← Library

Ab Urbe Condita, books 1-2 - 2

Perseus Latin · Perseus Latin · 1 sections

1. 1

   Book II THE new liberty enjoyed by the Roman people, their achievements in peace and war, annual magistracies, and laws superior in authority to men will henceforth be my theme. This liberty was the more grateful as the last king had been so great a tyrant. For his predecessors so ruled that there is good reason to regard them all as successive founders of parts, at least, of the City, which they added to serve as new homes for the numbers they had themselves recruited. Nor is there any doubt that the same Brutus who earned such honour by expelling the haughty Tarquinius, would have acted in an evil hour for the commonwealth had a premature eagerness for liberty led him to wrest the power from any of the earlier kings. For what would have happened if that rabble of shepherds and vagrants, having deserted their own peoples, and under the protection of inviolable sanctuary having possessed themselves of liberty, or at least impunity, had thrown off their fear of kings only to be stirred by the ruffling storms of tribunician demagogues, breeding quarrels with the senators of a city not their own, before ever the pledges of wife and children and love of the very place and soil (an affection of slow growth) had firmly united their aspirations? The nation would have crumbled away with dissension before it had matured. But it was favoured by the mild restraint of the government, which nursed it up to the point where its ripened powers enabled it to bear good fruit of liberty. Moreover you may reckon the beginning of liberty as proceeding rather from the limitation of the consuls' authority to a year than from any diminution of their power compared with that which the kings had exercised. All the rights of the kings and all their insignia were possessed by the earliest consuls; only one thing was guarded against —that the terror they inspired should not be doubled by permitting both to have the rods. Brutus was the first to have them, with his colleague's consent, and he proved as determined in guarding liberty as he had been in asserting it. To begin with, when the people were still jealous of their new freedom, he obliged them to swear an oath that they would suffer no man to be king in Rome, lest they might later be turned from their purpose by the entreaties or the gifts of princes. In the next place, that the strength of the senate might receive an added augmentation from the numbers of that order, he filled up the list of the Fathers, which had been abridged by the late king's butcheries, drawing upon the foremost men of equestrian rank until he had brought the total up to three hundred. From that time, it is said, was handed down the custom of summoning to the senate the Fathers and the Enrolled, the latter being the designation of the new senators, who were appointed. This measure was wonderfully effective in promoting harmony in the state and attaching the plebs to the Fathers. Matters of worship then received attention. Certain public sacrifices had habitually been performed by the kings in person, and that their absence might nowhere be regretted, a king of sacrifices was appointed. This priesthood they made subordinate to the pontifex, lest the office, in conjunction with the title, might somehow prove an obstacle to liberty, which was at that time their chief concern. Perhaps the pains they took to safeguard it, even in trivial details, may have been excessive. For the name of one of the consuls, though he gave no other offence, was hateful to the citizens. The Tarquinii had become too used to sovereignty. It had begun with Priscus; Servius Tullius had then been king; but not even this interruption had caused Tarquinius Superbus to forget the throne or regard it as another's; as though it had been the heritage of his family, he had used crime and violence to get it back; Superbus was now expelled, but the supreme power was in the hands of Collatinus. The Tarquinii knew not how to live as private citizens. Their name was irksome and a menace to liberty. Beginning in this way, with a cautious sounding of sentiment, the talk spread through the entire nation, and the plebs had become anxious and suspicious, when Brutus summoned them to an assembly. There he first of all recited the oath which the people had taken, that they would suffer no king in Rome, nor any man who might be dangerous to liberty. This oath they must uphold, he said, with all their might, nor make light of anything which bore upon it. He spoke with reluctance, on the man's account, nor would he have broken silence unless he had been forced to do so by his love of country. The Roman people did not believe that they had recovered absolute freedom. The royal family, the royal name were not only present in the state, but were actually in authority, an obstacle and a stumbling-block in the way of liberty. This fear, he cried, do you yourself remove, Lucius Tarquinius, of your own free will! We are mindful —we confess it —that you drove out the kings; complete the good work you have begun, and rid us of the royal name. Your possessions shall not only be granted you by the citizens, at my instance, but if they are in any way inadequate they shall be generously increased. Depart our friend, and relieve the state of what is, perhaps, an idle fear. The people are persuaded that with the family of Tarquinius the kingship will vanish from amongst us. The consul was at first prevented from uttering a word by his astonishment at this strange and unexpected turn; then, when he tried to speak, the chief men of the state surrounded him, and with many entreaties made the same request. The others had little influence over him, but when Spurius Lucretius, his superior in years and dignity, and his father-in-law besides, began to urge him, with mingled entreaty and advice, to permit himself to yield to the unanimous wish of his fellow-citizens, Collatinus became alarmed lest when his year of office should have ended, his misfortunes might be increased by the confiscation of his property and the addition of yet other ignominies. He therefore resigned the consulship, and transferring all his possessions to Lavinium, withdrew from the Roman state. In pursuance of a resolution of the senate, Brutus proposed to the people a measure which decreed the exile of all the Tarquinian race. To be his colleague the centuriate comitia, under his presidency, elected Publius Valerius, who had helped him to expel the kings. Although no one doubted that the Tarquinii would presently go to war, their attack was delayed beyond all expectation; while a thing men did not fear at all, to wit a treasonable plot, almost cost Rome her liberty. There were among the young men a number of youths, the sons of families not unimportant, whose pleasures had been less confined under the monarchy, who, being of the same age as the young Tarquinii, and their cronies, had grown used to the untrammelled life of princes. This licence they missed, now that all enjoyed equal rights, and they had got into the way of complaining to each other that the liberty of the rest had resulted in their own enslavement. A king was a man, from whom one could obtain a boon, whether it were just or unjust; there was room for countenance and favour; a king could be angry, could forgive, could distinguish between friend and enemy. The law was a thing without ears, inexorable, more salutary and serviceable to the pauper than to the great man; it knew no relaxation or indulgence, if one exceeded bounds; and, inasmuch as man is so prone to blunder, it was dangerous to rely on innocence alone. Thanks to such reflections, they were already infected with disloyalty when envoys from the royal family appeared, who without saying anything about the return of the Tarquinii, sought merely to recover their property. The senate, having given them a hearing, debated the question for several days; for they feared that if they refused to make restitution it would be a pretext for war, if they consented it would be to furnish means and assistance for its prosecution. Meantime the envoys were exerting themselves to a different purpose. Ostensibly seeking to recover the property, they secretly laid their plans for winning back the kingdom; and, as if in furtherance of their apparent object, they went about sounding the disposition of the youthful nobles. To those who gave them a friendly hearing they delivered letters from the Tarquinii, and plotted with them to admit the royal family secretly by night into the City. The brothers Vitellii and Aquilii were the first to be entrusted with the project. A sister of the Vitellii had married the consul Brutus, and there were sons of this marriage who were now young men, Titus and Tiberius; these were also admitted by their uncles to a share in the design. There were besides several other young nobles taken into the secret, but their names are lost in antiquity. The senate meantime had acquiesced in the opinion of those who were in favour of giving back the property. This very fact gave the agents of the exiles an excuse for lingering in the City, for the consuls had granted them time for obtaining vehicles with which to carry away the belongings of the royal family. All this time they spent in consultation with the conspirators, whom they urged and at length persuaded to give them letters for the Tarquinii: for otherwise how could the princes be convinced that the statements of their agents regarding matters of such importance were to be relied on? These letters, being given as a pledge of sincerity, furnished clear proof of the crime, For on the eve of the envoys' setting out to rejoin their masters it happened that they were dining at the house of the Vitellii, where the conspirators, having dismissed all witnesses, had much talk together, naturally enough, about their new design. This conversation one of the slaves overheard. He had for some time perceived what was in the wind, but was waiting for the opportunity which the delivery of the letters to the envoys would provide, that their seizure might make good his accusation. When he saw that the letters had been given, he laid the matter before the consuls. The consuls left their houses, arrested the agents and the conspirators, and, without making any disturbance, completely crushed the plot, being especially careful not to lose the letters. The traitors were thrown into prison forthwith. As for the envoys, it was uncertain for a little while what would be done with them, but, notwithstanding they appeared to have deserved no less than to be treated as enemies, the law of nations nevertheless prevailed. The question of the royal property, which they had before voted to return, was laid before the Fathers for fresh consideration. This time anger won the day. They refused to return it, and refused to confiscate it to the state, but gave it up to the plebeians to plunder, that having had their fingers in the spoils of the princes they might for ever relinquish hope of making their peace with them. The land of the Tarquinii, lying between the City and the Tiber, was consecrated to Mars and became the Campus Martius. It happened, they say, that there was then standing upon it a crop of spelt, ripe for the harvest. Since this produce of the land might not, for religious reasons, be consumed, the grain was cut, straw and all, by a large body of men, who were set to work upon it simultaneously, and was carried in baskets and thrown into the Tiber, then flowing with a feeble current, as is usually the case in midsummer. So the heaps of grain, caught in the shallow water, settled down in the mud, and out of these and the accumulation of other chance materials such as a river brings down, there was gradually formed an island. Later, I suppose, embankments were added, and work was done, to raise the surface so high above the water and make it strong enough to sustain even temples and porticoes. When the chattels of the princes had been pillaged, sentence was pronounced and punishment inflicted upon the traitors —a punishment the more conspicuous because the office of consul imposed upon a father the duty of exacting the penalty from his sons, and he who ought to have been spared even the sight of their suffering was the very man whom Fortune appointed to enforce it. Bound to the stake stood youths of the highest birth. But the rest were ignored as if they had been of the rabble: the consul's sons drew all eyes upon themselves. Men pitied them for their punishment not more than for the crime by which they had deserved that punishment. To think that those young men, in that year of all others, when their country was liberated and her liberator their own father, and when the consulship had begun with the Junian family, could have brought themselves to betray all —the senate, the plebs, and all the gods and men of Rome —to one who had formerly been a tyrannical king and was then an enemy exile! The consuls advanced to their tribunal and dispatched the lictors to execute the sentence. The culprits were stripped, scourged with rods, and beheaded, while through it all men gazed at the expression on the father's face, where they might clearly read a father's anguish, as he administered the nation's retribution. When the guilty had suffered, that the example might be in both respects a notable deterrent from crime, the informer was rewarded with money from the treasury, emancipation, and citizenship. He is said to have been the first to be freed by the vindicta. Some think that even the word vindicta was derived from his name, which they suppose to have been Vindicius. From his time onwards it was customary to regard those who had been freed by this form as admitted to citizenship. When these occurrences had been faithfully reported to Tarquinius, he was stirred not only by disappointment at the collapse of so great hopes, but also by hatred and anger. He saw that the way was now closed against trickery, and believed it was time to contrive an open war. He therefore went about as a suppliant amongst the cities of Etruria, directing his prayers chiefly to the Veientes and the Tarquinienses. Reminding them that he had come from them and was of the same blood as themselves, and that exile and poverty had followed hard upon his loss of what had been but now great power, he besought them not to let him perish, with his youthful sons, before their very eyes. Others had been called in from abroad to be kings in Rome: he himself, while actually king, and enlarging Rome's sway by war, had been driven out by his next-of-kin in a wicked conspiracy. His enemies, perceiving that no single claimant was fit to be king, had seized and usurped the power amongst themselves, and had given up his goods to be plundered by the people, that none might be without a share in the guilt. He wished to regain his country and his sovereignty, and to punish the ungrateful Romans. Let them succour and support him, and avenge, as well, their own long-standing grievances, the oft-repeated destruction of their armies, and seizure of their lands. This last plea moved the men of Veii, and they cried out with threatenings that they ought, at all events with a Roman for their commander, to wipe out their disgraces and recover what they had lost in war. The Tarquinienses were influenced by his name and kinship: it seemed a fine thing to them that one of their blood should be king in Rome. So it came about that two armies, representing two nations, followed Tarquinius, to regain his kingdom for him and to chastise the Romans. When they had come into Roman territory the consuls went out to meet the enemy: Valerius led the foot in defensive formation; Brutus, with the cavalry, went ahead to scout. In the same fashion the enemy's horse headed their march, commanded by Arruns Tarquinius, the king's son, while the king himself followed with the legions. Arruns, perceiving a long way off by the consul's lictors that it was he, and then, as they drew nearer together, recognizing Brutus more unmistakably by his countenance, blazed with resentment. Yonder, he cried, is the man who drove us into exile from our native land. Look! He is himself decked out with our trappings, as he comes proudly on! O gods, avengers of kings, be with us! Spurring his horse, he charged straight at the consul. Brutus saw that he was the object of the man's attack. In those days it was to a general's credit to take part in the actual fighting, so he eagerly accepted the challenge, and they rushed at one another with such desperation, neither of them taking thought for his own defence if only he might wound his adversary, that each was pierced right through his shield by the other's thrust, and, impaled upon the two spears, they fell dying from their horses. At the same time the rest of the cavalry as well began to fight, and not long after the infantry also appeared. In this battle the advantage was divided, and the fortune of war seemed equally balanced: the right wing on each side was victorious, while the left was defeated. The Veientes, used to being beaten by the Roman troops, were routed and dispersed; the men of Tarquinii, a new enemy, not only stood their ground, but drove back the Roman forces which opposed them. Yet despite the indecisive character of the battle, so great a panic came over Tarquinius and the Etruscans that they gave up the enterprise for lost, and that same night both armies, the Veientine and the Tarquiniensian, marched off every man to his own home. To the story of this fight common report adds a prodigy: that in the silence of the following night a loud voice was heard coming out of the Arsian forest, which was believed to be the voice of Silvanus, and that this was what he said: The Tuscans have lost one more man in the battle-line; the Romans are conquerors in the war. At all events the Romans left the field like victors, and the Etruscans like an army that has been defeated. For when it grew light and not a single enemy was to be seen, Publius Valerius the consul gathered up the spoils and returned in triumph to Rome. His colleague's funeral he celebrated with all the pomp then possible; but a far greater honour to the dead man was the general grief, which was particularly conspicuous inasmuch as the matrons mourned a year for him, as for a father, because he had been so spirited an avenger of outraged modesty. Soon after this the surviving consul, so fickle are the affections of the mob, became unpopular; not only did the people dislike him, but they actually suspected him and made cruel charges against him. It was noised about that he was aspiring to the power of a king, since he had not caused a colleague to be elected in the place of Brutus, and was building a house on the highest part of the Velia, an elevated position of natural strength, men said, which he was converting into an impregnable citadel. The frequency of these remarks and the general acceptance they met with, shamefully unjust as they were, distressed the consul. He summoned the people to a council, and with lowered fasces mounted the speaker's platform. It was a welcome spectacle to the multitude when they beheld the emblems of authority there abased before them, in acknowledgment that the people's majesty and power were superior to the consul's. Then, bidding them attend, the consul extolled the good fortune of his colleague, who, after his country had thrown off the yoke, had held the highest office in her gift, and, fighting for the state, at the height of a reputation as yet untarnished by envy, had met his death. He had himself outlived his glory, and survived to face accusations and ill-will. From being the saviour of his country he had sunk to the level of the Aquilii and Vitellii. Will there never be worth and merit, then, he exclaimed, so established in your minds that suspicion cannot wrong it? Could I possibly have feared that I, well known as the bitterest enemy of kings, should myself incur the charge of seeking kingly power? Could I have believed that, though I dwelt in the very Citadel and on the Capitol itself, I could be feared by my fellow-citizens? Can so trivial a cause ruin my reputation with you? Does your confidence rest on so slight a foundation that it makes more difference where I am than who I am? There shall be no menace in the house of Publius Valerius to your liberties, Quirites; your Velia shall be safe. I will not only bring my house down on to level ground, but will even place it under a hill, that you may live above me, the citizen whom you suspect. Let those build on the Velia who can better be trusted with men's liberty than can Publius Valerius! Immediately the materials were all brought down below the Velia, and the house was erected where the temple of Vica Pota is now, at the bottom of the slope. Laws were then proposed which not only cleared the consul from the suspicion of seeking kingly power, but took such an opposite turn that they even made him popular and caused him to be styled Publicola, the People's Friend. Above all, the law about appealing from the magistrates to the people, and the one that pronounced a curse on the life and property of a man who should plot to make himself king, were welcome to the commons. When he had carried through these measures alone, that he might enjoy without a rival all the favour arising out of them, he finally held an election to choose a colleague for the unexpired term. The choice fell upon Spurius Lucretius, who by reason of his great age was no longer strong enough for the duties of the consulship, and died within a few days. They elected in Lucretius's place Marcus Horatius Pulvillus. In some ancient authorities I do not find Lucretius given as consul, but Brutus is followed immediately by Horatius; I suppose that because no exploit lent distinction to Lucretius's consulship men forgot it. The temple of Jupiter on the Capitol had not yet been dedicated. Valerius and Horatius the consuls drew lots to determine which should do it. Horatius received the lot, and Publicola set out to conduct the war against the Veientes. With more bitterness than was reasonable, the friends of Valerius resented that the dedication of so famous a temple should be given to Horatius. They tried in all sorts of ways to hinder it, but their schemes all came to naught. Finally, when the consul's hand was on the door-post and he was in the midst of his prayers to the gods, they broke in upon the ceremony with the evil tidings that his son was dead, averring that whilst the shadow of death was over his house he could not dedicate a temple. Whether he did not believe the news to be true, or possessed great fortitude, we are not informed with certainty, nor is it easy to decide. Without permitting himself to be diverted from his purpose by the message, further than to order that the body should be buried, he kept his hand upon the doorpost, finished his prayer, and dedicated the temple. Such were the achievements, at home and in the field, of the first year after the expulsion of the kings. Next Publius Valerius (for the second time) and Titus Lucretius were made consuls. By this time the Tarquinii had sought refuge with Lars Porsinna, king of Clusium. There they mingled advice and entreaty, now imploring him not to permit them, Etruscans by birth and of the same blood and the same name as himself, to suffer the privations of exile, and again even warning him not to allow the growing custom of expelling kings to go unpunished. Liberty was sweet enough in itself. Unless the energy with which nations sought to obtain it were matched by the efforts which kings put forth to defend their power, the highest would be reduced to the level of the lowest; there would be nothing lofty, nothing that stood out above the rest of the state; there was the end of monarchy, the noblest institution known to gods or men. Porsinna, believing that it was not only a safe thing for the Etruscans that there should be a king at Rome, but an honour to have that king of Etruscan stock, invaded Roman territory with a hostile army. Never before had such fear seized the senate, so powerful was Clusium in those days, and so great Porsinna's fame. And they feared not only the enemy but their own citizens, lest the plebs should be terror-stricken and, admitting the princes into the City, should even submit to enslavement, for the sake of peace. Hence the senate at this time granted many favours to the plebs. The question of subsistence received special attention, and some were sent to the Volsci and others to Cumae to buy up corn. Again, the monopoly of salt, the price of which was very high, was taken out of the hands of individuals and wholly assumed by the government. Imposts and taxes were removed from the plebs that they might be borne by the well-to-do, who were equal to the burden: the poor paid dues enough if they reared children. Thanks to this liberality on the part of the Fathers, the distress which attended the subsequent blockade and famine was powerless to destroy the harmony of the state, which was such that the name of king was not more abhorrent to the highest than to the lowest; nor was there ever a man in after years whose demagogic arts made him so popular as its wise governing at that time made the whole senate. When the enemy appeared, the Romans all, with one accord, withdrew from their fields into the City, which they surrounded with guards. Some parts appeared to be rendered safe by their walls, others by the barrier formed by the river Tiber. The bridge of piles almost afforded an entrance to the enemy, had it not been for one man, Horatius Cocles; he was the bulwark of defence on which that day depended the fortune of the City of Rome. He chanced to be on guard at the bridge when Janiculum was captured by a sudden attack of the enemy. He saw them as they charged down on the run from Janiculum, while his own people behaved like a frightened mob, throwing away their arms and quitting their ranks. Catching hold first of one and then of another, blocking their way and conjuring them to listen, he called on gods and men to witness that if they forsook their post it was vain to flee; once they had left a passage in their rear by the bridge, there would soon be more of the enemy on the Palatine and the Capitol than on Janiculum. He therefore warned and commanded them to break down the bridge with steel, with fire, with any instrument at their disposal; and promised that he would himself receive the onset of the enemy, so far as it could be withstood by a single body. Then, striding to the head of the bridge, conspicuous amongst the fugitives who were clearly seen to be shirking the fight, he covered himself with his sword and buckler and made ready to do battle at close quarters, confounding the Etruscans with amazement at his audacity. Yet were there two who were prevented by shame from leaving him. These were Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius, both famous for their birth and their deeds. With these he endured the peril of the first rush and the stormiest moment of the battle. But after a while he forced even these two to leave him and save themselves, for there was scarcely anything left of the bridge, and those who were cutting it down called to them to come back. Then, darting glances of defiance around at the Etruscan nobles, he now challenged them in turn to fight, now railed at them collectively as slaves of haughty kings, who, heedless of their own liberty, were come to overthrow the liberty of others. They hesitated for a moment, each looking to his neighbour to begin the fight. Then shame made them attack, and with a shout they cast their javelins from every side against their solitary foe. But he caught them all upon his shield, and, resolute as ever, bestrode the bridge and held his ground; and now they were trying to dislodge him by a charge, when the crash of the falling bridge and the cheer which burst from the throats of the Romans, exulting in the completion of their task, checked them in mid-career with a sudden dismay. Then Cocles cried, O Father Tiberinus, I solemnly invoke thee; receive these arms and this soldier with propitious stream! So praying, all armed as he was, he leaped down into the river, and under a shower of missiles swam across unhurt to his fellows, having given a proof of valour which was destined to obtain more fame than credence with posterity. The state was grateful for so brave a deed: a statue of Cocles was set up in the comitium, and he was given as much land as he could plough around in one day. Private citizens showed their gratitude in a striking fashion, in the midst of his official honours, for notwithstanding their great distress everybody made him some gift proportionate to his means, though he robbed himself of his own ration. Porsinna, repulsed in his first attempt, gave up the plan of storming the City, and determined to lay siege to it. Placing a garrison on Janiculum, he pitched his camp in the plain by the banks of the Tiber. He collected ships from every quarter, both for guarding the river, to prevent any corn from being brought into the City, and also to send his troops across for plundering, as the opportunity might present itself at one point or another; and in a short time he made all the territory of the Romans so unsafe that not only were they forced to bring all their other property inside the walls, but even their flocks too, nor did anybody dare to drive them outside the gates. This great degree of licence was permitted to the Etruscans not so much from timidity as design. For Valerius the consul, who was eager for an opportunity of assailing a large number at once, when they should be scattered about and not expecting an attack, cared little to avenge small aggressions, and reserved his punishment for a heavier blow. Accordingly, to lure forth plunderers, he issued orders to his people that on the following day a large number of them should drive out their flocks by the Esquiline Gate, which was the most remote from the enemy, believing that they would hear of it, since the blockade and famine were causing desertions on the part of faithless slaves. And in fact the enemy did hear of it from a deserter's report, and crossed the river in much greater force than usual, in the hope of making a clean sweep of the booty. Consequently Publius Valerius directed Titus Herminius to lie in ambush with a small force two miles out on the Gabinian Way, and Spurius Larcius with a body of light-armed youths to take post at the Colline Gate, until the enemy should pass, and then to throw themselves between him and the river, cutting off his retreat. Of the two consuls, Titus Lucretius went out by the Naevian Gate with several maniples of soldiers, Valerius himself led out some picked cohorts by way of the Caelian Mount. These last were the first to be seen by the enemy. Herminius had no sooner perceived that the skirmish was begun than he rushed in from his ambush and fell upon the rear of the Etruscans, who had turned to meet Valerius. On the right hand and on the left, from the Naevian Gate and from the Colline, an answering shout was returned. Thus the raiders were hemmed in and cut to pieces, for they were no match for the Romans in fighting strength, and were shut off from every line of retreat. This was the last time the Etruscans roamed so far afield. The blockade went on notwithstanding. The corn was giving out, and what there was cost a very high price, and Porsinna was beginning to have hopes that he would take the City by sitting still, when Gaius Mucius, a young Roman noble, thinking it a shame that although the Roman People had not, in the days of their servitude when they lived under kings, been blockaded in a war by any enemies, they should now, when free, be besieged by those same Etruscans whose armies they had so often routed, made up his mind that this indignity must be avenged by some great and daring deed. At first he intended to make his way to the enemy's camp on his own account. Afterwards, fearing that if he should go unbidden by the consuls and without anyone's knowing it, he might chance to be arrested by the Roman sentries and brought back as a deserter —a charge which the state of the City would confirm —he went before the senate. I wish, said he, to cross the river, senators, and enter, if I can, the enemy's camp —not to plunder or exact reprisals for their devastations: I have in mind to do a greater deed, if the gods grant me their help. The Fathers approved. Hiding a sword under his dress, he set out. Arrived at the camp, he took up his stand in the thick of the crowd near the royal tribunal. It happened that at that moment the soldiers were being paid; a secretary who sat beside the king, and wore nearly the same costume, was very busy, and to him the soldiers for the most part addressed themselves. Mucius was afraid to ask which was Porsinna, lest his ignorance of the king's identity should betray his own, and following the blind guidance of Fortune, slew the secretary instead of the king. As he strode off through the frightened crowd, making a way for himself with his bloody blade, there was an outcry, and thereat the royal guards came running in from every side, seized him and dragged him back before the tribunal of the king. But friendless as he was, even then, when Fortune wore so menacing an aspect, yet as one more to be feared than fearing, I am a Roman citizen, he cried; men call me Gaius Mucius. I am your enemy, and as an enemy I would have slain you; I can die as resolutely as I could kill: both to do and to endure valiantly is the Roman way. Nor am I the only one to carry this resolution against you: behind me is a long line of men who are seeking the same honour. Gird yourself therefore, if you think it worth your while, for a struggle in which you must fight for your life from hour to hour with an armed foe always at your door. Such is the war we, the Roman youths, declare on you. Fear no serried ranks, no battle; it will be between yourself alone and a single enemy at a time. The king, at once hot with resentment and aghast at his danger, angrily ordered the prisoner to be flung into the flames unless he should at once divulge the plot with which he so obscurely threatened him. Whereupon Mucius, exclaiming, Look, that you may see how cheap they hold their bodies whose eyes are fixed upon renown! thrust his hand into the fire that was kindled for the sacrifice. When he allowed his hand to burn as if his spirit were unconscious of sensation, the king was almost beside himself with wonder. He bounded from his seat and bade them remove the young man from the altar. Do you go free, he said, who have dared to harm yourself more than me. I would invoke success upon your valour, were that valour exerted for my country; since that may not be, I release you from the penalties of war and dismiss you scathless and uninjured. Then Mucius, as if to requite his generosity, answered, Since you hold bravery in honour, my gratitude shall afford you the information your threats could not extort: we are three hundred, the foremost youths of Rome, who have conspired to assail you in this fashion. I drew the first lot; the others, in whatever order it falls to them, will attack you, each at his own time, until Fortune shall have delivered you into our hands. The release of Mucius, who was afterwards known as Scaevola, from the loss of his right hand, was followed by the arrival in Rome of envoys from Porsinna. The king had been so disturbed, what with the hazard of the first attack upon his life, from which nothing but the blunder of his assailant had preserved him, and what with the anticipation of having to undergo the danger as many times more as there were conspirators remaining, that he voluntarily proposed terms of peace to the Romans. In these terms Porsinna suggested, but without effect, that the Tarquinii should be restored to power, more because he had been unable to refuse the princes this demand upon their behalf than that he was ignorant that the Romans would refuse it. In obtaining the return of their lands to the Veientes he was successful; and the Romans were compelled to give hostages if they wished the garrison to be withdrawn from Janiculum. On these terms peace was made, and Porsinna led his army down from Janiculum and evacuated the Roman territory. The Fathers bestowed on Gaius Mucius, for his bravery, a field across the Tiber, which was later known as the Mucian Meadows. Now when courage had been thus distinguished, even the women were inspired to deeds of patriotism. Thus the maiden Cloelia, one of the hostages, eluded the sentinels, when it chanced that the Etruscans had encamped not far from the bank of the Tiber, and heading a band of girls swam the river and, under a rain of hostile darts, brought them all back in safety to their kinsmen in Rome. When this had been reported to the king, he was at first enraged and sent emissaries to Rome to demand that the hostage Cloelia be given up, for he made no great account of the others. Then, admiration getting the better of anger, he asserted that her feat was a greater one than those of Cocles and Mucius, and declared that although in case the hostage was not returned he should regard the treaty as broken, yet if she were restored to him he would send her back safe and inviolate to her friends. Both parties kept their word. The Romans returned the pledge of peace, as the treaty required; and the Etruscan king not only protected the brave girl but even honoured her, for after praising her heroism he said that he would present her with half the hostages, and that she herself should choose the ones she wished. When they had all been brought out it is said that she selected the young boys, because it was not only more seemly in a maiden, but was unanimously approved by the hostages themselves, that in delivering them from the enemy she should give the preference to those who were of an age which particularly exposed them to injury. When peace had been established the Romans rewarded this new valour in a woman with a new kind of honour, an equestrian statue, which was set up on the summit of the Sacred Way, and represented the maiden seated on a horse. This peaceful departure of the Etruscan king from Rome is inconsistent with the custom handed down from antiquity even to our own age, among other formalities observed at sales of booty, of proclaiming the goods of King Porsinna. Such a practice must either have arisen during the war and have been retained when peace was made, or else have had its origin in some kindlier circumstance than would be suggested by the notice that an enemy's goods were to be sold. The most credible of the traditional explanations is that when Porsinna retired from Janiculum he handed over his camp, well stocked with provisions brought in from the neighbouring fertile fields of Etruria, as a gift to the Romans, who were then in a destitute condition after the long siege. These supplies were then sold, lest, if people were given a free hand, they might plunder the camp like an enemy; and they were called the goods of Porsinna rather by way of implying thankfulness for the gift than an auction of the king's property, which was not even in the possession of the Roman People. On relinquishing his campaign against the Romans, Porsinna was unwilling that he should appear to have led his army into that region to no purpose, and accordingly sent a part of his forces, under his son Arruns, to besiege Aricia. At first the Aricini were paralysed with surprise. Afterwards the auxiliaries whom they called in from the Latin peoples, and also from Cumae, so encouraged them that they ventured to measure their strength with the enemy in the open field. When the battle began, the attack of the Etruscans was so impetuous that they routed the Aricini at the first charge. The Cumaean levies, employing skill to meet force, swerved a little to one side, and when the enemy had swept by them, faced about and attacked them in the rear, with the result that the Etruscans, caught between two lines, almost in the moment of victory, were cut to pieces. A very small number of them, having lost their leader and finding no nearer refuge, drifted to Rome, unarmed and with all the helplessness and the dejected aspect of suppliants. There they were kindly received and were quartered about among the citizens. When their wounds had healed, some departed for their homes to report the hospitality and kindness they had met with, but many were persuaded to remain in Rome by the affection they felt for their hosts and for the City. To these a place of residence was allotted which was afterwards called the Vicus Tuscus. Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius were the next consuls, and after them came Publius Lucretius and Publius Valerius Publicola. In the latter year an embassy was sent to Rome for the last time by Porsinna to negotiate for the restoration of Tarquinius to power. To these envoys the senate replied that they would send representatives to the king, and they forthwith dispatched those of the Fathers who were held in the highest esteem. It would not have been impossible, they said, to reply shortly that the royal family would not be received. It was not for that reason that they had preferred to send chosen members of the senate to him rather than to give their answer to his ambassadors in Rome. But they had desired that for all time discussion of that question might be ended, and that where there were so great obligations on both sides there might not be mutual irritation, from the king's seeking that which was incompatible with the liberty of the Roman people, while the Romans, unless they were willing to sacrifice their existence to their good nature, denied the request of a man whom they would not willingly have denied anything. The Roman people were not living under a monarchy, but were free. They had resolved to throw open their gates to enemies sooner than to kings; in this prayer they were all united, that the day which saw the end of liberty in their City might also see the City's end. They therefore entreated him, if he desired the welfare of Rome, to permit her to be free. The king, yielding to his better feelings, made answer: Since this is your fixed resolve, I will neither importune you with repeated insistence upon a hopeless plea, nor will I deceive the Tarquinii with the hope of aid which it is not in my power to grant. Let them seek elsewhere, whether war or peace be their object, for a place of exile, that nothing may hinder my being at peace with you. His words were followed by yet more friendly deeds. The hostages remaining in his hands he returned, and he gave back the Veientine land which he had taken from the Romans by the treaty made on Janiculum. Tarquinius, cut off from all hope of returning, departed for Tusculum, to spend his exile in the home of his son-in-law, Mamilius Octavius. The Romans enjoyed an unbroken peace with Porsinna. The consulship of Marcus Valerius and Publius Postumius. This year a successful war was waged against the Sabines, and the consuls triumphed. More elaborate preparations for war were then made by the Sabines. To confront them, and to prevent any sudden peril arising from Tusculum, in which quarter hostility, though not openly avowed, was none the less suspected, Publius Valerius was made consul for the fourth time and Titus Lucretius for the second. A schism which occurred between the advocates of war and those of peace amongst the Sabines resulted in the transfer of some part of their strength to the Romans. For Attius Clausus, afterwards known at Rome as Appius Claudius, himself a champion of peace, was hard bested by the turbulent war-party, and finding himself no match for them, left Inregillus, with a large band of clients, and fled to Rome. These people were made citizens and given land across the Anio. The Old Claudian Tribe was the name used later, when new tribesmen had been added, to designate those who came from this territory. Appius, having been enrolled in the senate, came in a short time to be regarded as one of its leading members. The consuls led an army into the country of the Sabines, and by wasting their fields, and afterwards by a battle, so crushed the enemy's strength that there could be no fear for a long time of any outbreak of hostilities in that region. They then returned to Rome and triumphed. Publius Valerius, universally regarded as the foremost citizen, both in military and in civil qualities, died in the following year, when Agrippa Menenius and Publius Postumius were consuls. He was a man of extraordinary reputation, but so poor that money was wanting for his burial, and it was furnished from the treasury of the state. He was mourned by the matrons as Brutus had been. In the same year two Latin colonies, Pometia and Cora, revolted to the Aurunci. The Aurunci were the first to be attacked. Upon the defeat of the great army which had boldly issued forth to meet the invasion of their territory by the consuls, the whole weight of the Auruncan war fell upon Pometia. After the battle, as well as during its progress, no quarter was given. The slain had somewhat outnumbered the prisoners, and the prisoners were indiscriminately slaughtered. Even the hostages, of whom three hundred had been received, were not spared in the rage of war. This year also a triumph was celebrated at Rome. The consuls of the next year, Opiter Verginius and Spurius Cassius, attempted to capture Pometia, first by assault and then by the use of mantlets and other engines. Against their besiegers the Aurunci, rather of an implacable hatred than for any hope or opportunity offered, rushed out, armed with firebrands for the most part, instead of swords, and carried death and flames in all directions. The mantlets were burned, many of their enemies were wounded or slain, and one of the consuls —which one the historians do not add —was seriously wounded, thrown from his horse, and almost killed. The Romans then marched home, defeated. Amongst the many wounded they brought the consul, hovering betwixt life and death. When a short time had elapsed, long enough for healing wounds and recruiting the army, they returned, with heightened resentment and also with augmented forces, to the attack of Pometia. They had repaired their mantlets and the rest of their equipment, and they were already upon the point of sending their men against the walls when the town capitulated. But the fate of the Aurunci was no less awful from their having surrendered their city than if it had been stormed. Their chief men were beheaded, and the rest of the colonists were sold as slaves. The town was razed; its land was sold. The consuls obtained a triumph, more because they had heavily avenged Rome's wrongs than because of the magnitude of the war which they had successfully concluded. The year after had as its consuls Postumius Cominius and Titus Largius. In this year, during the celebration of the games at Rome, the Sabine youths, in a spirit of wantonness, forcibly abducted certain harlots. Men gathered hastily and there was a brawl which was almost a battle, and, trifling as its origin was, it seemed to threaten a fresh outbreak of the war. Besides the Sabine peril, it was generally known that the thirty Latin cities had already conspired, at the instigation of Octavius Mamilius. These grave apprehensions having occasioned a general anxiety, the appointment of a dictator was suggested, for the first time. But there is no general agreement as to the year, or which consuls were distrusted as being of the Tarquinian faction —for this is included in the tradition —or who it was that was first named dictator. In the oldest writers, however, I find it said that Titus Largius was the first to be made dictator, and that Spurius Cassius was master of the horse. They chose men of consular rank, for so the law prescribed which had been passed to regulate the selection of a dictator. I am therefore the more disposed to believe that Largius, a consular, rather than Manius Valerius, the son of Marcus and grandson of Volesus, a man who had not yet held the consulship, was assigned to be the director and superior of consuls; and indeed if men had been specially desirous of choosing the dictator from that family, they would much sooner have selected Marcus Valerius the father, a man of proven worth and an ex-consul. When they had named a dictator for the first time at Rome, and men saw the axes borne before him, a great fear came over the plebs and caused them to be more zealous in obeying orders. For there was no recourse in this case, as with the consuls, who shared the powers of their office equally, to the assistance of the man's colleague, nor was there any appeal nor any help anywhere but in scrupulous obedience. The Sabines, too, were inspired with fear by the appointment of the dictator, especially since they believed that it was on their account that he had been created. Accordingly they sent legates to treat for peace. When they requested the dictator and the senate to pardon an error committed by young men, the answer was given that to pardon young men was possible, but not old men who contrived one war after another. Nevertheless negotiations for peace were begun, and it would have been granted to the Sabines, could they have made up their minds to guarantee, as the Romans demanded, the sum which had been expended for the war. Hostilities were declared, but a tacit truce preserved a state of peace through the year. In the consulship of Servius Sulpicius and Manius Tullius nothing worthy of note occurred. They were succeeded by Titus Aebutius and Gaius Vetusius. During their year of office Fidenae was besieged, Crustumeria taken; Praeneste went over from the Latins to the Romans, and it was no longer possible to postpone the Latin war, which had now been smouldering for several years. Aulus Postumius as dictator, and Titus Aebutius as master of the horse, set out with large forces of infantry and cavalry, and at Lake Regillus, in the territory of Tusculum, met the enemy's advancing column. The Romans had learned that the Tarquinii were with the Latin army, and were so enraged that they could not be withheld from instantly attacking, and the battle itself, in consequence of this report, was fought with a good deal more determination and bitterness than any other had been. For the leaders were not only in the field to direct the engagement with their strategy, but joined battle and fought in their own persons. Almost none of the nobles on either side came off unscathed, except the Roman dictator. Postumius was in the front rank encouraging his men and forming them, when Tarquinius Superbus, though now burdened with years and broken in strength, rode full-tilt against him. But the old man received a thrust in the side, and his followers rushed in and rescued him. Similarly on the other wing, Aebutius, the master of the horse, charged Octavius Mamilius. But the Tusculan commander saw him coming, and he too spurred his horse to the encounter; and so great was the force in their levelled lances as they met, that the arm of Aebutius was transfixed, while Mamilius was struck in the breast. Mamilius was received by the Latins within their second line: Aebutius, being unable to manage a weapon with his wounded arm, retired from the battle. The Latin leader, not a jot discouraged by his wound, urged on the fighting, and, because he saw that his men were in retreat, called up a cohort of Roman exiles, commanded by a son of Lucius Tarquinius, and these, fighting with greater fury on account of the loss of their property and native land, restored the battle for a while. When the Romans were now beginning to give way in that part of the field, Marcus Valerius, Publicola's brother, espied the young Tarquinius, who was boldly inviting attack in the front rank of the exiles. Valerius found in his brother's glory an additional incentive, and resolving that the family which had the honour of expelling the tyrants should also gain the credit for their death, he dug his spurs into his charger and rode at Tarquinius with levelled spear. Tarquinius drew back within the company of his followers to avoid his desperate antagonist. Valerius was plunging blindly into the exiles' line when one of them attacked him in the flank and ran him through the body. But the rider's wound did not check the career of his horse, and the dying Roman came down in a heap upon the ground with his arms upon him. When the dictator Postumius perceived that so brave a soldier had fallen, that the exiles were advancing boldly at the double, and that his troops were checked and were giving ground, he issued orders to his own cohort, a picked body of men which he kept about his person as a guard, that if they saw any Roman running away they should treat him as an enemy. Being thus between two dangers, the Romans faced about to meet the foe, and the battle-line was formed again. The cohort of the dictator then entered the engagement for the first time. With fresh strength and spirit they attacked the weary exiles and cut them to pieces. Then began another combat between leaders. The Latin general, perceiving that the cohort of the exiles was nearly cut off by the Roman dictator, took a few companies of his reserves and hurried them to the front. As they came marching up, Titus Herminius, the lieutenant, caught sight of them, and in their midst, conspicuous in dress and accoutrements, he saw and recognized Mamilius. Whereupon he hurled himself upon the enemy's commander with so much more violence than the master of the horse had done a little before, that not only did he pierce Mamilius through the side and slay him with a single lunge, but in the act of stripping the body of his antagonist he was himself struck by a hostile javelin, and after being borne off in the moment of victory to the Roman camp, expired just as they began to dress his wound. The dictator then dashed up to the knights and besought them, since the foot-soldiers were exhausted, to dismount and enter the fight. They obeyed: they leaped down from their horses, hastened to the front, and covered the front-rankers with their shields. It restored at once the courage of the foot to see the young nobles on even terms with themselves and sharing in the danger. Then at last the Latins received a check, and their battle-line was forced to yield. The knights had their horses brought up that they might be able to pursue the enemy, and they were followed by the infantry. Then the dictator, neglecting no help, divine or human, is said to have vowed a temple to Castor, and to have promised rewards to the soldiers who should be first and second to enter the camp of the enemy; and so great was the ardour of the Romans, that with a single rush they routed their opponents and took their camp. Such was the battle at Lake Regillus. The dictator and his master of the horse returned to the City and triumphed. For the next three years there was neither a stable peace nor war. The consuls Quintus Cloelius and Titus Larcius were followed by Aulus Sempronius and Marcus Minucius. In the latter year a temple to Saturn was dedicated and the Saturnalia was established as a festal day. Next Aulus Postumius and Titus Verginius were made consuls. It was not until this year, according to some authorities I have consulted, that the battle of Lake Regillus was fought. They say that Aulus Postumius, because his colleague was of doubtful loyalty, resigned the consulship, and was then made dictator. One is involved in so many uncertainties regarding dates by the varying order of the magistrates in different lists that it is impossible to make out which consuls followed which, or what was done in each particular year, when not only events but even authorities are so shrouded in antiquity. At the next election Appius Claudius and Publius Servilius were chosen consuls. This year was marked by the announcement of Tarquinius's death. He died at Cumae, whither he had gone to the court of Aristodemus after the downfall of the Latin cause. These tidings cheered the Fathers and encouraged the plebs. But the Fathers were too inconsiderate, in consequence of their rejoicing at this event; and the plebs, who up to this time had been most studiously deferred to, began to feel the oppression of the nobles. The same year the colony of Signia, which King Tarquinius had planted, was recruited with new colonists and established for the second time. At Rome twenty-one tribes were formed. The temple of Mercury was consecrated on the fifteenth of May. With the Volscian race there had been during the Latin war neither peace nor open hostilities; for while the Volsci had raised levies to send to the aid of the Latins, had the Roman dictator not moved quickly, yet the Romans did move quickly, that they might not have to fight both nations in the same battle Upon this quarrel the consuls led their legions into the country of the Volsci, who, not expecting to be held to account for their design, were surprised and overwhelmed. They had no thought of resisting, and surrendered as hostages three hundred children of the nobility of Cora and Pometia, and so the legions were withdrawn without a conflict. Yet it was not long before the Volsci, being relieved of their alarm, resumed their native duplicity; again they made secret preparations for war, and formed a military alliance with the Hernici, while they also sent out envoys, this way and that, to instigate the Latins to rebellion. But the disaster which had recently befallen the Latins at Lake Regillus so filled them with rage and hate against anyone who advised them to go to war, that they did not even abstain from violating an embassy, but seized the Volsci and brought them to Rome. There they delivered them up to the consuls with the information that the Volsci and the Hernici were preparing to attack the Romans. When this service had been reported to the senate the Fathers were so grateful that they released to the Latins six thousand captives, and referred the question of a treaty, which they had all but refused in perpetuity, to the incoming magistrates. Then, indeed, the Latins rejoiced at the action they had taken, and the advocates of peace were in great repute. They sent a golden crown as a gift to the Capitoline Jupiter. With the envoys who brought the gift came the captives who had been restored to their friends, a vast attendant multitude. Proceeding to the homes of those whom they had severally served, they thanked them for the liberality and consideration which had been shown them in their adversity, and entered into covenants of hospitality with them. Never before had there been so close a union, both official and personal, between the Latin name and the Roman state. But not only was war with the Volsci imminent; the citizens were at loggerheads among themselves, and internal dissensions between the Fathers and the plebs had burst into a blaze of hatred, chiefly on account of those who had been bound over to service for their debts. These men complained loudly that while they were abroad fighting for liberty and dominion they had been enslaved and oppressed at home by fellow-citizens, and that the freedom of the plebeians was more secure in war than in peace, amongst enemies than amongst citizens. This bitter feeling, which was growing spontaneously, the notable calamity of one man fanned into a flame. Old, and bearing the marks of all his misfortunes, the man rushed into the Forum. His dress was covered with filth, and the condition of his body was even worse, for he was pale and half dead with emaciation. Besides this, his straggling beard and hair had given a savage look to his countenance. He was recognized nevertheless, despite the hideousness of his appearance, and the word went round that he had commanded companies; yet other military honours were openly ascribed to him by the compassionate bystanders, and the man himself displayed the scars on his breast which bore testimony to his honourable service in various battles. When they asked the reason of his condition and his squalor, he replied, while the crowd gathered about him much as though it were an assembly, that during his service in the Sabine war not only had the enemy's depredations deprived him of his crops, but his cottage had been burnt, all his belongings plundered, and his flocks driven off. Then the taxes had been levied, in an untoward moment for him, and he had contracted debts. When these had been swelled by usury, they had first stripped him of the farm which had been his father's and his grandfather's, then of the remnants of his property, and finally like an infection they had attacked his person, and he had been carried off by his creditor, not to slavery, but to the prison and the torturechamber. He then showed them his back, disfigured with the wales of recent scourging. The sight of these things and the man's recital produced a mighty uproar. The disturbance was no longer confined to the Forum, but spread in all directions through the entire City. Those who had been bound over, whether in chains or not, broke out into the streets from every side, and implored the Quirites to protect them. At no point was there any lack of volunteers to join the rising; everywhere crowds were streaming through the different streets and shouting as they hurried to the Forum. Great was the peril of those senators who happened to be in the Forum and fell in with the mob, which would not indeed have stopped short of violence had not the consuls, Publius Servilius and Appius Claudius, hurriedly intervened to put down the insurrection. But the crowd turned on them and displayed their chains and other hideous tokens. These, they cried, were the rewards they had earned, and they bitterly rehearsed the campaigns they had each served in various places. They demanded, in a manner much more threatening than suppliant, that the consuls should convene the senate; and they surrounded the Curia, that they might them. selves witness and control the deliberations of the state. The consuls succeeded in collecting only a few of the senators whom chance had thrown in their way. The rest were afraid to enter not only the Curia but even the Forum, and nothing could be done because those present were too few. Whereat the people concluded they were being flouted and put off, and that the missing senators were absent not from accident, nor fear, but with the intent to hinder action, and that the consuls themselves were paltering; nor did they doubt that their misery was made a jest. A little more and not even the majesty of the consuls could have held in check the angry crowd, when the absent Fathers, uncertain whether they should incur more danger by holding back or by coming forward, finally came into the senate, and the required number being at length assembled, not only the senators, but even the consuls themselves were unable to agree. Appius, a headstrong man, was for settling the matter by the exercise of consular authority; when one or two men had been arrested, the others, he said, would calm down. Servilius, more inclined to gentle measures, believed that it was safer, as well as easier, to assuage their fury than to quell it. In the midst of the debate a greater alarm arose from a new quarter, for some Latin horsemen galloped up with the disquieting news that a Volscian army was advancing to attack the City. This report awoke very different feelings —so completely had their dissensions divided the state into two —in the Fathers and the plebs. The commons were jubilant; they said that the gods were taking a hand in punishing the arrogance of the senators. They encouraged one another not to give in their names; it would be better to perish all together than alone. Let the Fathers serve, let the Fathers take up arms, that those might incur the hazards of war who received its rewards. The Curia, on the other hand, was downcast and dismayed. In their twofold fear —of their fellow-citizens and of the enemy —they begged Servilius the consul, whose character appealed more to the people than did that of his colleague, that he would extricate the state from the fearful perils with which it was beset. Thereupon the consul adjourned the senate and went before the people. There he declared that the Fathers were anxious to consult the interests of the plebs, but that their deliberations concerning that very important part —but only a part after all —of the state had been broken off by their fears for the entire nation. It was impossible, when the enemy was almost at the city gates, to consider anything before the war; and even if there should be some slight respite in that regard, it was neither to the credit of the plebs to refuse to arm for their country, unless they should first receive a recompense, nor honourable to the Fathers to be driven by fear into passing measures for the relief of their fellow-citizens which they would have passed later of their own free will. He then confirmed his speech by a proclamation in which he commanded that no one should hold a Roman citizen in chains or durance so that he should not be able to give in his name to the consuls, and that none should seize or sell a soldier's property so long as he was in camp, or interfere with his children or his grandchildren. When this edict had been published, the debtors who were present at once enlisted, and from every quarter, all over the City, they hastened from the houses where their creditors no longer had the right to detain them, and rushed into the Forum to take the military oath. It was a great throng, nor were there any soldiers whose courage and usefulness in the Volscian war were more conspicuous. The consul led his troops against the enemy, and pitched his camp at a short distance from theirs. The next night the Volsci, relying on the lack of harmony among the Romans, attacked their camp on the chance that the darkness might encourage desertions or treachery. But the sentries perceived them, the army was roused, and, the signal being given, rushed to arms. Thus the design of the Volsci came to naught, and the remainder of the night was devoted by both armies to sleeping. On the following day at dawn the Volsci filled up the trenches and assaulted the rampart, and soon they were everywhere pulling down the palisades. On every side the consul's men were clamouring for the signal —none more loudly than the debtors. He waited a moment, to test the temper of the soldiers. When there could no longer be any doubt of their great ardour, he finally gave the command for a sortie and released them, eager for the fray. At the very first onset the enemy were routed. While they ran, the foot-soldiers struck at them from behind as long as they could keep up the pursuit; then the horsemen drove them panic-stricken clear to their camp. Soon the camp itself had been surrounded by the legions, and when the Volsci had fled from it in terror, it was taken and plundered. Next day Servilius led his forces to Suessa Pometia, where the enemy had taken refuge, and within a few days took the town and gave it up to be sacked. This yielded some slight relief to the soldiers, who needed it badly. The consul led his army back to Rome, with great honour to himself. As he was setting out on his return thither ambassadors approached him from the Volsci of Ecetra, who were alarmed at their own prospects, in view of the capture of Pometia. A decree of the senate granted them peace, but took away their land. Directly after this the Sabines also caused an alarm at Rome —for it was indeed a turmoil rather than war. One night the City got word that a Sabine army bent on pillage had come as near as the river Anio, and was there plundering and burning farmhouses right and left. The Romans at once dispatched in that direction all their cavalry, under Aulus Postumius, who had been dictator in the Latin war. He was followed by the consul Servilius with a picked body of foot-soldiers. Many stragglers were cut off by the cavalry and, when the column of infantry drew near, no resistance was offered by the Sabine troops. Exhausted not only by their march but by their night of pillage as well, a great part of them had gorged themselves in the farmhouses with food and wine, and had scarcely vigour enough to run away. A single night having sufficed for hearing of the Sabine war and ending it, men's hopes next day ran high that peace was now assured in every quarter, when legates from the Aurunci appeared before the senate to say that unless the territory of the Volsci were evacuated they should declare war. The Auruncan army had set out from home at the same time with the legates, and the report that it had already been seen not far from Aricia threw Rome into such a state of confusion that it was impossible to bring the matter regularly before the senate, or to return a peaceful answer to a people who had already drawn the sword, while they themselves were also arming. They marched on Aricia in fighting order, joined battle with the Aurunci not far from the town, and in a single engagement finished the war. Having routed the Aurunci, and having been, within a few days, victorious in so many wars, the Romans were looking for the help which the consul had promised and the senate guaranteed, when Appius, partly out of native arrogance, partly to discredit his colleague, began to pronounce judgment with the utmost rigour in suits to recover debts. In consequence, not only were those who had been bound over before delivered up to their creditors, but others were bound over. Whenever this happened to a soldier he would appeal to the other consul. The people flocked to the house of Servilius: it was he who had made them promises; it was he whom they reproached, as each rehearsed his services in the wars and displayed the scars he had received. They demanded that he should either lay the matter before the senate or lend his aid as consul to his fellow-citizens, as general to his soldiers. They moved the consul by this plea, but the situation forced him to temporize, so vehemently was the other side supported, not only by his colleague, but by the entire party of the nobles. And so he steered a middle course, and neither avoided the dislike of the plebs nor gained the goodwill of the Fathers. These considered him a pusillanimous consul and an agitator, while the commons held him to be dishonest; and it was soon apparent that he was as cordially hated as Appius. The consuls had got into a dispute as to which should dedicate the temple to Mercury. The senate referred the case to the people for decision. Whichever consul should, by command of the people, be entrusted with the dedication was to have charge of the corn-supply, to establish a guild of merchants, and perform the solemn rites in the presence of the pontifex. The people assigned the dedication to Marcus Laetorius, a centurion of the first rank —a choice which would readily be understood as intended not so much to honour Laetorius, to whom a commission had been given which was too exalted for his station in life, as to humiliate the consuls. Appius and the Fathers were furious then, if they had not been before; but the plebeians had plucked up heart and threw themselves into the struggle with far more spirit than they had shown at first. For, despairing of help from consuls and senate, they no sooner beheld a debtor being haled away than they flew to his assistance from every side. It was impossible for the consul's decree to be heard above the din and shouting, and when it had been pronounced nobody obeyed it. Violence was the order of the day, and fear and danger had quite shifted from the debtors to the creditors, who were singled out and maltreated by large numbers in full sight of the consul. To crown these troubles came the fear of a Sabine invasion. A levy was decreed, but no one enlisted. Appius stormed and railed at the insidious arts of his colleague, who, he said, to make himself popular, was betraying the state by his inactivity; and to his refusal to give judgment for debt was adding a fresh offence in refusing to hold the levy as the senate had directed. Nevertheless the welfare of the state was not wholly forgotten, nor the authority of the consulate abandoned; he would himself, single-handed, assert both his own and the senate's majesty. When the usual daily throng of lawless men was standing about him, he gave orders to seize one who was a conspicuous leader in their disturbances. The lictors were already dragging the man away, when he appealed; nor would the consul have granted the appeal, for there was no question what the decision of the people would be, had not his obstinacy been with difficulty overcome, more by the advice and influence of the nobles than by the popular outcry, so steeled was he to endure men's hate. From that moment the trouble grew worse each day, and not only were there open disturbances, but what was far more pernicious, secret gatherings and conferences. At last the consuls whom the plebeians so hated went out of office. Servilius had the goodwill of neither party, but Appius was in high esteem with the senators. Aulus Verginius and Titus Vetusius then entered upon the consulship. Whereat the plebs, uncertain what sort of consuls they would prove to be, held nightly gatherings, some on the Esquiline and other son the Aventine, lest if they met in the Forum they might be frightened into adopting ill-considered measures, and manage all their business rashly and at haphazard. This seemed to the consuls, as indeed it was, a mischievous practice. They laid the matter before the Fathers, but their report could not be discussed in an orderly fashion, so tumultuously was it received, with shouts from every part of the house and expressions of indignation from the senators, that a thing which ought to have been settled by an exercise of consular authority should be invidiously referred by the consuls to the senate. It was evident that if only there were magistrates in the nation there would have been no assembly in Rome but the assembly of the people; as it was, the government was broken up into a thousand separate curias and meetings. One single man —a more significant word than consul —of the type of Appius Claudius, would have dispersed those assemblages in a moment. When the consuls, thus upbraided, asked the Fathers what then they desired them to do, and promised that their conduct of the matter should be no whit less strenuous and stern than the senate wished, it was resolved that they should hold a levy with the utmost severity: it was idleness that made the plebeians lawless. Having adjourned the senate, the consuls mounted the tribunal and cited the young men by name. When no one answered to his name, the crowd, which surrounded the speaker as in a public meeting, declared that it was impossible to deceive the commons any longer; the consuls would never have a single soldier unless a public guarantee were given: liberty must first be restored to every man before arms were given him, that he might fight for his country and his fellow-citizens, not for a master. It was clear to the consuls what the senate had bidden them do; but of all those who had uttered truculent speeches within the walls of the curia they found not one at their side to share their odium, and they saw before them a terrible struggle with the people. Accordingly they thought it best, before proceeding to extremities, to consult the senate a second time. When it met, the youngest senators all rushed up in hot haste to the seats of the consuls, bidding them to abdicate their office and to lay down an authority which they lacked the spirit to support. Having sufficiently weighed both the courses open to them, the consuls finally said: Lest you should say that you had not been warned, Conscript Fathers, we are on the verge of a great mutiny. We demand that those who are loudest in accusing us of cowardice stand by us while we hold the levy. The most severe amongst you, since such is your pleasure, shall guide our procedure. They returned to the tribunal, and purposely commanded to cite by name one of those who were present. When he stood still without answering, in the midst of a little knot of men who, fearing the possibility of violence, had gathered round him, the consuls sent a lictor to him. The lictor was driven back. Whereupon, with a cry of Shame! the senators who were attending the consul rushed down from the tribunal to assist the lictor. But when the mob turned from the officer, whom they had merely prevented from arresting the man, and assailed the senators, the consuls intervened and checked the brawl, in which no stones had been thrown nor any weapons used, and there were more shouts and expressions of rage than hurts. The senate was convened in confusion, and they deliberated in still greater confusion. Those who had been roughly handled demanded an investigation, and all the more violent members urged the resolution, not only with speeches but with shouts and uproar. When at length their passions had subsided, and the consuls berated them for showing as little sanity in the Curia as the people had shown in the Forum, they began to deliberate in an orderly manner. Three proposals were made. Publius Verginius advised against a general relief: only those who, relying on the promise of Publius Servilius the consul, had fought in the Volscian, Auruncan, and Sabine wars should, he thought, be considered. Titus Largius held that this was no time for merely requiting services; the whole commons was submerged in debt, and the situation could not be remedied unless provision were made for all; indeed, if some were treated in one way and some in another, it would heighten the discontent instead of allaying it. Appius Claudius, naturally harsh, and rendered savage by the hatred of the plebs on the one hand and the praises of the Fathers on the other, said that it was not misery but licence that had stirred up so great a hubbub, and that wantonness was what ailed the plebs rather than anger. That was precisely the mischief which the appeal occasioned; for the consuls might threaten but could not command, when those who had shared in the guilt might be constituted the court of appeal. Come, said he, let us appoint a dictator, from whom there is no appeal. At once this frenzy which has now set everything ablaze will be stilled. Let anybody strike a lictor then, knowing that the right to scourge and behead him rests with that one man whose majesty he has violated! Many felt, and with reason, that the proposal of Appius was stern and cruel; on the other hand those of Verginius and Largius were inexpedient because of the precedent; particularly that of Largius, since it destroyed all credit. The most reasonable and moderate plan, in its regard for both sides, was held to be that of Verginius. But owing to party spirit and consideration for private interests, things which have always been hurtful to public deliberations and always will be, Appius prevailed, and came very near to being himself appointed dictator, a step which would infallibly have estranged the commons, and that at a most dangerous moment, since the Volsci, the Aequi, and the Sabines were all, as it chanced, up in arms at once. But the consuls and the older senators saw to it that a magistracy rendered formidable by its paramount authority should be committed to a man of gentle disposition, and chose for dictator Manius Valerius, son of Volesus. The plebs, though they perceived that it was against themselves that the creation of a dictator was aimed, still, since it was through a law proposed by a brother of Valerius that they possessed the right of appeal, they had no fear of any harsh or oppressive act on the part of one of that family. An edict which the dictator soon promulgated strengthened their confidence. It conformed essentially to the edict of Servilius; but Valerius and the office he held commanded greater confidence, and, ceasing to struggle, men gave in their names. So large an army had never been enrolled before. Ten legions were embodied; each consul was given three of these, and the dictator had four. Nor could war be deferred any longer, for the Aequi had invaded Latin territory. Emissaries from the Latins begged the senate either to send them help or permit them to take up arms themselves in defence of their country. It seemed safer that the Latins should be defended without arming them, than that they should be suffered to resume their weapons. Vetusius the consul was dispatched to them, and this ended the pillaging. The Aequi left the fields, and trusting more to situation than to arms, secured themselves on the summits of the ridges. The other consul marched against the Volsci. Lest he too might waste his time, he provoked the enemy, chiefly by ravaging their lands, to bring their camp nearer and do battle with him. In the plain between the camps the two armies formed their lines, each in front of its own stockade. In numbers the Volsci were somewhat superior, and accordingly they came on in a loose and careless order. The Roman consul did not advance, nor did he allow a response to the enemy's shout. He commanded his men to plant their spears in the ground and stand still until the enemy had come to close quarters; then they were to assail them with all their might, and settle the question with the sword. The Volsci, weary with running and shouting, hurled themselves upon the Romans, who seemed to be numb with fear. But when the attackers found that their charge was firmly met and saw the swords flash in their faces, they were no whit less confounded than if they had fallen into an ambush, and turned and fled; and even flight was beyond their strength, since they had been running as they entered the battle. The Romans on the contrary, having stood at ease at the beginning of the fight, were fresh and strong; they readily caught up with the exhausted Volsci, and having taken their camp with a rush, pursued their enemies beyond it to Velitrae, where vanquished and victors burst into the city in one body. More blood was shed there, in the promiscuous slaughter of all sorts of people, than had been in the battle itself. A very few were granted quarter, having come without arms and given themselves up. While these things were going on in the Volscian country, the dictator put to rout the Sabines —by far Rome's most important enemy —and captured their camp. Attacking with his cavalry, he made havoc of their centre, which, in extending their wings too widely, they had unduly weakened; and in the midst of the disorder the infantry assailed them. By a single rush the camp was captured and the war ended. From the time of the fight at Lake Regillus no other battle of those days was more famous. The dictator entered the City in triumph. In addition to the customary honours a place was assigned him in the circus, for himself and his descendants, to witness the games, and a curule chair was put there for him. The Volsci, having been conquered, were deprived of the Veliternian land; colonists were sent from the City to Velitrae and a colony was planted. Soon after this there was a battle with the Aequi, though the consul was against it, for it was necessary to approach the enemy from unfavourable ground; but his men accused him of dragging out the campaign in order that the dictator might relinquish his office before their return to the City, and his promises thus come to naught, as the consul's promises had done before. Vetusius was thus driven to order an advance at random, up the mountains which confronted him. This ill-advised measure the enemy's cowardice turned into success, for before the Romans had come within a spear's throw, the Aequi, appalled at their audacity, abandoned the camp which they had maintained in a highly defensible position, and threw themselves down into the valleys on the other side. There the Romans gained considerable booty and a bloodless victory. Though a threefold success had thus been gained in the war, neither senators nor plebeians had been relieved of their anxiety respecting the outcome of affairs at home, so great was the artfulness, as well as influence, with which the money-lenders had laid their plans to baffle not only the commons but even the dictator himself. For after the return of the consul Vetusius, the first business which Valerius brought before the senate was in behalf of the victorious people, that the senate might declare its policy regarding the treatment of those bound over for debt. This resolution having failed to pass, the dictator said: I do not please you in urging harmony. You will soon wish, I warrant you, that the Roman plebs had men like me for their spokesmen. For my own part I will not be the means of further disappointing my fellow citizens, nor will I be dictator to no purpose. Internal strife and foreign war made this office necessary to the nation; peace has been secured abroad, but at home it is being thwarted; I will play my part as a private citizen rather than as a dictator, when the mutiny breaks out. So saying he left the Curia and laid down his office. It was evident to the people that resentment of their wrongs had caused him to resign the magistracy. And so, as though he had kept his pledge (for it had not been his fault that it was not being carried out), they attended him as he retired to his house with manifestations of favour and approval. Thereupon the senators became alarmed, fearing that if the army should be disbanded there would again be secret gatherings and conspiracies. And so, although the levy had been held by order of the dictator, yet because the men had been sworn in by the consuls they regarded the troops as bound by their oath, and, under the pretext that the Aequi had recommenced hostilities, gave orders to lead the legions out of the City. This brought the revolt to a head. At first it is said, there was talk of killing the consuls, that men might thus be freed from their oath; but when it was explained to them that no sacred obligation could be dissolved by a crime, they took the advice of one Sicinius, and without orders from the consuls withdrew to the Sacred Mount, which is situated across the river Anio, three miles from the City. —This version of the story is more general than that given by Piso, namely that the Aventine was the place of their secession. —There, without any leader, they fortified their camp with stockade and trench, and continued quietly, taking nothing but what they required for their subsistance, for several days, neither receiving provocation nor giving any. There was a great panic in the City, and mutual apprehension caused the suspension of all activities. The plebeians, having been abandoned by their friends, feared violence at the hands of the senators; the senators feared the plebeians who were left behind in Rome, being uncertain whether they had rather they stayed or went. Besides, how long would the seceding multitude continue peaceable? What would happen next if some foreign war should break out in the interim? Assuredly no hope was left save in harmony amongst the citizens, and this they concluded they must restore to the state by fair means or foul. They therefore decided to send as an ambassador to the commons Agrippa Menenius, an eloquent man and dear to the plebeians as being one of themselves by birth. On being admitted to the camp he is said merely to have related the following apologue, in the quaint and uncouth style of that age: In the days when man's members did not all agree amongst themselves, as is now the case, but had each its own ideas and a voice of its own, the other parts thought it unfair that they should have the worry and the trouble and the labour of providing everything for the belly, while the belly remained quietly in their midst with nothing to do but to enjoy the good things which they bestowed upon it; they therefore conspired together that the hands should carry no food to the mouth, nor the mouth accept anything that was given it, nor the teeth grind up what they received. While they sought in this angry spirit to starve the belly into submission, the members themselves and the whole body were reduced to the utmost weakness. Hence it had become clear that even the belly had no idle task to perform, and was no more nourished than it nourished the rest, by giving out to all parts of the body that by which we live and thrive, when it has been divided equally amongst the veins and is enriched with digested food —that is, the blood. Drawing a parallel from this to show how like was the internal dissension of the bodily members to the anger of the plebs against the Fathers, he prevailed upon the minds of his hearers. Steps were then taken towards harmony, and a compromise was effected on these terms: the plebeians were to have magistrates of their own, who should be inviolable, and in them should lie the right to aid the people against the consuls, nor should any senator be permitted to take this magistracy. And so they chose two tribunes of the people, Gaius Licinius and Lucius Albinus. These appointed three others to be their colleagues. Amongst the latter, Sicinius, the promoter of the revolt, was one, as all agree; the identity of the other two is less certain. Some hold that there were only two tribunes elected on the Sacred Mount, and that the law of inviolability was enacted there. During the secession of the plebs Spurius Cassius and Postumus Cominius entered upon their consulship. In this year a treaty was made with the Latin peoples. In order to make this treaty one of the consuls remained in Rome, while the other was dispatched to the Volscian war, and defeated and put to flight the Volsci of Antium. Forcing them to take refuge in the town of Longula, he followed them up and captured the place. Thence he proceeded to take Polusca, another Volscian town, after which he directed a strong attack upon Corioli. There was in camp at that time amongst the young nobles Gnaeus Marcius, a youth of active mind and ready hand, who afterwards gained the surname of Coriolanus. The Romans were laying siege to Corioli and were intent upon the townspeople shut up within the walls, with no thought of danger from any attack which might be impending from without, when they found themselves suddenly assailed by a Volscian army from Antium, and simultaneously by the besieged, who made a sortie from the town. It happened that Marcius was on guard. Taking a picked body of men he not only repelled the sally, but boldly forced his way through the open gate, and having spread carnage through the adjacent part of the town, caught up a firebrand on the spur of the moment, and threw it upon the buildings which overhung the wall. Thereupon the townspeople raised a shout, mingled with such a wailing of women and children as is generally heard at the first alarm. This brought new courage to the Romans and covered the Volsci with confusion —as was natural when the city which they had come to relieve was taken. Thus the men of Antium were routed, and Corioli was won. So completely did the glory of Marcius overshadow the consul's fame, that, were it not for the record on a bronze column of the treaty with the Latins which was struck by Spurius Cassius alone, in the absence of his colleague, men would have forgotten that Postumus Cominius had waged war on the Volsci. That same year saw the death of Agrippa Menenius, a man who throughout his life had been equally beloved by patricians and plebeians, and who after the secession was even dearer to the commons. This mediator and umpire of civil harmony, this ambassador of the senators to the people, this restorer of the plebs to Rome, did not leave sufficient wealth to pay for a funeral. He was buried by the commons, who contributed a sextans each to the cost. The consuls next chosen were Titus Geganius and Publius Minucius. This year, though there was no war to occasion trouble from without and the breach at home had been healed, another and a much more serious misfortune befell the nation; for first the price of corn went up, from men's failure to cultivate the fields during the withdrawal of the plebs; and this was followed by a famine, such as comes to a beleaguered city. It would have meant starvation for the slaves, at least, and the plebeians, had not the consuls met the situation by sending agents far and wide to buy up corn, not only to Etruria, northwards along the coast from Ostia, and south past the Volsci by sea, all the way to Cumae, but even to Sicily —so far afield had the enmity of Rome's neighbours driven her to seek for help. When grain had been purchased at Cumae the ships were held back by Aristodemus, the tyrant, in satisfaction for the property of the Tarquinii, whose heir he was. Among the Volsci and Pomptini the agents could not even make any purchases, and they were actually in danger from the violence of the people. From the Tuscans corn came in by way of the Tiber, and with this the plebs were kept alive. A disastrous war would have been added to the distresses arising from the scarcity of provisions, had not a grievous pestilence descended upon the Volsci just as they were beginning hostilities. Its ravages so terrified the enemy that even after the worst of it was over they did not fully recover from their fear, and the Romans increased the number of colonists at Velitrae and sent out a new colony to Norba, in the mountains, as a stronghold for the Pomptine country. Next year, in the consulship of Marcus Minucius and Aulus Sempronius, a large quantity of grain was imported from Sicily, and the senate debated at what price it should be sold to the plebeians. Many thought the time had come for repressing the commons, and resuming the rights which they had violently extorted from the Fathers by secession. Conspicuous among these was Marcius Coriolanus, an enemy to the tribunician power, who said: If they want corn at the old price let them restore to the senate its ancient rights. Why do I see plebeian magistrates, why do I, after being sent beneath the yoke and ransomed, as it were, from brigands, behold Sicinius in power? Shall I endure these humiliations any longer than I must? When I would not brook Tarquinius as king, must I brook Sicinius? Let him secede now and call out the plebs; the way lies open to the Sacred Mount and the other hills. Let them seize grain from our fields as they did two years ago. Let them enjoy the corn-prices they have brought about by their own madness. I make bold to say that this evil plight will so tame them that they will sooner till the land themselves than withdraw under arms and prevent its cultivation by others. It is not so easy to say whether it would have been right to do this, as it is clear, I think, that it lay within the Fathers' power to have made such conditions for reducing the price of corn as to have freed themselves from the tribunician authority and all the terms which they had unwillingly agreed to. Even the senate deemed the proposal too harsh, and the plebs were so angry that they almost resorted to arms. Starvation, they said, was now being employed against them, as though they were public enemies, and they were being defrauded of their food and sustenance; the imported corn, their only supply, unexpectedly bestowed on them by Fortune, was to be snatched from their mouths unless the tribunes should be delivered up in chains to Gnaeus Marcius, unless he should work his will on the persons of the Roman plebeians; in him a new executioner had risen up against them, who bade them choose between death and slavery. When he came out from the Curia they would have set upon him, had not the tribunes, in the nick of time, appointed a day to try him; whereupon their anger subsided, for every man saw that he was himself made his enemy's judge, and held over him the power of life and death. With contempt at first Marcius heard the threats of the tribunes, alleging that the right to help, not to punish, had been granted to that office, and that they were tribunes not of the Fathers, but of the plebs. But the commons had risen in such a storm of anger that the Fathers had to sacrifice one man to appease them. For all that, they resisted the hatred of their adversaries and called upon the private resources of the several senators, as well as the strength of the entire order. At first they tried, by posting their clients here and there, to frighten persons from coming together for deliberation, in the hope that they might thereby break up their plans. Then they came out in a body —you would have said all the members of the senate were on their trial —and entreated the plebs to release to them one citizen, one senator; if they were unwilling to acquit him as innocent let them give him up, though guilty, as a favour. But when Marcius himself, on the day appointed for the hearing, failed to appear, men's hearts were hardened against him. Condemned in his absence, he went into exile with the Volsci, uttering threats against his country, and even then breathing hostility. When he came among the Volsci they received him with a kindness which increased from one day to the next, in proportion as he allowed a greater hatred of his own people to appear, and was more and more frequently heard to utter both complaints and threats. His host was Attius Tullius, at that time by far the foremost of the Volscian name and ever unfriendly to the Romans. And so, spurred on, the one by his inveterate hatred and the other by fresh resentment, they took counsel together how they might make war on Rome. They believed that it would be no easy matter to induce the Volscian commons to take up the arms which they had so often unluckily essayed; the destruction of their young men in oft-repeated wars, and finally by the plague, had, they supposed, broken their spirit; artifice must be invoked, where hate had grown dull with lapse of time, that they might find some new cause of anger to exasperate men's hearts. It so happened that at Rome preparations were making to repeat the Great Games. The reason of the repetition was as follows: at an early hour of the day appointed for the games, before the show had begun, a certain householder had driven his slave, bearing a yoke, through the midst of the circus, scourging the culprit as he went. The games had then been begun, as though this circumstance had in no way affected their sanctity. Not long after, Titus Latinius, a plebeian, had a dream. He dreamt that Jupiter said that the leading dancer at the games had not been to his liking; that unless there were a sumptuous repetition of the festival the City would be in danger; that Latinius was to go and announce this to the consuls. Though the man's conscience was by no means at ease, nevertheless the awe he felt at the majesty of the magistrates was too great; he was afraid of becoming a laughing-stock. Heavy was the price he paid for his hesitation, for a few days later he lost his son. Lest this sudden calamity should leave any uncertainty as to its cause in the mind of the wretched man, the same phantom appeared again before him in his dreams, and asked him, as he thought, whether he had been sufficiently repaid for spurning the gods; for a greater recompense was at hand unless he went quickly and informed the consuls. This brought the matter nearer home. Yet he still delayed and put off going, till a violent attack of illness suddenly laid him low. Then at last the anger of the gods taught him wisdom. And so, worn out with his sufferings, past and present, he called a council of his kinsmen and explained to them what he had seen and heard, how Jupiter had so often confronted him in his sleep, and how the threats and anger of the god had been instantly fulfilled in his own misfortunes. Then, with the unhesitating approval of all who were present, he was carried on a litter to the consuls in the Forum; and thence, by their command, to the Curia, where he had no sooner told the same story to the Fathers, greatly to the wonder of them all, when — lo, another miracle! For it is related that he who had been carried into the senate-house afflicted in all his members, returned home, after discharging his duty, on his own feet. Games of the greatest possible splendour were decreed by the senate, and to see them came, at the suggestion of Attius Tullius, a host of Volsci. Before the beginning of the spectacle Tullius, in pursuance of the plan he and Marcius had formed at home, went to the consuls and told them that he had something of public importance which he wished to discuss with them in private. When the bystanders had been removed, I am loath, he said, to tell concerning my countrymen what may discredit them. Still I do not come to charge them with having committed any crime, but to put you on your guard lest they should commit one. The disposition of our people is far more fickle than I could wish. Many disasters have taught us the truth of this, since it is not to our own merit, but to your patience, that we owe our preservation. A great crowd of Volsci is now in Rome; there are games; the citizens will be intent upon the spectacle. I remember what the Sabine youths did in this City on the same opportunity arising; I tremble lest something ill-advised and rash may happen. It has seemed to me that both on our account and on yours I ought to tell you this beforehand, consuls. For my own part I intend to go home at once, lest being on the spot I might be implicated in some act or word and be compromised. With this he departed. The consuls laid before the senate this vague warning which came from so reliable a source. It was the source, as often happens, rather than the story, which induced them to take precautions, even though they might prove superfluous. The senate decreed that the Volsci should leave the City, and heralds were sent about to command them all to depart before nightfall. At first they were stricken with a great alarm, as they hurried this way and that to the houses of their hosts to get their things. But when they had started, their hearts swelled with indignation, that like malefactors and polluted persons, they should have been driven off from the games at a time of festival, and excluded, in a way, from intercourse with men and gods. As they journeyed on in an almost unbroken line, Tullius, who had gone ahead, arrived before them at the source of the Ferentina. There, when any of their chief men arrived, he met them with words of complaint and indignation. These leaders, eagerly drinking in the words with which he ministered to their anger, he conducted and, thanks to their influence, the rest of the throng also, to a field which lay below the road. There he launched out upon a speech like a general's harangue. Though you should forget all else, he cried, the ancient wrongs done by the Roman People and the disasters that have overtaken the Volscian race, with what feelings, pray, can you bear the insult which this day has brought to us, making our humiliation serve as the opening of their festival? Or did you not feel that they were triumphing over you to-day? That you furnished a spectacle to everybody when you departed —to the citizens, to the strangers, to all the neighbouring nations? That your wives and children were made a mock in the eyes of the world? What of those who heard the words of the herald? What of those who saw us going away? What of those who have met this ignominious procession? What think you they all supposed, but that we were certainly attainted of some sin; that because, were we to be present at the spectacle, we should pollute the games and incur the god's displeasure —for that reason we were being expelled from the seat of the righteous and from their gathering and their council? Moreover, does it not occur to you that we are alive because we hastened to depart? —if, indeed, this is a departure and not rather a flight. And this City —do you not regard it as a city of enemies, when if you had delayed there a single day, you would all have had to die? War has been declared upon you, and greatly shall they rue it who have been responsible, if you are men. So, their spontaneous anger fanned to a flame, they dispersed to their several homes, and, every man arousing his own people, they brought about a revolt of the entire Volscian name. As generals for this war the nations all agreed in choosing Attius Tullius and Gnaeus Marcius, the Roman exile, who inspired rather more hope than did his colleague. This hope he by no means disappointed, so that it was easy to see that Rome's commanders were a greater source of strength to her than her armies were. Marching first to Circei, he drove out the Roman colonists from that city and turned it over, thus liberated, to the Volsci. He took Satricum, Longula, Polusca, and Corioli, places which the Romans had recently acquired. He then recovered Lavinium, and then, passing over by cross-roads into the Latin Way, captured in succession Corbio, Vetelia, Trebium, Labici, and Pedum. From Pedum he finally led his army against Rome and, pitching his camp at the Cluilian Trenches, five miles from the City, laid waste the Roman territory from that base, sending out guards with the pillagers to preserve intact the farms of the patricians, whether from anger at the plebs, or to sow dissension between them and the Fathers. And no doubt it would have sprung up, so vehemently did the tribunes seek by their accusations to rouse the already headstrong commons against the nation's leaders, but dread of invasion, the strongest bond of harmony, tended to unite their feelings, however they might suspect and dislike one another. In this one point they were unable to agree, that the senate and the consuls saw no hope anywhere but in arms, while the plebs preferred anything to war. Spurius Nautius and Sextus Furius were now consuls. While they were reviewing their levies and distributing garrisons about the walls and the other places where they had seen fit to place pickets and sentries, a great multitude of people demanding peace first terrified them with their rebellious clamour, and then forced them to call the senate together and propose the sending of envoys to Gnaeus Marcius. The Fathers consented to propose it when they saw that the plebeians were growing discouraged, and ambassadors were sent to Marcius to treat for peace. Stern was the answer they brought back. If the land of the Volsci were restored to them the question of peace could be taken up; if the Romans wished to enjoy the spoils of war without doing anything, he would forget neither the wrong his fellow-citizens had done him nor the kindness of his hosts, but would strive to show that exile had quickened his courage, not broken it. When the same envoys were sent back a second time, they were denied admittance to the camp. Even priests, wearing the appropriate fillets, are said to have gone as suppliants to the enemy's camp, where they were no more able than the envoys had been to alter the determination of Marcius. Then the married women gathered in large numbers at the house of Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and Volumnia, his wife. Whether this was public policy or woman's fear I cannot find out; in any case they prevailed with them that both Veturia, an aged woman, and Volumnia should take the two little sons of Marcius and go with them to the camp of the enemy; and that, since the swords of the men could not defend the City, the women should defend it with their prayers and tears. When they reached the camp, and the word came to Coriolanus that a great company of women was at hand, at first, as might have been expected of one whom neither the nation's majesty could move, as represented in its envoys, nor the awfulness of religion, as conveyed to heart and eye by the persons of her priests, he showed even greater obduracy in resisting women's tears. Then one of his friends, led by Veturia's conspicuous sadness to single her out from amongst the other women, as she stood between her son's wife and his babies, said: Unless my eyes deceive me, your mother is here and your wife and children. Coriolanus started up like a madman from his seat, and running to meet his mother would have embraced her, but her entreaties turned to anger, and she said: Suffer me to learn, before I accept your embrace, whether I have come to an enemy or a son; whether I am a captive or a mother in your camp. Is it this to which long life and an unhappy old age have brought me, that I should behold in you an exile and then an enemy? Could you bring yourself to ravage this country, which gave you birth and reared you? Did not your anger fall from you, no matter how hostile and threatening your spirit when you came, as you passed the boundary? Did it not come over you, when Rome lay before your eyes: ' Within those walls are my home and my gods, my mother, my wife, and my children?' So then, had I not been a mother Rome would not now be besieged! Had I no son I should have died a free woman, in a free land! But I can have nothing now to suffer which could be more disgraceful to you or more miserable for myself; nor, wretched though I am, shall I be so for long: it is these you must consider, for whom, if you keep on, untimely death or long enslavement is in store. The embraces of his wife and children, following this speech, and the tears of the entire company of women, and their lamentations for themselves and their country, at last broke through his resolution. He embraced his family and sent them back, and withdrew his forces from before the City. Having then led his army out of Rome's dominions he is said to have perished beneath the weight of resentment which this act caused, by a death which is variously described. I find in Fabius, by far the oldest authority, that Coriolanus lived on to old age. At least he reports that this saying was often on his lips, that exile was a far more wretched thing when one was old. There was no envy of the fame the women had earned, on the part of the men of Rome —so free was life in those days from disparagement of another's glory —and to preserve its memory the temple of Fortuna Muliebris was built and dedicated. Afterwards the Volsci again invaded Roman soil, in conjunction with the Aequi, but these would no longer put up with Attius Tullius for their general. Whereupon the dispute as to whether the Volsci or the Aequi should furnish a commander for the allied army, led to a quarrel, and this to a bloody battle. There the good fortune of the Roman People destroyed two hostile armies in one struggle, which was no less ruinous than it was obstinately fought. The consulship of Titus Sicinius and Gaius Aquilius. Sicinius got the Volscian war for his command, and Aquilius that with the Hernici —for they too were up in arms. This year the Hernici were conquered, while the campaign against the Volsci was indecisive. Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius were then made consuls. A treaty was struck with the Hernici, and two-thirds of their land was taken from them. Of this the consul Cassius proposed to divide one half amongst the Latins and the other half amongst the plebeians. To this gift he wished to add some part of that land which, he charged, was held by individuals, although it belonged to the state. Whereupon many of the Fathers, being themselves in possession of the land, took fright at the danger which threatened their interests. But the senators were also concerned on public grounds, namely, that the consul by his largesses should be building up an influence perilous to liberty. This was the first proposal for agrarian legislation, and from that day to within living memory it has never been brought up without occasioning the most serious disturbances. The other consul resisted the largess, and the Fathers supported him; nor were the commons solidly against him, for to begin with, they had taken offence that the bounty had been made general, being extended to include allies as well as citizens; and again, they often heard the consul Verginius declare in his speeches, as though he read the future, that destruction lurked in the gift proposed by his colleague; that those lands would bring servitude to the men who should receive them, and were being made a road to monarchy. For what reason had there been, he asked, in including the allies and the Latin name, and in restoring to the Hernici, who had been enemies a short time before, a third of the land which had been taken from them, if it were not that these tribes might have Cassius in the room of Coriolanus for their captain? Popular favour now began to go over to the opponent and vetoer of the land-legislation. Each consul then began, as if vying with the other, to pamper the plebs. Verginius said that he would permit lands to be assigned, provided they were assigned to none but Roman citizens. Cassius, having by his proposed agrarian grants made a bid for the support of the allies and thereby lowered himself in the eyes of the Romans, desired to regain the affection of his fellow-citizens by another donation, and proposed that the money received from the Sicilian corn should be paid back to the people. But this the people spurned, as a downright attempt to purchase regal power; to such an extent did their instinctive suspicion of monarchy render them scornful of his gifts, as if they had possessed a superfluity of everything; and Cassius had no sooner laid down his office than he was condemned and executed, as all authorities agree. There are those who say that his father was responsible for his punishment: that he tried the case in his house, and that, after causing his son to be scourged and put to death, he consecrated to Ceres his personal property, from the proceeds of which a statue was made and inscribed the gift of the Cassian family. I find in certain authors, and this is the more credible account, that the quaestors Caeso Fabius and Lucius Valerius brought him to trial for treason, and that he was found guilty by judgment of the people and his house pulled down by popular decree. Its site is now the open space in front of the temple of Tellus. But whether it was a domestic or a state trial, he was condemned in the consulship of Servius Cornelius and Quintus Fabius. It was not long before the people forgot the anger they had felt against Cassius. The inherent attractiveness of the agrarian legislation appealed to them on its own account, when its author had been removed, and their desire for it was enhanced by the meanness of the Fathers, who after the defeat in that year of the Volsci and the Aequi defrauded the soldiers of their booty. Whatever was taken from the enemy Fabius sold and placed the proceeds in the public treasury. The Fabian name was hateful to the plebs, on the last consul's account; nevertheless the patricians succeeded in procuring the election of Caeso Fabius to that office, along with Lucius Aemilius. This increased the rancour of the plebeians, and by their seditions at home they brought about a foreign war. The war then caused domestic strife to be interrupted, while with one mind and purpose patricians and plebeians met the rebellious Volsci and Aequi and, led by Aemilius, defeated them in a successful action. Yet more of the enemy perished in flight than in the battle, so relentlessly did the cavalry pursue their routed forces. Castor's temple was dedicated the same year, on the fifteenth of July. It had been vowed during the Latin war by Postumius, the dictator. His son, being made duumvir for this special purpose, dedicated it. The desires of the plebs were this year again excited by the charms of the land-law. The tribunes of the plebs endeavoured to recommend their democratic office by a democratic law, while the senators, who thought there was frenzy enough and to spare in the populace, without rewarding it, shuddered at the thought of land-grants and encouragements to rashness. The most strenuous of leaders were at hand for the senatorial opposition, in the persons of the consuls. Their party was therefore victorious and not only won an immediate success but, besides, elected as consuls for the approaching year Marcus Fabius, Caeso's brother, and one whom, on account of the prosecution of Spurius Cassius, the people hated even more, namely, Lucius Valerius. This year also there was a conflict with the tribunes. Nothing came of the legislation, and its supporters fell into contempt, from boasting of a measure which they could not carry through. The Fabii were thence-forward held in great repute, after their three successive consulships, which had all without interruption been subjected to the proof of struggles with the tribunes; accordingly the office, as if well invested, was permitted to remain some time in that family. War then broke out with Veii, and the Volsci revolted. But for foreign wars there was almost a superabundance of resources, and men misused them in quarrelling amongst themselves. To increase the general anxiety which was now felt, portents implying the anger of the gods were of almost daily occurrence in the City and the country. For this expression of divine wrath no other reason was alleged by the soothsayers, when they had enquired into it both officially and privately, sometimes by inspecting entrails and sometimes by observing the flight of birds, than the failure duly to observe the rites of religion. These alarms at length resulted in the condemnation of Oppia, a Vestal virgin, for unchastity, and her punishment. Quintus Fabius and Gaius Julius were then made consuls. This year there was no less discord at home, and the menace of war was greater. The Aequi took up arms, and the Veientes even made a foray into Roman territory. During the increasing anxiety occasioned by these campaigns Caeso Fabius and Spurius Furius were elected to the consulship. Ortona, a Latin city, was being besieged by the Aequi; while the Veientes, who by this time had their fill of rapine, were threatening to attack Rome itself. These alarms, though they should have restrained the animosity of the plebeians, actually heightened it; and they resumed their custom of refusing service, though not of their own initiative; for it was Spurius Licinius, tribune of the plebs, who, deeming that the moment had come for forcing a land-law on the patricians by the direst necessity, had undertaken to obstruct the preparations for war. But he drew upon his own head all the odium attaching to the tribunician office, nor did the consuls inveigh against him more fiercely than did his own colleagues, and with their help the consuls held a levy. Armies were enlisted for two wars at the same time; the command of one, which was to invade the Aequi, was given to Fabius, while with the other Furius was to oppose the Veientes. Against the Veientes nothing worth recording was accomplished; and in the Aequian campaign Fabius had somewhat more trouble with his fellow-Romans than with the enemy. That one man, the consul himself, preserved the state, which the army in its hatred of the consul would, so far as it was able, have betrayed. For when the consul, besides the many other instances of good generalship which he displayed in preparing for the war and in his conduct of it, had so drawn up the battle-line that a charge of the cavalry alone sufficed to rout the enemy's army, the foot refused to pursue the flying foe; nor could even their own sense of guilt —to say nothing of the exhortation of their hated general, —nor even the thought of the immediate disgrace to all, and the danger they must presently incur if the enemy should recover his courage, compel them to quicken their pace, or, if nothing else, to stand in their ranks. Contrary to orders they retreated and returned to their camp, in such dejection that you would have supposed them beaten, now uttering execrations against their leader and now against the efficient services of the horse. Ruinous though their example was, the general found no remedy for it; so true is it that noble minds are oftener lacking in the qualities by which men govern their fellow-citizens than in those by which they conquer an enemy. The consul returned to Rome, having purchased more hatred of his irritated and embittered soldiers than won increase in military fame. Nevertheless the Fathers held out for the retention of the consulship in the Fabian family. Marcus Fabius was the man they elected, and they gave him Gnaeus Manlius as a colleague. This year also had a tribune who advocated a land-law, Tiberius Pontificius. He set out on the same path that Spurius Licinius had trodden, as though Licinius had been successful, and for a time obstructed the levy. The senators were again thrown into consternation, but Appius Claudius told them that the tribunician power had been overcome the year before, actually for the time being, and potentially for ever, since a way had been discovered for employing its resources to its own undoing. For there would always be some tribune who would be willing to gain a personal victory over his colleague, and obtain the favour of the better element, while doing the nation a service. There would be a number of tribunes, if a number should be needed, who would be ready to help the consuls; and a single one was enough, though opposed to all the rest. Only let the consuls, and the leading senators as well, make a point of winning over, if not all, at any rate some of the tribunes to the state and the senate. Acting on the instructions of Appius, the Fathers began as a class to address the tribunes in a courteous and kindly manner; and those who were of consular rank, when it happened that any of them had any private claim upon an individual tribune, brought it about, in part by personal influence, in part by political, that those officials were disposed to use their powers for the good of the state; and four of them, as against one who would have hindered the general good, assisted the consuls to hold the muster. The army then set out for a war with the Veientes, to whose help forces had rallied from every quarter of Etruria, not so much roused by goodwill towards the men of Veii as by hopes that civil discord might effect the downfall of the Roman state. And indeed the leading men in the councils of all the Etrurian peoples were wrathfully complaining that there would be no end to the power of the Romans unless factional quarrels should set them to fighting amongst themselves. They asserted that this was the only poison, the only decay which had been found to work upon opulent states, so as to make great empires transitory. For a long time the Romans had withstood this evil, thanks partly to the prudence of the senate, partly to the patience of the plebs; but they had now come to a crisis. Two states had been created out of one: each faction had its own magistrates, its own laws. At first, though they had a way of fiercely opposing the levies, yet when war began they had obeyed their generals. No matter what the condition of things in the City, so long as military discipline held it had been possible to make a stand; but now the fashion of disobeying magistrates was following the Roman soldier even to his camp. In their latest war, when the army was already drawn up for battle, and at the very instant of conflict, they had with one accord actually handed over the victory to the conquered Aequi, had deserted their standards, had left their general on the field, and had returned, against his orders, to their camp. Assuredly if her enemies pressed forward they could vanquish Rome by means of her own soldiers. There needed nothing more than to make a declaration and a show of war; Fate and the gods would of their own will do the rest. Such were the hopes which had led the Etruscans to take up arms, after many a shifting hazard of defeat and victory. The Roman consuls also felt that they had nothing else to dread but their own forces and their own arms. The recollection of the heinous example set in the last war deterred them from offering battle in a situation where they would be in danger from two armies at the same time. Accordingly they kept within their camp, restrained by the thought of so grave a peril: time and circumstances would perhaps assuage the anger of the men and bring them to their senses. Their enemies the Veientes and the other Etruscans were for that reason the more in haste to act; they attempted to provoke the Romans to fight, at first by riding up to their camp and challenging them to come out, and finally, when they gained nothing by this, by shouting insults both at the consuls themselves and at the army. They said that their pretended want of harmony amongst themselves had been resorted to in order to conceal their fear, and that the consuls distrusted the courage of their men even more than their loyalty; it was a strange kind of mutiny where armed men were silent and inactive. To these taunts they added others upon the newness of their race and origin, partly false and partly true. This abuse, noisily uttered beneath the very rampart and the gates, was endured unconcernedly enough by the consuls. But the inexperienced rank and file, stirred now by indignation and now by shame, were diverted from the thought of their domestic troubles; they were unwilling that their enemies should go unpunished; they were unwilling that the patricians, that the consuls should obtain a success; hatred of the foe contended in their bosoms with hatred of their fellow-citizens. At length the former feeling got the upper hand, so proud and insolent was the jeering of the enemy. They gathered in crowds at the praetorium, demanded battle, requested that the signal should be given. The consuls, as though considering the matter, put their heads together and conferred for a long time. They desired to fight, but it was needful to keep back their desire and conceal it, that by opposition and delay they might stimulate to fury the already eager soldiery. The men were therefore told that the thing was premature, that the time for battle had not yet come; that they must keep within the camp. Then the consuls issued an order to abstain from fighting, declaring that if any man fought without orders they should treat him as an enemy. Dismissed with these words, the less inclination the soldiers discovered in the consuls the greater became their own eagerness for the fray. They were still further exasperated by the enemy, who were much bolder even than before, when the consuls' determination not to fight became known: it was clear that they could insult the Romans with impunity; their soldiers were not trusted with weapons, the affair would culminate in absolute mutiny, and the end of the Roman power had come. Relying on these convictions, they charged up to the gates, flung gibes at their defenders, and scarcely refrained from assaulting the camp. At this the Romans could no longer brook their insults; from all over the camp they came running to the consuls. There were no more cautious requests, preferred through the chief centurions, but on all sides arose a general clamour. The time was ripe; nevertheless the consuls hung back. Then Fabius, when his colleague, beginning to fear mutiny, was on the point of yielding to the growing tumult, commanded silence by a trumpet-blast and said: I know, Gnaeus Manlius, that these men have the power to conquer, but their will to do so I know not; and for this they are themselves to blame. I am therefore resolved and determined not to give the signal unless they swear that they will return victorious from this engagement. Once, in a battle, the soldiers betrayed a Roman consul: they will never betray the gods. There was a centurion named Marcus Flavoleius, who had been among the foremost in demanding battle. I will return victorious from the field, Marcus Fabius, he cried, and invoked the wrath of Father Jupiter, Mars Gradivus, and the other gods, if he failed to keep his vow. The same pledge was then taken in order by the entire army, each man invoking its penalties upon himself. When they had sworn, the signal sounded. They armed and entered the fight, angry and confident. Now let the Etruscans fling their taunts! Now —they all cried —now, when they were armed, let the lip-bold enemy face them! On that day they all showed splendid courage, both commoners and nobles, but the Fabian name was especially distinguished. In the course of many political struggles they had estranged the plebs, and they resolved to regain their goodwill in that battle. The line was drawn up, nor did the Veientes and the Etruscan levies shun the encounter. They felt almost certain that the Romans would no more fight with them than they had fought with the Aequi. That they might even be guilty of some greater enormity, exasperated as they were, and possessed of a critical opportunity, was not too much to hope. But it turned out quite otherwise. For there had never been a war when the Romans went into battle with a keener hostility —so embittered had they been, on the one hand by the enemy's insults, on the other by the procrastination of the consuls. The Etruscans had barely had time to deploy when their enemies, who in the first excitement' had rather cast their javelins at random than fairly aimed them, were already come to sword-strokes at close quarters, where fighting is the fiercest. The Fabian clan was conspicuous among the foremost, a spectacle and encouragement to their fellow-citizens. One of them, the Quintus Fabius who had been consul three years before, was leading the attack on the closely marshalled Veientes, when a Tuscan, exulting in his strength and skill at arms, caught him unawares in the midst of a crowd of his enemies and drove his sword through his breast. As the blade was withdrawn Fabius fell headlong upon his wound. It was but the fall of one man, but both armies felt it; and the Romans were giving way at that point, when Marcus Fabius the consul leaped over the prostrate corpse and, covering himself with his target, cried, Was this your oath, men, that you would return to your camp in flight? Do you then fear the most dastardly of foes more than Jupiter and Mars, by whom you swore? But I, though I have sworn no oath, will either return victorious or fall fighting here by you, Quintus Fabius! To this speech of the consul Caeso Fabius, consul of the year before, made answer, Think you that your words will persuade them to fight, brother? The gods will persuade them, by whom they have sworn. And let us, as is meet for nobles, as is worthy of the name of Fabius, kindle by fighting rather than by exhortation the courage of our soldiers! With that the two Fabii rushed into the press with levelled spears and carried the whole line forward with them. Thus the fortune of the day was retrieved in one part of the field. On the other wing Gnaeus Manlius the consul was urging on the fight with no less vigour, when almost the same thing happened. For as Quintus Fabius had done on the other flank, so here the consul Manlius was personally leading the attack upon the enemy, whom he had almost routed, for his soldiers followed him valiantly, when he was severely wounded and retired from the fighting line. His men believed him to be dead, and faltered; and they would have yielded the position, had not the other consul ridden up at a gallop, with some few troops of horse, and calling out that his colleague was alive, and that he himself had defeated and routed the other wing and was come to help them, in that way put a stop to their wavering. Manlius also showed himself among them, helping to restore the line; and the soldiers, recognizing the features of their two consuls, plucked up courage. At the same time the battle-line of the enemy was now less strong, for, relying on their excess of numbers, they had withdrawn their reserves and dispatched them to storm the Roman camp. There, having forced an entrance without encountering much opposition, they were frittering away their time, their thoughts more taken up with the booty than with the battle, when the Roman reserves, which had been unable to withstand the first onset, sent word to the consuls how things stood, and then closed up their ranks, returned to the praetorium, and of themselves resumed the battle. Meanwhile Manlius the consul had ridden back to the camp, and by posting men at all the gates had cut off the enemy's egress. In desperation at this turn the Etruscans had been inflamed to the point rather of madness than of recklessness. For when, as they rushed in whatever direction there seemed a prospect of escape, they had made several charges to no purpose, one band of youths made a dash at the consul himself, whose arms made him conspicuous. Their first discharge of javelins was parried by the soldiers who surrounded him, but after that there was no withstanding their violence. The consul fell, mortally wounded, and all about him fled. The Etruscans grew more reckless than before; the Romans were driven, quaking with terror, right across the camp, and their case would have been desperate, had not the lieutenants caught up the body of the consul and opened a way for the enemy by one of the gates. By that they burst forth, and escaping in a disordered column, fell in the way of the other, the victorious consul, where they were again cut to pieces, and dispersed in all directions. A victory of great importance had been won, but it was saddened by the death of two so famous men. The consul therefore made answer to the senate, when it would have voted him a triumph, that if the army could triumph without its general, its services in that war had been so remarkable that he would readily grant his consent; as for himself, when his family was in mourning for the death of Quintus Fabius his brother, and the state was half orphaned by the loss of the other consul, he would not accept a laurel which was blighted with national and private sorrow. No triumph ever celebrated was more famous than was his refusal to accept a triumph, so true is it that a seasonable rejection of glory sometimes but increases it. The consul then solemnized, one after the other, the funerals of his colleague and his brother, and pronounced the eulogy of each; but while yielding their meed of praise to them, he gained for himself the very highest praises. Nor was he unmindful of that policy which he had adopted in the beginning of his consulship, of winning the affections of the plebs, but billeted the wounded soldiers on the patricians, to be cared for. To the Fabii he assigned the largest number, nor did they anywhere receive greater attention. For this the Fabii now began to enjoy the favour of the people, nor was this end achieved by aught but a demeanour wholesome for the state. The senators were now therefore not more forward than the plebeians in choosing Caeso Fabius to be consul, along with Titus Verginius. On taking office his first concern was neither war nor the raising of troops nor anything else, save that the prospect of harmony which had been already partly realized should ripen at the earliest possible moment into a good understanding between the patricians and the plebs. He therefore proposed at the outset of his term that before one of the tribunes should rise up and advocate a land-law, the Fathers themselves should anticipate him by making it their own affair and bestowing the conquered territory upon the plebs with the utmost impartiality; for it was right that they should possess it by whose blood and toil it had been won. The senators scorned the proposal, and some even complained that too much glory was spoiling and dissipating that vigorous intellect which Caeso had once possessed. In the sequel there were no outbreaks of strife and faction in the City, but the Latins were plagued with incursions of the Aequi. Thither Caeso was dispatched with an army, and passed over into the Aequians' own country to lay it waste. The Aequi retired to their towns and kept within their walls. For this reason there was no memorable battle. But the Veientes inflicted a defeat on the Romans owing to the rashness of the other consul; and the army would have been destroyed if Caeso Fahius had not come, in the nick of time, to its rescue. Thenceforward there was neither peace nor war with the Veientes, but something very like freebooting. In the face of the Roman legions they would retreat into their city; when they perceived the legions to be withdrawn they would make raids upon the fields, evading war by a semblance of peace, and peace in turn by war. Hence it was impossible either to let the whole matter go or to end it. Other wars, too, were immediately threatening —like the one with the Aequi and the Volsci, who would observe peace only so long as the suffering involved in their latest defeat was passing away, —or were soon to be begun, by the always hostile Sabines and all Etruria. But the enmity of the Veientes, persistent rather than perilous, and issuing in insults oftener than in danger, kept the Romans in suspense, for they were never permitted to forget it or to turn their attention elsewhere. Then the Fabian clan went before the senate, and the consul said, speaking for the clan: A standing body of defenders rather than a large one is required, Conscript Fathers, as you know, for the war with Veii. Do you attend to the other wars, and assign to the Fabii the task of opposing the Veientes. We undertake that the majesty of the Roman name shall be safe in that quarter. It is our purpose to wage this war as if it were our own family feud, at our private costs: the state may dispense with furnishing men and money for this cause. The thanks of the Fathers were voted with enthusiasm. The consul came out from the senate-house, and escorted by a column of the Fabii, who had halted in the vestibule of the curia while awaiting the senate's decision, returned to his house. After receiving the command to present themselves armed next day at the consul's threshold, they dispersed to their homes. The news spreads to every part of the City and the Fabii are lauded to the skies. Men tell how a single family has taken upon its shoulders the burden of a state, how the war with Veii has been turned over to private citizens and private arms. If there were two other clans of equal strength in the City, the one might undertake the Volsci, the other the Aequi, and the Roman People might enjoy the tranquillity of peace, while all the neighbouring nations were being subdued. On the following day the Fabii arm and assemble at the designated place. The consul, coming forth in the cloak of a general, sees his entire clan drawn up in his vestibule, and being received into their midst gives the order to march. Never did an army march through the City less in number or more distinguished by the applause and the wonder of men: three hundred and six soldiers, all patricians, all of one blood, no one of whom you would have rejected as a leader, and who would have made an admirable senate in any period, were going out to threaten the existence of the Veientine nation with the resources of a single house. They were followed by a throng partly made up of people belonging to them, their kinsmen and close friends, whose thoughts were busy with no mean matters, whether of hope or of fear, but with boundless possibilities; partly of those who were moved with concern for the commonwealth, and were beside themselves with enthusiasm and amazement. Go, they cry, in your valour, go with good fortune, and crown your undertaking with success as great! They bid them look forward to receiving consulships at their hands for this work, and triumphs, and all rewards and all honours. As they pass by the Capitol and the citadel and the other temples, they beseech whatever gods present themselves to their eyes and their thoughts to attend that noble band with blessings and prosperity, and restore them soon in safety to their native land and their kindred. Their prayers were uttered in vain. Setting out by the Unlucky Way, the right arch of the Porta Carmentalis, they came to the river Cremera, a position which seemed favourable for the erection of a fort. Lucius Aemilius and Gaius Servilius were then chosen consuls. And so long as nothing more than plundering was afoot the Fabii were not only an adequate garrison for the fort, but in all that region where the Tuscan territory marches with the Roman they afforded universal security to their own countrymen and annoyance to the enemy, by ranging along the border on both sides. Then came a brief interruption to these depredations, while the men of Veii, having called in an army from Etruria, attacked the post on the Cremera, and the Roman legions, led thither by Lucius Aemilius the consul, engaged them in a pitched battle; though in truth the Veientes had scarcely time to draw up a battle-line, for at the first alarm, while the ranks were falling in behind the standards and the reserves were being posted, a division of Roman cavalry made a sudden charge on their flank and deprived them of the power not only of attacking first, but even of standing their ground. And so they were driven back upon Saxa Rubra, where they had their camp, and sued for peace. It was granted, but their instinctive fickleness caused them to weary of the pact before the Roman garrison was withdrawn from the Cremera. Again the Fabii were pitted against the people of Veii. No preparations had been made for a great war, yet not only were raids made upon farming lands, and surprise attacks upon raiding parties, but at times they fought in the open field and in serried ranks; and a single clan of the Roman People often carried off the victory from that most mighty state, for those days, in all Etruria. At first the Veientes bitterly resented this; but they presently adopted a plan, suggested by the situation, for trapping their bold enemy, and they even rejoiced as they saw that the frequent successes of the Fabii were causing them to grow more rash. And so they now and then drove flocks in the way of the invaders, as if they had come there by accident; and the country folk would flee from their farms and leave them deserted; and rescuing parties of armed men, sent to keep off pillagers, would flee before them in a panic more often feigned than real. By this time the Fabii had conceived such scorn for the enemy that they believed themselves invincible and not to be withstood, no matter what the place or time. This confidence so won upon them that on catching sight of some flocks at a distance from the Cremera, across a wide interval of plain, they disregarded the appearance here and there of hostile arms, and ran down to capture them. Their rashness carried them on at a swift pace past an ambuscade which had been laid on both sides of their very road. They had scattered this way and that and were seizing the flocks, which had dispersed in all directions, as they do if terrified, when suddenly the ambush rose up, and enemies were in front and on every side of them. First the shout which echoed all along the Etruscan line filled them with consternation, and then the javelins began to fall upon them from every quarter; and as the Etruscans drew together and the Romans were now fenced in by a continuous line of armed men, the harder the enemy pressed them the smaller was the space within which they themselves were forced to contract their circle, a thing which clearly revealed both their own fewness and the vast numbers of the Etruscans, whose ranks were multiplied in the narrow space. The Romans then gave up the fight which they had been directing equally at every point, and all turned in one direction. Thither, by dint of main strength and arms, they forced their way with a wedge. Their road led up a gentle acclivity. There they at first made a stand; presently, when their superior position had afforded them time to breathe and to collect their spirits after so great a fright, they actually routed the troops which were advancing to dislodge them; and a handful of men, with the aid of a good position, were winning the victory, when the Veientes who had been sent round by the ridge emerged upon the crest of the hill, thus giving the enemy the advantage again. The Fabii were all slain to a man, and their fort was stormed. Three hundred and six men perished, as is generally agreed; one, who was little more than a boy in years, survived to maintain the Fabian stock, and so to afford the very greatest help to the Roman People in its dark hours, on many occasions, at home and in the field. When this disaster befel, Gaius Horatius and Titus Menenius had begun their consulship. Menenius was at once sent out to confront the Etruscans, elated by their victory. Again the Roman arms were unsuccessful, and Janiculum was taken by the enemy. They would also have laid siege to Rome, which was suffering not only from war but from a scarcity of corn —for the Etruscans had crossed the Tiber —had not the consul Horatius been recalled from the Volscian country; and so nearly did that invasion approach the very walls of the City that battles were fought first at the temple of Hope, where the result was indecisive, and again at the Colline Gate. There, although the advantage to the Roman side was but slight, still the engagement restored their old-time spirit to the troops and made them the better soldiers for the battles that were to come. Aulus Verginius and Spurius Servilius were made consuls. After the defeat the Veientes had suffered in the last fight, they avoided a battle and took to pillaging. From Janiculum, as from a citadel, they sent out expeditions far and wide into the territory of the Romans; there was no security anywhere for flocks or country-folk. After a time they were caught by the same trick with which they had caught the Fabii. Having pursued the flocks which had been driven out here and there on purpose to lure them on, they plunged into an ambush, and as their numbers exceeded those of the Fabii so did their losses. This disaster threw them into a violent rage, which proved the cause and the beginning of a greater reverse. For they crossed the Tiber in the night and assaulted the camp of the consul Servilius. There they were routed with heavy losses and regained Janiculum with difficulty. Forthwith the consul himself crossed the Tiber and fortified a camp beneath the hill. Next day at dawn, partly because he was emboldened by the successful battle of the day before, but more because the want of corn drove him to the rashest kind of measures, provided only they were speedy, he was so reckless as to lead his army up Janiculum to the enemy's camp, and after suffering a more disgraceful repulse than he had administered the day before, owed his own rescue and that of his army to the arrival of his colleague. Caught between two lines, the Etruscans turned their backs first on one and then on the other, and were cut down with great slaughter. Thus the Veientine invasion was defeated by a lucky temerity. There came to the City with the return of peace a relaxation in the corn-market; for not only was grain imported from Campania, but now that each had ceased to fear for his own future want, men brought out the stores which they had concealed. As a consequence of plenty and idleness a spirit of licence again began to affect men's minds, and they began to seek at home for the old troubles which were no longer to be met with abroad. The tribunes roused the plebs to madness with their usual poison, a land-law. The Fathers resisted, but the tribunes incited the people against them, not as a body merely, but as individuals. Quintus Considius and Titus Genucius, the proposers of the agrarian measure, cited Titus Menenius to appear for trial. He had incurred the dislike of the plebs owing to the loss of the outpost on the Cremera, when he as consul had occupied a permanent camp not far away; and this unpopularity was his undoing, though the senators exerted themselves in his behalf no less than they had done for Coriolanus, and though the favour enjoyed by his father Agrippa had not yet passed away. In respect to the penalty the tribunes showed restraint; though they had charged him with a capital offence, they fixed the fine of the condemned at two thousand asses. But it cost him his life; they say that he could not endure the shame and grief, and from this cause fell ill and died. Another man was then put upon his trial, namely Spurius Servilius. He had laid down the consulship and been succeeded by Gaius Nautius and Publius Valerius, when he was cited, in the very beginning of the year, by the tribunes Lucius Caedicius and Titus Statius. Unlike Menenius, he did not meet the attacks of the tribunes with entreaties, preferred by himself or the senators, but with high confidence in his innocence and popularity. He, too, was accused in connection with the battle against the Etruscans at Janiculum. But the fiery courage of the man had not been more in evidence in the nation's hour of peril than it was then in his own, and he confuted not only the tribunes but the plebs, upbraiding them, in a daring speech, with the condemnation and death of Menenius, to whose father, he declared, the plebs formerly owed their restoration and the possession of those very magistrates and laws which were the tools of their cruelty. This boldness swept away the danger. He was helped, too, by Verginius, his colleague, who, being called as a witness, shared his own credit with Servilius. But the trial of Menenius stood him in even better stead, so great a revulsion of feeling had set in. Domestic strife was at an end; but war broke out with the Veientes, with whom the Sabines had united their arms. Publius Valerius the consul was dispatched to Veii with an army to which had been added auxiliaries from the Latins and the Hernici. He at once advanced upon the Sabine camp, which had been established in front of the walls of their allies, and threw the enemy into such confusion that, while they were running out in small groups, some one way and some another, to repel the attack of the Romans, he captured the gate against which he had directed his first assault. What followed within the stockade was a massacre rather than a battle. The sounds of confusion in the camp penetrated even to the city, and the frightened inhabitants ran hastily to their weapons, as though Veii had been surprised. Some went to the rescue of the Sabines, others assailed the Romans, who were wholly preoccupied with the camp. For a moment the Romans were disconcerted and thrown into disorder; then they, too, faced both ways and made a stand, and the horse which the consul sent into the fight dispersed and routed the Etruscans. In one and the same hour two armies, two of the greatest and most powerful neighbouring nations, were defeated. While these victories were being won at Veii, the Volsci and the Aequi had encamped on Latin soil, and had laid waste the country. These the Latins, acting independently, with the assistance of the Hernici, but without either general or aid from Rome, despoiled of their camp. Immense booty, in addition to property of their own which they recovered, fell into their hands. Nevertheless a consul, Gaius Nautius, was sent from Rome against the Volsci. The precedent, I suppose, of allies waging wars, without a Roman commander and army, by means of their own forces and their own strategy, was not welcome. There was no species of disaster or indignity which was not visited upon the Volsci, yet they could not be forced into giving battle. Lucius Furius and Gaius Manlius were the next consuls. To Manlius fell the command against the Veientes. But there was no war; a truce for forty years was granted, at their solicitation, and corn and a money-indemnity were exacted of them. The foreign peace was immediately succeeded by quarrels at home. The land-law with which the tribunes goaded the plebs excited them to the pitch of madness. The consuls, not a jot intimidated by the condemnation of Menenius, not a jot by the danger of Servilius, resisted the measure with the utmost violence. As their term expired, Gnaeus Genucius, a plebeian tribune, haled them to trial. Lucius Aemilius and Opiter Verginius entered upon the consulship. Vopiscus Julius I find given as consul in certain annals, instead of Verginius. This year —whoever its consuls were —Furius and Manlius went about among the people as men accused, in garments of mourning, seeking out the younger patricians, as well as the plebeians. They advised them, they warned them to forbear from office-holding and the administration of the public business; as for the consular fasces, the purple-bordered toga, and the curule chair, —these they should regard in no other light than as the pageantry of burial; for splendid insignia, like the fillets placed on victims, doomed the wearer to death. But if the consulship was so alluring to them, let them recognize at once that it had been fettered and enslaved by the might of the tribunes; that the consul, as though an attendant upon those officials, must be subject in all he did to their beck and call; if he should bestir himself, if he should show consideration for the patricians, if he should believe that the state comprised any other element than the plebs —let him call to mind the exile of Gnaeus Marcius, the condemnation of Menenius and his death. Fired by these speeches, the senators began to hold councils, no longer publicly, but in private, where the people could not learn their plans. In these deliberations there was but one guiding principle, that by fair means or foul the defendants must be got off. The more truculent a suggestion was, the greater was the favour it evoked, and an agent was not wanting for the most daring crime. Well then, on the day of the trial the plebeians were in the Forum, on tiptoe with expectation. At first they were filled with amazement because the tribune did not come down; then, when at length his delay began to look suspicious, they supposed he had been frightened away by the nobles, and fell to complaining of his desertion and betrayal of the people's cause; finally, those who had presented themselves at the tribune's vestibule brought back word that he had been found dead in his house. When this report had spread through all the gathering, the crowd, like an army which takes to flight at the fall of its general, melted away on every side. The tribunes were particularly dismayed, for the death of their colleague warned them how utterly ineffectual to protect them were the laws that proclaimed their sanctity. Nor did the senators place a proper restraint upon their satisfaction; so far, indeed, was anyone from repenting of the guilty deed that even the innocent desired to be thought its authors, and men openly asserted that chastisement must be employed to curb the power of the tribunes. Immediately following this pernicious victory a levy was proclaimed, which the timorousness of the tribunes allowed the consuls to push through without ever a veto. But this time the commons were fairly roused to anger, more by the silence of the tribunes than by the consuls' power. They declared that it was all up with their liberty; that men had gone back to their old ways; that with Genucius the tribunician power had suffered death and burial. They must adopt another course and other plans to resist the patricians; but the only way was this: that the plebs should undertake their own defence, since they had no one else to help them. Twenty-four lictors were all the retinue of the consuls, and even these were plebeians. Nothing was more contemptible or weaker, if there were any to contemn; it was every man's own imagination that made them great and awe-inspiring. They had incited one another with arguments of this sort when the consuls sent a lictor to arrest Volero Publilius, a plebeian, who, on the ground that he had been a centurion, denied their right to make him a common soldier. Volero called upon the tribunes. When no one came to aid him, the consuls gave orders to strip the man and get out the rods. I appeal, cried Volero, to the people, since the tribunes would rather a Roman citizen should be scourged with rods before their eyes than themselves be murdered in their beds by you. But the more boldly he shouted the more roughly the lictor fell to tearing off his clothes and stripping him. Then Volero, who was himself a powerful man and was helped by those he had called to his assistance, beat off the lictor and, choosing the place where the uproar of his sympathisers was the angriest, plunged into the thick of the crowd, calling out, I appeal, and implore the protection of the plebs; help, citizens! help, fellow-soldiers! It is useless for you to wait for the tribunes, who themselves stand in need of aid from you. In their excitement men made ready as if to fight a battle, and it was evident that anything might happen, that nobody would respect any right, whether public or private. The consuls, exposed to this furious tempest, were quickly convinced of the insecurity of majesty when unaccompanied with force. The lictors were roughly handled and their rods were broken, while the consuls themselves were driven out of the Forum into the Curia, with no means of knowing how far Volero might use his victory. Afterwards, when the uproar began to die away, they summoned the Fathers into the senate-house and complained of the insults they had suffered, the violence of the plebs, and Volero's outrageous conduct. Though many daring opinions were expressed, the wishes of the older men prevailed, who had no mind to a conflict between an angry senate and a reckless plebs. Volero, having been taken into favour by the plebs, was at the next election made plebeian tribune for that year which had Lucius Pinarius and Publius Furius for consuls. And contrary to the expectation of all, who believed that he would employ his tribuneship in persecuting the consuls of the preceding year, he set the general welfare above his private grievance, and without attacking the consuls by so much as a word, brought a bill before the people providing that plebeian magistrates should be chosen in the tribal assembly. It was no trivial matter which he proposed under this form, which at first sight appeared so harmless, but one that completely deprived the patricians of the power of using their clients' votes to select what tribunes they liked. This measure was extremely welcome to the plebs; the Fathers opposed it with all their might, yet the only effectual resistance —to wit, a veto by some member of the tribunician college —neither consuls nor nobles were sufficiently influential to command. Nevertheless the legislation, which its very importance rendered difficult, was drawn out by party strife to the end of the year. The plebs re-elected Volero tribune: the senators, thinking the quarrel was sure to proceed to extremities, made Appius Claudius, son of Appius, consul, a man whose unpopularity with the plebs and hostility towards them went back to the struggles between their fathers. For colleague they gave him Titus Quinctius. The new year was no sooner begun than discussion of the law took precedence of everything else, and it was urged not only by its author, Volero, but by his colleague Laetorius as well, whose advocacy of it was at once fresher and more acrimonious. He was emboldened by the great reputation he enjoyed as a soldier, since no one of that generation surpassed him in physical prowess. While Volero spoke of nothing but the law, and forbore to inveigh against the consuls' persons, Laetorius launched out into an arraignment of Appius and his family, as most cruel and arrogant towards the Roman plebs. But when he strove to show that the patricians had elected, not a consul, but an executioner, to harass and torture the plebeians, the inexperienced tongue of the soldier was inadequate to express his audacity and spirit. Accordingly when words began to fail him he cried, Since speech is not so easy for me, Quirites, as it is to make good what I have spoken, be at hand tomorrow. I will either die here in your sight or carry through the law. The tribunes were the first on the scene next day, and possessed themselves of the rostra; the consuls and nobles took their stand in the assembly, with the purpose of obstructing the passage of the law. Laetorius ordered the removal of all but those who were voting. The youthful nobles stayed where they were and would not give way at the officer's behest. Then certain of them were ordered by Laetorius to be seized. The consul Appius declared that the tribune had no authority over anybody but a plebeian, seeing that he was not a magistrate of the people, but of the plebs; and even if he were, he could not, consistently with the custom of the Fathers, command the removal of anyone, by virtue of his authority, since the formula ran thus: If it seems good to you, depart, Quirites. It was an easy matter to throw Laetorius into a passion by these contemptuous remarks about his rights. It was therefore in a blaze of anger that the tribune dispatched his attendant to the consul; while the consul sent his lictor to the tribune, crying out that Laetorius was a private citizen, without power, and no magistrate; and the tribune would have been mishandled, had not the whole assembly rallied fiercely to his support against the consul, while men rushed into the Forum from all over the City, in an excited throng. Still, Appius was obstinately holding out, despite the fury of the tempest, and a sanguinary battle would have ensued, if Quinctius, the other consul, had not entrusted the senators of consular rank with the task of getting his colleague out of the Forum, by force, if they could not achieve it otherwise; while he himself now appealed to the raging populace with soothing entreaties, and now besought the tribunes to dismiss the council. Let them give their anger time: time would not rob them of their power, but would add wisdom to their strength; the Fathers would be subject to the people, and the consul to the Fathers. It was hard for Quinctius to still the plebs; much harder for the senators to quiet the other consul. At length the council of the plebs was adjourned, and the consuls convened the senate. At this meeting alternating hope and fear gave rise to conflicting opinions. But in proportion as their passions cooled with the lapse of time and gave way to deliberation, their minds more and more revolted from the struggle; insomuch that they passed a vote of thanks to Quinctius, because it was due to him that the quarrel had been abated. They desired Appius to be content that the majesty of the consul should be no greater than was compatible with harmony in the state, pointing out that while tribunes and consuls were each striving to carry things his own way there was no strength left in the nation at large, and the commonwealth was torn and mangled, the question being rather in whose power it was than how it might be safe. Appius, on the other hand, called gods and men to witness that the state was being betrayed through cowardice, and abandoned; that it was not the consul who was failing the senate, but the senate the consul; that harder terms were being accepted than had been accepted on the Sacred Mount. Nevertheless he was borne down by the senate's unanimity and held his peace. The law was passed without opposition. Then for the first time tribunes were elected in the tribal assembly. That their number was also increased by three, as if there had been only two before, is stated by Piso. He also gives the names of the tribunes: Gnaeus Siccius, Lucius Numitorius, Marcus Duillius, Spurius Icilius, Lucius Maecilius. While Rome was thus distracted, the Volsci and the Aequi began war. They had laid waste the fields in order that the plebeians, if they should secede, might find a refuge with them. Then, when the matter was settled, they withdrew their camp. Appius Claudius was sent against the Volsci; to Quinctius fell the command against the Aequi. In his conduct in the field Appius displayed the same violence that he had shown in Rome, and it now had freer play because it was not hampered by the tribunes. He hated the plebs with a hatred that surpassed his father's: What? Had he been beaten by them? Was it in his consulship, who had been chosen as pre-eminently fitted to resist the tribunician power, that a law had been passed which former consuls had prevented, with less effort and by no means so much hope of success on the part of the patricians? His wrath and indignation at this thought drove his fierce spirit to torment the army with a savage exercise of authority. Yet he was unable by any violence to subdue them, so deeply had their spirits drunk of opposition. Sloth, idleness, neglect, and obstinacy were in all they did. Neither shame nor fear restrained them. If he wished the column to advance more rapidly they deliberately retarded their pace; if he stood by to encourage their work, they would all relax the industry they had manifested of their own accord. In his presence they sunk their gaze; as he passed by they cursed him under their breath; till that proud spirit, which the hatred of the plebs had never broken, was at times disturbed. After exhausting every species of severity without effect, he would have no more to do with the men; the centurions, he said, had corrupted the army, and he sometimes sneeringly dubbed them tribunes of the plebs and Voleros. Every one of these circumstances was known to the Volsci, and they pressed their enemy the harder, hoping that the Roman army would exhibit the same spirited opposition to Appius which it had evinced towards the consul Fabius. But Appius found his men far more unruly than had Fabius; for not only were they unwilling to conquer, as the Fabian army had been, but they wished to be conquered. Being drawn out into battle-order, they basely fled and sought their camp; nor did they make a stand until they saw the Volsci advancing against their fortifications and inflicting a disgraceful slaughter upon their rearguard. This compelled them to exert themselves and fight, with the result that the enemy was dislodged from the stockade in the moment of victory. Yet it was evident enough that the capture of their camp was the only thing at which the Roman soldiers balked, and that elsewhere they rejoiced at their own defeat and ignominy. These things in no wise daunted the haughty spirit of Appius. But when he would have gone further and have vented his rage upon the army, and was issuing orders for an assembly, the lieutenants and tribunes gathered hurriedly about him and warned him upon no account to seek a test of his authority, when its effectiveness all depended on the goodwill of those obeying it. The men, they reported, were saying that they would not go to be harangued, and everywhere voices were overheard demanding that the camp be removed from Volscian territory. The victorious enemy had a little while before been almost in their gates and on their wall, and a great disaster was not merely to be apprehended, but was openly hovering before their eyes. Giving way at last, since the soldiers were gaining nothing but a postponement of their punishment, he relinquished the idea of an assembly, and commanded a march for the following day. At daybreak he caused the signal for departure to be sounded on the trumpet. At the very instant when the column was getting clear of the camp, the Volsci, as though set in motion by the same signal, fell upon their rear. Thence the confusion spread to the van, and the panic so disordered the standards and the ranks that it was impossible either to hear commands or to form a line. Nobody thought of anything but flight, and so demoralised was the rout, as the men escaped over fallen bodies and discarded weapons, that the enemy sooner ceased to pursue than the Romans to flee. When at last the soldiers had been collected from their scattered flight, the consul, who had followed his men in a vain attempt to call them back, pitched his camp on friendly soil. Then he summoned an assembly and soundly rated them, not without reason, as an army which had been false to military discipline and had deserted its standards. Asking them all in turn where their arms and where their standards were, he caused the unarmed soldiers and the standard-bearers who had lost their standards, and in addition to these the centurions and the recipients of a double ration who had quitted their ranks, to be scourged with rods and beheaded; of the remaining number every tenth man was selected by lot for punishment. To contrast with all this, in the Aequian campaign there subsisted between consul and soldiers an emulation of goodwill and kindness. Not only was it natural to Quinctius to be more gentle, but the unfortunate harshness of his colleague had given him the more reason to be content with his own disposition. Against this complete harmony between commander and army the Aequi ventured no opposition, but suffered their enemies to devastate their fields at will; and in fact no previous war had ever yielded a larger booty from that country. This was all given to the troops, and to the spoils were added encomiums, which are no less efficacious than rewards in rejoicing a soldier's heart. Not only their leader, but for their leader's sake the Fathers, too, were looked upon with greater kindness by the army when they returned. They declared that to them the senate had given a parent, to the other army a tyrant. Varying fortune in war, grievous discord at home and in the field, had characterized the year just ended; but it was chiefly distinguished by the tribal assembly, a matter more important because the men had won a victory in the struggle which they had undertaken than in its practical results; for the loss of dignity to the assembly itself, caused by the removal from it of the patricians, was greater than the gain in strength by the plebeians or the loss of it by the Fathers. A stormier year succeeded, under the consuls Lucius Valerius and Titus Aemilius, partly owing to strife between the classes about the land-law, partly to the trial of Appius Claudius. He was the bitterest opponent of the law, and was upholding the claim of those who had possession of the public domain as if he had been a third consul, when Marcus Duillius and Gnaeus Siccius lodged an accusation against him. Never before had a defendant whom the plebs so detested been brought to trial before the people, burdened as he was with men's hatred, both of himself and of his father. The patricians, for their part, had not lightly put forth such exertions in behalf of any man. They felt that the champion of the senate and the guardian of their own dignity, who had stood firm against all sorts of tribunician and plebeian outbreaks, though he had possibly gone too far in the heat of the struggle, was being exposed to the angry commons. Alone amongst the Fathers, Appius Claudius himself regarded tribunes, plebs, and his own trial with perfect unconcern. He was not one whom the threats of the plebeians or the entreaties of the senate could ever prevail upon, I do not say to put on mourning, or to seek men out with appeals for mercy, but even to soften and subdue in a slight degree the accustomed sharpness of his tongue, though it was before the people he must plead. There was the same expression on his countenance, the same arrogance in his glance, the same fire in his speech; so markedly, in fact, that a great part of the plebs feared Appius no less when a defendant than they had feared him as consul. Once only did he plead his cause, in the tone he had been wont to use on all occasions, namely, that of a prosecutor; and so completely did his firmness overwhelm the tribunes and the commons that they themselves voluntarily adjourned the trial to a later day, and then allowed the affair to drag. The interval was not very long, but before the appointed day came round Appius fell sick and died. When his eulogy was being pronounced, the tribunes of the plebs attempted to interfere, but the plebs were not willing that the funeral-day of so great a man should be defrauded of the customary honours. They listened to his praises with as great goodwill, now he was dead, as they had heard the living man accused, and attended his burial in crowds. The same year Valerius the consul, having marched with an army against the Aequi, was unable to entice the enemy into a battle, and directed an assault upon their camp. This was foiled by an awful storm that descended upon them with hail and claps of thunder. Their amazement was soon increased, on the signal for retreat being given, by the reappearance of so tranquil and cloudless a sky, that, as though some god had defended the camp, they scrupled to attack it a second time, and directed all their hostility towards devastating the fields. The other consul, Aemilius, conducted a campaign in the Sabine country. There, too, the enemy kept within his walls, and the Romans laid waste his fields. Afterwards, by setting fire not only to farmhouses but even to the villages, where the people lived close together, they aroused the Sabines, who, having met the pillagers and fought a drawn battle with them, next day withdrew their camp to a safer position. This seemed to the consul a sufficient pretext for leaving the enemy, as conquered, and he retired ere the campaign had fairly begun. While these wars were going on and there was still discord at home, Titus Numicius Priscus and Aulus Verginius were elected consuls. It was clear that the plebs would endure no further postponement of the land-law, and were preparing to use violent measures, when the approach of a Volscian army was announced by the smoke which rose from burning farmhouses and by the flight of the country people. By this circumstance the insurrection, which was already matured and on the point of breaking out, was repressed. The consuls, being at once commanded to do so by the senate, led the young men out of the City to the war, a policy which diminished the restlessness of the plebeians who were left behind. As for the enemy, they did no more than cause the Romans a needless panic, and hastily retreated. Numicius marched to Antium against the Volsci, Verginius against the Aequi. In the Aequian campaign an ambush nearly resulted in a severe defeat for the Romans, but the courage of the soldiers restored the day, which the carelessness of the consul had almost lost. The Volscian expedition was better directed: the enemy were routed in the first engagement and driven in flight to Antium, a very opulent city for those days. This place the consul did not venture to assail, but he captured from the Antiates another town, named Caeno, of far less wealth. While the Aequi and Volsci kept the Roman armies busy, the Sabines advanced clear to the gates of the City on a plundering raid. A few days after this they themselves had to confront two armies, for both the consuls indignantly invaded their borders, and they suffered greater losses than they had themselves inflicted. Towards the close of the year there was a brief season of peace, but, as always on other occasions, a peace distracted by the strife of patricians and plebeians. The angry plebs refused to take part in the consular elections: by the votes of the patricians and their clients Titus Quinctius and Quintus Servilius were chosen consuls. They experienced a year like the preceding one: dissensions, to begin with, then a foreign war and tranquillity. The Sabines executed a rapid march across the Crustuminian plains, bringing fire and sword to the country about the river Anio. When almost at the Colline Gate and the City walls they were beaten back, yet they carried off immense spoils of men and cattle. Servilius the consul pursued them with an army, and though he could not overtake the column itself on ground which was suitable for offering battle, he devastated the country so extensively as to leave nothing untouched by the ravages of war, and returned with many times the plunder which the Romans had lost. Operations in the Volscian country, too, were very successful, thanks both to the general and to his soldiers. First, there was a pitched battle in the open field, with enormous numbers killed and wounded on both sides. The Romans indeed, whose fewness made them feel their loss more sensibly, would have fallen back, had it not been for a salutary falsehood told by the consul, who shouted that the enemy were running away on the other wing, and so aroused the spirits of his troops. The Romans charged and, believing themselves to be conquering, they conquered. The consul feared lest by pressing the enemy too hard he might cause a renewal of the struggle. He therefore gave the signal for the recall. For a few days both sides rested, as if they had tacitly agreed on a truce. Meanwhile a great force of men came in from all their tribes to the camp of the Volsci and Aequi. They made no question but that the Romans, if they had perceived them, would retreat in the night, and accordingly at about the third watch they came to attack the camp. Quinctius stilled the tumult which the sudden alarm had raised, and bidding the soldiers remain quietly in their tents, led out a cohort of Hernici to an outpost, and mounting trumpeters and buglers upon horses, ordered them to blow their instruments in front of the rampart and keep the enemy in suspense till daybreak. For the remainder of the night all was so peaceful in camp that the Romans were even able to sleep. But the Volsci, beholding armed foot-soldiers, whom they supposed to be more numerous than they were, and to be Romans; and hearing the stamping and neighing of the horses, which were infuriated not only at finding unaccustomed riders on their backs, but also by the blare of the trumpets, were kept on the alert in anticipation of an attack. As soon as it was light, the Romans, who were fresh and had enjoyed a good sleep, were led out into line of battle. The Volsci, weary from standing and from loss of sleep, were driven back at the first assault; though it was rather a retreat than a rout, for behind them were hills, to which, under cover of the first line, they withdrew safely and in good order. The consul ordered a halt when his army reached rising ground. The infantry could hardly be restrained, noisily demanding permission to press on after the fleeing enemy. Still more ardent were the cavalry. They swarmed about the general, and shouted that they were going on before the standards. While the consul was hesitating, feeling certain of the valour of his troops but doubtful of the ground, the men cried out that they were going, and instantly made good their word. Planting their spears in the ground, that they might be the lighter for the ascent, they went up at a run. The Volsci, having discharged their javelins at the first onset, picked up the stones which lay about under their feet, and flung them at their enemies as they mounted. Confused by this rain of missiles from above, the left wing of the Romans was nearly overwhelmed, and had already begun to retreat, when the consul, reproaching them at once with rashness and with cowardice, succeeded in shaming them out of their fear. First they made a resolute stand; then, after holding their ground and returning blow for blow, they even dared to press forward and, renewing their cheers, set their line in motion; then with another rush they struggled upward and scaled the height; and they were just emerging upon the summit of the ridge, when the enemy turned and fled. Running at full speed, and almost in one body, the pursued and the pursuers reached the Volscian camp, which was captured in the panic. Those of the Volsci who succeeded in escaping made for Antium, and to Antium marched the Roman army also. After a blockade of a few days the place surrendered; the besiegers had not delivered any new attack, but the Volsci had lost heart from the moment of their unsuccessful battle and the capture of their camp.

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0914.phi0012.perseus-eng1. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.