History of Rome, books 1-10

Amongst the enemy there was diversity of opinion. The men of Falerii, impatient at serving so far from home, and full of self-confidence, demanded battle; those of Veii and Fidenae placed more hope in a prolongation of the war.

Although Tolumnius was more inclined to the opinion of his own men, he announced that he would give battle the next day, in case the Faliscans should refuse to serve through a protracted campaign.

This hesitation on the part of the enemy gave the Dictator and the Romans fresh courage. The next day, whilst the soldiers were declaring that unless they had the chance of fighting they would attack the enemy's camp and city, both armies advanced on to the level ground between their respective camps.

The Veientine general, who was greatly superior in numbers, sent a detachment round the back of the hills to attack the Roman camp during the battle. The armies of the three States were stationed thus: The Veientines were on the right wing, the Faliscans on the left, the Fidenates in the centre.

The Dictator led his right wing against the Faliscans, Capitolinus Quinctius directed the attack of the left against the Veientines, whilst the Master of the Horse advanced with his cavalry against the enemy's centre.

For a few moments all was silent and motionless, as the Etruscans would not commence the fight unless they were compelled, and the Dictator was watching the Citadel of Rome and waiting for the agreed signal from the augurs as soon as the omens should prove favourable.

No sooner had he caught sight of it than he let loose the cavalry, who, raising a loud battle-cry, charged; the infantry followed with a furious onslaught.

In no quarter did the legions of Etruria stand the Roman charge; their cavalry offered the stoutest resistance, and the king, himself by far the bravest of them, charged the Romans whilst they were scattered everywhere in pursuit of the enemy, and so prolonged the contest.

There was in the cavalry, on that day, a military tribune named A. Cornelius Cossus, a remarkably handsome man, and equally distinguished for strength and courage, and proud of his family name, which, illustrious as it was when he inherited it, was rendered still more so when he left it to his posterity.

When he saw the Roman squadrons shaken by the repeated charges of Tolumnius in whatever direction he rode, and recognised him as he galloped along the entire line, conspicuous in his royal habiliments, he exclaimed, “Is this the breaker of treaties between man and man, the violator of the law of nations?

If it is the will of heaven that anything holy should exist on earth, I will slay this man and offer him as a sacrifice to the manes of the murdered envoys.”

Putting spurs to his horse he charged with levelled spear against this single foe, and having struck and unhorsed him, he leaped with the aid of his spear to the ground.

As the king was attempting to rise he pushed him back with the boss of his shield, and with repeated spear-thrusts pinned him to the earth. Then he despoiled the lifeless body, and cutting off his head stuck it on his spear, and carrying it in triumph routed the enemy, who were panic-struck at the king's death. So the enemy's cavalry, who had alone made the issue of the contest doubtful, now shared in the general rout.

The Dictator hotly pursued the flying legions and drove them to their camp with great slaughter. Most of the Fidenates, who were familiar with the country, escaped to the hills. Cossus with the cavalry crossed the Tiber and brought to the City an enormous amount of booty from the country of the Veientines.

During the battle there was also an engagement at the Roman camp with the detachment which, as already stated, Tolumnius had sent to attack it.

Fabius Vibulanus at first confined himself to the defence of the circuit of his lines; then, while the enemy's attention was wholly directed to forcing the stockade, he made a sortie from the Porta Principalis on the right, and this unexpected attack produced such consternation among the enemy, that though there were fewer killed, owing to the smaller number engaged, the flight was just as disorderly as in the main battle.

Successful in all directions, the Dictator returned home to enjoy the honour of a triumph granted him by decree of the senate and resolution of the people.

By far the finest sight in the procession was Cossus bearing the spolia opima of the king he had slain.

The soldiers sang rude songs in his honour and placed him on a level with Romulus. He solemnly dedicated the spoils to Jupiter Feretrius, and hung them in his temple near those of Romulus, which were the only ones which at that time were called spolia opima prima. All eyes were turned from the chariot of the Dictator to him; he almost monopolised the honours of the day.

By order of the people, a crown of gold, a pound in weight, was made at the public expense and placed by the Dictator in the Capitol as an offering to Jupiter. In stating

that Cossus placed the spolia opima secunda in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius when he was a military tribune I have followed all the existing authorities.

But not only is the designation of spolia opima restricted to those which a commander-in-chief has taken from a commander-in-chief —and we know of no commander-in-chief but the one under whose auspices the war is conducted —but I and my authorities are also confuted by the actual inscription on the spoils, which states that Cossus took them when he was consul.

Augustus Caesar, the founder and restorer of all the temples, rebuilt the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, which had fallen to ruin through age, and I once heard him say that after entering it he read that inscription on the linen cuirass with his own eyes. After that I felt it would be almost a sacrilege to withhold from Cossus the evidence as to his spoils given by the Caesar who restored that very temple.

Whether the mistake, if there be one, may have arisen from the fact that the ancient annals, and the “Linen Rolls” —the lists of magistrates preserved in the temple of Moneta which Macer Licinius frequently quotes as authorities — have an A. Cornelius Cossus as consul with T. Quinctius Poenus, ten years later-of this every man must judge for himself.

For there is this further reason why so famous a battle could not be transferred to this later date, namely, that during the three years which preceded and followed the consulship of Cossus war was impossible owing to pestilence and famine, so that some of the annals, as though they were records of deaths, supply nothing but the names of the consuls.

The third year after his consulship has the name of Cossus as a consular tribune, and in the same year he is entered as Master of the Horse, in which capacity he fought another brilliant cavalry action.

Every one is at liberty to form his own conjecture; these doubtful points, in my belief, can be made to support any opinion. The fact remains that the man who fought the battle placed the newly-won spoils in the sacred shrine near Jupiter himself, to whom they were consecrated, and with Romulus in full view —two witnesses to be dreaded by any forger —and that he described himself in the inscription as “A. Cornelius Cossus, Consul.”

TheM. Cornelius Maluginensis and L. Papirius Crassus were the next consuls. Armies were led into the territories of the Veientines and Faliscans and men and cattle were carried off.

The enemy was nowhere found in the open, nor was there any opportunity of fighting.

Their cities, however, were not attacked, for the people were visited by an epidemic. Spurius Maelius, a tribune of the plebs, tried to get up disturbances, but failed to do so. Relying upon the popularity of the name he bore, he had impeached Minucius and brought forward a proposal for the confiscation of the property of Servilius Ahala on the plea that Maelius had been the

victim of false charges by Minucius, whilst Servilius had been guilty of putting a citizen to death without trial.

people paid less attention to these accusations than even to their author; they were much more concerned about the increasing virulence of the epidemic and the terrifying portents; most of all about the reports of frequent earthquakes which laid the houses in the country districts in ruins.

A solemn supplication, therefore, was offered up by the people, led by the duumvirs. The following year, in which the consuls were C. Julius, for the second time, and L. Verginius, was still more fatal, and created such alarming desolation in town and country that no plundering parties left Roman territory, nor did either senate or plebs entertain any idea of taking the offensive.

The Fidenates, however, who had at first confined themselves to their mountains and walled villages, actually came down into the Roman territory and ravaged it.

As the Faliscans could not be induced to renew the war, either by the representations of their allies or by the fact that Rome was prostrated by the epidemic, the Fidenates sent to invite the Veientine army, and the two States crossed the Anio and displayed their standards not far from the Colline gate.

The alarm was as great in the City as in the country districts. The consul Julius disposed his troops on the rampart and the walls; Verginius convened the senate in the temple of Quirinus.

They decreed that Q. Servilius should be nominated Dictator. According to one tradition he was surnamed Priscus, according to another, Structus. Verginius waited till he could consult his colleague; on gaining his consent, he nominated the Dictator at night. The Dictator appointed Postumius Aebutius Helva as Master of the Horse.

The Dictator issued an order for all to muster outside the Colline gate by daybreak. Every man strong enough to bear arms was present. The standards were quickly brought to the Dictator from the treasury. While these arrangements were being made, the enemy withdrew to the foot of the hills.

The Dictator followed them with an army eager for battle, and engaged them not far from Nomentum. The Etruscan legions were routed and driven into Fidenae; the Dictator surrounded the place with lines of circumvallation.

But, owing to its elevated positron and strong fortifications, the city could not be carried by assault, and a blockade was quite ineffective, for there was not only corn enough for their actual necessities, but even for a lavish supply from what had been stored up beforehand. So all hope of either storming the place or starving it into surrender was abandoned.

As it was near Rome, the nature of the ground was well known, and the Dictator was aware that the side of the city remote from his camp was weakly fortified owing to its natural strength. He determined to carry a mine through from that side to the citadel.

He formed his army into four divisions, to take turns in the fighting, and by keeping up a constant attack upon the walls in all directions, day and night, he prevented the enemy from noticing the work.

At last the hill was tunnelled through and the way lay open from the Roman camp up to the citadel. Whilst the attention of the Etruscans was being diverted by feigned attacks from their real danger, the shouts of the enemy above their

heads showed them that the city was taken. In that year the censors C. Furius Pacilus and M. Geganius Macerinus passed the government building on the Campus Martius, and the census of the people was made there for the first time.

I find in Macer Licinius that the same consuls were re-elected for the following year-Julius for the third time and Verginius for the second. Valerius Antias and Q. Tubero give M. Manlius and Q. Sulpicius as the consuls for that year.

In spite of this discrepancy Tubero and Macer both claim the authority of the “Linen Rolls”; both admit that in the ancient historians it was asserted that there were military tribunes that year.

Licinius considers that we ought unhesitatingly to follow the “Linen Rolls”; Tubero has not made up his mind. But amongst the many points obscure through lapse of time, this also is left unsettled. The capture of Fidenae created alarm in Etruria.

Not only were the Veientines apprehensive of a similar fate, but the Faliscans too had not forgotten the war which they had commenced in alliance with them, though they had taken no part in its renewal.

The two States sent round envoys to the twelve cantons, and in compliance with their request a meeting was proclaimed of the national council of Etruria, to be held at the temple of Voltumna. As a great struggle seemed imminent, the senate ordered that Mamercus Aemilius should be again nominated Dictator.

A. Postumius Tubertus was appointed Master of the Horse. Preparations for war were made with all the greater energy now than on the last occasion, as the danger to be apprehended from the whole of Etruria was greater than from only two of its towns

The occasion passed off more quietly than anybody expected.

Information was brought by traders that help had been refused to the Veientines; they were told to prosecute with their own resources a war which they had commenced on their own initiative, and not, now that they were in difficulties, to look for allies amongst those whom in their prosperity they refused to take into their confidence.

The Dictator was now deprived of any opportunity of acquiring fame in war, but he was anxious to achieve some work which might be a memorial of his dictatorship and prevent it from appearing an unnecessary appointment, so he made preparations for abridging the censorship, either because he considered its power excessive, or because he objected not so much to the greatness as the length of

duration of the office. Accordingly he convened the Assembly and said that as the gods had undertaken the conduct of the State in external affairs and made everything safe, he would do what required to be done within the walls, and take counsel for the liberties of the Roman people. Those liberties were most securely guarded when those who held great powers did not hold them long, and when offices which could not be limited in their jurisdiction were limited in their tenure.

Whilst the other magistracies were annual, the censorship was a quinquennial one. It was a distinct grievance to have to live at the mercy of the same men for so many years, in fact for a considerable part of one's life.

He was going to bring in a law that the censorship should not last longer than eighteen months. He carried the law the next day amidst the enthusiastic approval of the people, and then made the following announcement: “That you may really know, Quirites, how much I disapprove of prolonged rule, I now lay down my dictatorship.”

After thus resigning his own magistracy and limiting the other one, he was escorted home amidst the hearty good-will and congratulations of the people. The censors were extremely angry with Mamercus for having limited the power of a Roman magistrate, they struck him out of his tribe, increased his assessment eightfold, and disfranchised him.

It is recorded that he bore this most magnanimously, thinking more of the cause which led to the ignominy being inflicted upon him than of the ignominy itself. The leading men amongst the patricians, though disapproving of the limitation imposed on the censorial jurisdiction, were shocked at this instance of the harsh exercise of its power, for each recognised that he would be subject to the censors more frequently and for a longer time than he would be censor himself.

At all events the people, it is said, felt so indignant that no one but Mamercus possessed sufficient authority to protect the censors from violence.

The tribunes of the plebs held constant meetings of the Assembly with a view to preventing the election of consuls, and after bringing matters almost to the appointment of an interrex, they succeeded in getting consular tribunes

elected. They looked for plebeians to be elected as a reward for their exertions, but not a single one came in; all who were elected were

patricians. Their names were M. Fabius Vibulanus, M. Folius, and L. Sergius Fidenas. The pestilence that year kept everything quiet. The duumvirs did many things prescribed by the sacred books to appease the wrath of the gods and remove the pestilence from the

people. The mortality, notwithstanding, was heavy both in the City and in the country districts; men and beasts alike perished. Owing to the losses amongst the cultivators of the soil, a famine was feared as the result of the pestilence, and agents were despatched to Etruria and the Pomptine territory and Cumae, and at last even to Sicily, to procure

corn. No mention was made of the election of consuls; consular tribunes were appointed, all patricians. Their names were L. Pinarius Mamercus, L. Furius Medullinus, and Sp. Postumius

Albus. In this year the violence of the epidemic abated and there was no scarcity of corn, owing to the provision that had been made. Projects of war were discussed in the national councils of the Volscians and Aequi, and in Etruria at the temple of

Voltumna. There the question was adjourned for a year and a decree was passed

that no council should be held till the year had elapsed, in spite of the protests of the Veientines, who declared that the same fate which had overtaken Fidenae was threatening

them. At Rome, meantime, the leaders of the plebs, finding that their cherished hopes of higher dignity were futile whilst there was peace abroad, got up meetings in the houses of the tribunes, where they discussed their plans in

secret. They complained that they had been treated with such contempt by the plebs, that though consular tribunes had now been elected for many years, not a single plebeian had ever found his way to that

office. Their ancestors had shown much foresight in taking care that the plebeian magistracies should not be open to patricians, otherwise they must have had patricians as tribunes of the plebs, for so insignificant were they in the eyes of their own order that they were looked down upon by plebeians quite as much as by the

patricians. Others threw the blame on the patricians, it was owing to their unscrupulous cleverness in pushing their canvassing that the path to honour was closed to the plebeians. If the plebs were allowed a respite from their menaces and entreaties, they would think of their own party when they went to vote, and by their united efforts would win office and

power. It was decided that, with a view to doing away with the abuses of canvassing, the tribunes should bring in a law forbidding any one to whiten his toga, when he appeared as a candidate. To us now the matter may appear trivial and hardly worth serious discussion, but it kindled a tremendous conflict between patricians and

plebeians. The tribunes, however, succeeded in carrying their law, and it was clear that, irritated as they were, the plebeians would support their own men. That they might not be free to do so, a resolution was passed in the senate that the forthcoming elections should be held for the appointment of consuls.

The reason for this decision was the report sent in by the Latins and Hernicans of a sudden rising amongst the Volscians and Aequi.

T. Quinctius Cincinnatus —surnamed Poenus —the son of Lucius, and Gnaeus Julius Mento were made consuls. War very soon broke out.

After a levy had been raised under the Lex Sacrata, which was the most powerful means they possessed of compelling men to serve, the armies of both nations advanced and concentrated on Algidus, where they entrenched themselves, each in a separate

camp. Their generals showed greater care than on any previous occasion in the construction of their lines and the exercising of the troops. The reports of this increased the alarm in

Rome. In view of the fact that these two nations after their numerous defeats were now renewing the war with greater energy than they had ever done before, and, further, that a considerable number of the Romans fit for active service had been carried off by the epidemic, the senate decided upon the nomination of a

Dictator. But the greatest alarm was caused by the perverse obstinacy of the consuls and their incessant wranglings in the senate. Some authorities assent that these consuls fought an unsuccessful action at Algidus and that this was the reason why a Dictator was

nominated. It is at all events generally agreed that whilst at variance in other matters, they were at one in opposing the senate and preventing the appointment of a Dictator. At last, when each report that came in was more alarming than the last, and the consuls refused to accept the authority of the senate, Quintus Servilius Priscus, who had filled the highest offices in the State with distinction, said, “Tribunes of the

plebs! now that matters have come to extremities, the senate calls upon you in this crisis of the commonwealth, by virtue of the authority of your office, to compel the consuls to nominate a Dictator.” On hearing this appeal, the tribunes considered that a favourable opportunity presented itself for augmenting their authority, and they retired to

deliberate. Then they formally declared in the name of the whole college of tribunes that it was their determination that the consuls should bow to the will of the senate; if they offered any further opposition to the unanimous decision of that most august order, they, the tribunes, would order them to be thrown into

prison. The consuls preferred defeat at the hands of the tribunes rather than at those of the senate. If, they said, the consuls could be coerced by the tribunes in virtue of their authority, and even sent to prison —and what more than this had ever a private citizen to fear? —then the senate had betrayed the rights and privileges of the highest office in the State, and made an ignominious surrender, putting the consulship under the yoke of

the tribunitian power. They could not even agree as to who should nominate the Dictator, so they cast lots and the lot fell to T. Quinctius. He nominated A. Postumius Tubertus, his father-in-law, a stern and resolute commander. The Dictator named L. Julius as the Master