History of Rome, books 1-10

Thanksgivings for this success were ordered in honour of the consul, the suspension of business was withdrawn after lasting eighteen days, and the thanksgivings were of a most joyous character.

The next question was the protection of the district which had been devastated by the Samnites, and it was decided to settle bodies of colonists about the Vescinian and Falernian country.

One was to be at the mouth of the Liris, now called the colony of Menturna, the other in the Vescinian forest where it is contiguous with the territory of Falernum. Here the Greek city of Sinope is said to have stood, and from this the Romans gave the place the name of Sinuessa.

It was arranged that the tribunes of the plebs should get a plebiscite passed requiring P. Sempronius, the praetor, to appoint commissioners for the founding of colonies in those spots.

But it was not easy to find people to be sent to what was practically a permanent outpost in a dangerously hostile country, instead of having fields allotted to them for cultivation.

The attention of the senate was diverted from these matters to the growing seriousness of the outlook in Etruria. There were frequent despatches from Appius warning them not to neglect the movement that was going on in that part of the world;

four nations were in arms together, the Etruscans, the Samnites, the Umbrians, and the Gauls, and they were compelled to form two separate camps, for one place would not hold so great a multitude.

The date of the elections was approaching, and Volumnius was recalled to Rome to conduct them, and also to advise on the general policy. Before calling upon the centuries to vote he summoned the people to an Assembly. Here he dwelt at some length upon the serious nature of the war in Etruria.

Even, he said, when he and his colleague were conducting a joint campaign, the war was on too large a scale for any single general with his one army to cope with. Since then he understood that the Umbrians and an enormous force of Gauls had swollen the ranks of their enemies.

The electors must bear in mind that two consuls were being elected on that day to act against four nations. The choice of the Roman people would, he felt certain, fall on the one man who was unquestionably the foremost of all their generals. Had he not felt sure of this he was prepared to nominate him at once as Dictator.

After this speech no one felt the slightest doubt that Q. Fabius would be unanimously elected. The “prerogative” centuries and all those of the first class were voting for him and Volumnius, when he again addressed the electors very much

in the terms he had employed two years before, and as on the former occasion when he yielded to the universal wish, so now he again requested that P. Decius might be his colleague.

He would be a support for his old age to lean upon, they had been together as censors, and twice as consuls, and he had learnt by experience that nothing went further to protect the State than harmony between colleagues. He felt that he could hardly at his time of life get accustomed to a new comrade in office, he could so much more easily share all his counsels with one whose character and disposition he knew.

Volumnius confirmed what Fabius had said. He bestowed a well-deserved encomium on Decius, and pointed out what an advantage in military operations is gained by harmony between the consuls,

and what mischief is wrought when they are at variance. He mentioned as an instance the recent misunderstanding between him and

his colleague which almost led to a national disaster, and he solemnly admonished Decius and Fabius that they should live together with one mind and one heart. They were, he continued, born commanders, great in action, unskilled in wordy debate, possessing, in fact, all the qualifications of a consul.

Those, on the other hand, who were clever and cunning in law, and practised pleaders, like Appius Claudius, ought to be employed in the City and on the bench; they should be elected praetors to administer justice.

The discussion in the Assembly lasted the whole day. On the morrow the elections were held for both consuls and praetors.

The consul's recommendation was acted upon; Q. Fabius and P. Decius were elected consuls, and Appius Claudius was returned as praetor; they were all elected in their absence. The senate passed a resolution, which the Assembly confirmed by a plebiscite, that Volumnius' command should be extended for a year.

Several portents occurred this year and, with the view of averting them, the senate passed a decree that special intercessions should be offered for two days.

The wine and incense were provided at the public cost, and both men and women attended the religious functions in great numbers.

This time of special observance was rendered memorable by a quarrel which broke out amongst the matrons in the chapel of the Patrician Pudicitia, which is in the Forum Boarium, against the round temple of Hercules.

Verginia, the daughter of Aulus Verginius, a patrician, had married the plebeian consul, L. Volumnius, and the matrons excluded her from their sacred rites because she had married outside the patriciate. This led to a brief altercation, which, as the women became excited, soon blazed up into a storm of passion.

Verginia protested with perfect truth that she entered the temple of Pudicitia as a patrician and a pure woman, the wife of one man to whom she had been betrothed as a virgin, and she had nothing to be ashamed of in her husband or in his honourable career and the offices which he had held.

The effect of her high-spirited language was considerably enhanced by her subsequent action. In the Vicus Longus, where she lived, she shut off a portion of her house, sufficient to form a moderately sized chapel, and set up an altar there.

She then called the plebeian matrons together and told them how unjustly she had been treated by the patrician ladies. “I am dedicating,” she said,“this altar to the Plebeian Pudicitia, and I earnestly exhort you as matrons to show the same

spirit of emulation on the score of chastity that the men of this City display with regard to courage, so that this altar may, if possible, have the reputation of being honoured with a holier observance and by purer worshippers than that of the patricians.”

The ritual and ceremonial practised at this altar was almost identical with that at the older one; no matron was allowed to sacrifice there whose moral character was not well attested, and who had had more than one husband.

Afterwards it was polluted by the presence of women of every kind, not matrons only, and finally passed into oblivion. The curule aediles, Cnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius, brought up several money-lenders for trial this year.

The proportion of their fines which was paid into the treasury was devoted to various public objects; the wooden thresholds of the Capitol were replaced by bronze, silver vessels were made for the three tables in the shrine of Jupiter, and a statue of the god himself, seated in a four-horsed chariot, was set up on the roof.

They also placed near the Ficus Ruminalis a group representing the Founders of the City as infants being suckled by the she-wolf. The street leading from the Porta Capena to the temple of Mars was paved, under their instructions, with stone slabs.

Some graziers were also prosecuted for exceeding the number of cattle allowed them on the public land, and the plebeian aediles, L. Aelius Paetus and C. Fulvius Curvus, spent the money derived from their fines on public games and a set of golden bowls to be placed in the temple of Ceres.

. Fabius and P. Decius were now entering their year of office, the former being consul for the fifth time, the latter for the fourth.

Twice before they had been consuls together, they had held the censorship together, and the perfect unanimity between them, quite as much as their discharge of its duties, made their tenure of office a distinguished one.

But this was not to last for ever; the conflict which broke out between them was, however, I think, due more to the antagonism of the two orders to which they belonged than to any personal feeling on their part.

The patrician senators were extremely anxious that Fabius should have Etruria assigned to him without going through the usual procedure; the plebeian senators urged Decius to insist upon the question being settled in the usual way by lot. There was, at all events, a sharp division of opinion in the senate, and, when it became apparent that the Fabian interest was the stronger, the matter was referred to the people.

As both were first of all soldiers, trusting more to deeds than to words, their speeches before the Assembly were brief.

Fabius declared that it would be an unworthy proceeding if another should gather up the fruit beneath the tree which he had planted; he had opened up the Ciminian forest and made a way through pathless jungle for the arms of Rome. Why had they troubled him at his time of life, if they were going to carry on the war under another general?

Then he turned to Decius: “Surely,” he said, “I have chosen an opponent, not a comrade, in office; Decius is annoyed at our three years of joint power having been so harmonious.”

Finally, he asserted that he desired nothing more than that if they thought him worthy of that command, they should send him there; he had bowed to the will of the senate and should accept the decision of the people.

P. Decius, in reply, protested against the injustice of the senate. The patricians, he said, had done their utmost to exclude the plebeians from the great offices of the State.

Since personal merit had so far won the day that it no longer failed of recognition in any class of men, their object was now not only to stultify the deliberate decisions of the people as expressed by their votes, but even to turn the judgments which Fortune is ever passing into so many reasons for retaining their power, small as their number was.

All the consuls before his time had drawn lots for their commands, now the senate was giving Fabius his province independently of the lot.

If this was simply as a mark of honour, then he would admit that Fabius had rendered services both to the republic and to himself and he would gladly consent to anything that would add to his reputation, provided it did not involve casting a slur upon himself.

But who could fail to see that when a peculiarly difficult and formidable war is entrusted to one consul without any resort to the lot, it means that the other consul is regarded as superfluous and useless?

Fabius pointed with pride to his achievements in Etruria; Decius wished to be able to do so too, and possibly he might succeed in totally extinguishing the fire which the other had only smothered, and smothered in such a way that it was constantly breaking out where one least expected in fresh conflagrations.

He was prepared to concede honours and rewards to his colleague out of respect to his age and position, but when it was a question of danger or of fighting he did not give way, and would not voluntarily.

If he gained nothing else from this dispute, he would at least gain this much, that the people should decide a question which was theirs to decide, rather than that the senate should show undue partiality. He prayed Jupiter Optimus Maximus and the immortal gods to grant to him the impartial chance of the lot with his colleague, if they were going to grant them each the same courage and good fortune in the conduct of the war.

It was, at all events, a thing eminently fair in itself, and an excellent precedent for all time, and a thing which touched the good name of Rome very closely, that both the consuls should be men by either of whom the Etruscan war could be conducted without any risk of failure.

Fabius' only reply was to entreat the people to listen to some despatches which had been sent by Appius before they proceeded to vote. He then left the Assembly. The people were no less strong in his support than the senate had been, and Etruria was decreed to Fabius without any casting of lots.

When this decision was come to, all the men of military age flocked to the consul, and every one began to give in his name, so eager were they to serve under him as their general.

Seeing himself surrounded by this crowd, he called out: “I do not intend to enlist more than 4000 infantry and 6oo cavalry, and will take with me those of you who give in your names to-day and tomorrow.

I am more concerned to bring you all back wealthy men than to have a large number of men for my fighting force.”

With this compact army full of confidence and hope —all the more so because he felt no need of a great host —he marched to the town of Aharna, which was not far from the enemy, and from there went on to Appius camp.

He was still some miles distant from it when he was met by some soldiers sent to cut wood who were accompanied by an armed escort. When they saw the lictors marching in front of him, and heard that it was Fabius their consul, they were overjoyed and thanked the gods and the people of Rome for having sent him to them as their commander.

As they pressed round the consul to salute him, Fabius asked them where they were going, and on their replying that they were going to cut wood, “What do you say?”

he inquired; “surely you have a ramparted camp?” They informed him that they had a double rampart and fosse round the camp, and yet they were in a state of mortal fear.

“Well, then,” he replied, “go back and pull down your stockade, and you will have quite enough wood.” They returned into camp and began to demolish the rampart, to the great terror of those who

had remained in camp, and especially of Appius himself, until the news spread from one to another that they were acting under the orders of Q. Fabius, the consul. On the following day the camp was shifted, and Appius was sent back to Rome to take up his duties as praetor.

From that time the Romans had no standing camp. Fabius said that it was bad for the army to remain fixed in one spot; it became more healthy and active by frequent marches and change of position.

They made as long and frequent marches as the season allowed, for the winter was not yet over. As soon as spring set in, he left the second legion at Clusium, formerly called Camars, and placed L. Scipio in charge of the camp as propraetor.

He then returned to Rome to consult the senate as to future operations. He may have taken this step on his own initiative after finding from personal observation that the war was a bigger thing than he had believed it to be from the reports received, or he may have been summoned home by the senate; both reasons are assigned by our authorities.

Some want to make it appear that he was compelled to return, owing to the action of Appius Claudius, who had sent alarming despatches about the state of things in Etruria, and was now adding to the alarm by his speeches in the senate and before the Assembly.

He considered one general with only one army quite insufficient to cope with four nations; whether they combined their forces against him or acted separately, there was the danger of his being unable, single-handed, to meet all emergencies.

He had left only two legions there, and less than 5000 infantry and cavalry had arrived with Fabius, and he advised that P. Decius should join his colleague in Etruria as soon as possible.

Samnium could be handed over to L. Volumnius, or, if the consul preferred to keep to his own province, Volumnius should go to the support of Fabius with a full consular army.

As the praetor's representations were producing a considerable impression, we are told that Decius gave it as his opinion that Fabius ought not to be interfered with, but left free to act as he thought best until he had either himself come to Rome, if he could do so with safety to the State, or had sent some member

of his staff from whom the senate could learn the actual state of things in Etruria, what force would be necessary, and how many generals would be required.

Immediately on his arrival in Rome, Fabius addressed the senate and also the Assembly on the subject of the war. His tone was calm and temperate, he did not exaggerate, nor did he underrate the difficulties. If, he said, he accepted a colleague's assistance it would be more out of consideration for other people's fears than to provide against any danger either to himself or to the republic.

If, however, they did give him a coadjutor to be associated with him in the command, how could he possibly overlook P. Decius, who had been so frequently his colleague, and whom he knew so well?

There was no one in the world whom he would sooner have; if Decius were with him he should always find his forces sufficient for the work and never find the enemy too numerous for him to deal with.

If his colleague preferred some other arrangement they might give him L. Volumnius. The people, the senate, and his own colleague all agreed that Fabius should have a perfectly free hand in the matter, and when Decius made it clear that he was ready to go either to Samnium or to Etruria, there was universal joy and congratulation. Victory was already regarded as certain, and it looked as though a triumph, and not a serious war, had been decreed to the consuls.

I find it stated in some authorities that Fabius and Decius both started for Etruria immediately on entering office, no mention being made of their not deciding their provinces by lot, or of the quarrel between the colleagues which I have described.

Some, on the other hand, were not satisfied with simply narrating the dispute, but have given in addition certain charges which Appius brought against the absent Fabius before the people, and the bitter attacks he made upon him in his presence, and mention is made of a second quarrel between the colleagues caused by Decius insisting that each should keep the province assigned to him.

We find more agreement amongst the authorities from the time that both consuls left Rome for the scene of war. But before the consuls arrived in Etruria the Senonian Gauls came in immense numbers to Clusium with the intention of attacking the Roman camp and the legion stationed there.

Scipio was in command, and thinking to assist the scantiness of his numbers by taking up a strong position, he marched his force on to a hill which lay between his camp and the city.

The enemy had appeared so suddenly that he had had no time to reconnoitre the ground, and he went on towards the summit after the enemy had already seized it, having approached it from the other side.

So the legion was attacked in front and rear and completely surrounded. Some authors say that the entire legion was wiped out there, not a man being

left to carry the tidings, and that though the consuls were not far from Clusium at the time, no report of the disaster reached them until Gaulish horsemen appeared with the heads of the slain hanging from their horses' chests and fixed on the points of their spears, whilst they chanted war-songs after their manner.

According to another tradition they were not Gauls at all, but Umbrians, nor was there a great disaster; a foraging party commanded by L. Manlius Torquatus, a staff officer, was surrounded, but Scipio sent assistance from the camp, and in the end the Umbrians were defeated and the prisoners and booty recovered.

It is more probable that this defeat was inflicted by Gauls and not by Umbrians, for the fears of an irruption of Gauls which had been so often aroused were especially present to the minds of the citizens this year, and every precaution was taken to meet it.

The force with which the consuls had taken the field consisted of four legions and a large body of cavalry, in addition to 1000 picked Campanian troopers detailed for this war, whilst the contingents furnished by the allies and the Latin League formed an even larger army than the Roman army.

But in addition to this large force two other armies were stationed not far from the City, confronting Etruria; one in the Faliscan district, another in the neighbourhood of the Vatican. The propraetors, Cnaeus Fulvius and L. Postumius Megellus, had been instructed to fix their standing camps in those positions.

After crossing the Apennines, the consuls descended into the district of Sentinum and fixed their camp about four miles distance from the enemy.

The four nations consulted together as to their plan of action, and it was decided that they should not all be mixed up in one camp nor go into battle at the some

time. The Gauls were linked with the Samnites, the Umbrians with the Etrurians. They fixed upon the day of battle, the brunt of the fighting was to be reserved for the Gauls and Samnites, in the midst of the struggle the Etruscans and Umbrians were to attack the Roman

camp. These arrangements were upset by three deserters, who came in the secrecy of night to Fabius and disclosed the enemy's plans. They were rewarded for their information and dismissed with instructions to find out and report whatever fresh decision was arrived

at. The consuls sent written instructions to Fulvica and Postumius to bring their armies up to Clusium and ravage the enemy's country on their march as far as they possibly

could. The news of these ravages brought the Etruscans away from Sentinum to protect their own territory. Now that they had got them out of the way, the consuls tried hard to bring on an

engagement. For two days they sought to provoke the enemy to fight, but during those two days nothing took place worth mentioning; a few fell on both sides and enough exasperation was produced to make them desire a regular battle without, however, wishing to hazard everything on a decisive conflict.