History of Rome, books 1-10

It is all very well to cry in horror, “The gods will prevent that,” but they will never come down from heaven on my account. You must prevent it; they must give you the courage to do so, as they gave me courage to defend you as a soldier from the barbarian enemy and as a civilian from your tyrannical fellow-citizens. Is the spirit of this great nation so small that you will always remain contented with the aid which your tribunes now afford you against your enemies, and never know any subject of dispute with the patricians, except as to how far you allow them to lord it over you?

This is not your natural instinct, you are the slaves of habit. For why is it that you display such spirit towards foreign nations as to think it fair and just that you should rule over them?

Because with them you have been wont to contend for dominion, while against these domestic enemies it has been a contest for liberty, which you have mostly attempted rather than maintained.

Still, whatever leaders you have had, whatever qualities you yourselves have shown, you have so far, either by your strength or your good fortune, achieved every object, however great, on which you have set your hearts. Now it is time to attempt greater things.

If you will only put your own good fortune to the test, if you will only put me to the test, who have already been tested fortunately, I hope, for you, you will have less trouble in setting up some one to lord it over the patricians than you have had in setting up men to resist their lording it over you.

Dictatorships and consulships must be levelled to the ground in order that the Roman plebs may lift up its head. Take your places, then, in the Forum; prevent any judgment for debt from being pro- nounced.

I profess myself the Patron of the plebs, a title with which my care and fidelity have invested me; if you prefer to designate your leader by any other title of honour or command, you will find in him a more powerful instrument for attaining the objects you

desire.” It is said that this was the first step in his attempt to secure kingly power, but there is no clear tradition as to his fellow- conspirators or the extent to which his plans were developed.

On the other side, however, the senate were discussing this secession of the plebs to a private house, which happened to be situated on the Capitol, and the great danger with which liberty was menaced.

A great many exclaimed that what was wanted was a Servilius Ahala, who would not simply irritate an enemy to the State by ordering him to be sent to prison, but would put an end to the intestine war by the sacrifice of a single citizen.

They finally took refuge in a resolution which was milder in its terms but possessed equal force, viz., that “the magistrates should see to it that the republic received no hurt from the mischievous designs of M. Manlius.” Thereupon the consular tribunes and the tribunes of the plebs —for

these latter recognised that the end of liberty would also be the end of their power, and had, therefore, placed them- selves under the authority of the senate —all consulted together as to what were the necessary steps to take.

As no one could suggest anything but the employment of force and its inevitable bloodshed, while this would obviously lead to a frightful struggle, M. Menenius and Q. Publilius, tribunes of the plebs, spoke as follows: “Why are we making that which ought to be a contest between the State and one pestilent citizen into a conflict between patricians and plebeians?

Why do we attack the plebs through him when it is so much safer to attack him through the plebs, so that he may sink into ruin under the weight of his own strength? It is our intention to fix a day for his trial.

Nothing is less desired by the people than kingly power. As soon as that body of plebeians become aware that the quarrel is not with them, and find that from being his supporters they have become his judges; as soon as they see a patrician on his trial, and learn that the charge before them is one of aiming at monarchy, they will not show favour to any man more than to their own liberty.”

Amidst universal approval they fixed a day for the trial of Manlius.

There was at first much perturbation amongst the plebs, especially when they saw him going about in mourning garb without a single patrician, or any of his relatives or connections and, strangest of all, neither of his brothers, Aulus and Titus Manlius, being similarly attired. For up to that day such a thing had never been known, that at such a crisis in a man's fate even those nearest to him did not put on mourning.

They remembered that when Appius Claudius was thrown into prison, his personal enemy, Caius Claudius, and the whole house of the Claudii, wore mourning. They regarded it as a conspiracy to crush a popular hero, because he was the first man to go over from the patricians to the plebs.

What evidence strictly bearing out the charge of treason was adduced by the prosecution at the actual trial, beyond the gatherings at his house, his seditious utterances, and his false statement about the gold, I do not find stated by any authority.

But I have no doubt that it was anything but slight, for the hesitation shown by the people in finding him guilty was not due to the merits of the case, but to the locality where the trial took place. This is a thing to be noted in order that men may see how great and glorious deeds are not only deprived of all merit, but made positively hateful by a loathesome hankering after kingly power.

He is said to have produced nearly four hundred people to whom he had advanced money without interest, whom he had prevented from being sold up and having their persons adjudged to their creditors.

It is stated that besides this he not only enumerated his military distinctions, but brought them forward for inspection; the spoils of as many as thirty enemies whom he had slain, gifts from commanders-in-chief to the number of forty, amongst them two mural crowns and eight civil ones.

In addition to these, he produced citizens whom he had rescued from the enemy, and named C. Servilius, Master of the Horse, who was not present, as one of them.

After he had recalled his warlike achievements in a great speech corresponding to the loftiness of his theme, his language rising to the level of his exploits, he bared his breast, ennobled by the scars of battle, and looking towards the Capitol repeatedly invoked Jupiter and the other deities to come to the aid of his shattered fortunes. He prayed that they would, in this crisis of his fate, inspire the Roman people with the same feeling with which they inspired him when he was protecting the Citadel and the Capitol and so saving Rome. Then turning to his judges, he implored them one and all to judge his cause with their eyes fixed on the Capitol, looking towards the immortal gods.

As it was in the Campus Martius that the people were to vote in their centuries, and the defendant, stretching forth his hands towards the Capitol, had turned from men to the gods in his prayers, it became evident to the tribunes that unless they could release men's spell-bound eyes from the visible reminder of his glorious deed, their minds, wholly possessed with the sense of the service he had done them, would find no place for charges against him, however true.

So the proceedings were adjourned to another day, and the people were summoned to an Assembly in the Peteline Grove outside the Flumentan Gate, from which the Capitol was not visible.

Here the charge was established, and with hearts steeled against his appeals, they passed a dreadful sentence, abhorrent even to the judges. Some authorities assert that he was sentenced by the duumvirs, who were appointed to try cases of treason. The tribunes hurled him from the Tarpeian rock, and the place which was the monument of his exceptional glory became also the scene of his final punishment.

After his death two stigmas were affixed to his memory. One by the State. His house stood where now the temple and mint of Juno Moneta stand, a measure was consequently brought before the people that no patrician should occupy a dwelling within the Citadel or on the Capitoline.

The other by the members of his house, who made a decree forbidding any one henceforth to assume the names of Marcus Manlius. Such was the end of a man who, had he not been born in a free State, would have attained distinction.

When danger was no longer to be feared from him the people, remembering only his virtues, soon began to regret his loss. A pestilence which followed shortly after and inflicted great mortality, for which no cause could be assigned, was thought by a great many people to be due to the execution of Manlius.

They imagined that the Capitol had been polluted by the blood of its deliverer, and that the gods had been displeased at a punishment having been inflicted almost before their eyes on the man by whom their temples had been wrested from an enemy's hands.

The pestilence was followed by scarcity, and the widespread rumour of these two troubles was followed the next year by a number of wars. The consular tribunes were: L. Valerius (for the fourth time), A Manlius, Ser.

Sulpicius, L. Lucretius, and L. Aemilius (all for the third time), and M. Trebonius. In addition to the Volscians, who seemed destined by some fate to keep the Roman soldiery in perpetual training; in addition to the colonies of Circeii and Velitrae, who had long been meditating revolt; in addition to Latium, which was an object of suspicion, a new enemy suddenly appeared at Lanuvium, which had hitherto been a most loyal city.

The senate thought this was due to a feeling of contempt because the revolt of their countrymen at Velitrae had remained so long unpunished. They accordingly passed a decree that the people should be asked as soon as possible to consent to a declaration of war against them.

To make the plebs more ready to enter on this campaign, five commissioners were appointed to distribute the Pomptine territory and three to settle a colony at Nepete.

Then the proposal was submitted to the people, and in spite of the protests of the tribunes the tribes unanimously declared for war.

Preparations for war continued throughout the year, but, owing to the pestilence, the army was not led out. This delay allowed the colonists time for propitiating the senate, and there was a considerable party amongst them in favour of sending a deputation to Rome to ask for pardon.

But, as usual, the interest of the State was bound up with the interests of individuals, and the authors of the revolt, fearing that they alone would be held responsible and surrendered, in consequence, to appease the resentment of the Romans, turned the colonists from all thoughts of peace.

Nor did they confine themselves to persuading their senate to veto the proposed embassy; they stirred up a large number of the plebs to make a predatory incursion on Roman territory.

This fresh outrage destroyed all hopes of peace. This year, for the first time, there arose a rumour of a revolt at Praeneste, but when the people of Tusculum, Gabinii, and Labici, whose territories had been invaded, laid a formal complaint, the senate took it so calmly that it was evident they did believe the charge because they did not wish it to be true.

Sp. and L. Papirius, the new consular tribunes, marched with the legions to Velitrae. Their four colleagues, Ser. Cornelius Maluginensis, Q. Servilius, C. Sulpicius, and L. Aemilius were left to defend the City and to meet any fresh movement in Etruria, for danger was suspected everywhere on that side.

At Velitrae, where the auxiliaries from Praeneste were almost more numerous than the colonists themselves, an engagement took place in which the Romans soon won the day, for as the city was so near, the enemy took to flight early in the battle and made for the city as their one refuge. The tribunes abstained from storming the place, for they were doubtful of success and did not think it right to reduce the colony to ruin.

The dispatches to the senate announcing the victory were more severe on the Praenestines than on the Veliternians. Accordingly, by a decree of the senate confirmed by the people, war was declared against Praeneste The Praenestines joined forces with the Volscians and in the following year took by storm the Roman colony of Satricum, after an obstinate defence, and made a brutal use of their victory.

This incident exasperated the Romans.

They elected M. Furius Camillus as consular tribune for the sixth time, and gave him four colleagues, A. and L. Postumius Regillensis, L. Furius, L. Lucretius, and M. Fabius Ambustus . By a special decree of the senate the war with the Volscians was entrusted to M. Furius Camillus; the tribune chosen by lot as his coadjutor was L. Furius, not so much, as it turned out, in the interest of the State, as in the interest of his colleague, for whom he served as the means of gaining fresh renown.

He gained it on public grounds by restoring the fortunes of the State which had been brought low by the other's rashness, and on private grounds, because he was more anxious to win the other's gratitude after retrieving his error than to win glory for himself.

Camillus was now advanced in age, and after being elected was prepared to make the usual affidavit declining office on the grounds of health, but the people refused to allow him. His vigorous breast was still animated by an energy unweakened by age, his senses were unimpaired, and his interest in political affairs was lost in the prospect of war. Four legions were enrolled, each consisting of 4000 men The army was ordered to muster the next day at the Esquiline Gate and at once marched for Satricum.

Here the captors of the colony awaited him, their decided superiority of numbers inspiring them with complete confidence. When they found that the Romans were approaching they advanced at once to battle, anxious to bring matters to a decisive issue as soon as possible.

They imagined that this would prevent the inferiority in numbers of their opponents from being in any way aided by the skill of their commander, which they looked upon as the sole ground of confidence for the Romans.

The same eagerness for battle was felt by the Roman army and by Camillus' colleague. Nothing stood in the way of their hazarding an immediate engagement except the prudence and authority of one man, who was seeking an opportunity, by protracting the war, for aiding the strength of his force by strategy.

This made the enemy more insistent; they not only deployed their lines in front of their camp, but even marched forward in the middle of the plain and showed their supercilious confidence in their numbers by advancing their standards close to the Roman intrenchments.

This made the Romans indignant, still more so L. Furius. Young and naturally hightempered, he was now infected with the hopefulness of the rank and file whose spirits were rising with very little to justify their confidence.

He increased their excitement by belittling the authority of his colleague on the score of his age, the only possible reason he had for doing so; he declared that wars were the province of the younger men, for courage grows and decays in correspondence with the bodily powers.

“Camillus,” he said, “once a most active warrior, had now become a laggard; he, whose habit it had been, immediately on arriving at camps or cities, to take them at the first assault, was now wasting time and stagnating inside his lines. What accession to his own strength or diminution of the enemy's strength was he hoping for?

What favourable chance, what opportune moment, what ground on which to employ his strategy? The old man's plans had lost all fire and life.

Camillus had had his share of life as well as glory. What was gained by letting the strength of a State which ought to be immortal share in the senile decay of one mortal frame?”

By speeches of this kind he had brought over the whole camp to his view and in many quarter they were demanding to be led to immediate battle. Addressing Camillus, he said: “M. Furius, we cannot resist the impetuosity of the soldiers, and the enemy to whom we have given fresh courage by our hesitation are now showing intolerable contempt for us. You are one against all; yield to the universal desire and allow yourself to be overcome in argument that you may the sooner overcome in battle.”

In his reply, Camillus said that in all the wars he had waged down to that day, as sole commander, neither he nor the Roman people had had any reason to complain of either his generalship or his good fortune. Now he was aware that he had as a colleague one who was his equal in authority and rank, his superior in physical strength and activity.

As for the army, he had been accustomed to direct and not to be directed, but as for his colleague, he could not hamper his authority. Let him do with the help of heaven whatever he considered best for the State.

He begged that owing to his years he might be excused from being in the front line; whatever duties an old man could discharge in battle, in these he would not show himself lacking. He prayed to the immortal gods that no mischance might make them feel that his plan alter all was the best.

His salutory advice was not listened to by men, nor was his patriotic prayer heard by the gods. His colleague who had determined on battle drew up the front line, Camillus formed a powerful reserve and posted a strong force in front of the camp. He himself took his station on some rising ground and anxiously awaited the result of tactics so different from his own.

No sooner had their arms clashed together at the first onset than the enemy began to retire, not through fear but for tactical reasons.

Behind them the ground rose gently up to their camp, and owing to their preponderance in numbers they had been able to leave several cohorts armed and drawn up for action in their camp.

After the battle had begun these were to make a sortie as soon as the enemy were near their entrenchments. In pursuing the retiring enemy the Romans had been drawn on to the rising ground and were in some disorder. Seizing their opportunity the enemy made their charge from the camp.

It was the victors' turn now to be alarmed, and this new danger and the uphill fighting made the Roman line give ground. Whilst the Volscians who had charged from the camp pressed home their attack, the others who had made the pretended flight renewed the contest.

At last the Romans no longer retired in order; forgetting their recent battle-ardour and their old renown they began to flee in all directions, and in wild disorder were making for their camp. Camillus, after being assisted to mount by those around, hastily brought up the reserves and blocked their flight. “Is this, soldiers,” he cried, “the battle which you were clamouring for? Who is the man, who is the god that you can throw the blame upon?

Then you were foolhardy; now you are cowards. You have been following another captain, now follow Camillus and conquer, as you are accustomed to do, under my leadership. Why are you looking at the rampart and the camp?

Not a man of you shall enter there unless you are victorious.” A feeling of shame at first arrested their disorderly flight, then, when they saw the standards brought round and the line turning to face the enemy, and their leader, illustrious through a hundred triumphs and now venerable through age, showing himself amongst the fore- most ranks where the risk and toil were greatest, mutual reproaches mingled with words of encouragement were heard through the whole field till finally they burst into a ringing cheer.

The other tribune did not show himself wanting to the occasion. Whilst his colleague was rallying the infantry he was sent to the cavalry. He did not venture to censure them —his share in their fault left him too little authority for that —but dropping all tone of command be implored them one and all to clear him from the guilt of that day's misfortunes.

“In spite,” he said, “of the refusal and opposition of my colleague I preferred to associate myself with the rashness of all rather than with the prudence of one. Whatever your fortunes may be, Camillus sees his own glory reflected in them; I, unless the day is won, shall have the utter wretchedness of sharing the fortunes of all but bearing the infamy alone.”

As the infantry were wavering it seemed best for the cavalry, after dismounting and leaving their horses to be held, to attack the enemy on foot. Conspicuous for their arms and dashing courage they went wherever they saw the infantry force pressed.

Officers and men emulated each other in fighting with a determination and courage which never slackened. The effect of such strenuous bravery was shown in the result; the Volscians who a short time before had given ground in simulated fear were now scattered in real panic. A large number were killed in the actual battle and the subsequent flight, others in the camp, which was carried in the same charge; there were more prisoners, however, than slain.

On examining the prisoners, it was discovered that some were from Tusculum; these were brought separately before the tribunes and on being questioned admitted that their State authorised their taking up arms.

Alarmed at the prospect of a war so close to the City, Camillus said that he would at once conduct the prisoners to Rome so that the senate might not remain in ignorance of the fact that the Tusculans had abandoned the alliance with Rome.

His colleague might, if he thought good, remain in command of the army in camp. One day's experience had taught him not to prefer his own counsels to wiser ones, but even so, neither he nor any one in the army supposed that Camillus would calmly pass over that blunder of his by which the republic had been exposed to headlong disaster.