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Ab Urbe Condita, books 8-10 - 8

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   Book VIII THE consuls were now Gaius Plautius (for the second time) and Lucius Aemilius Mamercus, when the men of Setium and Norba brought tidings to Rome that the Privernates were in revolt, with complaints of a defeat suffered at their hands. it was also reported that a Volscian army, conducted by the Antiates, had encamped at Satricum. both wars were by lot assigned to Plautius. he marched first on Privernum and at once gave battle. without much ado he overcame the enemy, captured Privernum, and putting in it a strong garrison, restored it to the inhabitants, but deprived them of two —thirds of their territory. thence he led his victorious army towards Satricum, to oppose the Antiates. The battle there, which was desperately fought, with heavy losses on both sides, was interrupted by a storm before victory had inclined to either army. The Romans, not a whit discouraged by so indecisive a struggle, prepared to do battle on the morrow; but the Volsci, when they reckoned up the men they had lost in the fighting, were by no means so eager to incur the danger a second time, and in the night marched off like beaten men for Antium, with fear and trembling, abandoning their wounded and a part of their baggage. a great quantity of arms was found, not only amongst the slain but also in the enemy's camp. declaring that he gave these arms to Lua Mater, the consul proceeded to lay waste the enemy's country as far as the coast. The other consul, Aemilius, having entered the Sabellian territory, nowhere encountered a Samnite camp or levies. as he was ravaging their fields with fire and sword, he was approached by Samnite envoys, who begged for peace. being referred by Aemilius to the senate, they obtained an audience, and giving over their air of arrogance, besought the Romans to grant them peace and the right to war against the Sidicini. These requests, they said, were the more justifiable, inasmuch as they had become friends of the Roman People when their state was flourishing and not, like the Campanians, in their adversity; moreover, it was against the Sidicini that they were drawing the sword, a people always their enemies and never friendly to the Romans, of whom they had never, like the Samnites, sought friendship in time of peace, nor assistance, like the Campanians, in time of war; neither were they under the protection of the Roman People, nor yet their subjects. Titus Aemilius the praetor laid the petition of the Samnites before the senate, and the Fathers voted to renew the treaty with them. The praetor then replied to the ambassadors that the Roman People had not been to blame for the interruption of the friendship, and that, since the Samnites were themselves grown weary of a war contracted through their own fault, they had no objection to renewing the covenant; as for the Sidicini, the Romans would not interfere with the free judgment of the Samnite People regarding peace and war. on the ratification of the treaty, the ambassadors went home, and the Roman army was at once recalled, after receiving a year's pay and rations for three months, which the consul had stipulated should be the price of a truce, to last until the envoys should return. The Samnites marched against the Sidicini with the same forces which they had employed in the war with Rome, and were confidently hoping to capture the city of their enemies in a little while, when the Sidicini attempted to anticipate them by surrendering to the Romans. then , after the Fathers had rejected their offer, on the ground that it came too late and had been wrung from them only by the direst necessity, they carried it to the Latins, who had already risen in arms on their own account. even the Campanians —so much more vivid was their recollection of the injury done them by the Samnites than of the kindness of the Romans —could not refrain from joining in this expedition. one great army, gathered out of all these nations, invaded the borders of the Samnites, under a Latin general, but wrought more havoc by pillage than in battle; and although the Latins came off best in all encounters, they were not unwilling to retire from the enemy's country, that they might not have to fight so often. The Samnites thus had time to send ambassadors to Rome. appearing before the senate, they complained that they were suffering the same treatment as allies that they had experienced while enemies, and besought the Romans, with the utmost humility, that they would be satisfied to have snatched from the grasp of the Samnites a victory over their Campanian and Sidicinian foes, and not suffer them actually to be conquered by the most cowardly of nations. if the Latins and Campanians were subject to the Roman People, let the Romans use their authority and keep them from invading Samnium; but if they rejected that authority, let them hold them in check by force of arms. to this plea the Romans returned an ambiguous reply, since they were loath to confess that the Latins were no longer under their control, and feared to estrange them if they censured them. The Campanians, they said, were upon a different footing, having come under their protection not by treaty but by surrender; accordingly the Campanians, whether willing or not, should keep the peace; but there was nothing in their treaty with the Latins which entitled them to prevent their going to war with whom they chose. this answer, as it left the Samnites quite at a loss to forecast the Roman policy, so it alienated the Campanians with fear, while it persuaded the Latins that there was no longer any concession the Romans would not make them, and rendered them yet more audacious. accordingly their leaders, under colour of forwarding the war against the Samnites, appointed numerous councils, and in all their deliberations secretly concocted war with Rome. in this war, too, the Campanians took part, against their preservers. but though all their measures were sedulously concealed —for they wished to shake off the Samnite foe behind them before the Romans should take the alarm —yet through certain persons connected by private ties of hospitality and kinship, information of the conspiracy leaked out and was brought to Rome. The consuls were commanded, before their time was up, to resign their office, in order that new consuls might the sooner be chosen to confront so momentous an invasion; but a scruple arose at allowing the election to be held by those whose authority had been abridged, and so they had an interregnum. there were two interreges, Marcus Valerius and Marcus Fabius: the latter announced the election to the consulship of Titus Manlius Torquatus (for the third time) and Publius Decius Mus. it is believed to have been in this year that Alexander, king of Epirus, sailed with a fleet to Italy —a war which, had it prospered in its beginning, would doubtless have extended to the Romans. this was also the era of the exploits of Alexander the Great, who was the son of this man's sister, and was doomed to be cut off by sickness while a young man, in another quarter of the world, after proving himself to be invincible in war. but the Romans, though quite certain that the allies and all the Latins were going to revolt, nevertheless, as if concerned not for themselves but for the Samnites, summoned to Rome the ten chief men of the Latins, that they might give them such commands as they might wish. Latium at that time had two praetors, Lucius Annius Setinus and Lucius Numisius Circeiensis, both from Roman colonies, through whose contrivance, besides Signia and Velitrae —likewise Roman colonies —even the Volsci had been induced to draw the sword. it was determined to summon these men by name. nobody could be in doubt why they were sent for; accordingly, before setting out for Rome the praetors held a council, and explaining how they had been summoned by the Roman senate, asked instructions touching the answers they should give to the questions which they supposed would be put to them. while one was suggesting this thing and another that, Annius arose. notwithstanding I have myself referred to you, said he, the question as to what our reply should be, nevertheless I consider that what we are to do is of more importance to the welfare of our nation than what we are to say. it will be easy, when we have straightened out our plans, to frame words suitable to our conduct. for if we are able even now to endure slavery under a shadowy pretence of equal treaty —rights, what is left for us but to give up the Sidicini, and obeying the behest not of the Romans only but also of the Samnites, make answer to the Romans that we are ready to lay down our arms at their beck and call? but if our hearts are pricked at last with a longing for liberty; if treaties, if alliances, mean equality of rights; if we may now glory in the kinship of the Romans, of which we were formerly ashamed; if they mean by allied army one which added to their own doubles its numbers, one which they would not wish to make its own war and peace, apart from them; —if these things are so, I say, why are not all things equalized? why is not one consul furnished by the Latins? where a portion of the strength is, there, too, should be a portion of the authority. for us, indeed, this is not in itself any too great an honour, since we suffer Rome to be the capital of Latium; but we have made it seem an honour by our prolonged submissiveness. and yet, if ever at any time you have desired to share in the government and to use your freedom, behold, now is your opportunity, bestowed on you by your valour and by Heaven's favour! you have tried their patience by denying them troops; who can doubt that they were enraged when we broke the tradition of two hundred years? yet they swallowed their resentment. we waged war on our own account with the Paeligni; those who aforetime withheld from us even the right to defend our own borders by ourselves, never interposed. they have heard how we received the Sidicini into our protection, how the Campanians have left them and joined us, how we are raising armies against the Samnites, their confederates, —and have not stirred from the City. whence comes this great restraint on their part, if it come not from the consciousness of our strength —and their own? I have good authority for saying that when the Samnites were complaining of us, the Roman senate answered in such wise that it might readily appear that even the Romans themselves no longer demanded that Latium should be under their authority. do but take up in your demands what they tacitly concede to you. if there is any man whom fear prevents from saying this, lo, I declare that I myself will say it, in the hearing not of the Roman People only and their senate, but of Jupiter himself, who dwells in the Capitol; that if they wish us to observe the treaty of alliance, they must receive from us one consul and a moiety of the senate. These bold encouragements, and even promises, were received with a general shout of approval, and Annius was empowered to act and speak as might seem conducive to the welfare of the Latin state and befitting his own honour. on the arrival of the Latins in Rome, they were given audience of the senate in the Capitol. there , after Titus Manlius the consul had pleaded with them, as directed by the senate, to make no war upon the Samnites, united as they were by treaty with the Romans, Annius held forth like some conqueror who had taken the Capitol by storm, not like an envoy protected by the law of nations. it was high time, Titus Manlius, he said, and you, Conscript Fathers, that you should cease at length to deal with us as in any sort our rulers, perceiving, as you have, that Latium, by Heaven's blessing, is flourishing exceedingly in arms and men, after vanquishing the Samnites in war and receiving as allies the Sidicini and Campanians, and now even the Volsci besides, and that your own colonies as well have preferred the Latin to the Roman sway. but , since you cannot make up your minds to bring your impotent sovereignty to a close, we —though able by force of arms to give Latium her freedom —will nevertheless concede so much to kinship as to offer terms of peace fair and equal to both sides, since the immortal gods have willed that we should be of equal strength. one consul should be chosen from Rome, the other from Latium, the senate should be drawn in equal proportions from both nations, there should be one people and one state; and that we may have the same seat of empire and the same name for all, by all means let this rather be our city, since one side must make concessions, —and may good come of it to both peoples! —and let us all be known as Romans. it so happened that the Romans had, in their consul Titus Manlius, a man who was a match for Annius in boldness. so far was he from controlling his indignation, that he openly declared that if the Fathers were so demented as to receive terms from a Setine, he would gird on his sword, and entering the senate would slay with his own hand any Latin he might see within the Curia. and turning to the statue of the god, hear , Jupiter, he cried, these wicked words! hear ye, Law and Right! shalt thou behold, O Jupiter, alien consuls and an alien senate in thy consecrated temple, thyself overpowered and taken captive? are these the covenants, Latins, that Tullus, the Roman king, made with your Alban forefathers, that Lucius Tarquinius afterwards made with you? remember you not the battle at Lake Regillus? have you so forgot your old disasters. and our goodness to you? The consul's speech having been warmly seconded by the indignant senators, it is recorded that in answer to the numerous supplications of the gods, whom the consuls repeatedly invoked as the witnesses of treaties, the voice of Annius was heard spurning the power of the Roman Jupiter. at all events, as he hurried, beside himself with rage, from the entrance of the temple, he slipped on the stairs, and struck his head so hard on the lowest stone that he lost consciousness. that he was killed is not asserted by all writers, wherefore I, too, may leave the question undecided, as also the tradition that while men were calling on the gods to witness the breaking of the treaty, there was a loud crash in the heavens, and a hurricane burst forth; for these things may be true, or they may be apt inventions to express in a lively manner the wrath of Heaven. Torquatus , who had been sent by the senate to dismiss the envoys, saw Annius lying there, and exclaimed in a voice that was heard alike by the people and the senators: it is well; the gods have begun a righteous war. there is a heavenly power; thou dost exist, great Jupiter; not in vain have we established thee in this holy seat, the Father of gods and men. why do you hesitate to arm, Quirites, and you Conscript Fathers, with the gods to lead you? as you behold their ambassador brought low, even so will I cast down the Latin legions. The consul's words were received with approval by the people, and so enraged them, that the envoys, at their setting out, owed their protection from men's wrath and fury more to the care of the magistrates —who attended them at the consul's bidding —than to the law of nations. The senate also agreed on war; and the consuls, enrolling two armies, marched out through the country of the Marsi and Paeligni, and having added to their forces the army of the Samnites, went into camp near Capua, where the Latins and their allies had already assembled. there in the stillness of the night both consuls are said to have been visited by the same apparition, a man of greater than human stature and more majestic, who declared that the commander of one side, and the army of the other, must be offered up to the Manes and to Mother Earth; and that in whichever host the general should devote to death the enemy's legions, and himself with them, that nation and that side would have the victory. when the consuls had compared these visions of the night, they resolved that victims should be slain to tum away the wrath of Heaven; and, at the same time, that if the warning of the entrails should coincide with what thay had seen in their dream, one or other of the consuls should fulfil the decrees of fate. The report of the soothsayers agreed with the secret conviction which had already found lodgment in their breasts; whereupon they sent for their lieutenants and the tribunes, and having openly declared the pleasure of the gods, that so the consul's voluntary death might not terrify the soldiers in the fray, they agreed with one another that on whichever flank the Roman army should begin to yield, there the consul should devote himself in behalf of the Roman People and Quirites. it was also urged in the council that if ever any war had been conducted with stern authority, now was the occasion of all others for recalling military descipline to its ancient courses. their anxiety was sharpened by the fact that they must fight against the Latins, who were like themselves in language, customs, fashion of arms, and above all in military institutions; soldiers had mingled with soldiers, centurions with centurions, tribunes with tribunes, as equals and colleagues in the same garrisons and often in the same maniples. lest this might betray the soldiers into some blunder, the consuls proclaimed that no man should quit his place to attack the foe. it chanced that amongst the other squadron —leaders who had been sent off in all directions to reconnoitre, Titus Manlius the consul's son had ridden out with his troopers beyond the enemy's camp, till he was hardly the cast of a spear from their nearest outpost. there the Tusculan horse were stationed, under the command of Geminus Maecius, who enjoyed a reputation amongst his fellows for his achievements no less than for his noble birth. this man recognized the Roman cavalry, and, conspicuous in their van, the consul's son —for they were all known to one another, particularly the men of mark. come now, he cried, will you Romans wage war on the Latins and their allies with a single squadron? what will the consuls, what will two consular armies be doing in the meantime? they will be here soon enough, said Manlius, and with them will be Jupiter himself, the witness of those covenants which you have violated, who is mightier and more powerful than they. if at Lake Regillus we gave you your fill of fighting, here likewise we shall certainly see to it that you have no great joy of meeting us in the serried ranks of battle. at this, Geminus rode out a little in front of his men, and asked, would you like then, while waiting for that great day to come, when with a mighty effort you are to set your hosts in motion —would you like meanwhile, I say, to do battle with me, yourself, that from the outcome of our duel men may see at once how far the Latin horse surpass the Roman? The youth's bold heart was stirred, whether by anger, or by shame at the thought of refusing the combat, or by the irresistible force of destiny. and so, forgetting the commands of his father and the edict of the consuls, he allowed himself to be swept headlong into an encounter where it would make little difference to him whether he won or lost. they caused the rest of the horsemen to stand back, as though it had been a spectacle, and spurred their steeds against one another across the vacant space between. with lances levelled they rushed together; but the lance of Manlius glanced off the helmet of his enemy, and that of Maecius passed over the neck of the other's horse. then , as they pulled their horses round, Manlius, who was the first to gather himself up for a second thrust, pricked his enemy's charger between the ears. The smart of this wound made the horse rear and toss his head so violently that he threw off his rider, who, raising himself with spear and shield, was struggling to his feet after the heavy fall, when Manlius plunged his lance into his throat so that it came out between the ribs and pinned him to the ground. he then gathered up the spoils and rode back to his troopers, who attended him with shouts of triumph to the camp, where he sought at once the headquarters of his father, knowing not what doom the future held for him, or whether praise or punishment were his appointed guerdon. Father , he said, that all men might truly report me to be your son, I bring these equestrian spoils, stripped from the body of an enemy who challenged me. on hearing this, the consul straightway turned from his son and commanded a trumpet to sound the assembly. when the men had gathered in full numbers, the consul said, inasmuch , Titus Manlius, as you have held in reverence neither consular authority nor a father's dignity, and despite our edict have quitted your place to fight the enemy, and so far as in you lay, have broken military discipline, whereby the Roman state has stood until this day unshaken, thus compelling me to forget either the republic or myself, we will sooner endure the punishment of our wrong —doing than suffer the republic to expiate our sins at a cost so heavy to herself; we will set a stern example, but a salutary one, for the young men of the future. for my own part, I am moved, not only by a man's instinctive love of his children, but by this instance you have given of your bravery, perverted though it was by an idle show of honour. but since the authority of the consuls must either be established by your death, or by your impunity be forever abrogated, and since I think that you yourself, if you have a drop of my blood in you, would not refuse to raise up by your punishment the military discipline which through your misdemeanour has slipped and fallen, —go, lictor, bind him to the stake. all were astounded at so shocking a command; every man looked upon the axe as lifted against himself, and they were hushed with fear more than with reverence. and so, after standing, as if lost in wonder, rooted to the spot, suddenly, when the blood gushed forth from the severed neck, their voices burst out in such unrestrained upbraiding that they spared neither laments nor curses; and covering the young man's body with his spoils, they built a pyre outside the rampart, where they burned it with all the honours that can possibly attend a soldier's funeral; and the orders of Manlius not only caused men to shudder at the time, but became a type of severity with succeeding ages. nevertheless the brutality of the punishment made the soldiers more obedient to their general; and not only were guard —duties, watches, and the ordering of outposts, everywhere more carefully observed, but in the final struggle, as well, when the troops had gone down into battle, that stern act did much good. now the battle was exceedingly like the battles in a civil war, so little did the Latins differ from the Romans in anything but courage. The Romans had formerly used small round shields; then, after they began to serve for pay, they made oblong shields instead of round ones; and what had before been a phalanx, like the Macedonian phalanxes, came afterwards to be a line of battle formed by maniples, with the rearmost troops drawn up in a number of companies. The first line, or hastati, comprised fifteen maniples, stationed a short distance apart; the maniple had twenty light —armed soldiers, the rest of their number carried oblong shields; moreover those were called light —armed who carried only a spear and javelins. this front line in the battle contained the flower of the young men who were growing ripe for service. behind These came a line of the same number of maniples, made up of men of a more stalwart age; these were called the principes; they carried oblong shields and were the most showily armed of all. this body of thirty maniples they called antepilani, because behind the standards there were again stationed other fifteen companies, each of which had three sections, the first section in every company being known as pilus. The company consisted of three vexilla or banners ; a single vexillum had sixty soldiers, two centurions, one vexillarius, or colourbearer; the company numbered a hundred and eighty —six men. The first banner led the triarii, veteran soldiers of proven valour; the second banner the rorarii, younger and less distinguished men; the third banner the accensi, who were the least dependable, and were, for that reason, assigned to the rear most line. when an army had been marshalled in this fashion, the hastati were the first of all to engage. if the hastati were unable to defeat the enemy, they retreated slowly and were received into the intervals between the companies of the principes. The principes then took up the fighting and the hastati followed them. The triarii knelt beneath their banners, with the left leg advanced, having their shields leaning against their shoulders and their spears thrust into the ground and pointing obliquely upwards, as if their battle—line were fortified with a bristling palisade. if the principes, too, were unsuccessful in their fight, they fell back slowly from the battle—line on the triarii. (From this arose the adage, to have come to the triarii, when things are going badly.) The triarii, rising up after they had received the principes and hastati into the intervals between their companies, would at once draw their companies together and close the lanes, as it were; then, with no more reserves behind to count on, they would charge the enemy in one compact array. this was a thing exeedingly disheartening to the enemy, who, pursuing those whom they supposed they had conquered, all at once beheld a new line rising up, with augmented numbers. there were customarily four legions raised of five thousand foot each, with three hundred horse to every legion. An equivalent contingent used to be added from the levy of the Latins, who were now the enemies of the Romans and had drawn up their battle —line in the same formation; and they knew that not only must section meet in battle with section, hastati with hastati, principes with principles, but even —if the companies were not disordered —centurion with centurion. in either army the primus pilus, or chief centurion, was with the triarii. The Roman was far from strong in body, but was an energetic man and an experienced soldier; the Latin was a man of might and a first —rate warrior; they were well acquainted with each other, because they had always commanded companies of equal rank. The Roman, putting no confidence in his strength, had obtained permission from the consuls before leaving Rome to choose whom he liked for his deputy —centurion, to defend him from the one man marked out for his opponent. this youth, encountering the Latin centurion in the battle, won the victory over him. The engagement came off not far from the foot of Mount Vesuvius, where the road led to Veseris. The Roman consuls before leading their troops into battle offered sacrifices. it is said that the soothsayer pointed out to Decius that the head of the liver was wounded on the friendly side; but that the victim was in all other respects acceptable to the gods, and that the sacrifice of Manlius had been greatly successful. it is well enough, said Decius, if my colleague has received favourable tokens. in the formation already described they advanced into the field. Manlius commanded the right wing, Decius the left. in the beginning the strength of the combatants and their ardour were equal on both sides; but after a time the Roman hastati on the left, unable to withstand the pressure of the Latins, fell back upon the principes. in the confusion of this movement Decius the consul called out to Marcus Valerius in a loud voice: we have need of Heaven's help, Marcus Valerius. come therefore, state pontiff of the Roman People, dictate the words, that I may devote myself to save the legions. The pontiff bade him don the purple —bordered toga, and with veiled head and one hand thrust out from the toga and touching his chin, stand upon a spear that was laid under his feet, and say as follows: janus , Jupiter, Father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, divine Novensiles, divine Indigites, ye gods in whose power are both we and our enemies, and you, divine Manes, —I invoke and worship you, I beseech and crave your favour, that you prosper the might and the victory of the Roman People of the Quirites, and visit the foes of the Roman People of the Quirites with fear, shuddering, and death. as I have pronounced the words, even so in behalf of the republic of the Roman People of the Quirites, and of the army, the legions, the auxiliaries of the Roman People of the Quirites, do I devote the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy, together with myself, to the divine Manes and to Earth. having uttered this prayer he bade the lictors go to Titus Manlius and lose no time in announcing to his colleague that he had devoted himself for the good of the army. he then girded himself with the Gabinian cincture, and vaulting, armed, upon his horse, plunged into the thick of the enemy, a conspicuous object from either army and of an aspect more august than a man's, as though sent from heaven to expiate all anger of the gods, and to tum aside destruction from his people and bring it on their adversaries. thus every terror and dread attended him, and throwing the Latin front into disarray, spread afterwards throughout their entire host. this was most clearly seen in that, wherever he rode, men cowered as though blasted by some baleful star; but when he fell beneath a rain of missiles, from that instant there was no more doubt of the consternation of the Latin cohorts, which everywhere abandoned the field in flight. at the same time the Romans —their spirits relieved of religious fears —pressed on as though the signal had just then for the first time been given, and delivered a fresh attack; for the rorarii were running out between the antepilani and were joining their strength to that of the hastati and the principles, and the triarii, kneeling on the right knee, were waiting till the consul signed to them to rise. while the struggle continued, and in some parts of the field the Latins were prevailing by reason of their numbers, the consul Manlius learned of his colleague's end, and having paid to so memorable a death —as justice and piety demanded —its well —merited meed of tears as well as praise, he was for a little while in doubt whether the moment were yet come for the triarii to rise; but afterwards deeming it better to keep them fresh for the final push, he commanded the accensi to advance from the rear before the standards. no sooner had they gone up, than the Latins, supposing their enemies had done the same, sent in their own triarii. These having fought fiercely for some time, and worn themselves out and broken or blunted their spears, yet were driving back the foe, and supposed that they had already won the field and penetrated the last line, when the consul cried out to the Roman triarii: rise up now, and with fresh strength confront the weary enemy, remembering your country and your parents, your wives and your children, remembering the consul who lies dead that you may conquer. when the triarii had got to their feet, fresh and sound in their glittering armour, a new and unforeseen array, they received the antepilani into the gaps between their files, and, raising a shout, threw the enemy's front ranks into disorder, and thrusting their spears into their faces, disposed of the fine flower of their manhood and went through the other maniples almost scatheless, as though their opponents had been unarmed, penetrating their masses with such slaughter as scarce to leave a fourth part of their enemies alive. The Samnites, too, drawn up a little way off at the base of the mountain, were a source of terror to the Latins. for the rest, of all the citizens and allies, the chief glory of that war went to the consuls; of whom the one had drawn all the threats and menaces of the supernal and infernal gods upon himself alone, and the other had shown such valour and ability in the battle that it is readily agreed by both Romans and Latins who have handed down an account of this engagement that whichever side had been led by Titus Manlius would undoubtedly have been victorious. The Latins fled to Minturnae. their camp was captured after the battle and many men — chiefly Campanians —were caught and slain there. The body of Decius could not be found that day, for night overtook the searchers; on the following day it was fond, covered with missiles, in a great heap of enemies, and was given burial by his colleague in a manner befitting his death. it seems proper to add here that the consul, dictator, or praetor who devotes the legions of the enemy need not devote himself, but may designate any citizen he likes from a regularly enlisted Roman legion if the man who has been devoted dies, it is deemed that all is well; if he does not die, then an image of him is buried seven feet or more under ground and a sin —offering is slain; where the image has been buried tither a Roman magistrate may not go up. but if he shall choose to devote himself, as Decius did, if he does not die, he cannot sacrifice either for himself or for the people without sin, whether with a victim or with any other offering he shall choose. he who devotes himself has the right to dedicate his arms to Vulcan, or to any other god he likes. The spear on which the consul has stood and prayed must not fall into the hands of an enemy; should this happen, expiation must be made to Mars with the sacrifice of a swine, a sheep, and an ox. These particulars, even though the memory of every religious and secular usage has been wiped out by men's preference of the new and outlandish to the ancient and homebred, I have thought it not foreign to my purpose to repeat, and in the very words in which they were formulated and handed down. i find in certain writers that it was not until the battle was over that the Samnites, who had been waiting for the outcome of the engagement, came up to support the Romans. The Latins, too, were already defeated when the Lavinians, who were consuming time in deliberation, began to march to their assistance; and receiving word of the disaster to the Latins just as their foremost ensigns and a portion of their column had passed out through the gates, they faced about and returned into the city, their praetor, Milionius, remarking, so it is said, that they would have to pay a large price to the Romans for that little march. such of the Latins as survived the battle, after being dispersed over many roads, were reunited, and took refuge in the town of Vescia. in the councils which they held there, Numisius, their commander —inchief, asserted that the fortune of war had in truth been common, overwhelming both armies with equal carnage. The Romans, he said, were victorious only in name, in all else they too were as though they had been defeated; both consular headquarters were polluted, the one by the blood of a son, the other by the death of the devoted consul; their whole army had been cut to pieces, their first and second lines had been massacred, and the slaughter had extended from the troops before the standards to those behind them; finally the veterans had restored the day; but though the Latin forces had been equally cut up, yet, for recruiting, either Latium or the Volscian country was nearer than Rome; if therefore it seemed good to then, he would speedily summon the fighting men front the Latin and Volscian tribes, and would return with an embattled host to Capua, where the unexpectedness of his arrival would strike dismay into the Romans, who just then were looking for anything rather than a battle. misleading letters were sent out to all parts of Latium and the country of the Volsci, and since those who received them had not been present at the battle, gained ready credence; and an army of militia was levied in hot haste and brought together from every quarter. this force Torquatus the consul met near Trifanum, a place situated between Sinuessa and Minturnae. both armies, without waiting to choose sites for their camps, piled their baggage and fell to fighting, and the war was ended then and there; for the enemy's strength was brought so low that, when the consul led his victorious army to pillage their fields, the Latins all surrendered, and the Campanians followed their example. Latium and Capua were deprived of territory. The Latin territory, with the addition of that belonging to Privernum, together with the Falernian —which had belonged to the Campanian people —as far as the river Volturnus, was parcelled out amongst the Roman plebs. The assignment was two iugera in Latium supplemented with three —fourths of a iugerum from the land of Privernum, or three iugera in the Falernian district, —a fourth of a iugerum being added to compensate for its remoteness. The Laurentes and the Campanian knights were exempted from the punishment inflicted on the Latins, because they had not revolted; it was ordered that the treaty with the Laurentes should be renewed, and it has been renewed every year from that time, on the tenth day after the Latin Festival. The Campanian knights received Roman citizenship, and to commemorate the occasion a bronze tablet was fastened up in the temple of Castor at Rome. moreover , the Campanian people were commanded to pay them each a yearly stipend —there were sixteen hundred of them —amounting to four hundred and fifty denarii. The war being thus dispatched, and rewards and penalities distributed in accordance with everyone's deserts, Titus Manlius returned to Rome; it is said that on his approach only the seniors went out to meet him, and that the young men, then and for all the remainder of his days, abhorred and execrated him. The Antiates committed depredations upon the lands of Ostia, Ardea, and Solonium. Manlius , the consul, having been unable himself to conduct this war because of ill —health, appointed as dictator Lucius Papirius Crassus, who at that time happened to be praetor, and he in tum named Lucius Papirius Cursor master of the horse. The dictator accomplished nothing noteworthy against the Antiates, though he lay some months encamped in their territory. to a year that was famous for its victory over so many and so powerful nations, and also for the glorious death of one of the consuls and the other's severity of discipline, which though cruel was nevertheless renowned through the ages, succeeded the consulship of Tiberius Aemilius Mamercinus and Quintus Publilius Philo. These men had no such opportunities, and were, besides, more concerned for their own or their party's interests than for the country. The Latins took up arms again, being incensed at the confiscation of their land, and suffered a defeat and the loss of their camp, in the Fenectane Plains. while Publilius, under whose command and auspices the campaign had been conducted, was receiving the surrender of the Latin peoples whose soldiers had fallen there, Aemilius led his army against Pedum. The Pedani were supported by the people of Tibur, Praeneste, and Velitrae, and auxiliaries had also come from Lanuvium and Antium. though the Romans proved superior in certain engagements, yet the town of Pedum and the camp of the allied nations, which adjoined it, still remained intact to be dealt with, when suddenly the consul, hearing that his colleague had been decreed a triumph, left the war unfinished and returned to Rome to demand a triumph for himself as well, without staying to obtain a victory. this self —seeking disgusted the Fathers, who denied him a triumph, unless he should capture Pedum or receive its surrender. estranged from the senate by this rebuff, Aemilius thereafter administered his consulship in the spirit of a seditious tribune. for , all the time that he was consul, he ceased not to accuse the senators to the people, while his colleague. since he too was of the plebs, offered not the smallest opposition. The ground of his accusations was the niggardly apportionment of land to the plebeians in the Latin and Falernian districts. and when the senate, desiring to put an end to the authority of the consuls, ordered that a dictator should be appointed to oppose the rebellious Latins, Aemilius, who then had the rods, named his colleague dictator, by whom Junius Brutus was designated master of the horse. Publilius was a popular dictator, both because of his denunciation of the senate and because he carried through three laws very advantageous to the plebs and prejudicial to the nobles: one, that the decisions of the plebs should be binding on all the Quirites; another, that the Fathers should ratify the measures proposed at the centuriate comitia before they were voted on; and a third, that at least one censor should be chosen from the plebs —since they had gone so far as to make it lawful for both to be plebeians. The harm that was wrought at home in that year by the consuls and the dictator outweighed —in the belief of the patricians —the increase in empire that resulted from their victory and their management of the war. in the following year, when Lucius Furius Camillus and Gaius Maenius were consuls, the senators, in order to render more conspicuous the negligence of Aemilius in the year before, insisted angrily that men and arms and every kind of force must be employed to capture Pedum and destroy it; and the new consuls were forced to put aside all other matters and set out for that place. The Latins were now come to such a pass that they could endure neither war nor peace; for war they lacked the means, and they scorned peace, for they still smarted under the confiscation of their land. it seemed necessary to adopt a compromise, and keep to their towns —lest they might provoke the Romans and afford them a pretext for hostilities —and if tidings were brought that any town was beleaguered, to send in help to the besieged from all the surrounding peoples. for all that, the cities that aided Pedum were very few. The Tiburtes and Praenestini, whose territories lay near by, reached Pedum; the Aricini, Lanuvini, and Veliterni, as they were effecting a juncture with the Antiate Volsci at the river Astura, were suddenly attacked by Maenius and routed. Camillus dealt with the very powerful army of the Tiburtes in the vincinity of Pedum; the struggle was harder, but the issue was equally successful. The greatest confusion was occasioned by a sudden sally of the townsfolk during the battle; but Camillus, sending a part of his army against them, not only drove them back into their city, but having discomfited both them and their allies, even took the place by escalade that very day. The consuls then resolved, with the added energy and courage that came with the capture of one city, to proceed with their victorious army to the thorough conquest of the Latins; nor did they rest until, by storming every city or receiving its surrender, they had brought all Latium under their dominion. then , distributing garrisons amongst the recovered towns, they departed for Rome, to enjoy the triumph by general consent awarded them. in addition to the triumph, they were granted the honour —a rare one in those days —of equestrian statues put up in the Forum. before the consular elections for the following year were held, Camillus referred to the senate the disposition of the Latin peoples, and spoke as follows: Conscript Fathers, what was needful to be done in Latium in the way of war and arms has now by Heaven's favour and the valour of our troops been brought to a conclusion. The armies of our enemies have been cut to pieces at Pedum and on the Astura; all the Latin towns, and Antium in the land of the Volsci, have either been carried by storm or have made submission, and are in the keeping of your garrisons. it remains to consider, since they so often occasion us anxiety by a renewal of hostilities, how we may hold them quietly to a lasting peace. The immortal gods have given you such absolute control of the situation as to leave the decision in your hands whether Latium is henceforward to exist or not. you are therefore able to assure yourselves of a permanent peace, in so far as the Latins are concerned, by the exercise of either cruelty or forgiveness, at your discretion. would you adopt stern measures against those who have surrendered or been vanquished? you may blot out all Latium, and make vast solitudes of those places where you have often raised a splendid army of allies and used it through many a momentous war. would you follow the example of your fathers, and augment the Roman state by receiving your conquered enemies as citizens? you have at hand the means of waxing great and supremely glorious. that government is certainly by far the strongest to which its subjects yield obedience gladly. but whatever it pleases you to do, you must determine promptly; you are holding so many peoples in suspense betwixt hope and fear, that it behoves you both to resolve your own anxiety regarding them as soon as may be, and to be beforehand with them, whether in the way of punishment or kindness, while they are waiting in a dull amazement. our task has been to give you the power to decide regarding everything; it is yours to determine what is best for yourselves and for the state. The leading senators praised the motion of Camillus on the national policy, but said that, since the Latins were not all in like case, his advice could best be carried out if the consuls would introduce proposals concerning the several peoples by name, as each should seem to merit. they were therefore taken up and disposed of separately. The Lanuvini were given citizenship, and their worship was restored to them, with the stipulation that the temple and grove of Juno Sospita should be held in common by the burghers of Lanuvium and the Roman People. The Aricini, Nomentani, and Pedani were received into citizenship on the same terns as the Lanuvini. The Tusculans were allowed to retain the civic rights which they enjoyed, and the charge of renewing the war' was laid to a few ringleaders, without endamaging the community. The Veliterni, Roman citizens of old, were severely punished, because they had so often revolted: not only were their walls thrown down, but their senate was carried off and commanded to dwell across the Tiber, with this understanding: that if any should be caught on the hither side, his redemption should be set at a thousand pounds of bronze, and that he who had captured him might not release his prisoner from bondage until the fine was paid. colonists were settled on the senators' lands, and on their enrolment Velitrae regained its former appearance of populousness. to Antium likewise a colony was dispatched, with an understanding that the Antiates might be permitted, if they liked, themselves to enroll as colonists; their war —ships were taken from them and their people were forbidden the sea; they were granted citizenship. The Tiburtes and Praenestini were deprived of territory, not only because of the fresh charge of rebellion brought against them in common with the other Latins, but because they had once, in disgust at the power of Rome, united in arms with the Gauls, a race of savages. The rest of the Latin peoples were deprived of the rights of mutual trade and intermarriage and of holding common councils. The Campanians, out of compliment to their knights, because they had not consented to revolt along with the Latins, were granted citizenship without the suffrage; so too were the Fundani and Formiani, because they had always afforded a safe and peaceful passage through their territories. it was voted to give the people of Cumae and Suessula the same rights and the same terms as the Capuans. The ships of the Antiates were some of them laid up in the Roman dockyards, and some were burnt and a motion passed to employ their beaks for the adornment of a platform erected in the Forum. this place was dedicated with augural ceremonies and given the name of Rostra or The Beaks. in the consulship of Gaius Sulpicius Longus and Publius Aelius Paetus the good —will which their generous conduct had procured for the Romans had been no less efficacious than their power in maintaining a general peace, when a war broke out between the Sidicini and the Aurunci. The Aurunci had surrendered in the consulship of Titus Manlius and had given no trouble since that time, for which reason they had the better right to expect assistance from the Romans. but before the consuls marched from Rome —for the Senate had directed them to defend the Aurunci —tidings were brought that the Aurunci had abandoned their town, in their alarm, and had taken refuge, with their wives and children, in Suessa —now called Aurunca —which they had fortified: and that their ancient walls and their city had been destroyed by the Sidicini. this news made the senate angry with the consuls, by whose tardiness the allies had been betrayed, and they ordered a dictator to be appointed. The nomination fell to Gaius Claudius Inregillensis, who named as his master of horse Gaius Claudius Hortator. A religious difficulty was then raised about the dictator, and on the augurs' reporting that there seemed to have been a flaw in his appointment, the dictator and his master of the horse resigned. in that year the Vestal Minucia, suspected in the first instance because of her dress, which was more ornate than became her station, was subsequently accused before the pontiffs on the testimony of a slave, and having been by their decree commanded to keep aloof from the sacred rites and to retain her slaves in her own power, was convicted and buried alive near the Colline Gate, to the right of the paved road in the Polluted Field —so called, I believe, on account of her unchastity. in the same year Quintus Publilius Philo was made praetor, —the first to be chosen from the plebs. Sulpicius the Consul opposed his election and declared that he would receive no votes for him; but the senate, having failed in its opposition to plebeian candidates for the highest magistracies, was less obstinate in the matter of the praetorship. The following year, being the consulship of Lucius Papirius Crassus and Caeso Duillius, was remarkable for a war more novel than important, to wit with the Ausonians, who inhabited the city of Cales. they had joined forces with their neighbours, the Sidicini, and the army of the two peoples having suffered a defeat in one —by no means memorable — battle, was by the nearness of their cities not only the more disposed to flight, but found in that same flight the readier safety. The senators, however, did not cease to be concerned over this war, so many times before had the Sidicini either drawn the sword themselves, or lent aid to those who were drawing it, or been the occasion of hostilities. they accordingly bent every effort to elect to his fourth consulship the greatest soldier of that age, Marcus Valerius Corvus. to be his colleague, they gave him Marcus Atilius Regulus; and lest there should by chance be some miscarriage, they requested of the consuls that Corvus be given the command, without the drawing of lots. taking over the victorious army from the previous consuls, he marched on Cales, where the war had originated, and routing the enemy —who had as yet not even recovered from the panic of the earlier encounter —at the first cheer and onset, he attacked the town itself. The soldiers, for their part, were so eager that they wished to attempt the walls at once with scaling —ladders, and insisted that they could carry the place; but Corvus, since this would have been an arduous achievement, preferred to accomplish his purpose at the cost of labour rather than of danger to his men. he therefore constructed a terrace and brought up mantlets, and moved his towers close to the walls, but a fortunate circumstance made it unnecessary to employ them. for Marcus Fabius, a Roman prisoner, being neglected by his guards on a day of merrymaking, broke his bonds, let himself down by the wall, hand over hand, into the Roman works, by a rope which he had made fast to a battlement, and induced the general to attack the enemy while they were overcome with feasting and drinking. The result was that the Ausonians and their city were captured with no greater effort than they had been defeated in the field. huge spoils were taken, a garrison was established in the town, and the legions were led back to Rome. The consul triumphed, in pursuance of a senatorial decree, and lest Atilius should go without his meed of glory, both consuls were directed to march against the Sidicini. but first —being so instructed by the senate —they named a dictator to preside at the elections, their choice falling on Lucius Aemilius Mamercinus, who selected Quintus Publilius Philo to be master of the horse. under the presidency of the dictator, Titus Veturius and Spurius Postumius were chosen consuls. These men, although a half of the war —with the Sidicini —yet remained, nevertheless, in order to anticipate the desires of the plebs by doing them a service, brought in a proposal for sending out a colony to Cales. The senate resolved that twenty —five hundred men should be enrolled for it, and appointed Caeso Duillius, Titus Quinctius, and Marcus Fabius a commission of three to conduct the settlers to the land and apportion it amongst them. The new consuls then took over the army from their predecessors, and entering the enemy's territory laid it waste as far as their city walls. at this juncture, since the Sidicini had themselves raised an enormous army and seemed likely to make a desperate struggle in behalf of their last hope, and since the rumour went that Samnium was arming, the senate authorized the consuls to nominate a dictator. they appointed Publius Cornelius Rufinus, and Marcus Antonius was made master of the horse. ascruple was subsequently raised about the regularity of their appointment, and they resigned their office; and when a pestilence ensued, it was supposed that all the auspices were affected by that irregularity, and the state reverted to an interregnum. finally Marcus Valerius Corvus, the fifth interrex from the beginning of the interregnum, achieved the election to the consulship of Aulus Cornelius (for the second time) and Gnaeus Domitius. coming , as it did, when all was tranquil, the rumour of a Gallic war worked like an actual rising, and caused the senate to have recourse to a dictator. Marcus Papirius Crassus was the man, and he named Publius Valerius Publicola master of the horse. while they were conducting their levy, more strenuously than they would have done for a war against a neighbouring state, scouts were sent out, and returned with the report that all was quiet amongst the Gauls. Samnium likewise had now for two years been suspected of hatching revolutionary schemes, for which reason the Roman army was not withdrawn from the Sidicine country. but an invasion by Alexander of Epirus drew the Samnites off into Lucania, and these two peoples engaged in a pitched battle with the King, as he was marching up from Paestum. The victory remained with Alexander, who then made a treaty of peace with the Romans; with what faith he intended to keep it, had the rest of his campaign been equally successful, is a question. in this same year the census was taken and new citizens were assessed. on their account the Maecian and Scaptian tribes were added. The censors who added them were Quintus Publilius Philo and Spurius Postumius. The people of Acerra became Romans under a statute, proposed by the praetor Lucius Papirius, which granted them citizenship without the suffrage. such were the events of this year at home and in the field. a terrible year succeeded, whether owing to the unseasonable weather or to man's depravity. The consuls were Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Gaius Valerius. i find Flaccus and Potitus severally given in the annals, as the surname of Valerius; but it does not greatly signify where the truth lies in regard to this. one thing, however, I should be glad to believe had been falsely handed down —and indeed not all the authorities avouch it —namely, that those whose deaths made the year notorious for pestilence were in reality destroyed by poison; still, I must set forth the story as it comes to us, that I may not deprive any writer of his credit. when the leading citizens were falling ill with the same kind of malady, which had, in almost every case the same fatal termination, a certain serving —woman came to Quintus Fabius Maximus, the curule aedile, and declared that she would reveal the cause of the general calamity, if he would give her a pledge that she should not suffer for her testimony. Fabius at once referred the matter to the consuls, and the consuls to the senate, and a pledge was given to the witness with the unanimous approval of that body. she then disclosed the fact that the City was afflicted by the criminal practices of the women; that they who prepared these poisons were matrons, whom, if they would instantly attend her, they might take in the very act. they followed the informer and found certain women brewing poisons, and other poisons stored away. These concoctions were brought into the Forum, and some twenty matrons, in whose houses they had been discovered, were summoned thither by an apparitor. two of their number, Cornelia and Sergia, of patrician houses both, asserted that these drugs were salutary. on the informer giving them the lie, and bidding them drink and prove her charges false in the sight of all, they took time to confer, and after the crowd had been dismissed they referred the question to the rest, and finding that they, like themselves, would not refuse the draught, they all drank off the poison and perished by their own wicked practices. their attendants being instantly arrested informed against a large number of matrons, of whom one hundred and seventy were found guilty; yet until that day there had never been a trial for poisoning in Rome. their act was regarded as a prodigy, and suggested madness rather than felonious intent. accordingly when a tradition was revived from the annals how formerly in secessions of the plebs a nail had been driven by the dictator, and how men's minds, which had been distracted by dissension, had by virtue of that expiation regained their self —control, they resolved on the appointment of a dictator to drive the nail. The appointment went to Gnaeus Quinctilius, who named Lucius Valerius master of the horse. The nail was driven and they resigned their posts. The consular election resulted in the choice of Lucius Papirius Crassus (for the second time) and Lucius Plautius Venox. at the outset of this year Volscian ambassadors from Fabrateria and Luca came to Rome asking protection, and promising that, if defended from Samnite aggressions, they would be loyal and obedient subjects of the Roman People. The senate thereupon sent envoys to the Samnites and warned them to do no violence to the territories of those cities. The embassy was effective, not so much because the Samnites desired peace, as because they were unprepared, as yet, for war. The same year saw the beginning of the war with Privernum. The enemy had the Fundanians for allies, and even a Fundanian general, by the name of Vitruvius Vaccus. he was a man of distinction, not only in his own city, but in Rome as well, where he had a house on the Palatine, at the place which, after the building had been demolished and the area confiscated, was known as the Meadows of Vaccus. he was spoiling, far and wide, the territories of Setia, Norba, and Cora, when Lucius Papirius marched out to confront him, and took up a position not far from the other's camp. Vitruvius had neither the strength of mind to remain behind his rampart in the face of a more powerful opponent, nor the courage to fight at a distance from his works. The last of his troops were scarcely clear of the camp gates and his line deployed, and the soldiers were thinking more of flight than of battle or the enemy, when he began, without showing either prudence or audacity, a critical engagement. he was easily and decisively defeated; yet, because his camp was so near and so readily accessible, he was able without great difficulty to save his men from heavy losses; indeed, there were hardly any slain in the battle itself, and in the flight only a few amongst the stragglers, as they rushed into the camp. under cover of the earliest dusk they sought Privernum in a panic —stricken throng, to obtain for themselves the protection of walls in place of a rampart. from Privernum the other consul Plautius, after everywhere pillaging the fields and driving off the cattle, led his army into the domain of Fundi. as he crossed the border he was met by the Fundanian senate, who said that they had come to plead, not for Vitruvius and his followers, but for the people of Fundi, whom even Vitruvius himself had cleared of responsibility for the war, when he sought refuge in Privernum and not in his native city. it was therefore in Privernum that the Roman People should seek out and punish its enemies, who had fallen away at the same time from Fundi and from Rome, unmindful of either allegiance: the Fundani were peaceful, their sympathies were Roman, and they held in grateful recollection the gift of citizenship. they begged the consul to make no war upon an innocent people, and declared that their lands, their city, their persons, and those of their wives and children were subject to the dominion of the Roman People and would so remain. The consul heartily commended them, and announcing in a dispatch to Rome that the Fundanians were loyal, turned aside and marched against Privernum. Claudius writes that before he set out, the consul executed the leaders of the plot, and sent some three hundred and fifty of the conspirators in chains to Rome; but that the senate would not accept of their surrender, being persuaded that the people of Fundi sought to escape with the punishment of their poor and lowly. while the two consular armies were laying siege to Privernum, the other consul was recalled to Rome to hold the elections. chariot cells were built this year for the first time in the Circus. The war with Privernum was not yet out of the way, when there came an alarming report of a Gallic rising, a warning which the senate almost never disregarded. accordingly , without a moment's hesitation, the new consuls, Lucius Aemilius Mamercinus and Gaius Plautius, were directed, on the very day on which they entered office —the Kalends of July —to divide the commands between them, and Mamercinus, to whom the Gallic war had fallen, was bidden to enlist an army without granting a single exemption; indeed it is said that a rabble of craftsmen even, and sedentary mechanics, was called out —a type the least qualified of all for military service. An enormous army was brought together at Veii, which was to be the base for the campaign against the Gauls; further afield they would not go, lest the enemy, advancing upon the City, might slip by them on another road. after a few days it became quite evident that no disturbance on the part of the Gauls was to be apprehended at that time, whereupon the whole array was directed against Privernum. from this point there is a twofold tradition: some say that the city was carried by storm, and that Vitruvius was taken alive; others, that before the final assault was made, the people came out with a flag of truce to the consul and surrendered, and that Vitruvius was betrayed by his own followers. The senate, being consulted regarding Vitruvius and the Privernates, commanded the consul Plautius to raze the walls of Privernum, and placing a strong garrison in the town, to come to Rome and triumph. Vitruvius was to be held a prisoner till the consul should return, and then scourged and put to death; his house on the Palatine was to be pulled down, and his goods dedicated to Semo Sangus. out of the bronze which his chattels realized were fashioned bronze disks, which were placed in the shrine of Sangus, over against the temple of Quirinus. concerning the senate of Privernum, it was decreed that any senator who had remained in Privernum after its defection from the Romans should dwell across the Tiber on the same terms as the Veliterni. These decrees having been promulgated, no more was said about the Privernates, until Plautius had triumphed. after his triumph the consul caused Vitruvius and his associates in wrongdoing to be executed, and deeming it now safe to take up the question of the Privernates with men who were already sated with the punishment of the guilty, spoke as follows: since the authors of rebellion have now received the reward they merited, at the hands of the immortal gods, and at your own hands, Conscript Fathers, what is your pleasure regarding the innocent multitude? for my own part, though it becomes me rather to ask opinions than to offer one, yet when I see that the Privernates are neighbours to the Samnites, whose peaceful relations with ourselves are at this time most precarious, I could wish that as little bad feeling as possible might be left between them and us. The question was of itself a hard one to decide, and every senator argued, as his own nature prompted him, for severity or mercy; but the whole situation was rendered even more uncertain by one of the deputation from Privernum, who possessed a livelier sense of the condition in which he had been born than of the exigencies of the actual crisis. this man, on being asked by a certain advocate of harsher measures what punishment he thought the Privernates merited, replied, that punishment which is merited by those who deem themselves worthy to be free. The consul perceived that this proud answer had increased the hostility of those who were before assailing the cause of the Privernates. in the hope that he might himself, by putting a more kindly question, elicit a friendlier response, what , said lie, if we remit your punishment? what sort of peace may we hope to have with you? if you grant us a good one, was the answer, you may look to find it faithfully and permanently kept; if a bad one, you must not expect that it will long endure. whereat some cried out that the Privernate was threatening them, and in no ambiguous terms, and asserted that by such words as those pacified peoples were roused up to rebellion. but the more merciful party in the senate put a better construction on his answer, and pronounced it the utterance of a man, and a man free —born. was it credible, they asked, that any nation, or for that matter any man, should abide longer than he must in a condition that was painful? that peace, they asserted, was faithfully observed where the terms were willingly accepted; they must not hope for loyalty in a quarter where they sought to impose servitude. The consul himself did the most to bring about the adoption of these views, by remarking repeatedly to the consulars, who led in the expression of opinion, in a voice loud enough for many to overhear, that only those who took no thought for anything save. liberty were worthy of becoming Romans. accordingly they gained their cause in the senate, and on the authorization of the Fathers a measure was brought before the people conferring citizenship on the Privernates. in that same year three hundred colonists were sent to Anxur, where they received each two iugera of land. The following year, when Publius Plautius Proculus and Publius Cornelius Scapula were consuls, was not signalised by any military or domestic event, except that a colony was sent out to Fregellae —the territory had belonged to the people of Signia, and afterwards to the Volsci —and a dole of meat was given to the people by Marcus Flavius, at the funeral of his mother. some thought that under colour of honouring his mother he had paid a price that he owed the people, because they had acquitted him, when brought to trial by the aediles, of the charge of corrupting a married woman. though the dole was made for the past favour shown him in the trial, it was also the cause of his receiving an office; and at the next election he was chosen tribune of the plebs in his absence, in preference to some who canvassed. there was a city called Palaepolis, not far from the spot where Neapolis is now, and the two cities were inhabited by one people. Cumae was their mother city, and the Cumani derive their origin from Chalcis in Euboea. thanks to the fleet in which they had sailed from their home, they enjoyed much power on the coast of that sea by which they dwell; having landed first on the island of Aenaria and the Pithecusae, they afterwards ventured to transfer their seat to the mainland. this nation, relying in part on its own strength, in part on the faithlessness shown by the Samnites in their alliance with the Romans, or perhaps on the plague which was reported as having assailed the City of Rome, committed many hostile acts against the Romans dwelling in the districts of Campania and Falerii. when therefore Lucius Cornelius Lentulus and Quintus Publilius Philo (for the second time) were consuls, fetials were dispatched to Palaepolis to demand redress; and on their bringing back a spirited answer from the Greeks — a race more valiant in words than in deeds —the people acted upon a resolution of the senate and commanded that war be made upon Palaepolis. by the division of the commands between the consuls, the war with the Greeks fell to Publilius; Cornelius, with another army, was ordered to be ready for the Samnites, in case they should take the field; and since it was rumoured that they were only waiting to bring up their army the moment the Campanians began a revolt, that seemed to be the best place for the permanent encampment of Cornelius. both consuls informed the senate that there was very little hope of peace with the Samnites: Publilius reported that two thousand soldiers from Nola and four thousand Samnites had been received into Palaepolis, —rather under compulsion from the Nolani than by the good —will of the Greeks; Cornelius, that the Samnite magistrates had proclaimed a levy, and that all Samnium was up, while the neighbouring cities of Privernum, Fundi, and Formiae were being openly solicited to join. The senate having, in view of these facts, voted to send ambassadors to the Samnites before declaring war, received a defiant answer from them. indeed they actually accused the Romans of improper conduct, yet without neglecting to clear their own skirts —if they could —of the charges brought against them: the Greeks, they said, were receiving no public counsel or support from them, nor had they asked the Fundani or Formiani to revolt; indeed they were quite strong enough to look out for themselves, if they chose to fight; on the other hand, they could not dissemble the chagrin of the Samnite nation that Fregellae, which they had captured from the Volsci and destroyed, should have been restored by the Roman People, and a colony planted in the territory of the Samnites which the Roman settlers called by that name; this was an insult and an injury, which, if its authors did not themselves recall it, they proposed to resist with might and main. when the Roman legate invited them to discuss the question with the common allies and friends of both, the Samnite spokesman said, why do we beat about the bush? our differences, Romans, will be decided, not by the words of envoys nor by any man's arbitration, but by the Campanian plain —where we must meet in battle, —by the sword, and by the common chance of war. let us encamp then face to face betwixt Suessula and Capua, and settle the question whether Samnite or Roman is to govern Italy. The Roman legates having replied that they should go, not where the enemy summoned them, but where their generals led then . . . by taking up a favourable position between Palaepolis and Neapolis, Publilius had already deprived the enemy of that mutual exchange of assistance which they had made use of, as one place after another was hard pressed. accordingly , since the time drew near for the elections, and it was not for the advantage of the state that Publilius, who was threatening the enemy's walls, should be called away from the prospective capture of their city, which might happen any day, the senate got the tribunes to propose a popular enactment, providing that Quintus Publilius Philo should, on the expiration of his consulship, conduct the campaign as proconsul until the Greeks should have been conquered. to Lucius Cornelius, who had already entered Samnium, and whom they were equally unwilling to withdraw from the vigorous prosecution of the war, they sent a letter directing him to name a dictator for conducting the elections. he named Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who named Spurius Postumius master of the horse. but the comitia were not held by the dictator, inasmuch as the regularity of his appointment was called in question. The augurs were consulted, and announced that the procedure appeared faulty. this sentence the tribunes by their accusations made suspect and infamous; for the flaw, as they pointed out, could not easily have been discovered, since the consul rose in the night and appointed the dictator in silence, neither had the consul written to anyone regarding the transaction, whether officially or privately, nor was there a single mortal living who could say that he had seen or heard a thing that would bring to naught the auspices; nor yet could the augurs have divined, as they sat in Rome, what obstacle the consul had met with in the camp. was there anyone, they would like to know, who could not see that the plebeian standing of the dictator was the thing which had seemed irregular to the augurs? These and other objections were made by the tribunes to no purpose; the state at length reverted to an interregnum, and after the comitia had been again and again postponed, on one pretext or another, at last the fourteenth interrex, Lucius Aemilius, procured the election of consuls, viz. Gaius Poetelius and Lucius Papirius Mugillanus —in other annals I find the name of Cursor. it is recorded that in that same year Alexandria in Egypt was founded, and that Alexander, king of Epirus, being murdered by a Lucanian exile, fulfilled by his death the oracle of Jupiter at Dodona. on his being summoned to Italy by the Tarentines, the oracle had warned him to beware of the Acherusian water and the city Pandosia, for there he was destined to end his days. on this account he had passed over with the more speed into Italy, that he might be as far removed as possible from the city of Pandosia in Epirus and from the river Acheron, which, debouching from Molossis into the Infernal Marshes, discharges its waters into the Thesprotian Gulf. but , as generally happens, in seeking to escape his doom he ran full upon it. having repeatedly defeated the Bruttian and Lucanian levies; having taken Heraclea, a Tarentine colony, from the Lucanians, and Sipontum belonging to the Apulians, and the Bruttian towns Consentia and Terina, and after that other towns of the Messapians and Lucanians; and having sent to Epirus three hundred illustrious families, to be held as hostages, he took up his station not far from the city Pandosia, which looks down upon the borders of Lucania and Bruttium, on three hills that stand some little distance apart from one another, that he might thence make incursions into every quarter of the enemy's country. he had about him some two hundred Lucanian exiles, whom he trusted; but their loyalty, like that of most men of that nation, was prone to change with the change of fortune. continuous rains, which flooded all the fields, having isolated the three divisions of the army and cut them off from mutual assistance, the two bodies other than the king's were surprised and overpowered by the enemy, who, after putting them all to the sword, proceeded with their entire strength to blockade Alexander himself. whereupon the Lucanian exiles sent messengers to their countrymen, and promised that, if assured of restoration, they would give up the king, alive or dead, into their hands. but Alexander, with a chosen band, made a daring attempt, and broke out through the midst of his foes, cutting down the Lucanian general in a hand —to —hand encounter. then , rallying his followers, who had become scattered in the flight, he came to a river, where the fresh ruins of a bridge, which the violence of the current had swept away, pointed out the road. as his company were making their way across the stream by a treacherous ford, a discouraged and exhausted soldier cried out, cursing the river's ill —omened name, you are rightly called the Acheros! When the king heard this, he at once bethought him of the oracle, and stopped, undecided whether he should cross or not. whereat Sotimus, one of the young nobles who attended him, asked why he hesitated in so dangerous a crisis, and pointed out the Lucanians, who were looking for a chance to waylay him. with a backward glance the king perceived them at a little distance coming towards him in a body, and drawing his sword, urged his horse through the middle of the stream. he had already gained the shallow water, when a Lucanian exile cast a javelin that transfixed him. he fell with the javelin in his lifeless body, and the current carried him down to the enemy's guard. by them his corpse was barbarously mangled, for they cut it in two through the middle, and sending a half to Consentia, kept the other half to make sport for themselves. they were standing off and pelting it with javelins and stones, when a solitary woman, exposing herself to the inhuman savagery of the raging crowd, besought them to forbear a little, and with many tears declared that her husband and children were prisoners in the hands of the enemy, and that she hoped that with the body of the king, however much disfigured, she might redeem them. this ended the mutilation. what was left of the corpse was cremated at Consentia by the care of none other than the woman, and the bones sent back to Metapontum, to the enemy; whence they were conveyed by ship to Epirus, to his wife Cleopatra and his sister Olympias, of whom the latter was mother, the former sister, to Alexander the Great. this brief account of the sad end of Alexander may be excused on the score of his having warred in Italy, albeit Fortune held him back from attacking the Romans. a lectisternium, the fifth since the founding of the City, was held this year, to propitiate the same deities as before. then the new consuls, having sent fetials, as commanded by the people, to declare war on the Samnites, not only began themselves to make ready for it, on a much greater scale in every respect than they had done against the Greeks, but received new and at that time quite unlooked for help. for the Lucanians and Apulians, nations which until then had had no dealings with the Roman People, put themselves under their protection and promised arms and men for the war, and were accordingly received into a treaty of friendship. at the same time, the Romans conducted a successful campaign in Samnium. three towns —Allifae, Callifae, and Rufrium —fell into their hands, and the rest of the country was devastated far and wide at the first coming of the consuls. while this war was beginning in so prosperous a fashion, the other, against the Greeks, was in a fair way to be concluded. for not only were a part of the besieged cut off from the rest by the intervening entrenchments of the Romans, but things were going on within their walls much more dreadful than the perils with which the enemy threatened them; and as though the inhabitants had been made prisoners by their own defenders, they were subjected to outrage even in the persons of their children and their wives, and suffered all the horrors of captured cities. and so, on a report that reinforcements were on their way, both from Tarentum and from the Samnites, they felt that they had within their city more Samnites than they wanted, but being Greeks, looked forward to the coming of their fellow Greeks, the young men of Tarentum, to enable them to resist the Samnites and the Nolani, no less than their enemies, the Romans. in the end it appeared to them that surrender to the Romans was the least intolerable evil. Charilaus and Nymphius, their principal citizens, took counsel together, and arranged the part that each should play in order to bring this about. one was to go over to the Roman general, the other to remain behind and make the city ready for the accomplishment of their design. it was Charilaus who went to Publilius Philo, and praying that it might tum out a good and favourable and fortunate thing for Palaepolis and for the Roman People, announced that he had resolved to deliver up the walls. it depended, he said, upon the honour of the Romans whether, having accomplished his intention, he should appear to have betrayed his country or to have saved it. for himself in particular he neither stipulated nor requested anything; for his people he requested — though he did not stipulate —that if the enterprise succeeded, the Roman People should consider with what eagerness they had resumed the friendship, and the hazard which they ran, rather than the folly and temerity which had led them to forget their duty. The general commended him, and gave him three thousand soldiers to seize that part of the city where the Samnites were established, appointing Lucius Quinctius, a military tribune, to command the force. at the same time Nymphius for his part had gone craftily to work with the Samnite commander, and pointing out that all the forces of the Romans were either about Palaepolis or in Samnium, got him to consent that he should take a fleet and sail round them to the Roman seaboard, where he proposed, so he said, to ravage not only the coastal region, but the vicinity of Rome itself; it would however be necessary, in order to slip past the enemy unobserved, to put out at night, and the ships must be drawn down at once. that this might be accomplished the more expeditiously, all the Samnite soldiers, except the few who were needed to mount guard in the city, were sent down to the shore. while Nymphius was killing time there in the darkness, purposely issuing contradictory orders to confuse the throng, which was so large as to get in its own way, Charilaus, having been received into the city, as agreed upon by the conspirators, had occupied the highest part of it with Roman soldiers, whom he now commanded to give a cheer. on hearing this, the Greeks, who had received a signal from their leaders, remained still, but the Nolani fled through the opposite quarter of the city by the road that leads to Nola. The Samnites, being shut out from the town, enjoyed a momentary advantage in the ease with which they fled, but appeared in a more disgraceful light, when the danger had been left behind. unarmed —for they had abandoned everything to the enemy —they returned to their homes despoiled and destitute, a laughingstock not only to strangers but to their own countrymen. i am not unaware of the other tradition which ascribes the capture to betrayal by the Samnites, but have followed the authorities who are more deserving of credence; moreover, the treaty with Neapolis —to which place the Greeks now transferred the seat of government —makes it more likely that they renewed the friendship voluntarily. Publilius was decreed a triumph, in consequence of a belief that the enemy had surrendered because they were forced to do so by the siege. he was the first to enjoy these two distinctions: an extension of his command, never before granted to any, and a triumph after the expiration of his term. this war was immediately followed by the outbreak of another, with the Greeks of the eastern coast. for the Tarentines, after sustaining the people of Palaepolis for some time with delusive hopes of succour, when they learned that the Romans had got possession of the city, inveighed against the Palaepolitans, as though, instead of deserting them, they themselves had been deserted, and were raging with hatred and envy against the Romans: the more so, because they learnt that the Lucanians and Apulians had made their submission to the Roman People —for an alliance was formed that year with both these nations. The Romans, they said, were almost at the gates of Tarentum, and matters would soon be come to such a pass, that they must needs have them for enemies or masters; it was clear that their own future hinged on the outcome of the war then being waged by the Samnites; this was the only nation that continued to hold out, and indeed that nation was none too strong since the defection of the Lucanians; but the latter might even yet be brought back and induced to repudiate the Roman alliance, if a little art were employed in sowing discord. These counsels having prevailed —for they were eager to fall in with novel schemes —they bribed certain young Lucanians, of greater prominence among their countrymen than respectability, who lacerated one another with rods and then exhibited their naked bodies before a concourse of their fellow citizens, crying out that for having dared to enter the Roman camp they had been ordered by the consuls to be scourged, and had narrowly escaped losing their heads. this spectacle, so hideous in itself, pointed clearly to injury and not to guile. in an uproar of excitement, the people obliged their magistrates to convoke the senate. at the meeting some crowded round and clamoured for war against the Romans, while others hurriedly departed this way and that, to rouse the inhabitants of the countryside to arms, till even the prudent lost their heads in the tumult, and it was voted to renew the alliance with the Samnites; and ambassadors were sent off to arrange it. this impulsive action, as it had no cause, so it carried no conviction; they were forced by the Samnites both to give hostages and also to admit garrisons within their strongholds; but, blinded by the cheat and by resentment, they stuck at nothing. a little later, when the false witnesses had retired to Tarentum, they began to see through the imposition; but having lost all power of independent action, they could only indulge in vain regrets. in that year the liberty of the Roman plebs had as it were a new beginning; for men ceased to be imprisoned for debt. The change in the law was occasioned by the notable lust and cruelty of a single usurer, Lucius Papirius, to whom Gaius Publilius had given himself up for a debt owed by his father. The debtor's youth and beauty, which might well have stirred the creditor's compassion, did but inflame his heart to lust and contumely. regarding the lad's youthful prime as additional compensation for the loan, he sought at first to seduce him with lewd conversation; later, finding he turned a deaf ear to the base proposal, he began to threaten him and now and again to remind him of his condition; at last, when he saw that the youth had more regard to his honourable birth than to his present plight, he had him stripped and scourged. The boy, all mangled with the stripes, broke forth into the street, crying out upon the money —lender's lust and cruelty; and a great throng of people, burning with pity for his tender years, and with rage for the shameful wrong he had undergone, and considering, too, their own condition and their children's, rushed down into the Forum, and from there in a solid throng to the Curia. The consuls were forced by the sudden tumult to convene the senate; and as the Fathers entered the Curia, the people threw themselves at the feet of each, and pointed to the young lad's mutilated back. on that day, owing to one man's outrageous injury, was broken a strong bond of credit, and the consuls were ordered to carry a proposal to the people that none should be confined in shackles or in the stocks, save those who, having been guilty of some crime, were waiting to pay the penalty; and that for money lent, the debtor's goods, but not his person, should be distrainable. so those in confinement were released, and it was forbidden that any should be confined thereafter. in that same year, though the Samnite war and the sudden revolt of the Lucanians, together with the Tarentines their abettors, were enough of themselves to fill the senators with concern, yet the Vestini added to their cares by uniting with the Samnites. this action was widely discussed in private conversations, without being made the subject, in that year, of any public deliberations; but the consuls of the following year, Lucius Furius Camillus (for the second time) and Junius Brutus Scaeva, deemed it a matter that should take precedence over all other business to come before the senate. there , notwithstanding it was no news to them, the situation occasioned the Fathers so great anxiety as to make them equally afraid to deal with it or to let it alone, lest the impunity of the Vestini might inspire the neighbouring tribes with licence and insolence, or a punitive war inflame them with apprehensions of imminent danger and with resentment; moreover the race as a whole was fully equal to the Samnites in military power, comprising, as it did, the Marsi, and the Paeligni and Marrucini, —all of whom must be had for enemies, should the Vestini be molested. The day, however, was carried by that party which might have seemed at the moment to have on its side a greater share of courage than of wisdom; but the sequel showed that Fortune favours the brave. being authorized by the senate, the people voted a war against the Vestini. this command was assigned by lot to Brutus, that against the Samnites to Camillus. armies were dispatched in both directions, and the enemy, concerned to protect their borders, were kept from joining forces. but one of the consuls, Lucius Furius, on whom the heavier burden had been laid, had the misfortune to fall dangerously ill and was compelled to relinquish his command; being ordered to nominate a dictator for the purpose of carrying on the war, he named by far the most distinguished soldier of that time, Lucius Papirius Cursor, by whom Quintus Fabius Maximus Rullianus was appointed master of the horse. they were a pair famous for the victories won while they were magistrates; but their quarrelling, which almost went the length of a mortal feud, made them more famous still. The other consul, in the country of the Vestini, carried on a war of many phases, but of unvarying success at every point. for he ravaged their farms, and by pillaging and burning their houses and their crops, compelled them against their will to take the field; and then in a single battle wrought such havoc with the Vestinian power —though his own troops came off by no means scatheless —that the enemy not only retreated to their camp, but, no longer trusting to their parapet and trenches, slipped away to their several towns, seeking protection in the situation of the places and their walls. finally , the consul addressed himself to the capture of these towns. The soldiers fought with great fury to revenge their wounds, for hardly a man had come unhurt out of the battle; and first Cutina was carried by escalade, and then Cingilia. The consul gave the booty of both these cities to his men, because neither the gates nor the walls of the enemy had held them back. The expedition into Samnium was attended with ambiguous auspices; but the flaw in them took effect, not in the outcome of the war, which was waged successfully, but in the animosities and madness of the generals. for Papirius, the dictator, as he was setting out for Rome, on the advice of the keeper of the sacred chickens, to take the auspices afresh, warned the master of the horse to remain in his position, and not to engage in battle with the enemy while he himself was absent. when Quintus Fabius had ascertained from his scouts —after the departure of the dictator —that the enemy were in all respects as careless and unguarded as if there had been not a single Roman in Samnium, whether it was that the spirited young man felt aggrieved that all power should seem to be vested in the dictator, or that lie was tempted by the opportunity of striking a successful blow, he put the army in fighting trim, and advancing upon a place they call Imbrinium, engaged in a pitched battle with the Samnites. this engagement was so fortunate that no greater success could have been gained, had the dictator been present; the general failed not his men, nor the men their general. The cavalry, too —at the suggestion of Lucius Cominius, a tribune of the soldiers —after charging a number of times without being able to break the enemy's lines, pulled the bridles off their horses and spurred them on so hotly that nothing could resist the shock, and arms and men went down before them over a wide front. The foot soldiers, following up the cavalry charge, advanced on the disordered enemy, of whom it is said that twenty thousand were slain that day. i find it stated by certain writers that Quintus Fabius twice fought the enemy while the dictator was absent, and twice gained a brilliant victory. The oldest historians give but this one battle, and in certain annals the story is omitted altogether. The master of the horse found himself, after so great a slaughter, in possession of extensive spoils. he piled the enemy's arms in a great heap, applied a torch to them, and burnt them. this may have been done in fulfilment of a vow to one of the gods, or —if one chooses to accept the account of Fabius —to prevent the dictator reaping the harvest of his glory and inscribing his name on the arms, or having them carried in his triumph. a dispatch, too, reporting the victory, which Fabius sent to the senate and not to the dictator, argues that he had no mind to share the credit with him. at all events, the dictator so received the news, that while everyone else was rejoicing at the victory, he showed no uncertain signs of anger and discontent. and so, having hastily dismissed the senate, he rushed out of the Curia, repeatedly asserting that in that battle the master of the horse had defeated and overthrown the prestige of the dictatorship and military discipline not less decisively than the Samnite legions, should it end in his having flouted orders with impunity. and so lie set out for the camp, breathing wrath and menaces; but though he travelled by exceedingly long stages, he was unable to arrive before the report of his being on the way. for couriers had hastened from the City, bringing word that the dictator was coming, athirst for vengeance and praising with almost every other word the deed of Titus Manlius. Fabius at once convened an assembly of the soldiers, and reminding them how their bravery had saved the state from the most determined of enemies, conjured them to be no less brave in defending him —under whose command and auspices they had gained the victory —from the ungovernable wrath of the dictator. he was coming, said Fabius, crazed with jealousy, and exasperated that another should have been both brave and fortunate; it enraged him that the state should have won a glorious victory in his absence; he would prefer —could he effect a change of fortune —that the Samnites and not the Romans had been the victors; he repeatedly declared that his authority had been despised, as though his orders against fighting had not been inspired by the same motive as was his grief over the battle! on the former occasion envy had made him wish to thwart the bravery of others; he would have stripped the most willing of soldiers of their arms, that they might be unable to use them in his absence. at present his rage and resentment were due to this, that his troops, though lacking the help of Lucius Papirius, had lacked neither swords nor hands to wield them, and that Quintus Fabius had regarded himself as master of the horse, and not as the dictator's orderly. what would he have done, had the chances of war and the common lot of armies resulted in defeat? despite the conquest of the enemy and a campaign so well directed that not even his own peerless leadership could have bettered it, he was now threatening the master of the horse with punishment, victorious though he was. for that matter, he was no angrier with the master of the horse than with the tribunes of the soldiers, the centurions, and the men. had he been able, he would have vented his rage upon them all: this being imposible, he was pouring it out on one. The truth is that envy, like lightning, seeks out the highest places; he was hurling himself upon the head of their counsels, upon their general; should he succeed in destroying Fabius, and with him the glory of their achievement, he would then follow up his victory —as though lording it over a captured army —and would visit upon the soldiers all the cruelty he had been permitted to inflict upon the master of the horse. let them defend, he cried, the liberty of all by defending him. if that same singleness of purpose which the army had displayed in battle should appear in the way they stood up for their victory and made one man's safety the safety of them all, the dictator would incline his heart to a more merciful determination. he ended by committing himself, his life, and his fortunes to their loyalty and valour. a shout arose from the whole concourse, bidding him be of good courage; no one, they cried, should do him violence, while the Roman legions were safe. not long after came the dictator, and forthwith by sound of trumpet summoned an assembly. then a herald, having obtained silence, cited Quintus Fabius the master of the horse, who was no sooner come up from below to the tribunal, than the dictator cried out: i ask you, Quintus Fabius, seeing that the dictator's authority is paramount, and the consuls obey him, though they possess the might of kings, and the praetors, too, who have been elected under the same auspices with the consuls, whether or no you deem it to be reasonable that the master of the horse should hearken to his word; and I put this further question to you —whether, when I knew that I had set out from home with uncertain auspices, it was my duty, in view of our troubled relations with the gods, to jeopardize the public safety, or to seek auspices again, that I might take no steps while the will of Heaven was in doubt; and I likewise ask whether that which a religious scruple has prevented the dictator from doing can be freely and unrestrainedly undertaken by the master of the horse. but why do I put these questions, since, had I gone off without a word, nevertheless your thoughts should have been directed to the interpretation of my will? come , answer me: Did I forbid you to take any measures in my absence? did I forbid you to engage the enemy? but you spurned this order; and notwithstanding the uncertainty of the auspices and our uneasy scruples, you had the hardihood, against all military precedent, and the discipline of our fathers, and the divine will of the gods, to encounter with the enemy. answer these questions I have put to you; but have a care that you utter no word besides' Stand ready, lictor. to answer the separate indictments was far from easy. now complaining that the same man was his accuser and his judge in a matter of life and death, and again crying out that he could more easily be robbed of his life than of the glory of his deeds, he defended himself and accused the general by turns, until Papirius in a fresh burst of anger bade them strip the master of the horse and make ready rods and axes. then Fabius, imploring the protection of the soldiers, escaped from the clutches of the lictors with his clothes in tatters, and sought refuge in the midst of the triarii, who were stirring up riot in the rear of the assembly. thence the outcry spread to the entire host. in one place were heard entreaties, in another threats. those who chanced to be standing next to the tribunal, and being under the general's eyes were able to be marked by him, implored him to spare the master of the horse, and not condemn the army with him. those in the outskirts of the meeting, and the crowd that surrounded Fabius, railed at the dictator's cruelty, and were near to mutiny. not even the tribunal itself was quiet; the lieutenants, standing about the dictator's chair, besought him to put the matter off until the morrow and allow time for consideration and for his anger to cool; he had sufficiently chastened the youth of Fabius, they said, and discredited his victory; it would not be well to carry out his punishment to the end, nor to fasten such humiliation upon a young man of extraordinary merit, nor on that most distinguished man, his father, and the Fabian family. finding that neither prayers nor arguments did any good, they bade him look at the turmoil in the assembly; when the passions of the soldiers were so overwrought, it was not, they said, for one of his years and discretion to furnish fuel to the flames of mutiny; no one would ascribe the fault to Quintus Fabius —who was but deprecating his own punishment —but all would blame the dictator, if, blinded with resentment, he should bring down the angry multitude upon himself by an ill —judged contention. finally , that he might not suppose that they argued thus out of any personal regard for Fabius, they were ready, they said, to take an oath that it appeared to be inconsistent with the interests of the state that Quintus Fabius should then be punished. but the lieutenants by these words rather stirred up the wrath of the dictator against themselves than lessened his rancour against the master of the horse, and he ordered them to go down from the tribunal. he then sought by the mouth of a herald to procure silence, but without success, for the din and uproar were so great that it was impossible for the dictator himself or his attendants to be heard; and it was left for darkness, as though descending on a battle —field, to end the struggle. The master of the horse was commanded to appear next day; but since everyone assured him that Papirius would be more violent than ever, aroused as he was and exasperated by the opposition he had met with, he slipped out of the camp and fled to Rome. there , with the approval of his father, who had thrice been consul, and dictator to boot, he at once assembled the senate, and had reached, in his speech to the senators, the very point where he was complaining of the violence and injury offered him by the dictator, when a sudden noise was heard outside the Curia, as the lictors cleared the way, and Papirius himself, in high dudgeon, appeared before them; for he had learned of the other's departure from the camp, and taking a troop of light horse had pursued him. The dispute was now renewed, and the dictator ordered Fabius to be seized. both the leading members and the senate as a body sought to pacify his wrath; but he would not relent, and persisted in his purpose. then the father of the young man said: inasmuch as neither the senate's authority nor my old age —which you are going about to bereave —nor the merits and noble lineage of a master of the horse whom you yourself appointed, are of any weight with you, nor yet entreaties, which have often moved an enemy to mercy, which can persuade the gods to put away their anger, —I invoke the tribunes of the plebs, and appeal to the people; and since you would shun the judgment of your own army and shun the judgment of the senate, I propose to you a judge that singly has more might and power —be well assured —than has your dictatorship. we shall see whether you will submit to an appeal to which a Roman king, Tullus Hostilius, submitted! leaving the senate —house, they repaired to the speaker's platform, which the dictator mounted with only a few attendants, while the master of the horse was accompanied thither by the whole body of the leading men. then Papirius bade Fabius be removed from the Rostra to the ground below; and his father followed him, exclaiming, you do well to bid us be removed to a place where even as private citizens we can say our say! at first there were not so much set speeches to be heard above the tumult as an interchange of angry words. but presently the strong voice and the indignation of the elder Fabius prevailed over the din, as he inveighed against the pride and cruelty of Papirius. he reminded him that he too had been dictator at Rome, and that no man —not even a plebeian, a centurion, or a common soldier —had been misused by him; but Papirius was seeking a victory and triumph over a Roman general, as if over commanders of the enemy. how great was the difference betwixt the moderation of the ancients and this new —fangled arrogance and ruthlessness! when Quinctius Cincinnatus had been dictator, and had rescued the consul Lucius Minucius from the toils of the enemy, his anger had gone no further than to leave Minucius in command of the army as his lieutenant, in place of being consul. Marcus Furius Camillus, when Lucius Furius, in contempt of his great age and his authority, had fought a battle, with the direst results, not only controlled his indignation at the moment and made no animadversions upon his colleague in writing to the senate or the people, but, on being permitted by the senate, after his return, to choose a partner in command, selected Lucius Furius in preference to all the other consular tribunes, his associates. as to the people, who had all power in their hands, their indignation against those who by recklessness or lack of skill had lost their armies had never burned so fiercely that they punished them with anything worse than a fine; a capital charge on account of a defeat had never until that day been lodged against a general. but now the generals of the Roman People, who even if beaten might not be so dealt with without sin, were, despite their victories and their well —earned title to a triumph, being threatened with scourging and decapitation. what , pray, would his son have suffered, if he had lost his army, if he had been discomfited, routed, and driven from his camp? to what higher pitch could the passionate violence of Papirius have mounted than to scourge him and put him to death? how proper it was that because of Quintus Fabius the citizens should exult in victory with thanksgivings and rejoicings; while he on whose account the shrines of the gods were open, and the altars smoked with sacrifices and were heaped high with incense and with offerings, should be stripped and mangled with rods in full sight of the Roman People, as he looked up to the Capitol and the Citadel and the gods whose help in battle he had twice invoked, and not in vain! in what spirit would this be taken by the army, which under his conduct and his auspices had gained the victory? what grief would there be in the Roman camp, what rejoicings amongst their enemies! so he made his plea, now chiding and now complaining, now calling on gods and men to help him, now bursting into tears, as he embraced his son. on his side were ranged the countenance of the senate, the favour of the populace, the assistance of the tribunes, the remembrance of the absent army. his opponent urged the invincible authority of the Roman People, and military discipline, and the edict of a dictator —which had ever been revered as the will of Heaven —and the severity of Manlius, who had preferred the general good to the love he bore his son, even as Lucius Brutus, the founder of Roman liberty, had done before, in the case of his two children. but nowadays —the dictator proceeded —fathers were indulgent; and the older generation, little caring if another man's authority were flouted, excused the young for overturning military discipline, as a thing of no importance. he should nevertheless persist in his undertaking, nor remit an iota of his due punishment to one who had fought against his orders, while the rites of religion were confused and the auspices uncertain. whether the majesty of the supreme authority were to endure or not was beyond his power to determine; but Lucius Papirius would do nothing to diminish it. he prayed that the tribunes might not employ their power —itself inviolate —to violate by their interference the authority of Rome; that the people might not single out the very time of his holding that office to extinguish the lawful might of the dictatorship. should they do so, it would not be Lucius Papirius, but the tribunes and the crooked judgment of the people, that posterity would censure, and censure without avail. for let military discipline be once broken, and soldier would not obey centurion, nor centurion tribune, nor tribune lieutenant, nor lieutenant consul, nor master of the horse dictator —none would have respect for men, none reverence for the gods; neither edicts of generals nor auspices would be regarded; the soldiers, without leave, would roam in hostile as in peaceful territory; with no thought of their oath they would quit the service by their own permission, when they pleased; the standards would be deserted, the men would not come together at command; they would fight without reference to night or day, to the advantage or disadvantage of the ground, to the orders or prohibition of the general; they would neither wait for the word nor keep to their ranks; blind and haphazard brigandage would supplant the time —honoured and hallowed ways of war. — on such charges, tribunes of the plebs, expose yourselves to be arraigned through all the ages! let your own heads bear the guilt of the licence of Quintus Fabis! The tribunes were dumbfounded, more troubled now on their own account than on his, for whom their help was being solicited; but the Roman People relieved them of their burden of responsibility, when they turned as one man to the dictator, and entreated and adjured him to remit for their sake the punishment of the master of the horse. The tribunes, too, fell in with the prevailing mood, and earnestly besought Papirius to allow for human frailty, to allow for the youth of Quintus Fabius, who had suffered punishment enough. now the young man himself, now his father Marcus Fabius, forgetting all contention, threw themselves down at the dictator's knees and attempted to avert his anger. then said the dictator, when silence was obtained, it is well, Quirites. The discipline of war, the majesty of government, have got the victory, despite the danger that this day would see the end of them. Quintus Fabius is not found guiltless, seeing that he fought against the orders of his general; but, convicted of that guilt, is granted as a boon to the Roman People, is granted to the authority of the tribunes, who plead for him but can bring him no legal relief. live , Quintus Fabius, more blest in this consent of your fellow citizens to save you, than in the victory over which, a little while ago, you were exulting! live , though you dared a deed which not even your sire would have pardoned, had he been in the place of Lucius Papirius! with me you shall again be on good terms when you will; for the Roman People, to whom you owe your life, you can do nothing greater than to show that you have learned what this day clearly teaches —to submit in war and in peace to lawful authority. then , declaring that the master of the horse was free to depart, he descended from the platform, and the joyful senators and yet more joyful people thronged about them and attended them, congratulating now the master of the horse and now the dictator. it seemed that the peril of Fabius had been not less efficacious than the pitiful punishment of young Manlius in the establishment of military authority. it so fell out that year, that as often as the dictator left the army, there was a rising of the enemy in Samnium. but with the example of Quintus Fabius before his eyes, Marcus Valerius, the lieutenant who commanded in the camp, could not fear any violence of the enemy more than the dread displeasure of the dictator. and so when a party of foragers had fallen into an ambush and fighting at a disadvantage had been slain, it was commonly believed that the lieutenant might have rescued them, had he not quailed at the thought of those harsh orders. their resentment of this still further estranged the soldiers from the dictator, angry as they already were at his unwillingness to pardon Quintus Fabius, and his having granted to the Roman People a boon he had denied to their own entreaties. when the dictator had set Lucius Papirius Crassus over the City and had forbidden Quintus Fabius, the master of the horse, to exercise his magistracy in any way, he returned to the camp, where his arrival occasioned no great satisfaction to the Romans nor the slightest apprehension to their enemies. for on the following day, whether unaware that the dictator was come or caring little whether he were there or not, the Samnites formed in order of battle and approached the camp. so great however was the importance of one man, Lucius Papirius, that if the goodwill of the soldiers had seconded the measures taken by their general, it was held as certain that the war with Samnium might that day have been brought to a successful termination —so skilfully did he dispose his army, so well secure it with every advantage of position and reserves, and with every military art. but the men were listless, and, on purpose to discredit their commander, threw away the victory. there were more Samnites killed, more Romans wounded. The experienced general perceived what stood in the way of his success: he must qualify his native disposition, and mingle geniality with his sternness. so , calling together his lieutenants, he made the round of his wounded soldiers in person, and putting his head into their tents and asking each how he was doing, he commended them by name to the care of the lieutenants, the tribunes, and the prefects. this of itself was a popular thing to do, and Papirius managed it with such tact, that in healing their bodies he gained their affections much more rapidly; and indeed there was nothing that more promoted their recovery than the pleasurable feelings with which they accepted these attentions. when the army was restored, he met the enemy, with no doubt as to the result, either on his own part or on that of his soldiers, and so routed and dispersed the Samnites that this was the last time they joined battle with the dictator. The victorious army then marched on where the prospect of booty beckoned them, and traversed the territories of the enemy without encountering any armed resistance whatsoever, either face to face or from an ambush. The dictator had increased the alacrity of his troops by proclaiming that the booty should all be theirs, and private gain did as much as the public resentment to whet their zeal against the enemy. discouraged by these reverses, the Samnites sought peace of Papirius, and agreed with him to give every soldier a garment and a year's pay. he directed them to go before the senate, but they replied that they would attend him thither, committing their cause wholly to his honour and integrity. so the army was withdrawn from Samnium. The dictator, having entered the City in triumph, would have laid down his office, but was commanded by the senate first to hold a consular election; he announced that Gaius Sulpicius Longus had been chosen for the second time, together with Quintus Aemilius Cerretanus. The treaty was not completed, owing to a disagreement over terms, and the Samnites left the City with a truce for a year; nor did they scrupulously hold even to that; so encouraged were they to make war, on learning that Papirius had resigned. in the consulship of Gaius Sulpicius and Quintus Aemilius —some annals have Aulius —the defection of the Samnites was followed by a new war with Apulia. armies were sent out in both directions. The lots assigned the Samnites to Sulpicius, the Apulians to Aemilius. some say that the war was not waged against the Apulians, but in defence of some of the allies of that people whom the Samnites had wantonly invaded; but the circumstances of the Samnites, who at that time could hardly ward off invasion from themselves, render it more probable that they did not attack the Apulians but that they and the Apulians were at war with Rome simultaneously. there was, however, no memorable engagement. The Romans laid waste Apulia and Samnium, without encountering the enemy in either country. at Rome a nocturnal alarm awoke the sleeping citizens with such a fright that Capitol and Citadel, walls and gates, were crowded with armed men; and after all the hurrying to posts and crying to arms! in every quarter, day broke and discovered neither author nor occasion of the panic. in the same year, the Tusculans were tried before the people in accordance with the Flavian rogation. Marcus Flavius, a plebeian tribune, had proposed to the people that the Tusculans be punished for having lent their countenance and aid to the Veliterni and Privernates in their war with the Roman People. The citizens of Tusculum, with their wives and children, came to Rome; and the great throng, putting on the sordid raiment of defendants, went about amongst the tribes and clasped the knees of the citizens in supplication. and so it happened that pity was more effective in gaining them remission of their punishment than were their arguments in clearing away the charges. all the tribes rejected the proposal, save only the Pollian, which voted that the grown men should be scourged and put to death, and their wives and children sold at auction under the laws of war. it seems that the resentment engendered in the Tusculans by so cruel a proposal lasted down to our fathers' time, and that a candidate of the Pollian tribe almost never got the vote of the Papirian. in the following year, when Quintus Fabius and Lucius Fulvius were consuls, the dread of a serious war with the Samnites —who were said to have gathered an army of mercenaries from neighbouring tribes —occasioned the appointment of Aulus Cornelius Arvina as dictator and Marcus Fabius Ambustus as master of the horse. by a vigorous levy these men raised an excellent army, and marching against the Samnites, went into camp on hostile soil with as little regard to their position as if the enemy had been far away. suddenly the Samnite legions appeared, and advancing with great hardihood entrenched themselves close to the Roman outposts. night was now drawing on, which prevented them from assaulting the Roman works; but they made no secret of their intention to do so with the morrow's earliest light. The dictator saw that the battle was coming sooner than he had anticipated, and feared that the courage of his men would be affected by their cramped position. so , leaving behind him numerous fires to deceive the enemy, he silently led the legions out. but the camps were so near each other that he could not elude their observation. their cavalry at once pursued him, but though they hung upon the fringe of his column, they refrained from attacking until the day began to break; as for the infantry, they did not even leave their stockade before the dawn. finally , when it was light, the cavalry ventured to charge the Romans, and by harassing their rear and pressing them when they came to places that were difficult to cross, delayed their march. meanwhile the foot had caught up with the horse, and the Samnites were throwing all their forces into the assault. then the dictator, finding that he could make no headway without great distress, gave orders to lay out a camp on the very spot where he had halted. but enveloped, as they were, by the enemy's horse, it was impossible to gather stakes and begin the work. and so, when he saw that he could neither advance nor encamp, he removed the baggage from his column and formed a line of battle. The enemy then formed up against him, being inferior neither in spirit nor in strength. their encouragement was due chiefly to ignorance that their enemies had retreated from an awkward position, and not from them; for they assumed that their own doughty appearance had driven the Romans before them in a panic. this held the fighting in balance for a while, though the Samnites had now for some time been unused to abide the battle —cry of a Roman army. indeed it is said that on that day from the third hour to the eighth the outcome was so much in doubt, that there was never a second cheer after that which was once given when the armies rushed together; nor were standards either moved forward or withdrawn; nor did the combatants anywhere give ground. facing each other with every man squarely in his place, they pressed forward with their shields and fought without stopping to breathe or to look behind. The monotonous din and changeless tenor of the battle made it seem probable that sheer exhaustion or the night would put an end to it. and now men's strength was ebbing, and the sword was forgetting its keenness and the generals their strategy; —when the Samnite horsemen, learning from one of their squadrons that had pushed on ahead how the baggage of the Romans lay remote from their fighting men, without defenders or a rampart to protect it, were seized with the lust of pillaging, and made a sudden dash for it. but when a frightened messenger brought word of this to the dictator, he said, only let them cumber themselves with spoil! after that came others and still others, crying aloud that the soldiers' possessions were being plundered and carried clean away. then Cornelius called the master of the horse and said, do you not see, Marcus Fabius, how the enemy's cavalry have ceased to fight? they are caught fast and entangled in our baggage. have at them while they are dispersed, as any body of men will be in pillaging! you shall find few in the saddle, few sword in hand; while they are loading themselves and their horses with spoils, cut them down unarmed and make it a bloody booty for them. i will see to the legions and the battle of the infantry; be yours the glory of the cavalry fight. The cavalry, drawn up in the most perfect order, charged their scattered and embarrassed enemies and cut them down on every hand. they had hastily flung aside their packs —which lay all about and impeded the terrified horses as they tried to run away —and, powerless either to resist or to escape, were massacred where they stood. then Marcus Fabius, having almost annihilated the enemy's cavalry, fetched a short compass with his squadrons and attacked from behind their line of infantry. The shouts that were now heard in that quarter struck terror into the hearts of the Samnites; and the dictator, seeing the men in their fighting line glance nervously behind them, and their standards become disordered, and their line begin to waver, then cried out to his men, then urged them on, and called by name on tribunes and company —commanders to join him in a new attack. with a fresh cheer the ranks pressed forward, and at each advance perceived the Samnites to be more and more confused. The horse themselves could now be seen by those in the van; and Cornelius, looking back on the maniples of soldiers, made them understand as best he could with hand and voice that he saw the banners and round shields of their comrades. on hearing and at the same time seeing them, they straightway forgot the toil they had endured for well —nigh the entire day, and forgot their wounds, and, like troops who were but that moment fresh from camp and had received the battle —signal, they flung themselves upon the enemy. The Samnites could support no longer the fury of the cavalry and the violent onset of the foot; some were slaughtered in the midst, others were scattered abroad in flight. The foot —soldiers surrounded those who resisted and put them to the sword; the cavalry made havoc of the fugitives, amongst whom perished their general himself. this defeat, after all that had gone before, so broke the spirit of the Samnites, that in all their councils they began to murmur that it was no wonder if they met with no success in an impious war, undertaken in violation of a treaty, for the gods had even more right than men to be incensed with them. they would have to pay a heavy price to expiate this war and atone for it; the only question was, should they offer atonement with the blood of the guilty few or with that of the innocent multitude? some ventured at this juncture to name those who had been responsible for the war. one name in particular could be distinguished; for all agreed in denouncing Papius Brutulus, a powerful noble who had without question been the breaker of the latest truce. The praetors were compelled to refer his case to the council, which decreed that Papius Brutulus should be surrendered to the Romans, and that all the Roman booty and all the prisoners should be sent with him to Rome; and further, that all the property which the fetials had sought to recover under the provisions of the treaty should be restored in compliance with law and with religion. The fetials proceeded to Rome, in accordance with this resolution, taking with them the lifeless body of Brutulus, who had escaped the humiliation and punishment by a voluntary death. it was voted to surrender his goods also with his body. but of all these things the Romans would accept none but the prisoners and such articles of booty as they recognized as theirs; the surrender of all the rest was of no effect. The dictator triumphed by resolution of the senate. some writers hold that this war was waged by the consuls, and that it was they who triumphed over the Samnites; they say that Fabius even advanced into Apulia and thence drove off much booty. but that Aulus Cornelius was dictator in that year is not disputed, and the doubt is only whether he was appointed to administer the war, or in order that there might be somebody to give the signal to the chariots at the Roman Games —since the praetor, Lucius Plautius, happened to be very sick —and whether, having discharged this office, which is, to be sure, no very noteworthy exercise of power, he resigned the dictatorship. it is not easy to choose between the accounts or the authorities. The records have been vitiated, I think, by funeral eulogies and by lying inscriptions under portraits, every family endeavouring mendaciously to appropriate victories and magistracies to itself —a practice which has certainly wrought confusion in the achievements of individuals and in the public memorials of events. nor is there extant any writer contemporary with that period, on whose authority we may safely take our stand.

Perseus Latin. CTS URN phi0914.phi0018.perseus-eng1. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0. Source.