History of Rome, books 1-10

Their attendants were instantly arrested, and denounced a large number of matrons as being guilty of the same offence, out of whom a hundred and seventy were found guilty. Up to that time there had never been a charge of poison investigated in Rome.

The whole incident was regarded as a portent, and thought to be an act of madness rather than deliberate wickedness. In consequence of the universal alarm created, it was decided to follow the precedent recorded in the annals.

During the secessions of the plebs in the old days a nail had been driven in by the Dictator, and by this act of expiation men's minds, disordered by civil strife, had been restored to sanity. A resolution was passed accordingly, that a Dictator should be appointed to drive in the nail.

Cnaeus Quinctilius was appointed and named L. Valerius as his Master of the Horse. After the nail was driven in they resigned office.

L. Papirius Crassus and L. Plautius Venox were thereupon elected consuls, the former for the second time. At the beginning of the year deputations came from Fabrateria and Luca, places belonging to the Volscians, with a request

to be received into the protection al Rome, whose overlordship they would faithfully and loyally acknowledge if they would undertake to defend them from the Samnites The senate acceded to their request, and sent to warn the Samnites against violating the territory of these two cities.

The Samnites took the warning, not because they were anxious for peace, but because they were not yet ready for war.

This year a war commenced with Privernum and its ally, Fundi; their commander was a Fundan, Vitrubius Baccus, a man of great distinction not only in his own city but even in Rome, where he had a house on the Palatine, which was afterwards destroyed and the site sold, the place being thenceforth known as the Bacci Prata.

Whilst he was spreading devastation far and wide through the districts of Setia, Norba, and Cora, L. Papirius advanced against him and took up a position not far from his camp.

Vitrubius had neither the prudence to remain within his lines in presence of an enemy stronger than himself nor the courage to fight at a distance from his camp.

He gave battle whilst his men were hardly clear of their camp, and thinking more of retreating back to it than of the battle or the enemy, was with very little effort put to a decisive defeat.

Owing to the proximity of the camp retreat was easy, and he had not much difficulty in protecting his men from serious loss; hardly any were killed in the actual battle, and only a few in the rear of the crowded fugitives as they were rushing into their camp As soon as it grew dark they abandoned it for Privernum, trusting to stone walls for protection rather than to the rampart round their camp.

The other consul, Plautius, alter ravaging the fields in all directions and carrying off the plunder, led his army into the territory of Fundi. As he was crossing their frontier the senate of Fundi met him and explained that they had not come to intercede for Vitrubius and those who had belonged to his party, but for the people of Fundi.

They pointed out that Vitrubius himself had cleared them from all responsibility by seeking shelter in Privernum and not in Fundi, though it was his city. At Privernum, therefore, the enemies of Rome were to be looked for and punished, for they had been faithless both to Fundi and Rome.

The men of Fundi wished for peace; their sympathies were wholly Roman, and they retained a grateful sense of the boon they received when the rights of citizenship were conferred upon them.

They besought the consul to abstain from making war upon an unoffending people; their lands, their city, their own persons and the persons of their wives and children were and would continue to be at the disposal of Rome.

The consul commended them for their loyalty and sent despatches to Rome to inform the senate that the Fundans were firm in their allegiance, after which he marched to Privernum. Claudius gives a different account.

According to him the consul first proceeded against the ringleaders of the revolt, of whom three hundred and fifty were sent in chains to Rome. He adds that the senate refused to receive the surrender because they considered that the Fundans were anxious to escape with the punishment of poor and obscure individuals.

Whilst Privernum was invested by two consular armies, one of the consuls was recalled home to conduct the elections. It was in this year that the carceres were erected in the Circus Maximus

The trouble of the war with Privernum was not yet over when a most alarming report of a sudden movement amongst the Gauls reached the senate. Such reports were not often treated lightly. The new consuls, L. Aemilius Mamercinus and C. Plautius, were immediately ordered to arrange their respective commands on the very day they assumed office, namely July 1. The Gaulish war fell to Mamercinus, and he allowed none of those who were called up for service to claim exemption.

It is even asserted that the mob of mechanics and artizans, a class utterly unfit for warfare, were called out. An immense army was concentrated at Veii to check the advance of the Gauls. It was thought better not to march any further in case the enemy took some other route to the City. After a thorough reconnaissance had been made, it was ascertained after a few days that all was quiet as far as the Gauls were concerned, and the whole force was thereupon marched to Privernum.

From this point there is a twofold story. Some state that the city was stormed and Vitrubius taken alive; other authorities aver that before the final assault the townsmen came out with a caduceus and surrendered to the consul, whilst Vitrubius was given up by

his own men. The senate, when consulted as to the fate of Vitrubius and the Privernates, instructed the consul to demolish the walls of Privernum and station a strong garrison there, and then to celebrate his triumph. Vitrubius was to be kept in prison until the consul returned and then to be scourged and beheaded; his house on the Palatine was to be razed and his goods devoted to Semo Sancus. The money realised by their sale was melted down into brazen orbs which were deposited in the chapel of Sancus opposite the

temple of Quirinus. With regard to the senate of Privernum, it was decreed that every senator who had remained in that city after its revolt from Rome should be deported beyond the Tiber on the same conditions as those of Velitrae. After his triumph, when Vitrubius and his accomplices had been put to death, the consul thought that as the senate was satisfied with the punishment of the guilty, he might safely refer to the matter of the Privernates. He addressed the House in the following terms:

“Since the authors of the revolt, senators, have been visited by the immortal gods and by you with the punishment they deserved, what is your pleasure with regard to the innocent population? Although it is my duty to ask for opinions rather than to give them, I should like to say that in view of the fact that the Privernates are neighbours of the Samnites, with whom peaceful relations are now upon a most uncertain footing, I am anxious that as few grounds of complaint as possible should exist between

us and them.” The question was not an easy one to settle, for the senators were governed largely by their temperaments and some advised a harsh, others a gentler course. The general divergence of opinion was widened by one of the Privernate envoys who was thinking more of the state of things in which he had been born than of his present plight. One of the senators who was advocating sterner measures asked him what punishment he thought

his countrymen deserved. He replied: “The punishment which those deserve who assert their liberty.” The consul saw that this spirited reply only exasperated those who were already adverse to the cause of the Privernates, and he tried to get a softer answer by a

more considerate question. “Well,” he said, “if we spare you now, what sort of a peace may we hope to have with you for the time to come?” “A real and lasting one,” was the reply, “if its terms be good, but if they are bad, one that will soon be broken.” On hearing this, some of the senators exclaimed that he was using open threats, and that it was by such language that even those states which had been pacified were incited

to renew hostilities. The better part of the senate, however, put a more favourable construction on his reply, and declared that it was an utterance worthy of a man and a man who loved liberty. Was it, they asked, to be supposed that any people or, for that matter, any individual would remain longer than he could help under conditions which

made him discontented? Peace would only be faithfully kept where those who accepted it did so voluntarily; they could not hope that it would be faithfully kept where they sought to reduce men to servitude. The senate was brought to adopt this view mainly by the consul himself who kept repeating to the consulars —the men who had to state their opinions first —in a tone loud enough for many to hear, “Men whose first and last thought is their liberty deserve to become Romans.” Thus they gained their cause in the senate, and the proposal to confer full citizenship on the Privernates was submitted to the people.

The new consuls were P. Plautius Proculus and P. Cornelius Scapula. The year was not remarkable for anything at home or abroad beyond the fact that a colony was sent to Fregellae which was in the territory of Sidicum and had afterwards belonged to the Volscians.

There was also a distribution of meat made to the people by M. Flavius on the occasion of his mother's funeral.

There were many who looked upon this as the payment of a bribe to the people under the pretext of honouring his mother's memory.

He had been prosecuted by the aediles on the charge of seducing a married woman, and had been acquitted, and this was considered in the light of a dole given in return for the favour shown him at the trial.

It proved also to be the means of his gaining office, for at the next election he was made a tribune of the plebs in his absence and over the heads of competitors who had personally canvassed. Palaeopolis was a city not far from the present site of Neapolis The two cities formed one community.

The original inhabitants came from Cumae; Cumae traced its origin to Chalcis in Euboea. The fleet in which they had sailed from home gave them the mastery of the coastal district which they now occupy, and after landing in the islands of Aenaria and Pithecusae they ventured to transfer their settlements to the mainland.

This community, relying on their own strength and on the lax observance of treaty obligations which the Samnites were showing towards the Romans, or possibly trusting to the effect of the pestilence which they had heard was now attacking the City, committed many acts of aggression against the Romans who were living in Campania and the Falernian country.

In consequence of this, the consuls, L. Cornelius Lentulus and Q. Publilius Philo, sent the fetials to Palaeopolis to demand redress. On hearing that the Greeks, a people valiant in words rather than in deeds, had sent a defiant reply, the people, with the sanction of the senate, ordered war to be made on Palaeopolis.

The consuls arranged their respective commands; the Greeks were left for Publilius to deal with; Cornelius, with a second army, was to check any movement on the part of the Samnites.

As, however, he received intelligence that they intended to advance into Campania in anticipation of a rising there, he thought it best to form a standing camp there.

Both consuls sent word to the senate that there were very slender hopes of the Samnites remaining at peace. Publilius informed them that 2000 troops from Nola and 4000 Samnites had been admitted into Palaeopolis, more under pressure from Nola than

from any great desire for their presence on the part of the Greeks; Cornelius sent the additional information that orders for a general levy had been issued

throughout Samnium, and attempts were being openly made to induce the neighbouring communities of Privernum, Fundi, and Formiae to rise.

Under these circumstances it was decided to send ambassadors to the Samnites before actually commencing war. The Samnites sent an insolent reply.

They accused the Romans of wanton aggression, and absolutely denied the charges made against themselves; they declared that the assistance which the Greeks had received was not furnished by their government, nor had they tampered with Fundi and Formiae, for they had no reason to distrust their own strength if it came to war.

Moreover, it was impossible to disguise the deep irritation which the Samnite nation felt at the conduct of the Roman people in restoring Fregellae

after they had taken it from the Volscians and destroyed it, and placing a colony on Samnite territory which the colonists called Fregellae.

If this insult and injury were not removed by those responsible for it, they would themselves exert all their strength to get rid of it The Roman ambassadors invited them to submit the questions at issue to arbitration before their common friends, but the Samnites replied: “Why should we beat about the bush?

No diplomacy, no arbitration can adjust our quarrel; arms and the fortune of war can alone decide the issue. We must meet in Campania.”

To which the Roman replied: “Roman soldiers will march not whither the enemy summons them, but whither their commander leads them.” Publilius meantime had taken up a suitable position between Palaeopolis and Neapolis in order to prevent them from rendering each other the mutual assistance they had hitherto given. The time for the elections was close at hand, and it would have been most inexpedient for the public interest to recall Publilius, as he was ready to attack the place and in daily expectation of effecting its capture.

An arrangement was accordingly made with the tribunes of the plebs to propose to the people that at the expiration

of his term of office Publilius should continue to act as proconsul till the war with the Greeks was brought to a close.

The same step was taken with regard to Cornelius, who had already entered Samnium, and written instructions were sent to him to nominate a Dictator to hold the elections. He nominated M. Claudius Marcellus, and Sp. Postumius was named by him Master of the Horse.

The elections, however, were not held by that Dictator, doubts having been raised as to whether the proper formalities had been observed in his nomination. The augurs, when consulted, declared that they had not been duly observed. The tribunes characterised their action as dishonest and iniquitous.

“How,” they asked, “could they know that there was any irregularity? The consul rose at midnight to nominate the Dictator; he had made no communication to any one either officially or privately about the matter;

there was no one living who could say that he had seen or heard anything which would vitiate the auspices; the augurs sitting quietly in Rome could not possibly divine what difficulty the consul may have met with in the camp. Who was there who could not see that the irregularity which the augurs had discovered lay in the fact that the Dictator was a plebeian?”

These and other objections were raised by the tribunes. Matters, however, reverted to an interregnum, and owing to the repeated adjournment of the elections on one pretext after another, there were no fewer than fourteen interegna. At last L. Aemilius, the fourteenth interrex, declared C. Poetilius and L. Papirius Mugilanus duly elected. In other lists I find Cursor.

The foundation of Alexandria in Egypt is stated to have taken place this year (327 B.C..>, and also the assassination of Alexander of Epirus at the hands of a Lucanian refugee, an event which fulfilled the oracular prediction of the Dodonean Jupiter.

When he was invited by the Tarentines into Italy, he received a warning to beware of the water of Acheron and the city of Pandosia; for it was there that the limits of his destiny were fixed.

This made him cross over into Italy all the sooner, that he might be as far as possible from the city of Pandosia in Epirus and the river Acheron, which flows from Molossis into the Infernal Marshes and finally empties itself into the Thesprotian Gulf.

But, as often happens, in trying to avoid his fate he rushed upon it. He won many victories over the nationalities of Southern Italy, inflicting numerous defeats upon the legions of Bruttium and Lucania, capturing the city of Heraclea, a colony of settlers from Tarentum, taking Potentia from the Lucanians, Sipontum from the Apulians, Consentia and Terina from the Bruttii and other cities belonging to the Messapians and Lucanians.

He sent three hundred noble families to Epirus to be detained there as hostages. The circumstances under which he met his death were these. He had taken up a permanent position on three hills not far from the city of Pandosia which is close to the frontiers of the Lucanians and Bruttii.

From this point he made incursions into every part of the enemy's territory, and on these expeditions he had as a bodyguard some two hundred Lucanian refugees, in whose fidelity he placed confidence, but who, like most of their countrymen, were given to changing their minds as their fortunes changed.

Continuous rains had inundated the whole country and prevented the three divisions of the army from mutually supporting each other, the level ground between the hills being impassable. While they were in this condition two out of the three divisions were suddenly attacked in the king's absence and overwhelmed.

After annihilating them the enemy invested the third hill, where the king was present in person. The Lucanian refugees managed to communicate with their countrymen, and promised, if a safe return were guaranteed to them, to place the king in their hands alive or dead.

Alexander, with a picked body of troops, cut his way, with splendid courage, through the enemy, and meeting the Lucanian general slew him after a hand to hand fight.

Then getting together those of his men who were scattered in flight, he rode towards the ruins of a bridge which had been carried away by the floods and came to a river.

Whilst his men were fording it with very uncertain footing, a soldier, almost spent by his exertions and his fears, cursed the river for its unlucky name, and said, “Rightly art thou called Acheros !” When these words fell on his ear the king at once recalled to mind the oracular warning, and stopped, doubtful whether to cross or not.

Sotimus, one of his personal attendants, asked him why he hesitated at such a critical moment and drew his attention to the suspicious movements of the Lucanian refugees who were evidently meditating treachery.

The king looked back and saw them coming on in a compact body; he at once drew his sword and spurred his horse through the middle of the river. He had already reached the shallow water on the other side when one of the refugees some distance away transfixed him with a javelin.

He fell from his horse, and his lifeless body with the weapon sticking in it was carried down by the current to that part of the bank where the enemy were stationed. There it was horribly mutilated.

After cutting it through the middle they sent one half to Consentia and kept the other to make sport of . Whilst they were pelting it at a distance with darts and stones a solitary woman ventured among the rabble who were showing such incredible brutality and implored them to desist. She told them amid her tears that her husband and children were held prisoners by the enemy and she hoped to ransom them with the king's body however much it might have been disfigured.

This put an end to the outrages. What was left of the limbs was cremated at Consentia by the reverential care of this one woman, and the bones were sent back to Metapontum;

from there they were carried to Cleopatra, the king's wife, and Olympias, his sister, the latter of whom was the mother, the former the sister of Alexander the Great.

I thought it well to give this brief account of the tragic end of Alexander of Epirus, for although Fortune kept him from hostilities with Rome, the wars he waged in Italy entitle him to a place in this history.

A laetisternium took place this year (326 B.C.>, the fifth since the foundation of the City, and

the same deities were propitiated in this as in the former one. The new consuls, acting on the orders of the people, sent heralds to deliver a formal declaration of war to the Samnites, and made all their preparations on a much

greater scale for this war than for the one against the Greeks. New and unexpected succours were forthcoming, for the Lucanians and Apulians, with whom Rome had up to that time established no relations, came forward with offers to make an

alliance and promised armed assistance; a friendly alliance was formed with them. Meantime the operations in Samnium were attended with success, the towns of Allifae, Callifae, and Rufrium passed into the hands of the Romans, and ever since the consuls had entered the country the rest of the territory was ravaged far and wide.

Whilst this war was commencing thus favourably, the other war against the Greeks was approaching its close. Not only were the two towns Palaeopolis and Neapolis cut off from all communication with each other by the enemy's lines, but the townsfolk within the walls were practically prisoners to their own defenders, and were suffering

more from them than from anything which the outside enemy could do; their wives and children were exposed to such extreme indignities as are only inflicted when cities are stormed and sacked. A report

reached them that succours were coming from Tarentum and from the Samnites. They considered that they had more Samnites than they wanted already within their walls, but the force from Tarentum composed of Greeks, they were prepared to welcome, being Greeks themselves, and through their means they hoped