns, allowing their possessions to be consumed by
fire and devastated. The consul, after he had repeatedly carried
devastation with a hostile army through the whole of the enemy's
country, returned to Rome with great glory and booty.
The next consuls were Aulus Postumius Albus and Spurius Furius Fusus.
Furii is by some writers written Fusii; this I mention, to prevent any
one thinking that the change, which is only in the names, is in the
persons themselves. There was no doubt that one of the consuls was
about tobegin hostilities against the Æquans. The latter accordingly
sought help from the Volscians of Ecetra; this was readily granted
(so keenly did these states contend in inveterate hatred against the
Romans), and preparations for war were made with the utmost vigour.
The Hernicans came to hear of it, and warned the Romans that the
Ecetrans had revolted to the Æquans: the colony of Antium also was
suspected, because, after the town had been taken a great number of
the inhabitants had fled thence for refuge to the Æquans: and these
soldiers behaved with the very greatest bravery during the course of
the war. After the Æquans had been driven into the towns, when this
rabble returned to Antium, it alienated from the Romans the colonists
who were already of their own accord disposed to treachery. The matter
not yet being ripe, when it had been announced to the senate that a
revolt was intended, the consuls were charged to inquire what was
going on, the leading men of the colony being summoned to Rome. When
they had attended without reluctance, they were conducted before the
senate by the consuls, and gave such answers to the questions that
were put to them that they were dismissed more suspected than they had
come.
After this, war was regarded as inevitable. Spurius Furius, one of
the consuls to whom that sphere of action had fallen, having marched
against the Aequans, found the enemy committing depredations in the
country of the Hernicans; and being ignorant of their numbers, because
they had nowhere been seen all together, he rashly hazarded an
engagement with an army which was no match for their forces. Being
driven from his position at the first onset, he retreated to his camp;
nor was that the end of his danger; for both on the next night and the
following day, his camp was beset and assaulted with such vigour that
not even a messenger could be despatched thence to Rome. The Hernicans
brought news both that an unsuccessful battle had been fought, and
that the consul and army were besieged; and inspired the senate with
such terror, that the other consul Postumius was charged to see to it
that the commonwealth took no harm,[5] a form of decree which has ever
been deemed to be one of extreme urgency. It seemed most advisable
that the consul himself should remain at Rome to enlist all such
as were able to bear arms: that Titus Quinctius should be sent as
proconsul[6] to the relief of the camp with the army of the allies: to
complete this army the Latins and Hernicans, and the colony of Antium
were ordered to supply Quinctius with troops hurriedly raised-such was
the name (subitarii) that they gave to auxiliaries raised for sudden
emergencies.
During those days many manoeuvres and many attacks were carried out
on both sides, because the enemy, having the advantage in numbers,
attempted to harass the Roman forces by attacking them on many sides,
as not likely to prove sufficient to meet all attacks. While the camp
was being besieged, at the same time part of the army was sent to
devastate Roman territory, and to make an attempt upon the city
itself, should fortune favour. Lucius Valerius was left to guard the
city: the consul Postumius was sent to prevent the plundering of the
frontiers. There was no abatement in any quarter either of vigilance
or activity; watches were stationed in the city, outposts before the
gates, and guards along the walls: and a cessation of business
was observed for several days, as was necessary amid such general
confusion. In the meantime the consul Furius, after he had at first
passively endured the siege in his camp, sallied forth through the
main gate[7] against the enemy when off their guard; and though he
might have pursued them, he stopped through apprehension, that an
attack might be made on the camp from the other side. The lieutenant
Furius (he was also the consul's brother) was carried away too far
in pursuit: nor did he, in his eagerness to follow them up, observe
eitherhis own party returning, or the attack of the enemy on his rear:
being thus shut out, having repeatedly made many unavailing efforts to
force his way to the camp, he fell, fighting bravely. In like manner
the consul, turning about to renew the fight, on being informed that
his brother was surrounded, rushing into the thick of the fight rashly
rather than with sufficient caution, was wounded, and with difficulty
rescued by those around him. This both damped the courage of his own
men, and increased the boldness of the enemy; who, being encouraged
by the death of the lieutenant, and by the consul's wound, could not
afterward have been withstood by any force, as the Romans, having been
driven into their camp, were again being besieged, being a match for
them neither in hopes nor in strength, and the very existence of the
state would have been imperilled, had not Titus Quinctius come to
their relief with foreign troops, the Latin and Hernican army. He
attacked the Aequans on their rear while their attention was fixed on
the Roman camp, and while they were insultingly displaying the head of
the lieutenant: and, a sally being made at the same time from the camp
at a signal given by himself from a distance, he surrounded a large
force of the enemy. Of the Aequans in Roman territory the slaughter
was less, their flight more disorderly. As they straggled in different
directions, driving their plunder before them, Postumius attacked
them in several places, where he had posted bodies of troops in
advantageous positions. They, while straying about and pursuing their
flight in great disorder, fell in with the victorious Quinctius as he
was returning with the wounded consul. Then the consular army by its
distinguished bravery amply avenged the consul's wound, and the death
of the lieutenant and the slaughter of the cohorts; heavy losses were
both inflicted and received on both sides during those days. In a
matter of such antiquity it is difficult to state, so as to inspire
conviction, the exact number of those who fought or fell: Antias
Valerius, however, ventures to give an estimate of the numbers: that
in the Hernican territory there fell five thousand eight hundred
Romans; that of the predatory parties of the Aequans, who strayed
through the Roman frontiers for the purpose of plundering, two
thousand four hundred were slain by the consul Aulus Postumius; that
the rest of the body which fell in with Quinctius while driving its
booty before them, by no means got off with a loss equally small: of
these he asserts that four thousand, and by way of stating the number
exactly, two hundred and thirty were slain. After their return to
Rome, the cessation of business was abandoned. The sky seemed to be
all ablaze with fire; and other prodigies either actually presented
themselves before men's eyes, or exhibited imaginary appearances to
their affrighted minds. To avert these terrors, a solemn festival for
three days was proclaimed, during which all the shrines were filled
with a crowd of men and women, earnestly imploring the favour of the
gods. After this the Latin and Hernican cohorts were sent back to
their respective homes, after they had been thanked by the senate for
their spirited conduct in war. The thousand soldiers from Antium were
dismissed almost with disgrace, because they had come after the battle
too late to render assistance.
The elections were then held: Lucius Aebutius and Publius Servilius
were elected consuls, and entered on their office on the calends of
August[8] according to the practice of beginning the year on that
date. It was an unhealthy season, and it so happened that the year [9]
was pestilential to the city and country, and not more to men than to
cattle; and they themselves increased the severity of the disease by
admitting the cattle and the peasants into the city in consequence of
their dread of devastation. This collection of animals of every kind
mingled together both distressed the inhabitants of the city by the
unusual stench, and also the peasants, crowded together into their
confined dwellings, by heat and want of sleep while their attendance
on each other, and actual contact helped to spread disease. While they
were hardly able to endure the calamities that pressed upon them,
ambassadors from the Hernicans suddenly brought word that the Aequans
and Volscians had united their forces, and pitched their camp in their
territory: that from thence they were devastating their frontiers with
an immense army. In addition to the fact that the small attendance of
the senate was a proof to the allies that the state was prostrated by
the pestilence, they further received this melancholy answer: That the
Hernicans, as well as the Latins, must now defend their possessions by
their own unaided exertions. That the city of Rome, through the sudden
anger of the gods, was ravaged by disease. If any relief from that
calamity should arise, that they would afford aid to their allies,
as they had done the year before, and always on other occasions. The
allies departed, carrying home, instead of the melancholy news they
had brought, news still more melancholy, seeing that they were now
obliged to sustain by their own resources a war, which they would have
with difficulty sustained even if backed by the power of Rome. The
enemy no longer confined themselves to the Hernican territory. They
proceeded thence with determined hostility into the Roman territories,
which were already devastated without the injuries of war. There,
without any one meeting them, not even an unarmed person, they
passed through entire tracts destitute not only of troops, but
even uncultivated, and reached the third milestone on the Gabinian
road.[10] Aebutius, the Roman consul, was dead: his colleague,
Servilius, was dragging out his life with slender hope of recovery;
most of the leading men, the chief part of the patricians, nearly all
those of military age, were stricken down with disease, so that they
not only had not sufficient strength for the expeditions, which amid
such an alarm the state of affairs required, but scarcely even for
quietly mounting guard. Those senators, whose age and health permitted
them, personally discharged the duty of sentinels. The patrol and
general supervision was assigned to the plebeian aediles: on them
devolved the chief conduct of affairs and the majesty of the consular
authority.
The commonwealth thus desolate, since it was without a head, and
without strength, was saved by the guardian gods and good fortune of
the city, which inspired the Volscians and Æquans with the disposition
of freebooters rather than of enemies; for so far were their minds
from entertaining any hope not only of taking but even of approaching
the walls of Rome, and so thoroughly did the sight of the houses in
the distance, and the adjacent hills, divert their thoughts, that, on
a murmur arising throughout the entire camp--why should they waste
time in indolence without booty in a wild and desert land, amid the
pestilence engendered by cattle and human beings, when they could
repair to places as yet unattacked--the Tusculan territory abounding
in wealth? They suddenly pulled up their standards,[11] and, by
cross-country marches, passed through the Lavican territory to the
Tusculan hills: to that quarter the whole violence and storm of the
war was directed. In the meantime the Hernicans and Latins, influenced
not only by compassion but by a feeling of shame, if they neither
opposed the common enemy who were making for the city of Rome with
a hostile army, nor afforded any aid to their allies when besieged,
marched to Rome with united forces. Not finding the enemy there, they
followed their tracks in the direction they were reported to have
taken, and met them as they were coming down from Tusculan territory
into the Alban valley: there a battle was fought under circumstances
by no means equal; and their fidelity proved by no means favourable to
the allies for the time being. The havoc caused by pestilence at Rome
was not less than that caused by the sword among the allies: the only
surviving consul died, as well as other distinguished men, Marcus
Valerius, Titus Verginius Rutilus, augurs: Servius Sulpicius, chief
priest of the curies:[12] while among undistinguished persons the
virulence of the disease spread extensively: and the senate, destitute
of human aid, directed the people's attention to the gods and to vows:
they were ordered to go and offer supplications with their wives and
children, and to entreat the favour of Heaven. Besides the fact that
their own sufferings obliged each to do so, when summoned by public
authority, they filled all the shrines; the prostrate matrons in every
quarter sweeping the temples with their hair, begged for a remission
of the divine displeasure, and a termination to the pestilence.
From this time, whether it was that the favour of the gods was
obtained, or that the more unhealthful season of the year was now
over, the bodily condition of the people, now rid of disease,
gradually began to be more healthy, and their attention being
now directed to public concerns, after the expiration of several
interregna, Publius Valerius Publicola, on the third day after he had
entered on his office of interrex,[13] procured the election of Lucius
Lucretius Tricipitinus, and Titus Veturius (or Vetusius) Geminus, to
the consulship. They entered on their consulship on the third day
before the ides of August,[14] the state being now strong enough
not only to repel a a hostile attack, but even to act itself on the
offensive. Therefore when the Hernicans announced that the enemy had
crossed over into their boundaries, assistance was readily promised:
two consular armies were enrolled. Veturius was sent against the
Volscians to carry on an offensive war. Tricipitinus, being posted to
protect the territory of the allies from devastation, proceeded no
further than into the countryof the Hernicans. Veturius routed and put
the enemy to flight in the first engagement. A party of plunderers,
led over the Praenestine Mountains, and from thence sent down into the
plains, was unobserved by Lucretius, while he lay encamped among the
Hernicans. These laid waste all the countryaround Praeneste and Gabii:
from the Gabinian territory they turned their course toward the
heights of Tusculum; great alarm was excited in the city of Rome also,
more from the suddenness of the affair than because there was not
sufficient strength to repel the attack. Quintus Fabius was in command
of the city; he, having armed the young men and posted guards, made
things secure and tranquil. The enemy, therefore, not venturing to
approach the city, when they were returning by a circuitous route,
carrying off plunder from the adjacent places, their caution being now
more relaxed, in proportion as they removed to a greater distance from
the enemy's city, fell in with the consul Lucretius, who had already
reconnoitred his lines of march, and whose army was drawn up in battle
array and resolved upon an engagement. Accordingly, having attacked
them with predetermined resolution, though with considerably inferior
forces, they routed and put to flight their numerous army, while
smitten with sudden panic, and having driven them into the deep
valleys, where means of egress were not easy, they surrounded them.
There the power of the Volscians was almost entirely annihilated. In
some annals, I find that thirteen thousand four hundred and seventy
fell in battle and in flight that one thousand seven hundred and fifty
were taken alive, that twenty-seven military standards were captured:
and although in accounts there may have been some exaggeration in
regard to numbers, undoubtedly great slaughter took place. The
victorious consul, having obtained immense booty, returned to his
former standing camp. Then the consuls joined camps. The Volscians and
Æquans also united their shattered strength. This was the third battle
in that year; the same good fortune gave them victory; the enemy was
routed, and their camp taken.
Thus the affairs of Rome returned to their former condition; and
successes abroad immediately excited commotions in the city. Gaius
Terentilius Harsa was tribune of the people in that year: he,
considering that an opportunity was afforded for tribunician intrigues
during the absence of the consuls began, after railing against the
arrogance of the patricians for several days before the people, to
inveigh chiefly against the consular authority, as being excessive
and intolerable for a free state: for that in name only was it less
hateful, in reality it was almost more cruel than the authority of the
kings: that forsooth in place of one, two masters had been accepted,
with unbounded and unlimited power, who, themselves unrestrained and
unbridled, directed all the terrors of the law, and all kinds of
punishments against the commons. Now, in order that their unbounded
license might not last forever, he would bring forward a law that five
persons be appointed to draw up laws regarding the consular power, by
which the consul should use that right which the people should have
given him over them, not considering their own caprice and license
as law. Notice having been given of this law, as the patricians were
afraid, lest, in the absence of the consuls, they should be subjected
to the yoke; the senate was convened by Quintus Fabius, prefect of the
city, who inveighed so vehemently against the bill and its proposer
that no kind of threats or intimidation was omitted by him, which both
the consuls could supply, even though they surrounded the tribune in
all their exasperation: That he had lain in wait, and, having seized a
favourable opportunity, had made an attack on the commonwealth. If
the gods in their anger had given them any tribune like him in the
preceding year, during the pestilence and war, it could not have
been endured: that, when both the consuls were dead, and the state
prostrate and enfeebled, in the midst of the general confusion he
would have proposed laws to abolish the consular government altogether
from the state; that he would have headed the Volscians and Æquans in
an attack on the city. What, if the consuls behaved in a tyrannical or
cruel manner against any of the citizens, was it not open to him to
appoint a day of trial for them, to arraign them before those very
judges against any one of whom severity might have been exercised?
That he by his conduct was rendering, not the consular authority, but
the tribunician power hateful and insupportable; which, after having
been in a state of peace, and on good terms with the patricians, was
now being brought back anew to its former mischievous practices; nor
did he beg of him not to proceed as he had begun. "Of you, the other
tribunes," said Fabius, "we beg that you will first of all consider
that that power was appointed for the aid of individuals, not for the
ruin of the community; that you were created tribunes of the commons,
not enemies of the patricians. To us it is distressing, to you
a source of odium, that the republic, now bereft of its chief
magistrates, should be attacked; you will diminish not your rights,
but the odium against you. Confer with your colleague that he may
postpone this business till the arrival of the consuls, to be then
discussed afresh; even the Æquans and the Volscians, when our consuls
were carried off by pestilence last year, did not harass us with a
cruel and tyrannical war." The tribunes conferred with Terentilius,
and the bill being to all appearance deferred, but in reality
abandoned, the consuls were immediately sent for.
Lucretius returned with immense spoil, and much greater glory; and
this glory he increased on his arrival, by exposing all the booty in
the Campus Martius, so that each person might, for the space of three
days, recognise what belonged to him and carry it away; the remainder,
for which no owners were forthcoming, was sold. A triumph was by
universal consent due to the consul; but the matter was deferred, as
the tribune again urged his law; this to the consul seemed of greater
importance. The business was discussed for several days, both in the
senate and before the people: at last the tribune yielded to the
majesty of the consul, and desisted; then their due honour was paid to
the general and his army. He triumphed over the Volscians and Æquans;
his troops followed him in his triumph. The other consul was allowed
to enter the city in ovation[15]unaccompanied by his soldiers.
In the following year the Terentilian law, being brought forward
again by the entire college, engaged the serious attention of the new
consuls, who were Publius Volumnius and Servius Sulpicius. In that
year the sky seemed to be on fire, and a violent earthquake took
place: it was believed that an ox spoke, a phenomenon which had not
been credited in the previous year: among other prodigies there was a
shower of flesh, which a large flock of birds is said to have carried
off by pecking at the falling pieces: that which fell to the ground
is said to have lain scattered about just as it was for several days,
without becoming tainted. The books were consulted[16] by the duumviri
for sacred rites: dangers of attacks to be made on the highest
parts of the city, and of consequent bloodshed, were predicted as
threatening from an assemblage of strangers; among other things,
admonition was given that all intestine disturbances should be
abandoned.[17] The tribunes alleged that that was done to obstruct the
law, and a desperate contest was at hand.
On a sudden, however, that the same order of events might be renewed
each year, the Hernicans announced that the Volscians and the Æquans,
in spite of their strength being much impaired, were recruiting their
armies: that the centre of events was situated at Antium; that the
colonists of Antium openly held councils at Ecetra: that there was the
head--there was the strength--of the war. As soon as this announcement
was made in the senate, a levy was proclaimed: the consuls were
commanded to divide the management of the war between them; that the
Volscians should be the sphere of action of the one, the Æquans of the
other. The tribunes loudly declared openly in the forum that the story
of the Volscian war was nothing but a got-up farce: that the Hernicans
had been trained to act their parts: that the liberty of the Roman
people was now not even crushed by manly efforts, but was baffled by
cunning; because it was now no longer believed that the Volscians and
the Æquans who were almost utterly annihilated, could of themselves
begin hostilities, new enemies were sought for: that a loyal colony,
and one in their very vicinity, was being rendered infamous: that war
was proclaimed against the unoffending people of Antium, in reality
waged with the commons of Rome, whom, loaded with arms, they were
determined to drive out of the city with precipitous haste, wreaking
their vengeance on the tribunes by the exile and expulsion of their
fellow-citizens. That by these means--and let them not think that
there was any other object contemplated--the law was defeated, unless,
while the matter was still in abeyance, while they were still at home
and in the grab of citizens, they took precautions, so as to avoid
being driven out of possession of the city, or being subjected to the
yoke. If they only had spirit, support would not be wanting: that
all the tribunes were unanimous: that there was no apprehension from
abroad, no danger. That the gods had taken care, in the preceding
year that their liberty could be defended with safety. Thus spoke the
tribunes.
But on the other side, the consuls, having placed their chairs[18]
within view of them, were holding the levy; thither the tribunes
hastened down, and carried the assembly along with them; a few [19]
were summoned, as it were, by way of making an experiment, and
instantly violence ensued. Whomsoever the lictor laid hold of by order
of the consul, him the tribune ordered to be released; nor did his own
proper jurisdiction set a limit to each, but they rested their hopes
on force, and whatever they set their mind upon, was to be gained by
violence. Just as the tribunes had behaved in impeding the levy, in
the same manner did the consuls conduct themselves in obstructing the
law which was brought forward on each assembly day. The beginning of
the riot was that the patricians refused to allow themselves to be
moved away, when the tribunes ordered the people to proceed to give
their vote. Scarcely any of the older citizens mixed themselves up
in the affair, inasmuch as it was one that would not be directed by
prudence, but was entirely abandoned to temerity and daring. The
consuls also frequently kept out of the way, lest in the general
confusion they might expose their dignity to insult. There was one
Cæso Quinctius, a youth who prided himself both on the nobility of
his descent, and his bodily stature and strength; to these endowments
bestowed on him by the gods, he himself had added many brave deeds
in war, and eloquence in the forum; so that no one in the state was
considered readier either in speech or action. When he had taken his
place in the midst of a body of the patricians, pre-eminent above
the rest, carrying as it were in his eloquence and bodily strength
dictatorships and consulships combined, he alone withstood the storms
of the tribunes and the populace. Under his guidance the tribunes were
frequently driven from the forum, the commons routed and dispersed;
such as came in his way, came off ill-treated and stripped: so that it
became quite clear that, if he were allowed to proceed in this way,
the law was as good as defeated Then, when the other tribunes were
now almost thrown into despair, Aulus Verginius, one of the colleges,
appointed a day for Cæso to take his trial on a capital charge. By
this proceeding he rather irritated than intimidated his violent
temper: so much the more vigorously did he oppose the law, harass
the commons, and persecute the tribunes, as if in a regular war. The
accuser suffered the accused to rush headlong to his ruin, and to fan
the flame of odium and supply material for the charges he intended to
bring against him: in the meantime he proceeded with the law, not
so much in the hope of carrying it through, as with the object
of provoking rash action on the part of Cæso. After that many
inconsiderate expressions and actions of the younger patricians were
put down to the temper of Cæso alone, owing to the suspicion with
which he was regarded: still the law was resisted. Also Aulus
Verginius frequently remarked to the people: "Are you now sensible,
Quirites that you can not at the same time have Cæso as a
fellow-citizen, and the law which you desire? Though why do I speak
of the law? He is a hindrance to your liberty; he surpasses all the
Tarquins in arrogance. Wait till that man is made consul or dictator,
whom, though but a private citizen, you now see exercising kingly
power by his strength and audacity." Many agreed, complaining that
they had been beaten by him: and, moreover, urged the tribune to go
through with the prosecution.
The day of trial was now at hand, and it was evident that people in
general considered that their liberty depended on the condemnation of
Cæso: then, at length being forced to do so, he solicited the commons
individually, though with a strong feeling of indignation; his
relatives and the principal men of the state attended him. Titus
Quinctius Capitolinus, who had been thrice consul, recounting many
splendid achievements of his own, and of his family, declared that
neither in the Quinctian family, nor in the Roman state, had there
ever appeared such a promising genius displaying such early valour.
That he himself was the first under whom he had served, that he had
often in his sight fought against the enemy. Spurius Furius declared
that Cæso, having been sent to him by Quinctius Capitolinus, had come
to his aid when in the midst of danger; that there was no single
individual by whose exertions he considered the common weal had been
more effectually re-established. Lucius Lucretius, the consul of the
preceding year, in the full splendour of recent glory, shared his own
meritorious services with Cæso; he recounted his battles detailed his
distinguished exploits, both in expeditions and in pitched battle;
he recommended and advised them to choose rather that a youth so
distinguished, endowed with all the advantages of nature and fortune,
and one who should prove the greatest support of whatsoever state he
should visit, should continue to be a fellow-citizen of their own,
rather than become the citizen of a foreign state: that with respect
to those qualities which gave offence in him, hot-headedness and
overboldness, they were such as increasing years removed more and more
every day: that what was lacking, prudence, increased day by day: that
as his faults declined, and his virtues ripened, they should allow so
distinguished a man to grow old in the state. Among these his father,
Lucius Quinctius, who bore the surname of Cincinnatus, without
dwelling too often on his services, so as not to heighten public
hatred, but soliciting pardon for his youthful errors, implored them
to forgive his son for his sake, who had not given offence to any
either by word or deed. But while some, through respect or fear,
turned away from his entreaties, others, by the harshness of their
answer, complaining that they and their friends had been ill-treated,
made no secret of what their decision would be.
Independently of the general odium, one charge in particular bore
heavily on the accused; that Marcus Volscius Fictor, who some years
before had been tribune of the people, had come forward to bear
testimony: that not long after the pestilence had raged in the city,
he had fallen in with a party of young men rioting in the Subura;[20]
that a scuffle had taken place: and that his elder brother, not yet
perfectly recovered from his illness, had been knocked down by Cæso
with a blow of his fist: that he had been carried home half dead in
the arms of some bystanders, and that he was ready to declare that
he had died from the blow: and that he had not been permitted by
the consuls of former years to obtain redress for such an atrocious
affair. In consequence of Volscius vociferating these charges, the
people became so excited that Cæso was near being killed through the
violence of the crowd. Verginius ordered him to be seized and dragged
off to prison. The patricians opposed force to force. Titus Quinctius
exclaimed that a person for whom a day of trial for a capital offence
had been appointed, and whose trial was now close at hand, ought not
to be outraged before he was condemned, and without a hearing. The
tribune replied that he would not inflict punishment on him before he
was condemned: that he would, however, keep him in prison until the
day of trial, that the Roman people might have an opportunity of
inflicting punishment on one who had killed a man.[21] The tribunes
being appealed to, got themselves out of the difficulty in regard to
their prerogative of rendering aid, by a resolution that adopted a
middle course: they forbade his being thrown into confinement, and
declared it to be their wish that the accused should be brought to
trial, and that a sum of money should be promised to the people,
in case he should not appear. How large a sum of money ought to be
promised was a matter of doubt: the decision was accordingly referred
to the senate. The accused was detained in public custody until the
patricians should be consulted: it was decided that bail should be
given: they bound each surety in the sum of three thousand asses; how
many sureties should be given was left to the tribunes; they fixed the
number at ten: on this number of sureties the prosecutor admitted the
accused to bail.[22] He was the first who gave public sureties. Being
discharged from the forum, he went the following night into exile
among the Tuscans. When on the day of trial it was pleaded that he
had withdrawn into voluntary exile, nevertheless, at a meeting of
the comitia under the presidency of Verginius, his colleagues, when
appealed to, dismissed the assembly: [23] the fine was rigorously
exacted from his father, so that, having sold all his effects, he
lived for a considerable time in an out-of-the-way cottage on the
other side of the Tiber, as if in exile.
This trial and the proposal of the law gave full employment to the
state: in regard to foreign wars there was peace. When the tribunes,
as if victorious, imagined that the law was all but passed owing to
the dismay of the patricians at the banishment of Cæso, and in
fact, as far as regarded the seniors of the patricians, they had
relinquished all share in the administration of the commonwealth, the
juniors, more especially those who were the intimate friends of Cæso,
redoubled their resentful feelings against the commons, and did not
allow their spirits to fail; but the greatest improvement was made
in this particular, that they tempered their animosity by a certain
degree of moderation. The first time when, after Cseso's banishment,
the law began to be brought forward, these, arrayed and well prepared,
with a numerous body of clients, so attacked the tribunes, as soon as
they afforded a pretext for it by attempting to remove them, that no
one individual carried home from thence a greater share than another,
either of glory or ill-will, but the people complained that in place
of one Cæso a thousand had arisen. During the days that intervened,
when the tribunes took no proceedings regarding the law, nothing could
be more mild or peaceable than those same persons; they saluted the
plebeians courteously, entered into conversation with them, and
invited them home: they attended them in the forum,[24] and suffered
the tribunes themselves to hold the rest of their meetings without
interruption: they were never discourteous to any one either in public
or in private, except on occasions when the matter of the law began
to be agitated. In other respects the young men were popular. And
not only did the tribunes transact all their other affairs without
disturbance, but they were even re-elected or the following year.
Without even an offensive expression, much less any violence being
employed, but by soothing and carefully managing the commons the young
patricians gradually rendered them tractable. By these artifices the
law was evaded through the entire year.
The consuls Gaius Claudius, the son of Appius, and Publius Valerius
Publicola, took over the government from their predecessors in a more
tranquil condition. The next year had brought with it nothing new:
thoughts about carrying the law, or submitting to it, engrossed the
attention of the state. The more the younger patricians strove
to insinuate themselves into favour with the plebeians, the more
strenuously did the tribunes strive on the other hand to render them
suspicious in the eyes of the commons by alleging that a conspiracy
had been formed; that Cæso was in Rome; that plans had been concerted
for assassinating the tribunes, for butchering the commons. That the
commission assigned by the elder members of the patricians was, that
the young men should abolish the tribunician power from the state, and
the form of government should be the same as it had been before the
occupation of the Sacred Mount. At the same time a war from the
Volscians and Æquans, which had now become a fixed and almost regular
occurrence every year, was apprehended, and another evil nearer home
started up unexpectedly. Exiles and slaves, to the number of two
thousand five hundred, seized the Capitol and citadel during the
night, under the command of Appius Herdonius, a Sabine. Those who
refused to join the conspiracy and take up arms with them were
immediately massacred in the citadel: others, during the disturbance,
fled in headlong panic down to the forum: the cries, "To arms!" and
"The enemy are in the city!" were heard alternately. The consuls
neither dared to arm the commons, nor to suffer them to remain
unarmed; uncertain what sudden calamity had assailed the city, whether
from without or within, whether arising from the hatred of the commons
or the treachery of the slaves: they tried to quiet the disturbances,
and while trying to do so they sometimes aroused them; for the
populace, panic-stricken and terrified, could not be directed by
authority. They gave out arms, however, but not indiscriminately; only
so that, as it was yet uncertain who the enemy were, there might be
a protection sufficiently reliable to meet all emergencies. The
remainder of the night they passed in posting guards in suitable
places throughout the city, anxious and uncertain who the enemy were,
and how great their number. Daylight subsequently disclosed the war
and its leader. Appius Herdonius summoned the slaves to liberty from
the Capitol, saying, that he had espoused the cause of all the most
unfortunate, in order to bring back to their country those who had
been exiled and driven out by wrong, and to remove the grievous yoke
from the slaves: that he had rather that were done under the authority
of the Roman people. If there were no hope in that quarter, he would
rouse the Volscians and Aequans, and would try even the most desperate
remedies.
The whole affair now began to be clearer to the patricians and
consuls; besides the news, however, which was officially announced,
they dreaded lest this might be a scheme of the Veientines or Sabines;
and, further, as there were so many of the enemy in the city, lest
the Sabine and Etruscan troops might presently come up according to
a concerted plan, and their inveterate enemies, the Volscians and
Aequans should come, not to ravage their territories, as before, but
even to the gates of the city, as being already in part taken. Many
and various were their fears, the most prominent among which was their
dread of the slaves, lest each should harbour an enemy in his own
house, one whom it was neither sufficiently safe to trust, nor, by
distrusting, to pronounce unworthy of confidence, lest he might prove
a more deadly foe. And it scarcely seemed that the evil could be
resisted by harmony: no one had any fear of tribunes or commons, while
other troubles so predominated and threatened to swamp the state: that
fear seemed an evil of a mild nature, and one that always arose during
the cessation of other ills, and then appeared to be lulled to rest
by external alarm. Yet at the present time that, almost more than
anything else, weighed heavily on their sinking fortunes: for such
madness took possession of the tribunes, that contended that not war,
but an empty appearance of war, had taken possession of the Capitol,
to divert the people's minds from attending to the law: that these
friends and clients of the patricians would depart in deeper silence
than they had come, if they once perceived that, by the law being
passed, they had raised these tumults in vain. They then held a
meeting for passing the law, having called away the people from arms.
In the meantime, the consuls convened the senate, another dread
presenting itself by the action of the tribunes, greater than that
which the nightly foe had occasioned.
When it was announced that the men were laying aside their arms, and
quitting their posts, Publius Valerius, while his colleague still
detained the senate, hastened from the senate-house, and went thence
into the meeting-place to the tribunes. "What is all this," said he,
"O tribunes? Are you determined to overthrow the commonwealth under
the guidance and auspices of Appius Herdonius? Has he been so
successful in corrupting you, he who, by his authority, has not even
influenced your slaves? When the enemy is over our heads, is it your
pleasure that we should give up our arms, and laws be proposed?" Then,
directing his words to the populace: "If, Quirites, no concern for
your city, or for yourselves, moves you, at least revere the gods
of your country, now made captive by the enemy. Jupiter, best
and greatest, Queen Juno, and Minerva, and the other gods and
goddesses,[25] are being besieged; a camp of slaves now holds
possession of the tutelary gods of the state. Does this seem to you
the behavior of a state in its senses? Such a crowd of enemies is not
only within the walls, but in the citadel, commanding the forum an
senate-house: in the meanwhile meetings are being held in the forum,
the senate is in the senate-house: just as when tranquility prevails,
the senator gives his opinion, the other Romans their votes. Does it
not behoove all patricians and plebeians, consuls, tribunes, gods, and
men of all classes, to bring aid with arms in their hands, to hurry
into the Capitol, to liberate and restore to peace that most august
residence of Jupiter, best and greatest? O Father Romulus! Do thou
inspire thy progeny with that determination of thine, by which thou
didst formerly recover from these same Sabines this citadel, when
captured by gold. Order them to pursue this same path, which thou, as
leader, and thy army, pursued. Lo! I as consul will be the first to
follow thee and thy footsteps, as far as I, a mortal, can follow a
god." Then, in concluding his speech, he said that he was ready to
take up arms, that he summoned every citizen of Rome to arms; if any
one should oppose, that he, heedless of the consular authority, the
tribunician power, and the devoting laws, would consider him as an
enemy, whoever and wheresoever he might be, in the Capitol, or in the
forum. Let the tribunes order arms to be taken up against Publius
Valerius the consul, since they forbade it against Appius Herdonius;
that he would dare to act in the case of the tribunes, as the founder
of his family [26] had dared to act in the case of the kings. It was
now clear that matters would come to violent extremities, and that a
quarrel among Romans would be exhibited to the enemy. The law however
could neither be carried, nor could the consul proceed to the Capitol.
Night put an end to the struggle that had been begun; the tribunes
yielded to the night, dreading the arms of the consuls.[27] When the
ringleaders of the disturbances had been removed, the patricians went
about among the commons, and, mingling in their meetings, spread
statements suited to the occasion: they advised them to take heed into
what danger they were bringing the commonwealth: that the contest
was not one between patricians and commons, but that patricians and
commons together, the fortress of the city, the temples of the gods,
the guardian gods of the state and of private families, were being
delivered up to the enemy. While these measures were being taken in
the forum for the purpose of appeasing the disturbances, the consuls
in the meantime had retired to visit the gates and the walls, fearing
that the Sabines or the Veientine enemy might bestir themselves.
During the same night, messengers reached Tusculum with news of the
capture of the citadel, the seizure of the Capitol, and also of the
generally disturbed condition of the city. Lucius Mamilius was at that
time dictator at Tusculum; he, having immediately convoked the senate
and introduced the messengers, earnestly advised, that they should not
wait until ambassadors came from Rome, suing for assistance; that the
danger itself and importance of the crisis, the gods of allies, and
the good faith of treaties, demanded it; that the gods would never
afford them a like opportunity of obliging so powerful a state and so
near a neighbour. It was resolved that assistance should be sent the
young men were enrolled, and arms given them. On their way to Rome at
break of day, at a distance they exhibited the appearance of enemies.
The Æquans or Volscians were thought to be coming. Then, after the
groundless alarm was removed, they were admitted into the city and
descended in a body into the forum. There Publius Valerius, having
left his colleague with the guards of the gates, was now drawing up
his forces in order of battle. The great influence of the man produced
an effect on the people, when he declared that, when the Capitol was
recovered, and the city restored to peace, if they allowed themselves
to be convinced what hidden guile was contained in the law proposed by
the tribunes, he, mindful of his ancestors, mindful of his surname,
and remembering that the duty of protecting the people had been handed
down to him as hereditary by his ancestors, would offer no obstruction
to the meeting of the people. Following him, as their leader, in spite
of the fruitless opposition of the tribunes, they marched up the
ascent of the Capitoline Hill. The Tusculan troops also joined them.
Allies and citizens vied with each other as to which of them should
appropriate to themselves the honour of recovering the citadel. Each
leader encouraged his own men. Then the enemy began to be alarmed, and
placed no dependence on anything but their position. While they were
in this state of alarm, the Romans and allies advanced to attack them.
They had already burst into the porch of the temple, when Publius
Valerius was slain while cheering on the fight at the head of his men.
Publius Volumnius, a man of consular rank, saw him falling. Having
directed his men to cover the body, he himself rushed forward to
take the place and duty of the consul. Owing to their excitement and
impetuosity, this great misfortune passed unnoticed by the soldiers,
they conquered before they perceived that they were fighting without a
leader. Many of the exiles defiled the temple with their blood; many
were taken prisoners: Herdonius was slain. Thus the Capitol was
recovered. With respect to the prisoners, punishment was inflicted on
each according to his station, as he was a freeman or a slave. The
Tusculans received the thanks of the Romans: the Capitol was cleansed
and purified. The commons are stated to have thrown every man a
farthing into the consul's house, that he might be buried with more
splendid obsequies.
Order being thus established, the tribunes then urged the patricians
to fulfill the Promise given by Publius Valerius; they pressed on
Claudius to free the shade of his colleague from breach of faith, and
to allow the matter of the law to proceed. The consul asserted that he
would not suffer the discussion of the law to proceed, until he had
appointed a colleague to assist him. These disputes lasted until the
time of the elections for the substitution of a consul. In the month
of December, by the most strenuous exertions of the patricians, Lucius
Quinctius Cincinnatus, Caeso's father, was elected consul, to enter
upon office without delay. The commons were dismayed at being about to
have for consul a man incensed against them, powerful by the support
of the patricians, by his own merit, and by reason of his three sons,
not one of whom was inferior to Caeso in greatness of spirit, while
they were his superiors in the exercise of prudence and moderation,
whenever occasion required. When he entered upon office, in his
frequent harangues from the tribunal, he was not more vehement in
restraining the commons than in reproving the senate, owing to the
listlessness of which body the tribunes of the commons, now become a
standing institution, exercised regal authority, by means of their
readiness of speech and prosecutions, not as if in a republic of the
Roman people, but as if in an ill-regulated household. That with his
son Caeso, valour, constancy, all the splendid qualifications of youth
in war and in peace, had been driven and exiled from the city of Rome:
that talkative and turbulent men, sowers of discord, twice and even
thrice re-elected tribunes by the vilest intrigues, lived in the
enjoyment of regal irresponsibility. "Does that Aulus Verginius," said
he, "deserve less punishment than Appius Herdonius, because he was not
in the Capitol? Considerably more, by Hercules, if any one will look
at the matter fairly. Herdonius, if nothing else, by avowing himself
an enemy, thereby as good as gave you notice to take up arms: this
man, by denying the existence of war, took arms out of your hands, and
exposed you defenceless to the attack of slaves and exiles. And did
you--I will speak with all due respect for Gaius Claudius and
Publius Valerius, now no more--did you decide to advance against the
Capitoline Hill before you expelled those enemies from the forum? I
feel ashamed in the sight of gods and men. When the enemy were in the
citadel, in the Capitol, when the leader of the exiles and slaves,
after profaning everything, took up his residence in the shrine of
Jupiter, best and greatest, arms were taken up at Tusculum sooner
than at Rome. It was a matter of doubt whether Lucius Mamilius, the
Tusculan leader, or Publius Valerius and Gaius Claudius, the consuls,
recovered the Roman citadel, and we, who formerly did not suffer the
Latins to touch arms, not even in their own defence, when they had the
enemy on their very frontiers, should have been taken and destroyed
now, had not the Latins taken up arms of their own accord. Tribunes,
is this bringing aid to the commons, to expose them in a defenceless
state to be butchered by the enemy? I suppose, if any one, even the
humblest individual of your commons--which portion you have as it were
broken off from the rest of the state, and created a country and a
commonwealth of your own--if any one of these were to bring you word
that his house was beset by an armed band of slaves, you would think
that assistance should be afforded him: was then Jupiter, best
and greatest, when hemmed in by the arms of exiles and of slaves,
deserving of no human aid? And do these persons claim to be considered
sacred and inviolable, to whom the gods themselves are neither sacred
nor inviolable? Well but, loaded as you are with crimes against both
gods and men, you proclaim that you will pass your law this year.
Verily then, on the day I was created consul, it was a disastrous act
of the state, much more so even than the day when Publius Valerius
the consul fell, if you shall pass it. Now, first of all," said he,
"Quirites, it is the intention of myself and of my colleague to march
the legions against the Volscians and the Aequans. I know not by what
fatality we find the gods more propitious when we are at war than in
peace. How great the danger from those states would have been, had
they known that the Capitol was besieged by exiles, it is better to
conjecture from what is past, than to learn by actual experience."
The consul's harangue had a great effect on the commons: the
patricians, recovering their spirits, believed the state
re-established. The other consul, a more ardent partner than promoter
of a measure, readily allowing his colleague to take the lead in
measures of such importance, claimed to himself his share of the
consular duty in carrying these measures into execution. Then the
tribunes, mocking these declarations as empty, went on to ask how the
consuls were going to lead out an army, seeing that no one would allow
them to hold a levy? "But," replied Quinctius, "we have no need of a
levy, since, at the time Publius Valerius gave arms to the commons to
recover the Capitol, they all took an oath to him, that they would
assemble at the command of the consul, and would not depart without
his permission. We therefore publish an order that all of you, who
have sworn, attend to-morrow under arms at the Lake Regillus." The
tribunes then began to quibble, and wanted to absolve the people from
their obligation, asserting that Quinctius was a private person at the
time when they were bound by the oath. But that disregard of the gods,
which possesses the present generation, had not yet gained ground:
nor did every one accommodate oaths and laws to his own purposes, by
interpreting them as it suited him, but rather adapted his own conduct
to them. Wherefore the tribunes, as there was no hope of obstructing
the matter, attempted to delay the departure of the army the more
earnestly on this account, because a report had gone out, both that
the augurs had been ordered to attend at the Lake Regillius and that a
place was to be consecrated, where business might be transacted with
the people by auspices: and whatever had been passed at Rome by
tribunician violence, might be repealed there in the assembly.[28]
That all would order what the consuls desired: for that there was no
appeal at a greater distance than a mile [29] from the city: and that
the tribunes, if they should come there, would, like the rest of the
Quirites, be subjected to the consular authority. This alarmed them:
but the greatest anxiety which affected their minds was because
Quinctius frequently declared that he would not hold an election of
consuls. That the malady of the state was not of an ordinary nature,
so that it could be stopped by the ordinary remedies. That the
commonwealth required a dictator, so that whoever attempted to disturb
the condition of the state, might feel that from the dictatorship
there was no appeal.
The senate was assembled in the Capitol. Thither the tribunes came
with the commons in a state of great consternation: the multitude,
with loud clamours, implored the protection, now of the consuls,
now of the patricians: nor could they move the consul from his
determination, until the tribunes promised that they would submit to
the authority of the senate. Then, on the consul's laying before them
the demands of the tribunes and commons, decrees of the senate were
passed: that neither should the tribunes propose the law during that
year, nor should the consuls lead out the army from the city--that,
for the future, the senate decided that it was against the interests
of the commonwealth that the same magistrates should be continued
and the same tribunes be reappointed. The consuls conformed to
the authority of the senate: the tribunes were reappointed,
notwithstanding the remonstrance of the consuls. The patricians also,
that they might not yield to the commons in any particular, themselves
proposed to re-elect Lucius Quinctius consul. No address of the consul
was delivered with greater warmth during the entire year. "Can I be
surprised," said he, "if your authority with the people is held in
contempt, O conscript fathers? It is you yourselves who are weakening
it. Forsooth, because the commons have violated a decree of the
senate, by reappointing their magistrates, you yourselves also wish
it to be violated, that you may not be outdone by the populace in
rashness; as if greater power in the state consisted in the possession
of greater inconstancy and liberty of action; for it is certainly more
inconstant and greater folly to render null and void one's own decrees
and resolutions, than those of others. Do you, O conscript fathers,
imitate the unthinking multitude; and do you, who should be an example
to others, prefer to transgress by the example of others, rather
than that others should act rightly by yours, provided only I do not
imitate the tribunes, nor allow myself to be declared consul, contrary
to the decree of the senate. But as for you, Gaius Claudius, I
recommend that you, as well as myself, restrain the Roman people from
this licentious spirit, and that you be persuaded of this, as far as I
am concerned, that I shall take it in such a spirit, that I shall not
consider that my attainment of office has been obstructed by you, but
that the glory of having declined the honour has been augmented, and
the odium, which would threaten me if it were continued, lessened."
Thereupon they issued this order jointly: That no one should support
the election of Lucius Quinctius as consul: if any one should do so,
that they would not allow the vote.
The consuls elected were Quintus Fabius Vibulanus (for the third
time), and Lucius Cornelius Maluginensis. The census was taken during
that year; it was a matter of religious scruple that the lustrum
should be closed, on account of the seizure of the Capitol and the
death of the consul. In the consulship of Quintus Fabius and Lucius
Cornelius, disturbances woke out immediately at the beginning of
the year. The tribunes were urging on the commons. The Latins and
Hernicans brought word that a formidable war was threatening on the
part of the Volscians and Æquans; that the troops of the Volscians
were now in the neighbourhood of Antium. Great apprehension was also
entertained, that the colony itself would revolt: and with difficulty
the tribunes were prevailed upon to allow the war to be attended to
first. The consuls divided their respective spheres of action. Fabius
was commissioned to march the legions to Antium: to Cornelius was
assigned the duty of keeping guard at Rome, lest any portion of the
enemy's troops, as was the practice of the Aequans, should advance to
commit depredations. The Hernicans and Latins were ordered to supply
soldiers in accordance with the treaty; and of the army two thirds
consisted of allies, the remainder of Roman citizens. When the allies
arrived on the appointed day, the consul pitched his camp outside the
porta Capena.[30] Then, after the army had been reviewed, he set out
for Antium, and encamped not far from the town and fixed quarters
of the enemy. There, when the Volscians, not venturing to risk an
engagement, because the contingent from the Aequans had not yet
arrived, were making preparations to see how they might protect
themselves quietly within their ramparts, on the following day Fabius
drew up not one mixed army of allies and citizens, but three bodies
of the three states separately around the enemy's works. He himself
occupied the centre with the Roman legions. He ordered them to watch
for the signal for action, so that at the same time both the allies
might begin the action together, and retire together if he should give
orders to sound a retreat. He also posted the proper cavalry of each
division behind the front line. Having thus assailed the camp at three
different points, he surrounded it: and, pressing on from every side,
he dislodged the Volscians, who were unable to withstand his attack,
from the rampart. Having then crossed the fortifications, he drove out
from the camp the crowd who were panic-stricken and inclining to make
for one direction. Upon this the cavalry, who could not have easily
passed over the rampart, having stood by till then as mere spectators
of the fight, came up with them while flying in disorder over the
open plain, and enjoyed a share of the victory, by cutting down the
affrighted troops. Great was the slaughter of the fugitives, both
in the camp and outside the lines; but the booty was still greater,
because the enemy were scarcely able to carry off their arms with
them; and the entire army would have been destroyed, had not the woods
covered them in their flight.
While these events were taking place at Antium, the Aequans, in the
meanwhile, sending forward the flower of their youth surprised the
citadel of Tusculum by night: and with the rest of their army sat down
at no great distance from the walls of Tusculutn, so as to divide the
forces of the enemy.[31] News of this being quickly brought to Rome,
and from Rome to the camp at Antium, affected the Romans no less than
if it had been announced that the Capitol was taken; so recent was
the service rendered by the Tusculans, and the very similarity of the
danger seemed to demand a return of the aid that had been afforded.
Fabius, giving up all thought of everything else, removed the booty
hastily from the camp to Antium: and, having left a small garrison
there, hurried on his army by forced marches to Tusculum. The soldiers
were allowed to take with them nothing but their arms, and whatever
baked provision was at hand. The consul Cornelius sent up provisions
from Rome. The war was carried on at Tusculum for several months. With
one part of his army the consul assailed the camp of the Aequans;
he had given part to the Tusculans to aid in the recovery of their
citadel. They could never have made their way up to it by force: at
length famine caused the enemy to withdraw from it. When matters
subsequently came to extremities, they were all sent under the yoke,
[32] by the Tusculans, unarmed and naked. While returning home in
ignominious flight, they were overtaken by the Roman consul at
Algidum, and cut to pieces to a man.[33] After this victory, having
marched back his army to Columen (so is the place named), he pitched
his camp there. The other consul also, as soon as the Roman walls
ceased to be in danger, now that the enemy had been defeated, set out
from Rome. Thus the consuls, having entered the territories of the
enemies on two different sides, in eager rivalry plundered the
territory of the Volscians on the one hand, and of the Aequans on the
other. I find it stated by several writers that the people of Antium
revolted during the same year. That Lucius Cornelius, the consul,
conducted that war and took the town; I would not venture to assert
it for certain, because no mention is made of the matter in the older
writers.
This war being concluded, a tribunician war at home alarmed the
senate. The tribunes held that the detention of the army abroad was
due to a fraudulent motive: that that deception was intended to
prevent the passing of the law; that they, however, would none
the less go through with the matter they had undertaken. Publius
Lucretius, however, the prefect of the city, so far prevailed, that
the proceedings of the tribunes were postponed till the arrival of the
consuls. A new cause of disturbance had also arisen. The quæstors,
[34] Aulus Cornelius and Quintus Servilius, appointed a day of trial
for Marcus Volscius, because he had come forward as a manifestly false
witness against Caeso. For it was established by many proofs, that the
brother of Volscius, from the time he first fell ill, had not only
never been seen in public, but that he had not even left his bed after
he had been attacked by illness, and that he had died of a wasting
disease of several months' standing; and that at the time to which the
witness had referred the commission of the crime, Caeso had not
been seen at Rome: while those who had served in the army with him
positively stated that at that time he had regularly attended at his
post along with them without any leave of absence. Many, on their own
account, proposed to Volscius to refer the matter to the decision of
an arbitrator. As he did not venture to go to trial, all these points
coinciding rendered the condemnation of Volscius no less certain than
that of Caeso had been on the testimony of Volscius. The tribunes were
the cause of delay, who said that they would not suffer the quæstors
to hold the assembly concerning the accused, unless it were first held
concerning the law. Thus both matters were spun out till the arrival
of the consuls. When they entered the city in triumph with their
victorious army, because nothing was said about the law, many thought
that the tribunes were struck with dismay. But they in reality (for
it was now the close of the year), being eager to obtain a fourth
tribuneship, had turned away their efforts from the law to the
discussion of the elections; and when the consuls, with the object of
lessening their dignity, opposed the continuation of their tribuneship
with no less earnestness than if the law in question had been
proposed, the victory in the contest was on the side of the tribunes.
In the same year peace was granted to the Aequans on their suing for
it. The census, begun in the preceding year, was completed: this is
said to have been the tenth lustrum that was completed from the date
of the foundation of the city. The number of citizens rated was one
hundred and seventeen thousand three hundred and nineteen. The consuls
obtained great glory this year both at home and in war, because they
established peace abroad, while at home, though the state was not in a
condition of absolute harmony, yet it was less harassed by dissensions
than at other times.
Lucius Minucius and Gaius Nautius being next elected consuls took up
the two causes which remained undecided from the preceding year. As
before, the consuls obstructed the law, the tribunes the trial of
Volscius: but in the new quæstors there was greater power and greater
influence. With Marcus Valerius, son of Manius and grandson of Volesus
Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, who had been thrice consul, was appointed
quaestor. Since Caeso could neither be restored to the Quinctian
family, nor to the state, though a most promising youth, did he,
justly, and as in duty bound, prosecute the false witness who had
deprived an innocent person of the power of pleading his cause. When
Verginius, more than any of the tribunes, busied himself about the
passing of the law, the space of two months was allowed the consuls to
examine into the law: on condition that, when they had satisfied the
people as to what secret designs were concealed under it, [35] they
should then allow them to give their votes. The granting of this
respite established tranquility in the city. The Aequans, however, did
not allow them long rest: in violation of the treaty which had been
made with the Romans the year before, they conferred the chief command
on Gracchus Cloelius. He was then by far the chief man among the
Aequans. Under the command of Gracchus they advanced with hostile
depredations into the district of Labici, from thence into that of
Tusculum, and, laden with booty, pitched their camp at Algidum. To
that camp came Quintus Fabius, Publius Volumnius, Aulus Postumius,
ambassadors from Rome, to complain of the wrongs committed, and to
demand restitution in accordance with the treaty. The general of the
Aequans commanded them to deliver to the oak the message they brought
from the Roman senate; that he in the meantime would attend to
other matters. An oak, a mighty tree, whose shade formed a cool
resting-place, overhung the general's tent. Then one of the
ambassadors, when departing, cried out: "Let both this consecrated oak
and all the gods hear that the treaty has been broken by you, and
both lend a favourable ear to our complaints now, and assist our arms
presently, when we shall avenge the rights of gods and men that have
been violated simultaneously." As soon as the ambassadors returned
to Rome, the senate ordered one of the consuls to lead his army into
Algidum against Gracchus, to the other they assigned as his sphere of
action the devastation of the country of the Aequans. The tribunes,
after their usual manner, attempted to obstruct the levy, and probably
would have eventually succeeded in doing so, had not a new and
additional cause of alarm suddenly arisen.
A large force of Sabines, committing dreadful devastation advanced
almost up to the walls of the city. The fields were laid waste, the
city was smitten with terror. Then the commons cheerfully took up
arms; two large armies were raised, the remonstrance of the tribunes
being of no avail. Nautius led one against the Sabines, and, having
pitched his camp at Eretum,[36] by trifling incursions, mostly by
night, he so desolated the Sabine territory that, in comparison with
it, the Roman borders seemed almost undamaged by the war. Minucius
neither had the same good fortune nor displayed the same energy in
conducting his operations: for after he had pitched his camp at no
great distance from the enemy, without having experienced any reverse
of importance, he kept himself through fear within the camp. When the
enemy perceived this, their boldness increased, as usually happens,
from the fears of others; and, having attacked his camp by night, when
open force availed little, they drew lines of circumvallation around
it on the following day. Before these could close the means of egress,
by a rampart thrown up on all sides, five horsemen, despatched between
the enemies' posts, brought news to Rome, that the consul and his
army were besieged. Nothing could have happened so unexpected nor so
unlooked-for. Accordingly, the panic and the alarm were as great as
if the enemy were besieging the city, not the camp. They summoned
the consul Nautius; and when there seemed to be but insufficient
protection in him, and it was determined that a dictator should be
appointed to retrieve their shattered fortunes, Lucius Quinctius
Cincinnatus was appointed by universal consent.
It is worth while for those persons who despise all things human in
comparison with riches, and who suppose that there is no room either
for exalted honour, or for virtue, except where riches abound in great
profusion, to listen to the following: Lucius Quinctius, the sole hope
of the empire of the Roman people, cultivated a farm of four acres on
the other side of the Tiber, which is called the Quinctian meadows,
exactly opposite the place where the dock-yard now is. There, whether
leaning on a stake while digging a trench, or while ploughing, at any
rate, as is certain, while engaged on some work in the fields, after
mutual exchange of salutations had taken place, being requested by
the ambassadors to put on his toga, and listen to the commands of the
senate (with wishes that it might turn out well both for him and the
commonwealth), he was astonished, and, asking whether all was well,
bade his wife Racilia immediately bring his toga from the hut. As soon
as he had put it on and come forward, after having first wiped off the
dust and sweat, the ambassadors congratulating him, united in saluting
him as dictator: they summoned him into the city, and told him what
terror prevailed in the army. A vessel was prepared for Quinctius by
order of the government, and his three sons, having come out to
meet him, received him on landing at the other side; then his other
relatives and his friends: then the greater part of the patricians.
Accompanied by this numerous attendance, the lictors going before him,
he was conducted to his residence.[37] There was a numerous concourse
of the commons also: but they by no means looked on Quinctius with the
same satisfaction, as they considered both that he was vested with
excessive authority, and was likely to prove still more arbitrary
by the exercise of that same authority. During that night, however,
nothing was done except that guards were posted in the city.
On the next day the dictator, having entered the forum before
daylight, appointed as his master of the horse Lucius Tarquitius, a
man of patrician family, but who, though he had served his campaigns
on foot by reason of his scanty means, was yet considered by far the
most capable in military matters among the Roman youth. With his
master of the horse he entered the assembly, proclaimed a suspension
of public business, ordered the shops to be closed throughout the
city, and forbade any one to attend to any private affairs. Then he
commanded all who were of military age to attend under arms, in the
Campus Martius, before sunset, with dressed provisions for five days
and twelve stakes apiece: those whose age rendered them unfit for
active service were ordered to prepare victuals for the soldiers near
them, while the latter were getting their arms ready, and procuring
stakes. Accordingly, the young men ran in all directions to procure
the stakes; they took them whatever was nearest to each: no one
was prevented from doing so: all attended readily according to the
dictator's order. Then, the troops being drawn up, not more suitably
for a march than for an engagement, should occasion require it, the
dictator himself marched at the head of the legions, the master of the
horse at the head of his cavalry. In both bodies such exhortations
were delivered as circumstances required: that they should quicken
their pace; that there was need of despatch, that they might reach the
enemy by night; that the consul and the Roman army were besieged; that
they had now been shut up for three days; that it was uncertain what
each day or night might bring with it; that the issues of the most
important affairs often depended on a moment of time. The soldiers, to
please their leaders, exclaimed among themselves: "Standard-bearer,
hasten; follow, soldier." At midnight they reached Algidum: and, as
soon as they perceived that they were near the enemy, they halted.
There the dictator, riding about, and having observe as far as could
be ascertained by night, what the extent of the camp was, and what
was its nature, commanded the tribunes of the soldiers to order the
baggage to be thrown into one place, and that the soldiers with their
arms and bundles of stakes should return to their ranks. His orders
were executed. Then, with the regularity which they had observed on
the march, he drew the entire army in a long column around the enemy's
camp, and directed that, when the signal was given, they should all
raise a shout, and that, on the shout being raised, each man should
throw up a trench before his post, and fix his palisade. The orders
being issued, the signal followed: the soldiers carried out their
instructions; the shout echoed around the enemy: it then passed beyond
the camp of the enemy, and reached that of the consul: in the one it
occasioned panic, in the other great joy. The Romans, observing
to each other with exultation that this was the shout of their
countrymen, and that aid was at hand, took the initiative, and from
their watch-guards and outposts dismayed the enemy. The consul
declared that there must be no delay; that by that shouts not only
their arrival was intimated, but that hostilities were already begun
by their friends; and that it would be a wonder if the enemy's camp
were not attacked on the farther side. He therefore ordered his men to
take up arms and follow him. The battle was begun during the night.
They gave notice by a shout to the dictator's legions that on that
side also the decisive moment had arrived. The AEquans were now
preparing to prevent the works from being drawn around them, when,
the battle being begun by the enemy from within, having turned their
attention from those employed on the fortifications to those who were
fighting on the inside, lest a sally should be made through the centre
of their camp, they left the night free for the completion of the
work, and continued the fight with the consul till daylight. At
daybreak they were now encompassed by the dictator's works, and were
scarcely able to maintain the fight against one army. Then their lines
were attacked by the army of Quinctius, which, immediately after
completing its work, returned to arms. Here a new engagement pressed
on them: the former one had in no wise slackened. Then, as the danger
that beset them on both sides pressed them hard, turning from fighting
to entreaties, they implored the dictator on the one hand, the consul
on the other, not to make the victory their total destruction, and to
suffer them to depart without arms. They were ordered by the consul to
apply to the dictator: he, incensed against them, added disgrace to
defeat. He gave orders that Gracchus Cloelius, their general, and the
other leaders should be brought to him in chains, and that the town of
Corbio should be evacuated; he added that he did not desire the
lives of the Æquans: that they were at liberty to depart; but that
a confession might at last be wrung from them that their nation was
defeated and subdued, they would have to pass under the yoke. The yoke
was formed of three spears, two fixed in the ground, and one tied
across between the upper ends of them. Under this yoke the dictator
sent the Æquans.
The enemy's camp, which was full of all their belongings--for he
had sent them out of the camp half naked--having been taken, he
distributed all the booty among his own soldiers only: rebuking the
consul's army and the consul himself, he said: "Soldiers, you shall
not enjoy any portion of the spoil taken from that enemy to whom you
yourselves nearly became a spoil: and you, Lucius Minucius, until
you begin to assume a spirit worthy of a consul, shall command these
legions only as lieutenant." Minucius accordingly resigned his office
of consul, and remained with the army, as he had been commanded. But
so meekly obedient were the minds of men at that time to authority
combined with superior merit, that this army, remembering his
kindness, rather than their own disgrace, both voted a golden crown
of a pound weight to the dictator, and saluted him as their preserver
when he set out. The senate at Rome, convened by Quintus Fabius,
prefect of the city, ordered Quinctius to enter the city in triumph,
in the order of march in which he was coming. The leaders of the enemy
were led before his car: the military standards were carried before
him: his army followed laden with spoil. Banquets are said to have
been spread before the houses of all, and the soldiers, partaking of
the entertainment, followed the chariot with the triumphal hymn and
the usual jests,[38] after the manner of revellers. On that day the
freedom of the state was granted to Lucius Mamilius of Tusculum, amid
universal approbation. The dictator would have immediately laid down
his office had not the assembly for the trial of Marcus Volscius, the
false witness, detained him; the fear of the dictator prevented the
tribunes from obstructing it. Volscius was condemned and went into
exile at Lanuvium. Quinctius laid down his dictatorship on the
sixteenth day, having been invested with it for six months. During
those days the consul Nautius engaged the Sabines at Eretum with
distinguished success: besides the devastation of their lands, this
additional blow also befell the Sabines. Fabius was sent to Algidum as
successor to Minucius. Toward the end of the year the tribunes began
to agitate concerning the law; but, because two armies were away, the
patricians carried their point, that no proposal should be made before
the people. The commons succeeded in electing the same tribunes for
the fifth time. It is said that wolves seen in the Capitol were driven
away by dogs, and that on account of that prodigy the Capitol was
purified. Such were the transactions of that year.
Quintus Minucius and Gaius Horatius Pulvillus were the next consuls.
At the beginning of this year, when there was peace abroad, the same
tribunes and the same law occasioned disturbances at home; and matters
would have proceeded further--so highly were men's minds inflamed-had
not news been brought, as if for the very purpose, that by a night
attack of the AEquans the garrison at Corbio had been cut off. The
consuls convened the senate: they were ordered to raise a hasty levy
and to lead it to Algidum. Then, the struggle about the law being
abandoned, a new dispute arose regarding the levy. The consular
authority was on the point of being overpowered by tribunician
influence, when an additional cause of alarm arose: that the Sabine
army had made a descent upon Roman territory to commit depredations
and from thence was advancing toward the city. This fear influenced
the tribunes to allow the soldiers to be enrolled, not without a
stipulation, however, that since they themselves had been foiled for
five years, and as the present college was but inadequate protection
for the commons, ten tribunes of the people should henceforward be
elected. Necessity extorted this concession from the patricians: they
only exacted this proviso, that they should not hereafter see the same
men tribunes. The election for the tribunes was held immediately, lest
that measure also, like others, might remain unfulfilled after the
war. In the thirty-sixth year after the first tribunes, ten were
elected, two from each class; and provision was made that they should
be elected in this manner for the future. The levy being then held,
Minucius marched out against the Sabines, but found no enemy.
Horatius, when the Æquans, having put the garrison at Corbio to the
sword, had taken Ortona also, fought a battle at Algidum, in which he
slew a great number of the enemy and drove them not only from Algidum,
but from Corbio and Ortona. He also razed Corbio to the ground for
having betrayed the garrison.
Marcus Valerius and Spurius Verginius were next elected consuls.
Quiet prevailed at home and abroad. The people were distressed for
provisions on account of the excessive rains. A law was proposed to
make Mount Aventine public property. [39] The same tribunes of the
people were re-elected. In the following year, Titus Romilius and
Gaius Veturius being consuls, they strongly recommended the law in all
their harangues, declaring that they were ashamed that their number
had been increased to no purpose, it that matter should be neglected
during their two years in the same manner as it had been during the
whole preceding five. While they were most busily employed in these
matters, an alarming message came from Tusculum that the Æquans were
in Tusculan territory. The recent services of that state made them
ashamed of delaying relief. Both the consuls were sent with an army,
and found the enemy in their usual post in Algidum. There a battle was
fought: upward of seven thousand of the enemy were slain, the rest
were put to flight: immense booty was obtained. This the consuls sold
on account of the low state of the treasury. This proceeding, however,
brought them into odium with the army, and also afforded the tribunes
material for bringing a charge against the consuls before the commons.
Accordingly, as soon as they went out of office, in the consulship of
Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius, a day of trial was appointed for
Romilius by Gaius Calvius Cicero, tribune of the people; for Veturius,
by Lucius Alienus plebeian ædile. They were both condemned, to the
great mortification of the patricians: Romilius to pay ten thousand
asses, Veturius fifteen thousand. Nor did this misfortune of their
predecessors render the new consuls more timid. They said that on the
one hand they might be condemned, and that on the other the commons
and tribunes could not carry the law. Then, having abandoned the
law, which, by being repeatedly brought forward, had now lost
consideration, the tribunes, adopted a milder method of proceeding
with the patricians. Let them, said they, at length put an end to
disputes. If laws drawn up by plebeians displeased them, at least let
them allow legislators to be chosen in common, both from the commons
and from the patricians, who might propose measures advantageous to
both parties, and such as would tend to the establishment of liberty
on principles of equality. The patricians did not disdain to accept
the proposal. They claimed that no one should propose laws, except
he were a patrician. When they agreed with respect to the laws, and
differed only in regard to the proposer, ambassadors were sent to
Athens, Spurius Postumius Albus, Aulus Manlius, Publius Sulpicius
Camerinus, who were ordered to copy out the celebrated laws of Solon,
and to make themselves acquainted with the institutions, customs, and
laws of the other states of Greece.
The year was peaceful as regards foreign wars; the following one, when
Publius Curiatius and Sextus Quinctilius were consuls, was still more
quiet, owing to the tribunes observing uninterrupted silence, which
was occasioned in the first place by their waiting for the return of
the ambassadors who had gone to Athens, and for the account of the
foreign laws; in the next place, two grievous calamities arose at the
same time, famine and pestilence, destructive to man, and equally
so to cattle. The lands were left desolate; the city exhausted by
a constant succession of deaths. Many illustrious families were in
mourning. The Flamen Quirinalis, [40]Servius Cornelius, died; also the
augur, Gaius Horatius Pulvillus; in his place the augurs elected Gaius
Veturius, and that with all the more eagerness, because he had been
condemned by the commons. The consul Quinctilius died, and four
tribunes of the people. The year was rendered a melancholy one by
these manifold disasters; as far as foreign foes were concerned there
was perfect quiet. Then Gaius Menenius and Publius Sestius Capitolinus
were elected consuls. Nor in that year was there any foreign war: but
disturbances arose at home. The ambassadors had now returned with the
Athenian laws; the tribunes therefore insisted the more urgently that
a beginning should at length be made of compiling the laws. It was
resolved that decemvirs should be elected to rule without appeal, and
that there should be no other magistrate during that year. There
was, for a considerable time, a dispute whether plebeians should
be admitted among them: at length the point was conceded to the
patricians, provided that the Icilian law regarding the Aventine and
the other devoting laws were not repealed.
In the three hundred and second year after the foundation of Rome, the
form of government was a second time changed, the supreme power being
transferred from consuls to decemvirs as it had passed before from
kings to consuls. The change was less remarkable, because not of long
duration; for the joyous commencement of that government afterward ran
riot through excess. On that account the sooner did the arrangement
fall to the ground, and the practice was revived, that the name and
authority of consuls should be committed to two persons. The decemvirs
appointed were, Appius Claudius, Titus Genucius, Publius Sestius,
Lucius Veturius, Gaius Julius, Aulus Manlius, Publius Sulpicius,
Publius Curiatius, Titus Romilius, Spurius Postumius. On Claudius
and Genucius, because they had been consuls elect for that year, the
honour was conferred in compensation for the honour of the consulate;
and on Sestius, one of the consuls of the former year, because he
had proposed the plan itself to the senate against the will of his
colleague. Next to these were considered the three ambassadors who had
gone to Athens, so that the honour might serve at once as a recompense
for so distant an embassy, while at the same time they considered that
persons acquainted with the foreign laws would be of use in drawing up
the new code of justice. The others made up the number. They say that
also persons advanced in years were appointed by the last suffrages,
in order that they might oppose with less warmth the opinions of
others. The direction of the entire government rested with Appius
through the favour of the commons, and he had assumed a demeanour
so different that, from being a severe and harsh persecutor of the
people, he became suddenly a courter of the commons, and strove to
catch every breath of popular favour. They administered justice to the
people individually every tenth day. On that day the twelve fasces
attended the administrator of justice; one officer attended each of
his nine colleagues, and in the midst of the singular unanimity that
existed among themselves--a harmony that sometimes proves prejudicial
to private persons--the strictest equity was shown to others. In proof
of their moderation it will be enough to instance a single case as an
example. Though they had been appointed to govern without appeal,
yet, upon a dead body being found buried in the house of Publius
Sestius,[41] a man of patrician rank, and produced in the assembly,
Gaius Julius, a decemvir, appointed a day of trial for Sestius, in a
matter at once clear and heinous, and appeared before the people
as prosecutor of the man whose lawful judge he was if accused: and
relinquished his right,[42] so that he might add what had been taken
from the power of the office to the liberty of the people.
While highest and lowest alike obtained from them this prompt
administration of justice, undefiled, as if from an oracle, at the
same time their attention was devoted to the framing of laws; and, the
ten tables being proposed amid the intense expectation of all, they
summoned the people to an assembly: and ordered them to go and read
the laws that were exhibited, [43] and Heaven grant it might prove
favourable, advantageous, and of happy result to the commonwealth,
themselves, and their children. That they had equalized the rights of
all, both the highest and the lowest, as far as could be devised by
the abilities of ten men: that the understanding and counsels of a
greater number had greater weight; let them turn over in their minds
each particular among themselves, discuss it in conversation, and
bring forward for public discussion whatever might be superfluous or
defective under each particular: that the Roman people should have
such laws only as the general consent might appear not so much to have
ratified when proposed as to have itself proposed. When they seemed
sufficiently corrected in accordance with public opinion regarding
each section of the laws as it was published, the laws of the ten
tables were passed at the assembly voting by centuries, which, even at
the present time, amid the immense heap of laws crowded one upon
the other, still remain the source of all public and private
jurisprudence. A rumour then spread that two tables were needed, on
the addition of which a digest, as it were, of the whole Roman law
could be completed. The desire for this gave rise, as the day of
election approached, to a request that decemvirs be appointed again.
The commons by this time, besides that they detested the name
of consuls no less than that of kings, did not even require the
tribunician aid, as the decemvirs in turn allowed an appeal.
But when the assembly for the election of decemvirs was proclaimed for
the third market-day, the flame of ambition burst out so
powerfully that even the first men of the state began to canvass
individuals--fearing, I suppose, that the possession of such high
authority might become accessible to persons not sufficiently worthy
if the post were left unoccupied by themselves--humbly soliciting,
from those very commons with whom they had often contended, an honour
which had been opposed by them with all their might. The fact of their
dignity being now laid aside in a contest, at their time of life, and
after they had filled such high official positions, stimulated the
exertions of Appius Claudius. You would not have known whether to
reckon him among the decemvirs or the candidates; he resembled at
times more closely one canvassing for office than one invested with
it; he aspersed the nobles, extolled all the most unimportant and
insignificant candidates; surrounded by the Duellii and Icilii who had
been tribunes, he himself bustled about the forum, through their means
he recommended himself to the commons; until even his colleagues, who
till then had been devoted to him heart and soul, turned their eyes on
him, wondering what he was about. It was evident to them that there
was no sincerity in it; that such affability amid such pride would
surely prove not disinterested. That this excessive lowering of
himself, and condescending to familiarity with private citizens, was
characteristic not so much of one eager to retire from office, as of
one seeking the means of continuing that office. Not daring openly to
oppose his wishes, they set about mitigating his ardour by humouring
it. They by common consent conferred on him, as being the youngest,
the office of presiding at the elections. This was an artifice, to
prevent his appointing himself; which no one ever did, except the
tribunes of the people, and that with the very worst precedent. He,
however, declaring that, with the favour of fortune, he would preside
at the elections, seized upon what should have been an obstacle as a
lucky opportunity: and having succeeded by a coalition in keeping out
of office the two Quinctii, Capitolinus and Cincinnatus, and his
own uncle Gaius Claudius, a man most steadfast in the cause of the
nobility, and other citizens of equal eminence, he secured
the appointment as decemvirs of men by no means their equals
distinction--himself in the first instance, a proceeding which
honourable men disapproved of greatly, as no one believed that he
would have ventured to do it. With him were elected Marcus Cornelius
Maluginensis, Marcus Sergius, Lucius Minucius, Quintus Fabius
Vibulanus, Quintus Poetilius, Titus Antonius Merenda, Cæso Duilius,
Spurius Oppius Cornicen, Manius Rabuleius.
This was the end of Appius's playing a part at variance with his
disposition. Henceforward he began to live according to his natural
character, and to mould to his own temper his new colleagues before
they entered upon office. They daily held meetings in private: then,
instructed in their unruly designs, which they concocted apart from
others, now no longer dissembling their arrogance, difficult of
access, captious to all who conversed with them, they protracted the
matter until the ides of May. The ides of May was at that time the
usual period for beginning office. Accordingly, at the attainment
of their magistracy, they rendered the first day of their office
remarkable by threats that inspired great terror. For, while the
preceding decemvirs had observed the rule, that only one should have
the fasces, and that this emblem of royalty should pass to all in
rotation, to each in his turn, lo! On a sudden they all came forth,
each with twelve fasces. One hundred and twenty lictors filled the
forum, and carried before them the axes tied up with the fasces,[44]
giving the explanation that it was of no consequence that the axe
should be taken away, since they had been appointed without appeal.
There appeared to be ten kings, and terrors were multiplied not only
among the humblest individuals, but even among the principal men
of the patricians, who thought that an excuse for the beginning of
bloodshed was being sought for: so that, if any one should have
uttered a word that hinted at liberty, either in the senate or in
a meeting of the people, the rods and axes would also instantly be
brought forward, for the purpose of intimidating the rest. For,
besides that there was no protection in the people, as the right of
appeal had been abolished, they had also by mutual consent prohibited
interference with each other: whereas the preceding decemvirs had
allowed the decisions pronounced by themselves to be amended by appeal
to any one of their colleagues, and had referred to the people some
points which seemed naturally to come within their own jurisdiction.
For a considerable time the terror seemed equally distributed among
all ranks; gradually it began to be directed entirely against the
commons. While they spared the patricians, arbitrary and cruel
measures were taken against the lower classes. As being persons with
whom interest usurped the force of justice, they all took account of
persons rather than of causes. They concerted their decisions at home,
and pronounced them in the forum. If any one appealed to a colleague,
he departed from the one to whom he had appealed in such a manner that
he regretted that he had not abided by the sentence of the former. An
irresponsible rumour had also gone abroad that they had conspired in
their tyranny not only for the present time, but that a clandestine
league had been concluded among them on oath, that they would not hold
the comitia, but by perpetuating the decemvirate would retain supreme
power now that it had once come into their possession.
The plebeians then began narrowly to watch the countenances of the
patricians, and to strive to catch a glimpse of liberty from that
quarter, by apprehending slavery from which they had brought the
republic into its present condition. The leading members of the senate
detested the decemvirs, detested the commons; they neither approved of
what was going on, and they considered that what befell the latter was
not undeserved. They were unwilling to assist men who, by rushing too
eagerly toward liberty, had fallen into slavery: they even heaped
injuries on them, that, from disgust at the present state of things,
two consuls and the former constitution might at length be regretted.
By this time the greater part of the year had passed, and two tables
of laws had been added to the ten tables of the former year; and if
these laws also had been passed in the assembly of the centuries,
there would now have remained no reason why the republic should
require that form of government. They were anxiously waiting to see
how long it would be before the assembly would be proclaimed for the
election of consuls. The only thing that troubled the commons was
by what means they should re-establish the tribunician power, that
bulwark of their liberty, now so long discontinued, no mention in the
meantime being made of the elections. Further, the decemvirs, who
had at first exhibited themselves to the people surrounded by men
of tribunician rank, because that was deemed popular, now guarded
themselves by bands of young patricians: crowds of these beset the
tribunals. They harried the commons, and plundered their effects: when
fortune was on the side of the more powerful individual in regard to
whatever was coveted. And now they spared not even their persons: some
were beaten with rods, others had to submit to the axe; and, that such
cruelty might not go unrewarded, a grant of his effects followed the
punishment of the owner. Corrupted by such bribes, the young nobles
not only made no opposition to oppression, but openly avowed a
preference for their own selfish gratification rather than for the
liberty of all.
The ides of May came round. Without any magistrates being elected
in place of those retiring, private persons [45]came forward as
decemvirs, without any abatement either in their determination to
enforce their authority, or any alteration in the insignia displayed
as outward signs of office. That indeed seemed undoubted regal
tyranny. Liberty was now deplored as lost forever: no champion of it
stood forth, or seemed likely to do so. And not only were the Romans
themselves sunk in despondency, but they began to be looked down upon
by the neighbouring states, who felt indignant that sovereign power
should be in the hands of a state where liberty did not exist. The
Sabines with a numerous body of men made an incursion into Roman
territory; and having committed extensive devastations, after they had
driven off with impunity booty of men and cattle, they recalled their
troops, which had been dispersed in different directions, to
Eretum, where they pitched their camp, grounding their hopes on the
dissensions at Rome, which they expected would prove an obstruction to
the levy. Not only the couriers, but also the flight of the country
people through the city inspired them with alarm. The decemvirs, left
in a dilemma between the hatred of the patricians and people, took
counsel what was to be done. Fortune, moreover, brought an additional
cause of alarm. The AEquans on the opposite side pitched their camp at
Algidum, and by raids from there ravaged Tusculan territory. News of
this was brought by ambassadors from Tusculum imploring assistance.
The panic thereby occasioned urged the decemvirs to consult the
senate, now that two wars at once threatened the city. They ordered
the patricians to be summoned into the senate-house, well aware what a
storm of resentment was ready to break upon them; they felt that all
would heap upon them the blame for the devastation of their territory,
and for the dangers that threatened; and that that would give them an
opportunity of endeavouring to abolish their office, if they did not
unite in resisting, and by enforcing their authority with severity on
a few who showed an intractable spirit repress the attempts of others.
When the voice of the crier was heard in the forum summoning the
senators into the senate-house to the presence of the decemvirs, this
proceeding, as altogether new, because they had long since given up
the custom of consulting the senate, attracted the attention of the
people, who, full of surprise, wanted to know what had happened, and
why, after so long an interval they were reviving a custom that had
fallen into abeyance: stating that they ought to thank the enemy and
the war, that any of the customs of a free state were complied with.
They looked around for a senator through all parts of the forum, and
seldom recognised one anywhere: they then directed their attention to
the senate-house, and to the solitude around the decemvirs, who both
themselves judged that their power was universally detested, while the
commons were of opinion that the senators refused to assemble because
the decemvirs, now reduced to the rank of private citizens, had no
authority to convene them: that a nucleus was now formed of those who
would help them to recover their liberty, if the commons would but
side with the senate, and if, as the patricians, when summoned,
refused to attend the senate, so also the commons would refuse to
enlist. Thus the commons grumbled. There was hardly one of the
patricians in the forum, and but very few in the city. In disgust at
the state of affairs, they had retired into the country, and busied
themselves only with their private affairs, giving up all thought of
state concerns, considering that they themselves were out of reach
of ill-treatment in proportion as they removed themselves from the
meeting and converse of their imperious masters. When those who had
been summoned did not assemble, state messengers were despatched to
their houses, both to levy the penalties,[46] and to make inquiries
whether they purposely refused to attend. They brought back word
that the senate was in the country. This was more pleasing to the
decemvirs, than if they brought word that they were present and
refused obedience to their commands. They commanded them all to be
summoned, and proclaimed a meeting of the senate for the following
day, which assembled in much greater numbers than they themselves had
expected. By this proceeding the commons considered that their liberty
was betrayed by the patricians, because the senate had obeyed those
persons, as if they had a right to compel them, who had already gone
out of office, and were mere private individuals, were it not for the
violence displayed by them.
However, they showed more obedience in coming into the senate than
obsequiousness in the opinions expressed by them, as we have learned.
It is recorded that, after Appius Claudius laid the subject of debate
before the meeting, and before their opinions were asked in order,
Lucius Valerius Potitus excited a commotion, by demanding permission
to express his sentiments concerning the state, and--when the
decemvirs prevented him with threats [47]--by declaring that he would
present himself before the people. It is also recorded that Marcus
Horatius Barbatus entered the lists with no less boldness, calling
them "ten Tarquins," and reminding them that under the leadership of
the Valerii and Horatii the kings had been expelled. Nor was it the
mere name that men were then disgusted with, as being that by which it
was proper that Jupiter should be styled, as also Romulus, the founder
of the city, and the succeeding kings, and a name too which had been
retained also for the ceremonies of religion,[48] as a solemn one;
that it was the tyranny and arrogance of a king they then detested:
and if these were not to be tolerated in that same king or the son of
a king, who would tolerate it in so many private citizens? Let them
beware lest, by preventing persons from expressing their sentiments
freely in the senate, they obliged them to raise their voice outside
the senate-house. Nor could he see how it was less allowable for him,
a private citizen, to summon the people to an assembly, than for them
to convene the senate. They might try, whenever they pleased, how much
more determined a sense of wrong would be found to be, when it was a
question of vindicating one's own liberty, than ambition, when the
object was to preserve an unjust dominion. That they proposed the
question concerning the war with the Sabines, as if the Roman people
had any more important war on hand than that against those who, having
been elected for the purpose of framing laws, had left no law in the
state; who had abolished elections, annual magistrates, the regular
change of rulers, which was the only means of equalizing liberty;
who, though private citizens, still possessed the fasces and regal
dominion. That after the expulsion of the kings, patrician magistrates
had been appointed, and subsequently, after the secession of the
people, plebeian magistrates. What party was it, he asked, to which
they belonged? To the popular party? What had they ever done with the
concurrence of the people? To the party of the nobles? Who for now
nearly an entire year had not held a meeting of the senate, and then
held one in such a manner that they prevented the expression of
sentiments regarding the commonwealth? Let them not place too much
hope in the fears of others; the grievances which they were now
suffering appeared to men more oppressive than any they might
apprehend.