Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 4
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

Book IV

1. MARCUS GENUClUS and Gaius Curtius succeeded¹ these men as consuls. It was a year of quarrels both at home and abroad. For at its commencement Gaius Canuleius, a tribune of the plebs, proposed a bill regarding the intermarriage of patricians and plebeians which the patricians looked upon as involving the debasement of their blood and the subversion of the principles inhering in the gentes, or families; [2] and a suggestion, cautiously put forward at first by the tribunes, that it should be lawful for one of the consuls to be chosen from the plebs, was afterwards carried so far that nine tribunes proposed a bill giving the people power to choose consuls as they might see fit, from either the plebs or the patriciate. [3] To carry out this last proposal would be, in the estimation of the patricians, not merely to give a share of the supreme authority to the lowest of the citizens, but actually to take it away from the nobles and bestow it on the plebs. [4] The Fathers therefore rejoiced to hear that the people of Ardea had revolted because of the unjust decision which deprived them of their land; that the men of Veii had ravaged the Roman frontier; and that the Volsci and Aequi were murmuring at the fortification of Verrugo;² so decidedly did they prefer even an unfortunate war to an ignominious peace. [5] Accordingly they made the most of these threats, that the proposals of the tribunes might be silenced amidst the [p. 259]din or so many wars; and ordered levies to be held³ and military preparations to be made with the utmost energy, and if possible, even more strenuously than had been done when Titus Quinctius was consul. [6] Thereupon Gaius Canuleius curtly proclaimed in the senate that it was in vain the consuls sought to frighten the plebs out of their concern for the new laws; and, declaring that they should never hold the levy, while he lived, until the plebs had voted on the measures which he and his colleagues had brought forward, at once convened an assembly.

2. At one and the same time the consuls were inciting the senate against the tribune, and the tribune was arousing the people against the consuls. The consuls declared that the frenzy of the tribunes could no longer be endured; the end had now been reached, and there was more war being stirred up at home than abroad. [2] This state of things was, to be sure, as much the fault of the senators as of the plebs, and the consuls were as guilty as the tribunes. [3] That tendency which a state rewarded always attained the greatest growth; it was thus that good men were produced, both in peace and in war. [4] In Rome the greatest reward was given to sedition, which had, therefore, ever been held in honour by all and sundry. Let them recall the majesty of the senate when they had taken it over from their fathers, and think what it was likely to be when they passed it on to their sons, and how the plebs could glory in the increase of their strength and consequence. [5] There was no end in sight, nor would be, so long as the fomenters of insurrection were honoured in proportion to the success of their projects. What tremendous schemes had Gaius Canuleius set on foot! [6] He was aiming to contaminate the gentes and [p. 261]throw the auspices, both public and private, into⁴ confusion, that nothing might be pure, nothing unpolluted; so that, when all distinctions had been obliterated, no man might recognise either himself or his kindred.⁵ For what else, they asked, was the object of promiscuous marriages, if not that plebeians and patricians might mingle together almost like the beasts? [7] The son of such a marriage would be ignorant to what blood and to what worship he belonged; he would pertain half to the patricians, half to the plebs, and be at strife even with himself. It was not enough for the disturbers of the rabble to play havoc with all divine and human institutions: they must now aim at the consulship. And whereas they had at first merely suggested in conversations that one of the two consuls should be chosen from the plebeians,⁶ they were now proposing a law that the people should elect consuls at its pleasure from patriciate or plebs. [8] Its choice would without doubt always fall upon plebeians of the most revolutionary sort, and the result would be that they would have consuls of the type of Canuleius and Icilius. [9] They called on Jupiter Optimus Maximus to forbid that a power regal in its majesty should sink so low. For their parts, they would sooner die a thousand deaths than suffer so shameful a thing to be done. [10] They felt certain that their forefathers too, had they divined that all sorts of concessions would make the commons not more tractable but more exacting, and that the granting of their first demands would lead to others, ever more unjust, would rather have faced any conflict whatsoever than have permitted such laws to be imposed upon them. [11] Because they had yielded then, in the matter of the tribunes, they had [p. 263]yielded a second time; it was impossible there⁷ should be any settlement of the trouble, if in one and the same state there were both plebeian tribunes and patricians; one thing or the other must go, — the patriciate or the tribunate. It was better late than never to oppose their rashness and temerity. [12] Were they to be suffered with impunity first to sow discord and stir up neighbouring wars, and then to prevent the state from arming and defending itself against the wars they had raised themselves? [13] When they had all but invited in the enemy, should they refuse to allow the enrolment of armies to oppose that enemy; while Canuleius had the hardihood to announce in the senate that unless the Fathers permitted his laws to be received, as though he were a conqueror, he would forbid the levy? What else was this than a threat that he would betray his native City to attack and capture? How must that speech encourage, not the Roman plebs, but the Volsci, the Aequi, and the Veientes! [14] Would they not hope that, led by Canuleius, they would be able to scale the Capitol and the Citadel? Unless the tribunes had robbed the patricians of their courage when they took away their rights and their dignity, the consuls were prepared to lead them against criminal citizens sooner than against armed enemies.

3. At the very time when these opinions were finding expression in the senate, Canuleius held forth in this fashion in behalf of his laws and in opposition to the consuls: [2] "How greatly the patricians despised you, Quirites, how unfit they deemed you to live in the City, within the same walls as themselves, I think I have often observed before, but never more clearly than at this very moment, [p. 265]when they are rallying so fiercely against these⁸ proposals of ours. [3] Yet what else do we intend by them than to remind our fellow citizens that we are of them, and that, though we possess not the same wealth, still we dwell in the same City they inhabit? [4] In the one bill we seek the right of intermarriage, which is customarily granted to neighbours and foreigners —indeed we have granted citizenship, which is more than intermarriage, even to defeated enemies; [5] —in the other we propose no innovation, but reclaim and seek to exercise a popular right, to wit that the Roman People shall confer office upon whom it will. [6] What reason is there, pray, why they should confound heaven and earth; why they should almost have attacked me just now in the senate; why they should declare that they will place no restraint on force, and should threaten to violate our sacrosanct authority? [7] If the Roman People is granted a free vote, that so it may commit the consulship to what hands it likes, if even the plebeian is not cut off from the hope of gaining the highest honours —if he shall be deserving of the highest honours —will this City of ours be unable to endure? Is her dominion at an end? When we raise the question of making a plebeian consul, is it the same as if we were to say that a slave or a freedman should attain that office? [8] Have you any conception of the contempt in which you are held? They would take from you, were it possible, a part of this daylight. [9] That you breathe, that you speak, that you have the shape of men, fills them with resentment. Nay, they assert, if you please, that it is sinning against Heaven to elect a plebeian consul. Tell me, if we are not admitted to consult the [p. 267]Fasti⁹ or the Commentaries of the Pontiffs,¹⁰ are we¹¹ therefore ignorant of what all men, even foreigners, know, viz. that the consuls succeeded to the place of the kings, and possess no jot nor tittle of right or dignity that belonged not to the kings before? [10] Come! Would you believe the story was ever heard how Numa Pompilius —not only no patrician, but not even a Roman citizen —was sent for from the country of the Sabines, and reigned at Rome, by command of the people and with the senators' consent? [11] And again, how Lucius Tarquinius, who was not even of Italian stock —not to mention Roman —being the son of Demaratus of Corinth, and an immigrant from Tarquinii, was made king, while the sons of Ancus were still living? [12] And how after him Servius Tullius, son of a captive woman from Corniculum, who had nobody for his father and a bond-woman for his mother, held the royal power by his innate ability and worth? For why should I speak of Titus Tatius the Sabine, with whom Romulus himself, the Father of the City, shared his sovereignty? [13] Well then, so long as men despised no family that could produce conspicuous excellence, the dominion of Rome increased. And are you now to scorn a plebeian consul, when our ancestors were not above accepting alien kings, and when the City was not closed against the meritorious foreigner, even after the expulsion of the kings? [14] The Claudian family at least we not only received from the Sabine country, after the kings had been driven out, and gave them citizenship, but even admitted them to the number of patricians. [15] Shall the son of a stranger [p. 269]become patrician and then consul, but a Roman¹² citizen, if plebeian, be cut off from all hope of the consulship? [16] Do we not believe it possible that a bold and strenuous man, serviceable both in peace and in war, should come from the plebs, —a man like Numa, Lucius Tarquinius, or Servius Tullius? [17] Or shall we refuse, even if such an one appear, to let him approach the helm of state? Must we rather look forward to consuls like the decemvirs, the vilest of mortals, who nevertheless were all of patrician birth, than to such as shall resemble the best of the kings, new men though they were?

4. "'But,' you will say, ' from the time the kings were expelled no plebeian has ever been consul.' Well, what then?. Must no new institution be adopted? Ought that which has not yet been done —and in a new nation many things have not yet been done —never to be put in practice, even if it be expedient? [2] There were neither pontiffs nor augurs in the reign of Romulus; Numa Pompilius created them. There was no census in the state, no registration of centuries and classes; Servius Tullius made one. There had never been any consuls; when the kings had been banished, consuls were elected. [3] Neither the power nor the name of dictator had ever been known; in the time of our fathers they began. Plebeian tribunes, aediles, and quaestors, there were none; men decided to have them. Within the past ten years we have elected decemvirs for drawing up the laws, and removed them from the commonwealth. [4] Who can question that in a city founded for eternity and of incalculable growth, new powers, priesthoods, and rights of families and individuals, must be established? [5] Was not this very [p. 271]provision, that patricians and plebeians might not¹³ intermarry, enacted by the decemvirs a few years since, with the worst effect on the community and the gravest injustice to the plebs? Or can there be any greater or more signal insult than to hold a portion of the state unworthy of intermarriage, as though it were defiled? [6] What else is this but to suffer exile within the same walls and banishment? They guard against having us for connections or relations, against the mingling of our blood with theirs. [7] Why, if this pollutes that fine nobility of yours —which many of you, being of Alban or of Sabine origin, possess not by virtue of race or blood, but through co-optation into the patriciate, having been chosen either by the kings, or, after their expulsion, by decree of the people —could you not keep it pure by your own private counsels, neither taking wives from the plebs nor permitting your daughters and sisters to marry out of the patriciate? No plebeian would offer violence to a patrician maiden: that is a patrician vice. [8] No one would have compelled anybody to enter a compact of marriage against his will. [9] But let me tell you that in the statutory prohibition and annulment of intermarriage between patricians and plebeians we have indeed at last an insult to the plebs. Why, pray, do you not bring in a law that there shall be no intermarrying of rich and poor? [10] That which has always and everywhere been a matter of private policy, that a woman might marry into whatever family it had been arranged, that a man might take a wife from that house where he had engaged himself, you would subject to the restraint of a most arrogant aw, that thereby you might break up our civil [p. 273]society and make two states out of one. [11] Why do¹⁴ you not enact that a plebeian shall not live near a patrician, nor go on the same road? That he shall not enter the same festive company? That he shall not stand by his side in the same Forum? For what real difference does it make if a patrician takes a plebeian wife, or a plebeian a patrician? What right, pray, is invaded? [12] The children of course take the father's rank. There is nothing we are seeking to gain from marriage with you, except that we should be accounted men and citizens. Neither have you any reason to oppose us, unless you delight in vying with each other how you may outrage and humiliate us.

5. “Finally I would ask, is it you, or the Roman People, who have supreme authority? Did the banishment of the kings bring you dominion, or to all men equal liberty? [2] Ought the Roman People to be permitted, if it so desire, to enact a law; or shall you, as each proposal is brought up, proclaim a levy by way of penalty, and so soon as I, the tribune, begin to summon the tribes to vote, shall you, the consul, at once administer the oath to those of military age and march them out to camp, with threats against the plebs and with threats against the tribune? [3] How would it be if you had not twice¹⁵ already proved how little those threats of yours are worth against the unanimous will of the plebs? ' I suppose it was consideration for our good that made you refrain from fighting? Or was this rather the reason there was no strife, because the stronger side was also the more moderate? [4] Neither will there be any struggle now, Quirites; they will always test your courage; but will never put your strength to the proof. [5] And [p. 275]so the commons are ready, consuls, for those wars¹⁶ you deal in, be they feigned or genuine, if you give them back their right of intermarriage, and make this a single state at last; if you enable them to coalesce, to unite, to merge with you in domestic alliances; if the hope of attaining honours is held out to strenuous men and brave; if they are granted a share in the partnership of government; if, in the enjoyment of equal liberty, they are allowed to govern and obey in turn, with the annual change of magistrates. [6] If anyone shall prevent these reforms, you may talk of wars, and multiply them in the telling; but nobody will give in his name, nobody will take up arms, nobody will fight for haughty masters with whom he has no association in the honours of the state nor in the marriages of private life.”

6. When the consuls had come forth to the people and set speeches had given place to wrangling, the tribune demanded what reason there was why a plebeian should not be chosen consul; [2] to whom Curtius replied, with truth perhaps, yet, in the circumstances, to little purpose, “because no plebeian has the auspices, and that is the reason the decemvirs have forbidden intermarriages, lest the auspices should be confounded by the uncertain standing of those born of them.” [3] At this the plebs fairly blazed with indignation, because it was declared that; they could not take auspices, as though they were hated by the immortal gods; nor was the controversy ended —for the plebeians had got a most energetic champion in their tribune, and rivalled him themselves in determination, —until [4] at last the patricians were beaten, and allowed the law [p. 277]regarding intermarriage to be passed, chiefly because they¹⁷ thought that so the tribunes would either wholly give over their contention for plebeian consuls or would postpone it until after the war, and that the plebs meantime, contented with the right to intermarry, would be ready to submit to the levy.

[5] But since Canuleius was grown so great through his victory over the patricians and the favour of the plebs, the other tribunes were encouraged to take up the quarrel; and they fought for their measure with the utmost violence, hindering the levy, though the rumours of war increased from day to day. [6] The consuls, since they were powerless to do anything through the senate when the tribunes interposed their veto,¹⁸ held councils of their leading men in private. It was clear that they must submit to be conquered either by the enemy or by their fellow citizens. [7] Of all the consulars only Valerius and Horatius¹⁹ took no part in their deliberations. Gaius Claudius spoke in favour of arming the consuls against the tribunes; the Quinctii, both Cincinnatus and Capitolinus, were opposed to bloodshed and to injuring those whom they had acknowledged by a solemn treaty with the plebs to be inviolable. [8] The upshot of these consultations was this, that they permitted military tribunes with consular authority to be chosen indifferently from the patriciate and the plebs,²⁰ but made no change in the election of consuls. With this decision both tribunes and commons were content. An election was called, for [p. 279]choosing three tribunes with consular powers. [9] No²¹ sooner was it proclaimed than everybody who had ever spoken or acted in a seditious manner, especially those who had been tribunes, fell to canvassing voters and bustling about all over the Forum in the white robes of candidates; [10] so that the patricians, what with despair of obtaining office now that the plebs were so wrought up, and what with scorn if they must share its administration with these fellows, were deterred from standing. At last, however, they were compelled by their leaders to compete, lest they might seem to have surrendered the control of the commonwealth. [11] The outcome of this election showed how different are men's minds when struggling for liberty and station from what they are when they have laid aside their animosities and their judgment is unbiassed; for the people chose all the tribunes from among the patricians, quite satisfied that plebeians should have been allowed to stand. [12] Where shall you now find in one single man that moderation, fairness, and loftiness of mind, which at that time characterized the entire people?

7. In the year three hundred and ten from B.C. 444 the founding of Rome, military tribunes for the first time took office in place of consuls. Their names were Aulus Sempronius Atratinus, Lucius Atilius,²² and Titus Cloelius. During their administration domestic harmony insured peace abroad, as well. [2] (Some say that on account of a war with Veii, which broke out in addition to the war with the Aequi and Volsci and the revolt of the men of Ardea, two consuls were unable to cope with so many wars at once, and therefore three military tribunes were created. These writers say nothing of the [p. 281]promulgation of a law about the election of consuls²³ from the plebs, but record that the three tribunes enjoyed the authority and insignia²⁴ of consuls.) [3] Still, the power of that magistracy was not yet upon a firm footing, for three months after they had taken up their office they laid it down, the augurs having decreed that there had been a flaw in their election, because Gaius Curtius, who had presided over the assembly, had not properly selected the ground for the tent.²⁵

[4] Ambassadors from Ardea came to Rome, complaining of the injustice done them, and with such fairness that it was evident that if they [5??] were granted redress, through the restoration of their land, they would abide by the treaty and remain friendly. The senate replied that the judgment of the people could not be rescinded by them, not only because they had no precedent or authority for such action, but also because they had regard to the harmony between the orders. [6] If the Ardeates would bide their time and leave the senate to decide upon a remedy for the injury done them, the day would come when they would be glad that they had controlled their anger, and they would learn that the senators had been equally concerned that no wrong should be done them and that what had been done should be speedily redressed. [7] So the ambassadors, having said that they would refer the whole matter to their people, were courteously dismissed.

The patricians, since the state was without any curule magistrate, met and chose an interrex. [8] A dispute whether consuls or military tribunes should be appointed kept the state in an interregnum for [p. 283]several days. The interrex and the senate held out²⁶ for the election of consuls; the plebeian tribunes and the plebs were for military tribunes. [9] Victory rested with the senators, not only because the plebs gave up the idle contest whether they should confer this honour or that upon the patricians, but also because the leaders of the plebs preferred an election in which they would not be reckoned candidates to one in which they would be passed over as unworthy. [10] The tribunes, too, of the plebs relinquished the unavailing contest in favour of the leaders of the patricians. Titus Quinctius Barbatus, as interrex, declared the election of Lucius Papirius Mugillanus and Lucius Sempronius Atratinus. [11] In their consulship the treaty with the Ardeates was renewed; and in this lies the proof that these men were consuls that year, although their names are found neither in the ancient annals²⁷ nor in the lists of magistrates;²⁸ I suppose that, because there were military tribunes in the beginning of the year, the consuls who were elected in their place were passed over as if the tribunes had been in power throughout the year. [12] Licinius Macer testifies that the names of these consuls were given both in the treaty with Ardea and in the Linen Rolls in the temple of Moneta.²⁹ Things were quiet both abroad and at home, despite the numerous alarms which neighbouring states had caused.

8. This year, whether it had tribunes only or B.C. 443 tribunes succeeded by consuls, was followed by one [p. 285]which had consuls about whom there is no question.³⁰ These were Marcus Geganius Macerinus, for the second time, and Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, for the fifth time. [2] This same year saw the adoption of the censorship, an institution which originated in a small way but afterwards grew to such dimensions that it was invested with the regulation of the morals and discipline of the Romans. The distribution of honour and ignominy amongst the senate and the centuries of the knights was controlled by this magistracy, while jurisdiction over public and private sites, together with the revenues of the Roman People, were entirely subject to its discretion. [3] What first gave rise to the office was this: the people had not been rated for many years and the census could not be postponed; yet the consuls, when so many nations threatened war, had no time for this work. [4] The subject was brought up in the senate, where it was held that the task, which was a laborious one and beneath the dignity of a consul, required its own proper magistrates, who should have a staff of clerks, assume the custody of the records, and regulate the form of the census. [5] The senators, though it was a small matter, nevertheless gladly welcomed the suggestion, in order that there might be more patrician magistracies in the administration of the state. They thought even then, I imagine, as afterwards proved to be the case, that it would not be long before the consequence of those who held the office would lend authority and dignity to the office itself. [6] The tribunes also, regarding it as a necessary rather than a showy service, as in those days it actually was, did not hold out against the plan, lest they [p. 287]might seem to be vexatiously obstinate even in³¹ trifles. [7] The principal men in the state scorned the office, and the taking of the census was, by the votes of the people, committed to Papirius and Sempronius (whose consulship is questioned), that they might round out their incomplete year of office with this magistracy. They were called censors from their function.

9. While these things were going on in Rome, there came envoys from Ardea begging the Romans in the name of their ancient alliance, renewed by the recent treaty, to send help to their city, which was on the brink of ruin. [2] For the enjoyment of peace, which they had most wisely preserved with the Roman People, had been denied them, owing to civil war. [3] This is said to have had its cause and origin in the rivalry of factions, which have been and will be fraught with destruction to more nations than foreign wars, or famine and pestilence, or whatsoever other scourges men attribute, as the most desperate national calamities, to the wrath of Heaven. [4] A maiden of plebeian family who was famous for her beauty had two youthful suitors. One was of her own class and relied on the approval of her guardians, who were themselves of the same standing. [5] The other was a noble, captivated solely by her good looks, who was supported by the favour of the optimates,³² which resulted in the introduction of party strife into the household of the girl herself. The noble was preferred by the mother, who wished her daughter to make as grand a match as possible. The guardians, mindful even in a matter like this of political interests, held out for their fellow plebeian. [6] When the dispute could not be settled [p. 289]privately, a suit was instituted. After listening to the³³ pleas of the mother and the guardians, the magistrates decreed that the mother should have power to decide as she saw fit about the marriage. [7] But violence was stronger than they; for the guardians, after openly addressing a crowd of their own party in the market-place, on the injustice³⁴ of the decision, collected a party and carried the girl off from her mother's house. [8] To confront them an even more warlike band of nobles gathered, under the leadership of the injured and indignant youth, and a desperate battle followed. The plebs were routed, but, unlike the Roman plebs, having armed and withdrawn from their city and encamped upon a certain hill, they sallied forth, sword and torch in hand, to sack the farms of the nobles. [9] They even prepared to besiege the city itself, for the entire body of artizans, even those who had hitherto had no part in the quarrel, had been called out by the hope of plunder; [10] nor was there wanting any form of the horrors of war, as though the nation had been infected with the madness of the two young men who sought a fatal marriage in the ruin of their country. [11] Neither side saw that there had been enough of war and arms at home; the optimates called upon the Romans to relieve their beleaguered city; the plebeians sent for the Volsci to help them capture Ardea. [12] The Volsci, with the Aequian Cluilius for their leader,³⁵ were the first to reach Ardea, and threw up intrenchments against the walls of their enemies. [13] When the news was brought to Rome, Marcus Geganius the consul immediately set out with an army. When three miles from the enemy he chose a place for his camp; and as the day was [p. 291]now fast drawing to a close, ordered his soldiers³⁶ to refresh themselves. [14] Then in the fourth watch he marched out, and commencing a contravallation, made such speed that at sunrise the Volsci perceived that they were more securely hemmed in by the Romans than was the city by themselves; and on one side the consul had thrown out a work to join the walls of Ardea, in order that his friends in the town might be enabled to come and go.³⁷

10. The Volscian commander, who had maintained his men up to that time not out of a store provided in advance, but with corn taken from day to day in pillaging the country-side, was no sooner shut in by the rampart than he found himself all at once destitute of everything. He therefore invited the consul to a parley, and said that if the Roman general had come for the purpose of raising the siege, he would lead the Volscians off. [2] The consul replied that it was for the conquered to accept terms, not to make them; the Volsci had consulted their own pleasure in coming to attack the allies of the Roman People; it would be otherwise with their departure. [3] He ordered them to surrender their general, to lay down their arms, and, confessing themselves defeated, to yield to his authority; if they did not, he would be their determined enemy, whether they attempted to go or to stay, and would rather bring back to Rome a victory over the Volsci than a treacherous peace with them. [4] The Volsci, testing the small hope that arms held out to them —for all other hope had been cut off —fought, not to speak of other disadvantages, in a position that was unfavourable for battle and still more unfavourable [p. 293]for flight; and being cut to pieces on every side,³⁸ left off fighting and fell to entreaties; and after giving up their general and handing over their weapons, were sent under the yoke, with a single garment each, and so dismissed, overwhelmed with shame and disaster. [5] But on their encamping not far from the city of Tusculum, the Tusculans, upon an old grudge, attacked them in their defenseless state, and exacted so heavy a penalty that they scarce left any to report the massacre. [6] The Roman commander, finding Ardea distracted by sedition, composed its troubles by beheading the ringleaders of the revolt and confiscating their property to the public treasury of the Ardeates. The townsmen thought that the great service which the Roman People had thus rendered them had cancelled the injustice of the judgment,³⁹ but the Roman senate felt that something still remained to do in order to wipe out that reminder of the national greed. [7] The consul returned to the City and triumphed, making Cluilius, the leader of the Volsci, walk before his chariot, and displaying the spoils which he had taken from the hostile army, before sending them under the yoke.

[8] It is no easy thing to do, but the consul Quinctius equalled in civil life the fame of his armed colleague; for so well did he maintain domestic peace and concord, by tempering the law to high and low, that the Fathers regarded him as a strict consul, and the plebs as mild enough. [9] He held his own, too, with the tribunes, more by his personal influence than by contending with them. Five consulships administered on the self-same principles, and a life which had been throughout of consular [p. 295]dignity, made the man himself almost more revered⁴⁰ than his office. Hence there was no talk of military tribunes while these men were consuls.

11. Marcus Fabius Vibulanus and Postumus⁴¹ Aebutius Cornicen were elected to the consulship. [2] These men, perceiving that they succeeded to a period of great renown for civil and military achievements, and that nothing made the year so memorable in the eyes of neighbouring peoples, both allies and enemies, as the earnestness with which the Romans had come to the assistance of the Ardeates in their dangerous crisis, were the more concerned to erase completely from men's minds the disgrace of the judgment. [3] They accordingly caused the senate to decree that inasmuch as the citizens of Ardea had been reduced by domestic troubles to a small number, colonists should be enrolled to defend that city against the Volsci. [4] This was the form in which the decree was drawn up and published,⁴² that the plebs and the tribunes might not perceive that a plan was on foot for rescinding the judgment; but the senators had privately agreed that they would enrol as colonists a much larger proportion of Rutulians than Romans, and that no land should be parcelled out except that which had been sequestered by the infamous decision, nor a single clod assigned there to any Roman until all the Rutulians had been provided for. [5] Thus the land reverted to the Ardeates. As triumvirs for establishing the colony at Ardea they appointed Agrippa Menenius, Titus Cloelius Siculus, Marcus Aebutius Helva. [6] These men not only had a far from popular service to perform, and offended the plebs by assigning to the allies land which the Roman People [p. 297]had adjudged to be its own; but failed to satisfy even⁴³ the great patricians, because they had done nothing to conciliate any man's goodwill. [7] They therefore avoided vexatious attacks before the people —where the tribunes had already summoned them for trial —by remaining in the colony, which bore witness to their integrity and justice.

12. There was peace at home and abroad during⁴⁴ this and the following year, when Gaius Furius Paculus and Marcus Papirius Crassus were consuls. [2] The games which the decemvirs had vowed in pursuance of a decree of the senate, during the secession of the plebs from the patricians, were that year celebrated. [3] Occasion for dissension was sought in vain by Poetelius, who though he had got himself elected plebeian tribune for the second time, by proclaiming that he would carry through these very measures, was unsuccessful in forcing the consuls to lay before the senate a proposal for assigning land to the plebs; [4] and when, after a hard struggle, he obtained a vote of the senate to determine whether consuls or tribunes should be elected, the decision was for consuls. [5] Men only laughed when the tribune threatened to hold up the levy, for the neighbouring peoples were quiet, and war and warlike preparations were alike uncalled for.

[6] To this tranquil period succeeded the consulship of Proculus Geganius Macerinus and Lucius Menenius Lanatus, a year conspicuous for numerous deaths and dangers, for seditions, famine, and for the yoke of sovereignty, to which, won over by largesses, men almost bowed their necks. [7] The one thing lacking was foreign war, and if that had been added to their burden they could hardly have held out, though all [p. 299]the gods had aided them. The troubles began with⁴⁵ a dreadful famine, whether because the season was unfavourable for crops, or that the attraction of assemblies and city-life had left the fields uncultivated; for both explanations have been given. The patricians accused the plebeians of idleness, and the tribunes of the plebs accused the consuls now of dishonesty, now of carelessness. [8] In the end they brought the plebs, with no opposition on the senate's part, to elect Lucius Minucius prefect of the corn-supply. He was destined, while filling this magistracy, to be more successful in safe-guarding liberty than in discharging the duties of his office, although in the end he also earned and received both gratitude and glory for relieving the scarcity. [9] For although he had dispatched to neighbouring peoples many embassies by land and sea without result —save that a little corn was brought in from Etruria —he found that he had not materially improved the supply. He then fell back upon the plan of distributing the shortage. [10] He forced men to declare their stocks of corn and to sell the surplus above the requirements of a month; he deprived the slaves of a portion of their daily ration; he brought charges against the dealers and exposed them to the anger of the people; [11] and by this bitter inquisition rather revealed than alleviated the scarcity, so that many of the plebeians lost hope, and sooner than suffer torment by prolonging their existence, covered up their heads⁴⁶ and threw themselves into the Tiber.

13. Then Spurius Maelius, of the equestrian⁴⁷ order,⁴⁸ a man for those times very rich, undertook to do a useful thing in a way that set a very bad example and had a motive still worse. [2] For having [p. 301]bought up corn in Etruria with his own money,⁴⁹ through the agency of friends and clients there — which very circumstance had hindered, I can well believe, the public efforts to bring down prices —he set about distributing it gratis. [3] The plebeians were captivated by this munificence; wherever he went, conspicuous and important beyond the measure of a private citizen, they followed in his train; and the devotion and hope he inspired in them gave him no uncertain assurance of the consulship. [4] He himself, so insatiable of fortune's promises is the heart of man, began to cherish a loftier and less allowable ambition; and since even the consulship would have to be wrested from unwilling nobles, considered how he might be king: nothing else, he felt, would adequately reward him for his elaborate schemes and the toil and moil of the great struggle he must make. [5] The consular election was now at hand, and found him with his plans not yet fully ripened. [6] For the sixth time Titus Quinctius Capitolinus was chosen consul, a most unsuitable man for the purposes of a would-be revolutionary. [7] For colleague he was given Agrippa Menenius, surnamed Lanatus; and Lucius Minucius either was reappointed prefect of the corn-supply or had been named for an indefinite period, so long as the situation should require; for authorities do not agree, but the name of the prefect is entered in the Linen Rolls among the magistrates for both years. [8] This Minucius was discharging the same function in his public capacity which Maelius had undertaken to perform as a private citizen, and the same sort of men⁵⁰ were coming and going in both their houses. [9] Thus Minucius discovered the affair and reported to the senate that weapons were [p. 303]being collected at the house of Maelius, that he⁵¹ was haranguing people there, and that they were certainly contriving a kingdom; the time for executing the plot was not yet fixed; all else had been agreed upon: the tribunes had been bribed to betray liberty, and the leaders of the mob had been assigned their parts. He said that he had withheld his report of these things almost longer than was safe, that he might not become voucher for anything of an uncertain or trivial nature. [10] On hearing this the leaders of the senate loudly blamed the consuls of the year before because they had suffered these donations and plebeian gatherings to take place in a private house, and the new consuls because they had waited till information of so grave a crime was laid before the senate by the prefect of the corn-supply, though it wanted a consul not only to report it but to punish it; [11] but Quinctius said that the consuls were blamed unjustly, for, constrained by the laws of appeal, which had been enacted in order to break down their authority, they had by no means so much power in their office as they had will to punish so heinous an offence in the way it deserved. There was need, he continued, of a man, and one who was not only brave, but free and unfettered by the laws. [12] He would therefore name Lucius Quinctius dictator; there was a spirit whose stature was equal to that great power. Despite the universal approval of this step, Quinctius at first refused, and asked what they meant by exposing him at the end of his life to so fierce a struggle. [13] Then, when men called out on every side that there was not only more wisdom but more courage in that old man's heart than in all the rest and loaded him with not [p. 305]unmerited compliments, and when the consul would⁵² [14??] not recede from his purpose, at length Cincinnatus uttered a prayer to the immortal gods that they would not suffer his old age to bring harm or shame to the republic in so perilous a case, and was pronounced dictator by the consul. He then himself named Gaius Servilius Ahala his master of the horse.

14. The next day, after disposing guards at⁵³ several points he went down into the Forum, where the novel and surprising sight drew upon him the attention of the plebs. [2] The followers of Maelius and their leader himself perceived that it was against them that the force of that high authority was aimed; while those who knew nothing of the plans for setting up a king asked what outbreak or what sudden war had called for the majesty of a dictator or for Quinctius (now past his eightieth year) to direct the state. [3] Then Servilius, the master of the horse, being sent by the dictator to Maelius, said: “The dictator summons you.” When Maelius, trembling, asked what he wanted, Servilius replied that he must stand his trial and clear himself of a charge which Minucius had lodged against him with the senate. [4] Then Maelius drew back into the crowd of his retainers, and at first, glancing this way and that, attempted to avoid the issue; but finally, when the attendant, being so commanded by the master of the horse, would have led him away, he was torn from his grasp by the bystanders and fled, calling on the Roman plebs to protect him, declaring that he was overthrown by [5??] a plot of the patricians because he had acted kindly by the commons, and begging them to help him in his extremity and not permit him to be murdered before their eyes. [6] While [p. 307]he was screaming out these appeals, Servilius Ahala⁵⁴ overtook and slew him; then, bespattered with his blood and guarded by a company of young nobles, he returned to the dictator and reported that Maelius, having been summoned to appear before him, had repulsed the attendant and was rousing up the populace when he received the punishment he had deserved. [7] Whereat the dictator exclaimed, “Well done, Gaius Servilius; you have delivered the commonwealth!”

15. Then, as the crowd was in a turmoil, not knowing what to think of the deed, he bade convoke them to an assembly. There he asserted that Maelius had been justly slain, even though he had been innocent of plotting to make himself king, since he had been cited before the dictator by the master of the horse and had not obeyed. [2] He himself, he said, had sat to hear the cause, and if the hearing had been concluded Maelius would have prospered as his cause deserved; but, planning violence to avoid undergoing trial, he had been repressed by violence. [3] Neither would it have been right to deal with Maelius as with a citizen. The man had been born amongst a free people enjoying rights and laws, in a City from which he knew that the kings had been banished, and how in that very year the king's nephews,⁵⁵ sons of the consul who had freed his country, had, on the exposure of a compact they had made to bring the princes back to Rome, been beheaded by their father's orders. [4] He knew that in this City the consul Tarquinius Collatinus had been commanded, out of hatred for the name he bore, to lay down his office and go into exile; that here, some years after, Spurius Cassius⁵⁶ had been punished for aiming at [p. 309]royalty; that here, but lately, the decemvirs had⁵⁷ been visited with confiscation, banishment, and death, because of kingly arrogance. [5] Yet in this same City a Spurius Maelius had conceived the hope of reigning. And who was this fellow? To be sure, no nobility, no honours, no merits, opened wide the road to tyranny for any man; nevertheless the Claudii⁵⁸ and Cassii had been encouraged by consulships and decemvirates, by their own honours and those of their forefathers, and by the splendour of their families, to aim at forbidden heights; [6] Spurius Maelius, a rich corn-dealer, a man who might have desired but ought scarcely to have hoped to become a plebeian tribune, had flattered himself that for a couple of pounds of spelt he had purchased the liberty of his fellow citizens; [7] he had imagined that by flinging food to them he could entice into slavery a people who had conquered all their neighbours, so that a state which could scarce have stomached him as a senator would endure him for its king, having the insignia and authority of Romulus its founder, who was descended from the gods and had returned to them. [8] This ought to be regarded as a thing no less monstrous than wicked; nor was his blood sufficient expiation, unless the roof and walls within which such madness had been conceived should be demolished, and the goods which had been tainted with the offer of them as the price to buy a tyranny be confiscated; he therefore bade the quaestors sell those goods and place the proceeds in the public treasury.

16. Quinctius then commanded the man's house⁵⁹ to be pulled down, that the bare site might commemorate the frustration of his wicked purpose. The [p. 311]place was named Aequimaelium.⁶⁰ [2] Lucius Minucius⁶¹ was presented with an ox and a gilded statue outside the Porta Trigemina, without opposition even on the part of the plebs, since Minucius divided the corn of Maelius among them at the price of one as the peck. [3] I find it stated by some historians that this Minucius went over from the patricians to the plebeians, and being co-opted an eleventh tribune of the plebs, allayed the rebellious feeling which arose from the killing of Maelius; [4] but it is hardly credible that the patricians should have permitted the number of tribunes to be increased, and that this precedent, of all others, should have been introduced by a patrician; or that the plebs, having once obtained this concession, should not have held fast to it, or at least have tried to do so. But what proves more conclusively than anything the falsity of the inscription on his portrait is this, that it was enacted by law a few years before that the tribunes might not co-opt a colleague.⁶² [5] Quintus Caecilius, Quintus Junius, and Sextus Titinius were the only members of the college of tribunes who had not supported the law conferring honours on Minucius, and had never ceased to accuse now Minucius, now Servilius, before the plebs, and to complain of the unmerited death of Maelius. [6] So they forced through a measure providing that military tribunes should be elected instead of consuls, not doubting that for some of the six places —for this was now the number that might be filled —plebeians would be chosen, if they would promise to avenge the death of Maelius. [7] The plebeians, though they had been aroused that year by many different commotions, elected no more than three tribunes with consular powers, and among [p. 313]these Lucius Quinctius, son of Cincinnatus, from⁶³ whose dictatorship men were trying to derive the odium for inspiring a mutiny. [8] Aemilius Mamercus, a man of the highest standing, was ahead of Quinctius in the voting; Lucius Julius was elected third.

17. During the term of these magistrates,⁶⁴ Fidenae, a Roman colony, revolted to Lars Tolumnius and the Veientes. [2] To their defection they added a worse crime, for when Gaius Fulcinius, Cloelius Tullus, Spurius Antius, and Lucius Roscius, Roman envoys, came to inquire the reason of this new policy, at the command of Tolumnius they put them to death. [3] Some persons seek to palliate the king's act, saying that an ambiguous expression of his upon a lucky throw of dice, which made him seem to order them to kill the envoys, was heard by the Fidenates and was responsible for the men's death. [4] But it is quite incredible that the king on being interrupted by the Fidenates, his new allies, come to consult him about a murder that would violate the law of nations, should not have withdrawn his attention from the game, and that the attribution of the crime to a mistake did not come later. [5] It is easier to believe that he wished the people of Fidenae to be involved by the consciousness of so heinous a deed, that it might be impossible for them to hope for any reconciliation with the Romans. [6] The envoys who had been slain at Fidenae were honoured, at the public cost, with statues on the Rostra.⁶⁵ [7] With the Veientes and Fidenates, not only because they were neighbouring peoples, but also in consequence of the nefarious act with which they had begun the war, a bitter struggle now impended.

[p. 315] Accordingly, out of regard for the general welfare,⁶⁶ the plebeians and their tribunes kept quiet, and raised no opposition to the election as consuls of Marcus Geganius Macerinus (for the third time) and Lucius Sergius Fidenas. [8] I suppose that the name was given him from the war which he then waged; for he was the first who fought a successful battle on this side the Anio with the king of the Veientes; but he gained no bloodless victory, and so there was more grief for the citizens who were lost than rejoicing over the defeat of the enemy; and the senate, as is usual in an alarming situation, commanded the appointment of a dictator, Mamercus Aemilius. [9] He named as his master of the horse a man who had been his colleague the year before, when they had both been military tribunes with consular authority, namely Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a young man worthy of his father. [10] To the troops which the consuls levied were added veteran centurions experienced in war, and the losses of the last battle were made good. The dictator bade Titus Quinctius Capitolinus and Marcus Fabius Vibulanus follow him as his lieutenants. [11] The high authority of the dictatorship, in the hands of one who was equal to it, drove the enemy out of Roman territory and across the Anio. They withdrew their camp and pitched upon the hills between Fidenae and the Anio; nor did they descend into the plains until the forces of the Faliscans had come to their support. [12] Then, and not till then, did the Etruscans encamp before the walls of Fidenae. The Roman dictator likewise went into camp not far off, on the banks of both rivers, at their confluence, and threw up a rampart between his army and the enemy, where he [p. 317]was able to span the interval with intrenchments.^{67 68} Next day he formed up in line of battle.

18. The enemy were of several minds. The Faliscans, chafing under service performed away from home⁶⁹ and fairly self-confident, demanded battle: the Veientes and Fidenates anticipated greater success from a prolongation of the war. [2] Tolumnius, though the views of his own followers were more agreeable to him, announced that he would fight on the following day, lest the Faliscans might not tolerate a protracted campaign. [3] The dictator and the Romans were encouraged at the enemy's reluctance; and the next day, on the soldiers threatening that they would at once attack the camp and the city, unless the enemy came to an engagement, both armies marched out in line of battle into the plain between the two camps. [4] The Veientes, having men to spare, dispatched a party round the mountains to assail the camp of the Romans during the engagement. The army of the three nations was so drawn up that the Veientes held the right wing, the Faliscans the left, and the Fidenates formed the centre. [5] The dictator advanced on the right, against the Faliscans, and Quinctius Capitolinus on the left, to meet the Veientes; while the master of the horse, with the cavalry, led the attack on the centre. [6] For a brief moment all was hushed and still; since the Etruscans were resolved not to begin fighting unless they were forced, and the dictator kept looking back to the Citadel of Rome, that the augurs might thence make him a signal, as they had arranged to do, the moment the omens were propitious. [7] As soon as he descried the signal, he first sent his cavalry against the enemy, [p. 319]cheering as they charged; and the infantry followed⁷⁰ with a furious attack. [8] At no point could the Etruscan legions withstand the onset of the Romans; their horse made the chief resistance, and of all their horse by far the bravest was the king himself, who rode against the Romans, as they scattered in every direction for the pursuit, and prolonged the struggle.

19. There was at that time among the cavalrymen a tribune of the soldiers named Aulus Cornelius Cossus, a man of strikingly handsome person and no less distinguished for courage and strength. Proud of his name, which was very famous when it came to him, he left to his descendants one still greater and more glorious. [2] This man, seeing how Tolumnius, wherever he charged, brought confusion to the Roman squadrons, and recognizing him, conspicuous in his royal dress, as he galloped swiftly up and down the line, exclaimed, “Is this the breaker of human leagues, the violater of the law of nations? [3] I will speedily offer him up as a sacrificial victim, if only it is the will of Heaven that there should be aught sacred on this earth, to the manes of the envoys!” [4] Clapping spurs to his charger and levelling his spear, he made for his one enemy. Having struck and unhorsed his man, he himself leaped quickly to the ground by the help of his lance, and as the king struggled to his feet flung him back with the boss of his shield, and plunging the spear again and again into his body, pinned him to earth. [5] Then stripping the spoils from the corpse and cutting off the head, he bore it victoriously on the point of his spear and drove the enemy before him, panic-stricken at the sight of their slain king. Thus [p. 321]even the cavalry was routed, which alone had made⁷¹ the issue of the contest doubtful. [6] The dictator pressed on after the flying legions, and pursuing them to their camp cut them to pieces. Large numbers of the Fidenates escaped, thanks to their knowledge of the ground, into the mountains. Cossus crossed the Tiber with his cavalry, and from the fields of the Veientes brought a vast quantity of booty back to town. [7] During the battle there was also fighting at the Roman camp with a part of the forces of Tolumnius which he had dispatched against it, as has been said before. [8] Fabius Vibulanus first manned the rampart with a cordon of defenders; and then, when the attention of the enemy was fixed on the wall, sallied out of the Porta Principalis, on the right,⁷² with his reserves,⁷³ and fell suddenly upon them. In consequence of the panic thus occasioned, though the slaughter was less, because fewer were engaged, yet the rout was quite as complete as in the battle-line.

20. Having been everywhere victorious, the dictator, as decreed by the senate and ratified by the people, returned to the City in triumphal procession. [2] By far the greatest spectacle in the triumph was Cossus, bearing the spoils of honour of the slain king, while the soldiers sang rude verses about him, comparing him to Romulus. [3] The spoils he fastened up as an offering, with solemn dedication, in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, near the spoils of Romulus, which had been the first to be called opima, and were at that time the only ones. Cossus had drawn the gaze of the citizens away from the car of the dictator upon himself, and the honours of that crowded festival were virtually his alone. [4] The [p. 323]dictator, at the people's behest, presented to Jupiter⁷⁴ on the Capitol a golden chaplet of a pound in weight, from the public treasury.

[5] Following all previous historians, I have stated that Aulus Cornelius Cossus was a military tribune when he brought the second spoils of honour to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. [6] But besides that only those are properly held to be “spoils of honour” which one commander has taken from another commander, and that we know no “commander” but him under whose auspices the war is waged, the very words inscribed upon the spoils disprove their account and mine, and show that it was as consul that Cossus captured them. [7] Having heard from the lips of Augustus Caesar, the founder or renewer of all the temples, that he had entered the shrine of Jupiter Feretrius, which he repaired when it had crumbled with age, and had himself read the inscription on the linen breast-plate, I have thought it would be almost sacrilege to rob Cossus of such a witness to his spoils as Caesar, the restorer of that very temple.⁷⁵ [8] Where the error in regard to this matter lies, in consequence of which such ancient annals and also the books of the magistrates, written on linen and deposited in the temple of Moneta, which Licinius Macer cites from time to time as his authority, only give Aulus Cornelius Cossus as consul (with Titus Quinctius Poenus) seven years later, is a matter on which everybody is entitled to his opinion. [9] For there is this further reason why so famous a battle could not be transferred to the later year, that the consulship of Cossus fell within a period of about three years when there were no wars, owing to a pestilence and a dearth of crops, so that [p. 325]certain annals, as though death-registers, offer⁷⁶ nothing but the names of the consuls. [10] The third year after Cossus's consulship saw him military tribune with consular powers, and in the same year he was master of the horse, in which office he fought another famous cavalry-engagement. [11] Here is freedom for conjecture, but in my opinion it is idle; for one may brush aside all theories when the man who fought the battle, after placing the newly-won spoils in their sacred resting-place, testified in the presence of Jupiter himself, to whom he had vowed them, and of Romulus —witnesses not to be held lightly by a forger —that he was Aulus Cornelius Cossus, consul.⁷⁷

21. When Marcus Cornelius Maluginensis and⁷⁸ Lucius Papirius Crassus were consuls, armies invaded the country of the Veientes and the Faliscans and drove off booty consisting of men and flocks; [2] they nowhere encountered their enemies in the fields nor met with any opportunity to give them battle; still, they besieged no cities, for a pestilence attacked the people. [3] And seditions were attempted at home, but not brought about, by Spurius Maelius, tribune of the plebs, who, imagining that the popularity of his name would enable him to stir up trouble, had appointed a day for the prosecution of Minucius, and had also proposed a law for confiscating the goods of Servilius Ahala, maintaining that [4??] Maelius had been circumvented by Minucius with false accusations, and flinging it up to Servilius that he had killed a citizen who had not been condemned. [5] These charges were even less regarded by the people than was their author. But the increasing virulence of the disease gave concern, and so did certain alarms and prodigies; [p. 327]in particular that it was frequently announced that⁷⁹ farm-buildings had been thrown down by earthquakes. A supplication was therefore offered up by the people under the direction of the duumviri.⁸⁰

[6] The pestilence was worse next year, when Gaius Julius (for the second time) and Lucius Verginius were the consuls, and caused such fears and ravages in the City and the country that not only did [7??] no one go out beyond the Roman marches to pillage, nor either patricians or plebs have any thought of waging war, but the men of Fidenae, who at first had kept to their mountains or their city walls, actually came down into Roman territory, bent on plunder. [8] Then, when they had called in an army from Veii —for the Faliscans could not be driven into renewing the war either by the calamity of the Romans or the entreaties of their allies, —the two peoples crossed the Anio and set up their standards not far from the Colline Gate. [9] The consternation in the City was therefore no less than in the fields; the consul Julius disposed his troops on the rampart and walls, and Verginius took counsel with the senate in the temple of Quirinus. [10] It was resolved that Quintus Servilius, whose surname some give as Priscus, others as Structus, should be appointed dictator. Verginius delayed till he could consult his colleague; then, with his consent, he that night named the dictator, who appointed as his master of the horse Postumus Aebutius Helva.

22. The dictator commanded everybody to be outside the Colline Gate at break of day. All those who were able to bear arms were at hand. The [p. 329]standards were taken out of the treasury and brought⁸¹ to the dictator. [2] While this was going on, the enemy withdrew to a more elevated position. Thither the dictator marched under arms, and not far from Nomentum joined battle with the Etruscan forces and put them to rout. [3] From there he drove them into the city of Fidenae, which he surrounded with a rampart; but could not capture it with scaling-ladders, since it was a lofty, well-fortified town, nor accomplish anything by blockade, for they not only had corn enough for their necessities, but in fact were lavishly supplied with it from stores which they had collected in advance. [4] In despair therefore alike of storming the place and of forcing it to surrender; the dictator, operating in a region which was familiar from its nearness to Rome, began, on the farthest side of the city, which was least guarded because its peculiar character made it the safest of all, to drive a mine into the citadel. [5] He himself, advancing against the city from widely separated points-with his army in four divisions, that they might relieve one another in the attack —by [6] fighting continuously day and night distracted the enemy's attention from the work, until a tunnel had been dug through the hill and a passage-way constructed up into the citadel; when the Etruscans, intent on groundless alarms and unmindful of their real danger, were apprised by the shouts of the enemy above their heads that their city had been taken.

[7] In that year Gaius Furius Paculus and Marcus Geganius Macerinus the censors approved a public building erected in the Campus Martius, and the census of the people was taken there for the first time.

[p. 331] 23. That the same consuls were re-elected⁸² the following year (Julius for a third and Verginius for a second term) I find stated by Licinius Macer: Valerius Antias and Quintus Tubero give Marcus Manlius and Quintus Sulpicius as the consuls for that year. [2] For the rest, in spite of the great discrepancy in their statements, both Tubero and Macer cite the authority of the Linen Rolls; neither writer dissembles the fact that the elder historians had recorded that there were military tribunes for that year. [3] Licinius sees fit to follow without hesitation the Linen Rolls: Tubero is uncertain where the truth lies. With all the other matters which are shrouded in antiquity this question too may be left undecided.⁸³

[4] There was great alarm in Etruria in consequence of the capture of Fidenae. Not only were the people of Veii terrified by the fear of a similar disaster, but the Faliscans too remembered that they had commenced the war in alliance with the Fidenates, although they had not supported them in their revolt. [5] Accordingly when the two states, sending envoys round amongst the twelve cities, had obtained their consent to have a council proclaimed for all Etruria at the shrine of Voltumna, the senate, feeling that they were threatened with a great outbreak in that quarter, ordered that Mamercus Aemilius be again named dictator. [6] By him Aulus Postumius Tubertus was appointed master of the horse, and preparations for war were set about as much more energetically than on the last occasion, as the danger from all Etruria was greater than it had been from two cities.

[p. 333] 24. This affair ended a good deal more quietly⁸⁴ than anybody had anticipated. [2] It was reported by merchants⁸⁵ that the Veientes had been refused assistance and had been told that having embarked on the war at their own discretion they must prosecute it with their own forces nor seek the alliance of those in their adversity with whom they had not shared the prospect of success. [3] Whereupon the dictator, that his appointment might not have been for nothing, was desirous, being deprived of the means of winning military renown, of accomplishing some peaceful achievement to signalize his dictatorship. He therefore laid his plans to weaken the censorship, either thinking its powers excessive, or troubled less by the greatness of the office than by its long duration. [4] So, calling an assembly, he said that the immortal gods had undertaken to manage the foreign relations of the state and to make everything safe: he himself would do what needed to be done within the City, and would defend the liberty of the Roman People. Now the greatest safeguard was that great powers should not be long-continued, but that a limit of time should be imposed on them, since no limit of jurisdiction could be. Other magistracies were tenable for one year, the censorship for five. [5] It was a serious matter for the same man to have authority over people for so many years, in a great part of their affairs. He announced that he should propose a law that the censorship might not last longer than a year and a half. [6] With vast enthusiasm on the part of the people the law was next day enacted, and Mamercus exclaimed, “That you may have positive proof, Quirites, how little I approve prolonged authority, I lay down my [p. 335]dictatorship.” [7] Thus, having resigned his own⁸⁶ magistracy and assigned a limit for the other, he was escorted to his home by the people, with striking manifestations of rejoicing and good-will. The censors, in their indignation that Mamercus had abridged a magistracy of the Roman People, removed him from his tribe, and assessing him at eight times his former tax, disfranchised him.⁸⁷ This they say Mamercus bore with great fortitude, having regard rather to the cause of his humiliation than to the humiliation itself. The leading patricians, though they had opposed the curtailment of the jurisdiction of the censorship, were offended by this example of censorial ruthlessness, since each of them perceived that he should be subjected to the censor for a longer period and more frequently than he should hold the [9] censor's office. The people at any rate are said to have been so enraged that no man's influence but that of Mamercus himself could have shielded the censors from their violence.

25. The tribunes of the plebs by persistent⁸⁸ opposition prevented the consular elections from taking place. At last, when matters had been brought almost to an interregnum, they succeeded in their contention that military tribunes with consular powers should be chosen. [2] Though they hoped their victory would be rewarded by the choice of a plebeian, they were disappointed: all those who were elected were patricians, Marcus Fabius Vibulanus, Marcus Folius, Lucius Sergius Fidenas. [3] An epidemic that year afforded a respite from other troubles. A temple was vowed to Apollo in behalf of the people's health. The duumviri did many things by direction of the Books⁸⁹ for the [p. 337]purpose of appeasing the angry gods and averting⁹⁰ the plague from the people. [4] Nevertheless the losses were severe, both in the City and the country, and men and cattle were stricken without distinction. They even feared that famine would succeed the epidemic, since the farmers were down with the disease. They therefore sent to Etruria and the Pomptine district, and to Cumae, and finally to Sicily itself, for, corn. [5] Nothing was said about consular elections; military tribunes with consular authority were chosen as follows: Lucius Pinarius Mamercus, Lucius Furius Medullinus, Spurius Postumius Albus —all patricians.

[6] This year the violence of the disease was mitigated, and there was no risk of a dearth of corn, since precautions had been taken in advance. [7] Schemes for instigating war were discussed in the councils of the Volsci and Aequi, and in Etruria at the shrine of Voltumna. [8] There the enterprise was put over for a year, and it was decreed that no council should convene before that date, though the Veientes complained —without effect —that Veii was threatened with the same destruction as had overtaken Fidenae.

[9] Meanwhile in Rome the leaders of the plebs, who had now for a long time, while there was peace with other nations, been thwarted in their hopes of attaining to greater honours, began to appoint meetings at the houses of the plebeian tribunes. [10] There they considered their plans in secret; they complained that they were held in such contempt by the plebs that although military tribunes with consular powers had been elected for so many years, no plebeian had ever been admitted to that office. [11] Their ancestors had shown great foresight in [p. 339]providing that no patrician should be eligible for the⁹¹ plebeian magistracies; otherwise they would have been obliged to have patricians as tribunes of the plebs, so contemptible did they appear, even to their own class, being no less despised by the commons than by the nobles. [12] Others exonerated the plebs and threw the blame upon the patricians: it was owing to their artful canvassing that the plebeians found the road to office blocked; if the plebs might have a breathing-spell from the mingled prayers and menaces of the nobles, they would think of their friends when they went to vote, and to the protection they had already won would add authority.⁹² [13] It was resolved in order to do away with canvassing, that the tribunes⁹³ should propose a law forbidding anyone to whiten his toga, for the purpose of announcing himself a candidate.⁹⁴ This may now appear a trivial thing and one scarcely to be considered seriously, but at that time it kindled a furious struggle between the patricians and the plebs. [14] Yet the tribunes prevailed and carried their law; and it was clear that the plebeians in their irritated mood would support the men of their own order. That they might not be at liberty to do so, the senate decreed that consuls should be elected.

26. The reason alleged was a sudden outbreak B..431 of hostilities on the part of the Aequi and Volsci, which the Latins and the Hernici had reported. [2] Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus, son of Lucius —the same who is given the added surname Poenus, — and Gnaeus Julius Mento were made consuls. Nor was the fear of war deferred. [3] After a levy, held under a lex sacrata⁹⁵ which was their most effective [p. 341]means of collecting soldiers, strong armies marched⁹⁶ out from both nations and met on Algidus, where the Aequi encamped [4??] in one place and the Volsci in another, and their generals took more pains than ever before to intrench, and to drill their men. For this reason the report occasioned the more dismay in Rome. [5] The senate resolved that a dictator should be appointed, since, though often beaten, those nations had renewed the war with greater efforts than at any previous time, and a considerable proportion of the young Romans had been carried off by the plague. [6] Above all, men were frightened by the wrong-headedness of the consuls, their want of harmony between themselves, and their opposition to each other in all their plans. Some writers say that these consuls were defeated on Algidus, and that this was the reason of the dictator's being named. [7] Thus much is clear: though they might differ in other matters, they were agreed on one thing, to oppose the wishes of the Fathers for the appointment of a dictator; until, as the reports grew more and more alarming, and the consuls refused to be guided by the senate, Quintus Servilius Priscus, a man who had filled with distinction the highest offices, cried out, “To you, tribunes of the plebs, since matters [8??] have come to an extremity, the senate appeals, that in this great national crisis you may compel the consuls, by virtue of your authority, to name a dictator.” [9] Hearing this the tribunes felt that an opportunity had come for increasing their power; they conferred apart, and then announced, in behalf of the college, that they were resolved that the consuls should obey the senate; if they persisted further [p. 343]to oppose the unanimous opinion of that most⁹⁷ honourable order, they should command them to be put in prison. The consuls preferred to be defeated by the tribunes rather than by the senate. [10] They declared that the senators had betrayed the rights of the highest office in the state and had ignominiously surrendered the consulship to the tribunician power, since apparently it was possible for the consuls to be subjected to the official compulsion of a tribune, and even —what could a private citizen fear more than that? —be carried off to gaol. [11] It was determined by lot —for the colleagues had not been able to agree even about this —that Titus Quinctius should name the dictator. He appointed Aulus Postumius Tubertus, his father-in-law, a man of the sternest authority; and by him Lucius Julius was chosen master of the horse. At the same time a levy was proclaimed and a cessation of legal business, and it was ordered that nothing else should be done in all the City but prepare for war. [12] The examination of those who claimed exemption from military service was put over till after the war, and so even those whose cases were uncertain were disposed to give in their names.⁹⁸ Men were required also of the Hernici and the Latins, and in both instances the dictator was zealously obeyed.

27. These measures were all carried out with great dispatch. Gnaeus Julius the consul was left behind to protect the city; and Lucius Julius, the master of the horse, to meet the sudden demands which arise in war, that the troops might not be hampered in camp by the want of anything that they might need. [2] The dictator, repeating the words [p. 345]after Aulus Cornelius the pontifex maximus, vowed⁹⁹ to celebrate great games¹⁰⁰ if he succeeded in quelling the outbreak, and, dividing his army with the consul Quinctius, set out from Rome and came to the enemy. [3] Seeing that the opposing forces occupied two camps with a little space between, the Roman generals followed their example and encamped about a mile from the enemy, the dictator nearer to Tusculum and the consul to Lanuvium. [4] Thus the four armies in their four intrenchments had in their midst a field of sufficient extent not merely for small preliminary skirmishes but even for drawing up lines of battle on both sides. [5] Nor from the moment the Romans had pitched their camp near that of the enemy did they once cease skirmishing; and the dictator was well content that his men should match their strength against their adversaries, and by trying the outcome of these contests come, little by little, to count upon a general victory. [6] The enemy in consequence abandoned all hope of success in a regular battle and attacked the consul's camp at night, committing their cause to the hazard of a dangerous enterprise. The shout which suddenly broke out aroused not only the consul's sentries and after them his entire army, but the dictator as well. [7] When circumstances required instant action, the consul proved to be wanting neither in resolution nor in judgment. With a part of his soldiers he reinforced the guards at the gates; with a part he lined the palisade. [8] In the other camp, with the dictator, there was less confusion and a correspondingly clearer perception what was needful to be done. Reinforcements were immediately sent to the consul's camp, under Spurius Postumius Albus [p. 347]the lieutenant: the dictator himself, taking a part of¹⁰¹ his forces, marched by a slight detour to a place absolutely screened from the fighting, that he might thence strike the enemy unawares as he faced the other way. [9] The lieutenant Quintus Sulpicius he put in charge of the camp; to the lieutenant Marcus Fabius he assigned the cavalry, but ordered him not to move his command till daybreak, as it would be hard to control in the confusion of the night. [10] Everything that any wise and active general could have commanded and carried out in such a situation was duly commanded and carried out by him; but an unusual proof of judgment and daring and one which reflects no ordinary credit upon him was this, that he actually attacked the enemy's camp (from which, as he ascertained, they had marched out with more than half their troops), dispatching Marcus Geganius with some chosen cohorts on that service. [11] This officer found his foes absorbed in the issue of the dangerous work undertaken by their fellows, and with no thought for themselves, neglecting their sentinels and outguards; [12] he attacked them, captured their camp almost before they fully realized that they were assailed, and sent up a prearranged signal of smoke, on seeing which the dictator cried out that the enemy's camp was taken and bade spread the news.

28. By this time the day was breaking and everything could be seen. Fabius had delivered a charge with his cavalry; the consul had made a sally from the camp against the enemy, who were already wavering; [2] while the dictator, on the other side of the field, attacking the supports and the second line, had fallen upon the foe from every side, as they [p. 349]wheeled about to meet the wild shouts and sudden¹⁰² onsets, with his victorious foot and horse. [3] Accordingly, being now hemmed in on every side, the enemy would have suffered to a man the penalty of their rebellion, had not Vettius Messius, a Volscian more distinguished by his deeds than by his birth, called out in a clear voice to his men, who were already crowding together in a circle, “Are you going to offer yourselves up here to the weapons of the enemy, defenceless and unavenged? [4] To what end then are you armed, or why without provocation did you make war, turbulent in peace and sluggards in the field? What hope is there while you stand here? Do you think that some god will protect you and deliver you from this plight? [5] It is your swords must make a way for you! Come, where you see me go before, there you must follow, if you would look on homes, parents, wives and children! It is not a wall or rampart that blocks your path, but armed men like yourselves. In courage you are their equals; in necessity, which is the last and chiefest weapon, you are the better men.” [6] So he spoke, and acted on the word. Renewing their shouts they followed after, and hurled themselves against the Romans where the cohorts of Postumius Albus had confronted them. And they forced the victors to give ground, until the dictator came up, as his men were already falling back, and the fighting all centred on that spot. [7] On one single warrior, Messius, hung the fortunes of the enemy. Many were the wounds on either side, and great was the slaughter everywhere. Now even the Roman leaders were bleeding as they fought. [8] Only Postumius left the battle, struck by a stone that broke his head. [p. 351]A wounded shoulder could not drive the dictator¹⁰³ from so critical a fight; nor would Fabius retire for a thigh almost pinned to his horse; nor the consul for an arm that was hewn away.

29. Messius pressed on with a band of courageous youths over the slain bodies of his enemies, and reached the Volscian camp, which had not yet been taken; and on that point the entire battle converged. [2] The consul, after pursuing his opponents clear up to the rampart, assailed the camp itself and the palisade; and thither from another part of the field the dictator brought up his troops. [3] The assault was no less vigorous than the battle had been. They say that the consul even cast his standard into the stockade, to make his men the more eager in the charge, and that in seeking to recover it they made the first breach. The dictator too had breached the rampart and had already carried the fighting into the camp. [4] Then the enemy began on every hand to throw down their arms and surrender. Finally the camp itself was captured, and the enemy were all sold into slavery, except the senators. A portion of the booty was restored to the Latins and the Hernici, on their identifying it as their own; a part was sold at auction by the dictator; who then left the consul in command of the camp and returning himself in triumph to the City laid down his office. [5] The memory of the noble dictatorship assumes a sombre hue in a tradition that Aulus Postumius' son, who, tempted by an opportunity of fighting to advantage, had left his post unbidden, was in the hour of his victory beheaded by his father's orders. [6] One is loath to believe this story, and the diversity of opinion allows one to reject it. It is an indication [p. 353]of its falsity that we speak of Manlian,¹⁰⁴ not Postumian¹⁰⁵ discipline, whereas he who had first established so rigorous a precedent would himself have received that notorious stigma of cruelty. Besides, Manlius was given the surname Imperiosus —“the Despotic” —while Postumius received no such grim distinction.

[7] Gnaeus Julius the consul dedicated the temple of Apollo in the absence of his colleague, without drawing lots. Quinctius resented this, when he had dismissed his army and returned to the City; but his complaint of it in the senate was without effect.

[8] To the history of a year famous for its great events, is appended a statement —as though the incident was then regarded as of no importance to the Roman state-that the Carthaginians, destined to be such mighty enemies, then for the first time sent over an army into Sicily to assist one of the factions in the domestic quarrels of the Sicilians.¹⁰⁶

30. An effort was made in the City by the B.C. tribunes of the plebs to procure the election of military tribunes with consular powers, but it was unsuccessful. Lucius Papirius Crassus¹⁰⁷ and Lucius Julius were chosen consuls. The Aequi, through their envoys, sought a treaty from the senate. [2] Instead of granting a treaty, the senate suggested that they surrender; but they asked and obtained a truce for eight years. The Volscian commonwealth, in addition to the disaster it had suffered on Algidus, had become involved in quarrels and seditions, in consequence of an obstinate struggle between the advocates of peace and those of war. [3] The Romans everywhere enjoyed peace. A law concerning the [p. 355]valuation of fines was most welcome to the people.¹⁰⁸ [4] Having learned through the treachery of a member of the college that the tribunes were drawing one up, the consuls anticipated their action and themselves proposed it.¹⁰⁹

The next consuls were Lucius Sergius Fidenas (for the second time) and Hostius Lucretius Tricipitinus. [5] Nothing noteworthy was done this year. They were succeeded in the consulship by Aulus Cornelius Cossus and Titus Quinctius Poenus, who was elected for the second time. [6] The Veientes made inroads into Roman territory. It was rumoured that certain young men of Fidenae had shared in the pillaging. The investigation of this report was intrusted to Lucius Sergius, Quintus Servilius, and Mamercus Aemilius; and certain men were banished to Ostia, because it was not clear why they had been away from Fidenae during those days. [7] A number of settlers were added to the colony, and land was assigned them which had belonged to men who had fallen in the war. [8] A drought that year caused great suffering. Not only did the skies provide too little rain, but the earth as well was deficient in native moisture and could hardly supply the perennial streams. [9] In some cases the failure of the sources caused the dry springs and brooks to be lined with cattle perishing of thirst; others were carried off by a mange, and their diseases were by contact communicated to mankind. At first they attacked country people and slaves; then the City was infected. [10] And not only were men's bodies smitten by the plague, but a horde of superstitions, mostly foreign, took possession of their minds, as the class of men who find their profit in superstition-ridden souls [p. 357]introduced strange sacrificial rites into their homes,¹¹⁰ pretending to be seers; [11] until the public shame finally reached the leading citizens, as they beheld in every street and chapel outlandish and unfamiliar sacrifices being offered up to appease Heaven's anger. [12] The aediles were then commissioned to see to it that none but Roman gods should be worshipped, nor in any but the ancestral way.

Revenge on the men of Veii was postponed till the following year, when Gaius Servilius Ahala and Lucius Papirius Mugillanus were consuls. [13] Even then a religious scruple prevented the immediate declaration of war and dispatch of armies; they resolved that fetials must first be sent to require restitution. [14] Not long before there had been a battle with the Veientes near Nomentum and Fidenae, and this had been followed not by peace but by a truce. Its time had now run out, and indeed the enemy had begun to fight again before its expiration; nevertheless fetials were sent; yet their words, when they sought reparation after taking the customary oath,¹¹¹ were not attended to. [15] A dispute then arose whether war should be declared by command of the people, or whether a senatorial decree was enough.¹¹² The tribunes prevailed, by threatening to hinder the levy, and forced the consul Quinctius to refer the question of war to the people. [16] All the centuries voted for it. In this respect also the plebs had the better, that they made good their wish that consuls should not be elected for the following year.

31. Four military tribunes with consular powers¹¹³ were elected, Titus Quinctius Poenus, who had just been consul, Gaius Furius, Marcus Postumius, and Aulus Cornelius Cossus. [2] Of these, Cossus had charge [p. 359]of the City; the three others held a levy and¹¹⁴ marching against Veii gave a demonstration how unprofitable it was in war to parcel out authority. By pursuing each his own counsels, one having this opinion, another that, they gave the enemy room to take them at a disadvantage; [3] for their army was confused when some bade sound the charge, while others commanded the recall; and at this favourable moment the Veientes fell upon them. The camp, which was close by, received the demoralized and fleeing men, and so they suffered more disgrace than actual harm. [4] The nation was filled with grief, for it was not used to being conquered; disgusted with the tribunes, people demanded a dictator: therein, they said, lay the hope of the state. And when they seemed likely to be thwarted in that also, by a scrupulous feeling that no one but a consul could name a dictator, the augurs were consulted and removed the impediment. [5] Aulus Cornelius named as dictator Mamercus Aemilius and was himself appointed by Mamercus master of the horse, so true is it that when the fortune of the state required real worth, the animadversion of the censor could by no means prevent men's seeking a director of their affairs in a house undeservedly stigmatized.¹¹⁵

[6] The Veientes, elated by their success, dispatched envoys round about to the peoples of Etruria, boasting that they had routed three Roman commanders in one fight. Nevertheless they obtained no general support from the league, though they attracted volunteers from all quarters by the prospect of booty. [7] Only the people of Fidenae voted to renew the war; and, as though it were forbidden to commence war without a crime, as before in the blood [p. 361]of the ambassadors, so now they imbued their swords¹¹⁶ in that of the new settlers, and joined the men of Veii. [8] Consultations followed between the leaders of the two nations whether they should take Veii or Fidenae for the headquarters of their campaign. Fidenae seemed the fitter; and accordingly the Veientes crossed the Tiber and transferred the war to Fidenae. [9] At Rome there was a wild alarm. The troops were recalled from Veii, though even their spirits were much daunted in consequence of their failure, and encamped before the Colline Gate. Armed men were disposed along the walls, a cessation of the courts was proclaimed in the Forum, the shops were closed, and everything assumed more the look of a camp than of a city. 32. The dictator, sending heralds this way and that through the streets, summoned the frightened citizens to an assembly, where he rebuked them for possessing hearts so easily dismayed by trivial fluctuations of fortune that on sustaining a slight reverse —and [2] that not due to the valour of the enemy or the cowardice of the Roman army, but to a disagreement among their generals —they were seized with dread of the Veientine enemy whom they had six times defeated, and of Fidenae which they had captured almost more often than they had attacked it. [3] Both the Romans and their enemies were the same as they had been for so many generations; they had the same courage, the same bodily vigour, the same weapons; he was himself the same dictator Mamercus Aemilius who had formerly put to flight the armies of the Veientes and the Fidenates, with the Faliscans added, before Nomentum; [4] and, as master of the horse, Aulus [p. 363]Cornelius would be the same man in battle that¹¹⁷ he had shown himself in the former war, when as military tribune he had slain Lars Tolumnius, king of the Veientes, in full sight of both armies, and had borne the spoils of honour to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. [5] Let them remember then that theirs were the triumphs, theirs the spoils, theirs the victory; while their enemies were stained with the crime of putting envoys to death against the law of nations, with the slaughter in time of peace of settlers at Fidenae, with the broken truce, with rebelling unsuccessfully for the seventh time. [6] Let them think of these things and arm. When once they should have pitched their camp near the camp of the enemy, he was very confident the dastardly foe would not long rejoice over the humiliation of a Roman army; [7] but that the Roman People would perceive how much better those men had served the state who had named him for the third time dictator, than had those who, because he had torn from the censorship its tyrannical powers, had fixed a stigma upon his second dictatorship. [8] Then, having offered vows to the gods, he marched out and encamped a mile and a half this side of Fidenae, protected on his right by mountains, on his left by the river Tiber. [9] His lieutenant Titus Quinctius Poenus he commanded to secure the mountains and secretly to occupy the ridge which lay to the enemy's rear.

[10] On the morrow, when the Etruscans, in high feather at what, on the previous day, had been more good luck than good fighting, sallied forth to offer battle, the dictator delayed a little, till his scouts should report that Quinctius had come out [p. 365]on the ridge near the citadel of Fidenae; and then¹¹⁸ forming his infantry in line of battle led them at the double against the enemy. [11] He directed the master of the horse not to begin to fight until he got his orders: when he required the help of the cavalry, he would himself give the signal; let him then bear himself as one mindful of his battle with a king, of his glorious offering, of Romulus and Jupiter Feretrius. The armies came together with great fury. The Romans were consumed with hatred. [12] “Traitors” was the name they gave the Fidenates, and “brigands” the men of Veii; they called them breakers of truces, stained with the horrid murder of ambassadors, sprinkled with the gore of their own settlers, faithless allies and cowardly enemies; and fed their rage at once with deeds and with words.

33. They had shaken the enemy's resistance at the very first onset, when suddenly the gates of Fidenae were flung open and a strange kind of army, never seen before or heard of, came pouring out. [2] Fire was the weapon of that vast multitude, and blazing torches threw a glare upon the entire throng when, as though inspired with a wild insanity, they rushed headlong on their enemy. [3] For an instant the strangeness of this kind of battle dismayed the Romans. Then the dictator, calling up the master of the horse and his cavalry, sending for Quinctius to come down from the mountains, and urging on the fight himself, hurried to the left wing, which, as though it found itself in a conflagration rather than a line of battle, had shrunk back in terror from the flames, and in a loud voice cried out: [4] “Will you quit your post, [p. 367]subdued with smoke like a swarm of bees, and yield¹¹⁹ to an unarmed foe? Will you not extinguish fire with the sword? [5] Will you not seize these self-same brands, and each for himself —if we must fight with fire, not with javelins —attack them with their own weapons? Come, call to mind the Roman name, your fathers' valour and your own; turn this blaze upon the enemy's city and destroy Fidenae with its own flames, since your kindness was powerless to gain its friendship! The blood of your envoys and your colonists and your devastated borders exhort you to do as I say.” [6] At the dictator's command the whole array was set in motion. [7] Here they caught up torches which had been flung away; there they wrested them violently from their bearers: both sides were armed with fire. The master of the horse on his part invented a new kind of cavalry-fighting. Commanding his men to pull off the bridles from their horses, he led the way, and setting spurs to his own, was carried by the unbridled charger into the midst of the flames. [8] The other horses too were urged on and bore their riders at full tilt against the enemy; while the dust that rose and mingled with the smoke darkened the eyes both of the men and of their mounts. [9] But the sight which had frightened the infantry had no terror for the horses, and the cavalry overthrew their enemies in heaps wherever they advanced. Then a new shout was heard. Both armies in astonishment looked that way; and when the dictator called out that Quinctius the lieutenant and his followers had assailed the enemy in the rear, the cheering was renewed, and he pressed home his own attack more sharply. [10] [p. 369]Now that two battle-fronts and two distinct attacks¹²⁰ hemmed in the Etruscans and forced them back from front and rear; and there was no way for them to flee, either back into their camp or into the mountains, whence a new foe had appeared to block their path; and the horses, with loose reins, had borne their riders far and wide; —the Veientes for the most part ran in disorder to the Tiber, while those of the Fidenates who survived turned towards the city of Fidenae. [11] In their panic they fled into the middle of the carnage. Some were cut down on the banks of the river; others, forced into the water, were swept away by the current; even experienced swimmers were borne down by weariness and wounds and fear; only a few out of the many swam across. [12] The other party was carried on through the camp to the city. Thither the Romans too pushed forward in the impetuosity of the pursuit —especially Quinctius, and with him those who had just come down from the hills and were the freshest soldiers for the work, having arrived at the close of the battle.

34. After these troops, mingling with the enemy, had entered the gate, they made their way on to the wall, where they raised a signal to show their friends that the town was taken. [2] When the dictator saw it —for by this time he had himself penetrated to the deserted camp of the enemy, —he checked his soldiers, who were eager to scatter in search of booty, by encouraging the hope that they would find larger spoils in the city; [3] and, leading them to the gate, was received within the walls and marched directly to the citadel, whither he saw that the throng of fugitives was rushing Nor was [p. 371]the slaughter in the city less than it had been in¹²¹ the battle, until they threw away their arms, and asking nothing but their lives, surrendered to the dictator. [4] The city and the camp were sacked. Next day the cavalrymen and centurions drew lots for a single captive each, while those who had shown conspicuous bravery received two. The rest were sold at auction, and the dictator marched his victorious army, enriched with plunder, back to Rome, and triumphed. [5] After commanding his master of the horse to lay down his office, he himself abdicated, giving up in peace on the sixteenth day the supreme authority he had received in time of war and danger. [6] Certain annalists have recorded that there was a naval battle also with the Veientes, near Fidenae, a thing equally difficult and incredible; for even to-day the river is not wide enough for that, and in those times it was somewhat narrower, as we learn from the old writers; [7] unless possibly there were a few ships assembled to dispute the passage of the river and this was exaggerated, as so often happens, by those who added to the inscription¹²² the false claim of a naval victory.

35. The next year there were military¹²³ tribunes with consular powers, namely Aulus Sempronius Atratinus, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Lucius Furius Medullinus, Lucius Horatius Barbatus. [2] The Veientes were granted a truce of twenty years, and the Aequi one of three, though they had asked for a longer one. There was a respite also from civil disturbances.

[3] The following year was noteworthy neither for foreign war nor dissension at home, but gained celebrity from the games which had been vowed [p. 373]during the war and were splendidly carried out by¹²⁴ the military tribunes and attended by a great concourse of neighbouring peoples. [4] The tribunes with consular authority were Appius Claudius Crassus, Spurius Nautius Rutulus, Lucius Sergius Fidenas, and Sextus Julius Iulus. The spectacle was rendered the more agreeable to the visitors by the courtesy which their hosts had united in a resolution to extend to them. [5] After the games seditious speeches were made by the plebeian tribunes, who berated the populace because, in their besotted admiration of the men they hated, they kept themselves in perpetual servitude, and not only dared not aspire to claim participation in the consulship, but even in the matter of choosing military tribunes —an [6] election open alike to patricians and plebeians —took no thought either for themselves or for their friends. [7] Let them cease therefore to wonder why no one busied himself for the good of the plebs; toil was bestowed and danger risked, they said, in causes which held out hopes of emolument and honour; there was nothing men would not attempt if those who made great efforts were afforded the prospect of great rewards; [8] but that some one plebeian tribune should rush blindly into a struggle where the risk was enormous and the reward was nothing, and in consequence of which he might be certain that the patricians, against whom he would be striving, would pursue him with relentless animosity, and that the plebs, for whom he would have fought, would not add the least tittle to his honours, was a thing to be neither expected nor demanded. Great hearts were begotten of great honours. [9] No plebeian would despise himself when plebeians should cease [p. 375]to be despised. It was high time they made trial in¹²⁵ one or two cases, to see whether there were some plebeian fit to hold high office, or whether it were almost a portent and a miracle that there should exist any brave and energetic man of plebeian origin. [10] By exerting their utmost force they had carried the point that military tribunes with consular powers might be chosen even from the plebs. Men whose worth had been proven at home and in the field had stood for the office; during the first years they had been buffeted about, rejected, and laughed at by the patricians; finally, they had ceased to expose themselves to insult. [11] They could see no reason, they said, why they should not even repeal a statute which authorized something that would never come; there would surely be less shame in the injustice of the law than in being passed over on account of their own unworthiness.

36. Speeches of this sort, being listened to with approval, incited certain men to stand for the military tribuneship, with the promise that they would propose in their term of office such and such measures of advantage to the plebs. [2] Hopes were held out of dividing up the public domain and planting colonies, and of levying a tax on the occupants of the land and distributing the money as pay for the soldiers.¹²⁶ [3] The military tribunes then watched for an opportunity when people were out of town, and recalling the senators by a secret notification, got the senate to pass a resolution, in the absence of the tribunes of the plebs, that [4??] since the Volsci were rumoured to have made a plundering expedition into the country of the Hernici, the tribunes of the soldiers should go and investigate [p. 377]the affair, and that a consular election should be¹²⁷ held. [5] The tribunes set out, leaving Appius Claudius, the decemvir's son, as prefect of the City. He was an energetic young man and imbued from his very cradle with hatred of the tribunes and the plebs. The plebeian tribunes had no ground of contention either with the absent officials who had obtained the resolution of the senate, or with Appius, now that the thing was done. 37. Gaius¹²⁸ Sempronius Atratinus and Quintus Fabius Vibulanus were elected consuls.

A foreign episode, but worth relating, is ascribed to this year, viz. that Volturnum, the Etruscan city which is now Capua, was taken by the Samnites, and named Capua from their leader Capys, or, as is more probable, from its champaign country.¹²⁹ [2] Now they captured it after being admitted by the Etruscans —who were worn out with fighting —to a share in the city and its fields; then, on a holiday, when the old settlers were heavy with sleep and feasting, the newcomers fell upon them in the night and slew them.

[3] In the train of these events,¹³⁰ the consuls whom I have named took up their duties, on the 13th of December. By this time not only had those who had been dispatched for this purpose reported that a Volscian invasion was imminent, but [4??] envoys from the Latins, and the Hernici as well, announced that never before had the Volscians been more energetic, whether in selecting generals or in levying an army; [5] that everywhere men were muttering that they must either give up for ever all thoughts of arms and war, and submit to the yoke, or must not lag behind those with whom they were contending for [p. 379]supremacy, either in courage or in endurance or in¹³¹ military discipline. [6] Their tidings were true, but they caused no answerable activity among the senators; and Gaius Sempronius, to whom the command had been assigned by lot, trusting to fortune as though it were the most constant thing in the world, because he had commanded the victorious nation against the people they had defeated, conducted everything so carelessly and rashly that Roman discipline was more in evidence in the Volscian army than in the Roman. [7] Accordingly Fortune, as on many another occasion, waited on desert. In the first battle, which Sempronius entered without caution or deliberation, his line was not strengthened with reserves nor was his cavalry skilfully posted, when the fighting began. [8] The battle-cries were the first intimation how the affair was likely to go; [9] for the enemy's was louder and fuller, that of the Romans dissonant and uneven and, dragging more with each repetition, betrayed the faintness of their hearts. This caused the enemy to charge the more boldly, thrusting with shields and making play with swords. [10] On the Roman side helmets nodded, as their wearers looked this way and that for help, and irresolute soldiers made falteringly for the nearest group; at one moment the standards would be left behind by the retreat of the front-rankers, at the next they would be falling back among their proper maniples. [11] It was not yet a definite flight, not yet a victory; the Romans sought rather to protect themselves than to fight; the Volscians advanced and bore hard against the Roman line, but saw more of their enemies killed than running away.

[p. 381] 38. But now the Romans were everywhere¹³² falling back, and it was in vain that Sempronius the consul upbraided or encouraged them. [2] There was no virtue either in his authority or in his dignity; and his men would presently have shown the enemy their backs, had not a cavalry decurion¹³³ named Sextus Tempanius, just as the situation was becoming desperate, come with prompt courage to the rescue. [3] In a loud voice he cried out that the horsemen who wished to save the state should leap down from their horses, and when the troopers in every squadron had bestirred themselves as if at the command of the consul, he added: “Unless this bucklered¹³⁴ cohort stops the enemy's rush it is all over with our supremacy. Follow my spear as your guidon;¹³⁵ show Romans and Volscians that when you are mounted no cavalry are your equals, nor any infantry, when you fight on foot!” [4] When a cheer had shown their approval of this exhortation, he advanced with uplifted spear. Wherever they went they forced a passage; holding their targets up before them, they charged where they saw the distress of their friends was greatest. [5] The fortune of the day was restored at every point where their onset carried them; nor was there any doubt that if those few men could have been present everywhere at the same time the enemy would have turned tail.

39. When the Volscian general saw that their attack could not anywhere be stopped, he ordered his troops to give ground to the men with bucklers, the enemy's new cohort, until, carried forward in their rush, they should be cut off from their friends. [2] On this being done, the horsemen were intercepted, and were unable to break through in [p. 383]the same way as they had got over, since their enemies¹³⁶ were most thickly crowded together where they had made their path. [3] When the consul and the Roman legions could nowhere see the soldiers who a moment before had been a shield to the entire army, they pressed forward to save at any cost so many heroic men from being surrounded and borne down by the enemy. [4] The Volscians, facing two ways, sustained on one side the onset of the consul and the legions, and on the other front pressed home their attack upon Tempanius and his troopers; [5] who, having failed, in spite of many attempts, to force their way through to their friends, had seized a certain mound and, forming a circle, were defending themselves, not without taking vengeance on their assailants. The battle did not end till nightfall. [6] Neither did the consul relax his efforts anywhere, but kept the enemy engaged as long as there was any light. Darkness put a stop to the indecisive struggle, and the terror in each camp was such, in consequence of men's ignorance of the outcome, that both armies, abandoning their wounded and a good part of their baggage, retreated to the nearest hills, as though defeated. [7] Nevertheless the mound was besieged till after midnight. But when word was brought to the besiegers that their camp was abandoned, they too supposed that their side had been defeated, and every man fled where his panic led him in the darkness. [8] Tempanius feared an ambush and kept his soldiers close till daylight. Then, descending with a few followers to reconnoitre, he discovered by questioning some wounded enemies that the camp of the Volscians was deserted, whereupon he joyfully called his men down from the hill and made his way [p. 385]into the Roman camp. [9] There he found everything¹³⁷ abandoned and forlorn and the same desolation he had met with on the ground of the enemy; and, before the Volsci could learn of their blunder and return, he carried with him such of the wounded as he was able, and not knowing what way the consul had gone, took the nearest road to the City.

40. Thither the rumour of an unsuccessful engagement and the abandonment of the camp had already made its way, and more than all the rest the horsemen had been mourned, with public as well as private lamentations. [2] The consul Fabius was keeping watch before the gates —for the panic had permeated even the City —when cavalry were espied a long way off, and caused no little trepidation, since men knew not who they could be. [3] But being soon after recognized, they turned the people's fear to such rejoicing that the City was filled with the noise of congratulations on the safe and victorious return of the horse; and from the houses which a little while before had been filled with sadness and had bewailed their sons as dead, the inhabitants ran out into the street, and trembling mothers and wives, heedless of decorum in their happiness, hurried to meet the troops, and flung themselves with utter abandonment into the arms of their loved ones, being scarcely able to control themselves for joy. [4] The plebeian tribunes, who had set a day for the trial of Marcus Postumius and Titus Quinctius, because of their responsibility for the reverse at Veii, thought a favourable opportunity was afforded by the odium recently incurred by the consul Sempronius for renewing men's displeasure with them. [5] So, having called a meeting, they loudly declared that the state [p. 387]had been betrayed at Veii by its generals; and that¹³⁸ then, because they had gone scot free, the army fighting with the Volsci had been betrayed by the consul, their heroic cavalry given over to slaughter, and the camp basely abandoned. [6] Then Gaius Junius, one of the tribunes, commanded the cavalryman Tempanius to be called, and turning to him spoke as follows: “Sextus Tempanius, I ask you whether you think that Gaius Sempronius the consul either joined battle at a suitable moment, or strengthened his line with supports, or performed any of the duties of a good consul; [7] and whether you yourself, when the Roman legions had been beaten, dismounted the cavalry of your own motion and restored the fortunes of the battle; then, when you and your troopers had been cut off from our line, if either the consul himself came to your rescue or sent supports; [8] furthermore, whether you had any help anywhere next day, or you and your cohort forced a way to the camp by your own valour; whether you found any consul in the camp and any army, or a deserted camp and wounded and forsaken soldiers. [9] In the name of your courage and your loyalty, which alone have preserved the republic in this war, you must now answer these questions; finally you must tell us where Gaius Sempronius and our legions are; whether you were abandoned, or yourself abandoned the consul and the army; —in one word, whether we have been defeated or victorious.”

41. To these questions Tempanius is said to have replied in homely terms but with a soldierly dignity, in which was neither self-praise nor self-complacent criticism of others. [2] Touching the degree of skill in military matters possessed by Gaius Sempronius, it [p. 389]was not for a soldier, he said, to appraise a general:¹³⁹ that had been the Roman People's business when it elected Sempronius consul at the comitia. [3] It was not, therefore, to him that they must address inquiries concerning the strategy of commanders and the qualifications of consuls; even the weighing of such abilities demanded great mental and intellectual powers. [4] But that which he had seen he was able to report; and he had seen the consul, before he had himself been cut off from the main army, fighting in the front line, encouraging his men, and moving about amidst the standards of the Romans and the enemy's missiles. [5] He had afterwards been carried out of sight of his friends; but still, from the din and shouting, he had made out that the struggle had been prolonged till nightfall, and he did not believe that it had been possible to break through to the hillock which he himself had held, in view of the enemy's numbers. [6] Where the army was, he did not know; he supposed that, just as he himself had protected himself and his men by taking up a strong position, so likewise the consul, in order to save his army, had occupied a place of greater security than the camp. [7] And he did not believe that the Volsci were any better off than the Roman People; chance and darkness had at every point confused both armies. [8] On his going on to beg that they would not detain him, exhausted by toil and wounds, it is said that he was dismissed with the highest praise, no less for his moderation than for his bravery. Meanwhile the consul had already reached the shrine of Quies¹⁴⁰ on the Labican road. Thither wagons and beasts of burden were dispatched from the City, and brought the soldiers back, weary from fighting and the [p. 391]nightmarch. [9] A little later the consul entered the City,¹⁴¹ and showed no less concern to extol Tempanius with well-merited praise than to clear himself of blame. [10] While the citizens were grieving over their defeat, and were filled with resentment against their commanders, Marcus Postumius, who had been military tribune with consular authority at Veii, was brought before them for trial and condemned to pay a fine of ten thousand pounds of bronze.¹⁴² [11] Titus Quinctius his colleague, having been victorious both in the Volscian country, when consul under the auspices of the dictator Postumius Tubertus, and at Fidenae, as lieutenant to the other dictator, Mamercus Aemilius, shifted all the blame for the present campaign upon his colleague who had already been condemned, and was acquitted by all the tribes. [12] It is said that the memory of his father Cincinnatus, whom the people venerated, was a help to him, and also the fact that Quinctius Capitolinus, now well-stricken in years, supplicated and implored them not to suffer him, who had but a little time to live, to be the bearer of such sad news to Cincinnatus.

42. The plebs elected in their absence Sextus¹⁴³ Tempanius, Marcus Asellius, Tiberius Antistius, and Tiberius Spurillius to be plebeian tribunes. These were men whom the cavalry had also chosen, at the instance of Tempanius, to act as centurions over them.¹⁴⁴ [2] The senate, feeling that the hatred of Sempronius made the title of consul offensive, ordered the election of military tribunes with consular powers. The successful candidates were Lucius Manlius Capitolinus, Quintus Antonius Merenda, Lucius Papirius Mugillanus. [3] At the very beginning of the year Lucius Hortensius, tribune of the plebs, brought an [p. 393]action against Gaius Sempronius, consul of the year¹⁴⁵ before. The tribune's four colleagues besought him in full sight of the Roman People not to persecute their general, in whom nothing could be reckoned amiss save his ill-fortune; [4] but this Hortensius would not brook, regarding it as a test of his perseverance and persuaded that the defendant was relying not on the entreaties of the tribunes, which were thrown out merely to preserve appearances, but on their veto. [5] And so, turning now to Sempronius, he demanded to be told where the well-known patrician spirit was, and where the courage that placed its confident reliance upon innocence; was it in the shadow of the tribunate that a former consul had found a hiding-place? [6] And again, addressing his colleagues, he asked, “But what do you mean to do, if I persist in prosecuting the defendant? [7] Will you rob the people of their rights and overthrow the authority of the tribunes?” When they replied that the authority of the Roman People was supreme over Sempronius and all other men, and that they neither desired nor were able to annul the people's judgment; [8] but that if their entreaties in behalf of their commander, who stood in the relation of a parent to them, should prove ineffectual, they would put on mourning with him, then Hortensius declared, “The Roman plebs shall not see its tribunes clad in mourning. Gaius Sempronius may go free, for me, since his command has gained him this, to be so beloved by his soldiers.” [9] Nor was the loyalty of the four tribunes more pleasing to both plebs and senators than was the disposition of Hortensius to yield so readily to reasonable entreaties.

[10] Fortune now ceased to favour the Aequi,¹⁴⁶ who had [p. 395]accepted the dubious victory of the Volsci as their¹⁴⁷ own. 43. The next year Numerius Fabius¹⁴⁸ Vibulanus and Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, the son of Capitolinus, were consuls. Under the leadership of Fabius, to whom this command had been assigned by lot, nothing worthy of relation was accomplished. [2] The Aequi had scarce made an irresolute show of battle when they were routed and driven disgracefully from the field, and the consul got no credit by the affair. He was accordingly denied a triumph; but because he had relieved the ignominy incurred by Sempronius's defeat, he was allowed to enter the City in an ovation.

[3] But while the war had been concluded with less of a struggle than men had feared, in the City tranquillity gave place to unexpected and serious quarrels, which broke out between the plebs and the senators, and began over the duplication of the number of quaestors. [4] This measure —that besides the two city quaestors two others should be elected to assist the consuls in the administration of wars —was proposed by the consuls and received the hearty approval of the senate, but the tribunes of the plebs made a fight to have half of the quaestors —hitherto patricians had been chosen —taken from the plebs. [5] Against this provision both consuls and senators at first exerted themselves with all their might; afterwards they were ready to concede that, just as in the case of tribunes with consular powers, so likewise with the quaestors, the people should be unrestricted in their choice; but making no headway with this offer, they dropped the whole question of enlarging the number of quaestors. [6] It was then taken up where they had left it by the tribunes; and other [p. 397]revolutionary schemes came to the fore in quick¹⁴⁹ succession, among them one for enacting an agrarian law. When the senate, because of these disturbances, preferred that consuls be elected rather than tribunes, yet was unable to pass a resolution on account of tribunician vetoes, the government passed from the consuls to an interrex; [7] nor was even this accomplished without a violent struggle, for the tribunes tried to prevent the patricians from holding a meeting. [8] The greater part of the ensuing year dragged on with contests between the new tribunes and several interreges. At one time the tribunes would keep the patricians from meeting to appoint an interrex; at another time they would interpose their veto against the interrex, that the senate might not pass a resolution to hold the consular elections. [9] Finally Lucius Papirius Mugillanus was named interrex, and upbraiding now the senators, now the tribunes of the plebs, reminded them how the state, abandoned and forsaken by men, had been protected by the providential care of Heaven, and existed by the grace of the Veientine truce and the dilatory policy of the Aequi. [10] If an alarm should break out in that quarter, was it their pleasure that the republic should be caught without a patrician magistrate? that there should be no army, no general to enrol an army? [11] Or did they expect to beat off a foreign foe with a civil war? But if both should come at once, the help of the gods themselves would scarce suffice to stay the destruction of the Roman commonwealth. [12] Why would they not every man abate somewhat of his full rights and compromise harmoniously on a middle course, the Fathers consenting that military tribunes should be chosen instead of consuls, the [p. 399]tribunes interposing no veto to prevent four quaestors¹⁵⁰ being taken promiscuously from plebeians and patricians by free election of the people?

44. The election of tribunes was held first.¹⁵¹ The tribunes with consular powers who were chosen were all patricians, namely Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (for the third time), Lucius Furius Medullinus (for the second time), Marcus Manlius, and Aulus Sempronius Atratinus. [2] The last-named held the election for quaestors. Among the several plebeians who sought the place were the son of a plebeian tribune, named Aulus Antistius, and the brother of another, Sextus Pompilius. Yet neither the authority nor the support of these men could prevent the people from giving the preference, because of their noble birth, to men whose fathers and grandfathers they had seen consuls. [3] This made all the tribunes furious, but more than all the rest Pompilius and Antistius, who were incensed at the defeat of their kinsmen. [4] What in the world, they asked, was the meaning of this? Had neither their own services nor the wrongs which the patricians had inflicted, nor even the pleasure of exercising a right —since what had before been unlawful was now permitted —availed to elect a single quaestor from the plebs, let alone a military tribune? [5] Of no avail had been a father's entreaties for his son, a brother's for his brother, not though they had been tribunes of the plebs, and invested with an inviolable office, created for the protection of liberty. There was fraud in the matter, beyond question, and Aulus Sempronius had employed more artifice than honesty in the election. [6] It was by his wrong-doing, they complained, that their relations had been defeated for office. And so, [p. 401]since they could not attack the man himself, secure¹⁵² as he was not only in his innocence but in the magistracy which he was filling, they turned their anger upon Gaius Sempronius, the cousin of Atratinus; and prosecuted him, with the co-operation of their colleague Marcus Canuleius, on the score of the humiliation suffered in the Volscian war. [7] The same tribunes frequently mentioned in the senate the division of the public lands, a measure which Gaius Sempronius had always stoutly resisted, for they reckoned —and rightly —that either he would abandon the cause and his defence would become a matter of less concern to the patricians, or that persevering in his attitude he would give offence, up to the moment of his trial, to the plebeians. [8] He chose to face the storm of unpopularity and to injure his own cause rather than be found wanting in that of the nation; and he held fast to the same opinion, that there should be no largess, for that would redound to the advantage of the three tribunes. [9] It was not land for the plebs they were then looking for, he declared, but hatred for himself; he was as ready as another to confront that tempest with a courageous heart; nor ought the senate to set so high a value upon himself or any other citizen that their tenderness for him should bring about a general disaster. [10] His spirit was not a whit less firm when the day of trial came. [11] He pleaded his own cause; the senators exerted in vain every means of mollifying the plebs; and he was condemned to pay a fine of fifteen thousand asses.

The same year a Vestal virgin named Postumia was put on trial for unchastity. [12] She was innocent of the charge, though open to suspicion because of her [p. 403]pretty clothes and the unmaidenly freedom of her¹⁵³ wit. After she had been remanded and then acquitted, the pontifex maximus, in the name of the college, commanded her to abstain from jests, and to dress rather with regard to sanctity than coquetry. [13] In this same year Cumae, a city which the Greeks then held, was captured by the Campanians.

The ensuing year had as military tribunes with consular powers Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, Publius Lucretius Tricipitinus, and Spurius Nautius Rutulus. 45. It was a year remarkable, thanks to the good¹⁵⁴ fortune of the Roman People, for a great danger but not a disaster. The slaves conspired to set fire to the City at points remote from one another, and, while the people should be busy everywhere with rescuing their houses, to seize the Citadel and the Capitol with an armed force. [2] Jupiter brought their wicked schemes to naught, and on the evidence of two of their number the guilty were arrested and punished. [3] Each informant was rewarded from the public treasury with ten thousand pounds of bronze —which passed for wealth in those days —and with freedom.

The Aequi then began to prepare again for war; and word was brought to Rome on good authority that new enemies, the Labicani, were making common cause with the old ones. [4] As for the Aequi, the citizens had by now grown accustomed to war with them, as to an annual occurrence; but they dispatched envoys to Labici, and having got them back with an ambiguous answer, from which it appeared that though war was not as yet being organized, yet peace would not long continue, they commissioned the Tusculans to watch that no fresh outbreak should occur at that place.

[5] [p. 405] To the military tribunes with consular authority¹⁵⁵ who held office the ensuing year, Lucius Sergius Fidenas, Marcus Papirius Mugillanus, and Gaius Servilius, son of the Priscus who as dictator had captured Fidenae, there came, [6??] just as they had entered on their magistracy, ambassadors from Tusculum, who announced that the Labicani had armed and, after devastating the Tusculan countryside in company with an Aequian army, had encamped on Algidus. [7] Thereupon war was declared against the Labicani, and the senate resolved that two of the tribunes should proceed to the front, while one attended to matters in Rome. At this a dispute immediately broke out amongst the tribunes, each of whom boasted of his superiority as a general and spurned the care of the City as a thankless and ignoble task. [8] While the astonished senators watched this unseemly rivalry amongst the colleagues, Quintus Servilius exclaimed, “Since you have no respect for this order nor for the republic, a father's authority shall end your quarrel. My son shall preside over the City, without recourse to lots. I only hope that those who are eager to make the campaign may conduct it with more consideration and harmony than they display in seeking it.”

46. It was determined not to make a general levy on the entire people, but ten tribes were chosen by lot. From these the two tribunes enrolled the men of military age and led them to war. [2] The bickerings which had commenced between them in the City grew much hotter in the camp, from the same eagerness to command; they could not agree on anything; each strove for his own opinion; each desired his own plans and his own orders to be the [p. 407]only valid ones; [3] each despised the other and was¹⁵⁶ in turn despised by him, until at last, reproved by their lieutenants, they arranged to exercise the supreme command on alternate days. [4] When the report of this reached Rome, it is said that Quintus Servilius, taught by years and experience, besought the immortal gods that the strife between the tribunes might not result more disastrously to the republic than had been the case at Veii, and as though certain defeat were imminent, urged his son to enlist soldiers and make ready arms. [5] Nor was he a false prophet. For under the leadership of Lucius Sergius, whose day it was to command, the Romans found themselves in an unfavourable position close to the enemy's camp, whither they had been drawn, when the Aequi feigned fear and retired to their rampart, by the vain hope of capturing it; and there they were suddenly attacked by the Aequi and driven pellmell down a sloping valley, where many of them, as they rather tumbled down than retreated, were overtaken and put to the sword. [6] That day they defended their camp with difficulty, and on the next, when the enemy had almost surrounded it, they abandoned it by a disgraceful flight through the opposite gate. [7] The generals and their lieutenants and such of the army's strength as kept to the standards made for Tusculum: the others, scattering through the fields, this way and that, hastened to Rome by divers roads and reported a much heavier defeat than had been sustained. [8] There was the less dismay for the reason that the event had tallied with men's apprehensions, and because reserves which they could look to in the hour of danger had been made ready by the tribune [p. 409]of the soldiers. [9] It was by his orders too that the¹⁵⁷ lesser magistrates had quieted the confusion in the City, when the scouts whom he had hurriedly sent out reported that the generals and the army were at Tusculum, and that the enemy had not broken camp. [10] And —what raised men's courage most — Quintus Servilius Priscus was in consequence of a senatorial decree named dictator —a man whose clear vision in public affairs the state had proved on many previous occasions, but particularly in the outcome of this war, because he alone had viewed the quarrel of the tribunes with anxiety, before their defeat. [11] Having appointed his son, by whom, when military tribune, he had himself been pronounced dictator, to be master of the horse, —as [12] some authorities have recorded; for others write that Servilius Ahala was master of the horse that year, —he set out with a fresh army for the war, sent for the troops which were at Tusculum, and fixed his camp two miles from the enemy.

47. In consequence of their success, the Aequi¹⁵⁸ had taken over the arrogance and carelessness which the Roman generals had shown, and the result was seen in the very first battle. [2] When the dictator had attacked with his cavalry and had thrown the enemy's front ranks into confusion, he ordered the legions to advance rapidly, and when one of his standard-bearers hesitated, cut him down. [3] So eager for combat were the troops, that the Aequi could not stop their rush, and when, defeated in the field, they had withdrawn to their camp in a disordered flight, it was stormed with less expenditure of time and effort than the battle itself had cost. [4] Having captured and sacked the camp, the dictator [p. 411]relinquished the plunder to his soldiers; and the cavalry,¹⁵⁹ which had pursued the enemy as they fled from their encampment, came back with the report that all [5??] the Labicani, after their defeat, and a great part of the Aequi, had taken refuge in Labici. [6] Next day the army marched to Labici and, drawing a cordon about the town, stormed it with ladders and plundered it. Leading his victorious army back to Rome, the dictator resigned his office eight days after his appointment; and the senate seized the opportunity, before the tribunes of the plebs could stir up agrarian troubles by proposing a division of the Labican territory, to resolve, in a largely-attended meeting, that a colony should be planted in Labici. [7] Fifteen hundred colonists were sent from the City, and each received two iugera.¹⁶⁰

The year that followed the capture of Labici, having as military tribunes with consular powers Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, Gaius Servilius Structus, and Publius Lucretius Tricipitinus (all these for the second time), together with Spurius Rutilius Crassus; [8] and the succeeding year, with Aulus Sempronius Atratinus (for his third term) and Marcus Papirius Mugillanus and Spurius Nautius Rutulus (for their second) were a period of tranquillity in foreign relations but of civil discord arising out of agrarian laws.

48. Those who stirred up the people were Spurius Maecilius, tribune of the plebs for the fourth time, and Marcus Metilius, for the third, both having been elected in their absence. [2] On their proposing a law that the land which had been captured from enemies should be divided up among the citizens, a plebiscite which would mean the confiscation of the [p. 413]fortunes of a great part of the nobles —for [3] there¹⁶¹ was scarcely any land, as might be expected in the case of a city situated on alien soil, which had not been gained by force of arms; [4] nor was much, if any, of that which had been sold or assigned by the state held by other than plebeians, —it appeared that a desperate struggle was at hand between the plebs and the patricians. [5] The military tribunes had hit upon no plan of action either in the senate or in the private conferences which they held with the leading men, when Appius Claudius, grandson of him who had been decemvir for drawing up the laws, himself the youngest of the council of senators, announced —so [6] the story goes —that he was bringing them from his house an old family device; [7] for it had been his great-grandfather¹⁶² Appius Claudius who had pointed out to the senators that the only way to break the power of the tribunes lay through the veto of their colleagues. [8] It was not difficult for the leading men of the state to induce upstart politicians¹⁶³ to change their minds, if they would but suit their discourse meantime rather to the exigencies of the crisis than to their lofty station. [9] The sentiments of such fellows varied with their fortunes: when they saw that their colleagues, by taking the lead in the management of affairs, had appropriated all the favour of the populace in advance and had left no room there for themselves, they would incline without reluctance to the cause of the senate, by supporting which they might gain the goodwill not only of the order as a whole, but also of the foremost senators. [10] When they had all expressed their approval, and especially Quintus Servilius Priscus, who praised the young man as [p. 415]one who had not degenerated from the Claudian¹⁶⁴ stock, everybody was given the task of inducing such of the tribunician college as he could to interpose their vetoes. [11] The senate adjourned and the leading members began to canvass the tribunes. [12] By arguments in which they mingled warnings with the promise that their action would earn the tribunes the personal gratitude of individuals, as well as that of the senate as a body, they got six men to promise their opposition. [13] Next day when the senate, in accordance with a preconcerted plan, had taken up the question of the sedition which Maecilius and Metilius were beginning by proposing a donation of the most objectionable type, the principal senators made speeches in which each took occasion to say that he could think of nothing to suggest and saw no help for the situation anywhere save in the assistance of the tribunes; [14] this was the power to whose protection the harassed republic, like a private citizen in distress, now fled for succour; it was a, glorious thing both for the men themselves and for their office that the tribunate possessed no less strength for the resistance of its wicked colleagues than for troubling the senate and promoting discord between the orders. [15] Loud shouts were then heard from the entire senate and appeals were addressed to the tribunes from every part of the Curia. Then, after silence had been obtained, those who had been won over by the favour of the chief senators declared their readiness to veto the measure which their colleagues had proposed but the senate deemed subversive of the republic. [16] The thanks of the senate were voted the protesters. The authors of the bill convened an assembly, and accusing their [p. 417]colleagues of being traitors to the interests of the¹⁶⁵ plebs and slaves of the consulars, and in other ways bitterly denouncing them, withdrew their measure.

49. There would have been two wars in the¹⁶⁶ ensuing year, in which Publius Cornelius Cossus, Gaius Valerius Potitus, Quintus Quinctius Cincinnatus, and Numerius Fabius Vibulanus were military tribunes with consular powers, had not the war with Veii been delayed, thanks to the superstition of the [2??] Veientine leaders, whose farms an overflow of the Tiber had laid waste, chiefly by ruining the farmhouses. [3] At the same time the Aequi were deterred by the defeat they had suffered three years before from marching to the assistance of the Bolani, a tribe of their own race. [4] These people had made incursions into the neighbouring territory of Labici and attacked the new settlers. [5] The consequences of this outrage they had hoped to avoid by means of the co-operation of all the Aequi; but, having been abandoned by their friends, they lost their town and their lands, in a war which does not even merit description, as the result of a siege and a single skirmish. [6] An attempt on the part of Lucius Decius, a plebeian tribune, to carry a law providing that colonists should be sent to Bolae too, as well as to Labici, was frustrated through the intervention of his colleagues, who intimated that they would permit no plebiscite to pass unless it had the warrant of the senate.

[7] Bolae was retaken the next year, and the Aequi planted a colony there and strengthened the town with new defenders. Rome now had the following military tribunes with consular powers, Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus, Lucius Valerius Potitus, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus (for the second time), and Marcus [p. 419]Postumius Regillensis. [8] To this last was intrusted¹⁶⁷ the campaign against the Aequi. He was a wrongheaded man, yet he showed it more in the hour of victory than during the campaign. [9] For he was energetic in raising an army and leading it to Bolae, where, after breaking the spirit of the Aequi in some trifling engagements, he finally forced an entrance into the town. He then diverted the quarrel from the enemy to his fellow-citizens; and though he had proclaimed at the time of the attack that the booty should belong to the soldiers, when he had taken the town he broke his promise. [10] This, I am inclined to believe, was the cause of the army's resentment, rather than the fact that in a recently-plundered city inhabited by new settlers, there was less booty than the tribune had predicted. [11] The ill-feeling was increased, when, being sent for by his colleagues on account of tribunician disturbances, he had returned to the City, by a stupid and almost insane remark he was heard to make in an assembly, where Marcus Sextius, a plebeian tribune, in introducing an agrarian measure, announced that he should propose also that colonists be dispatched to Bolae —for it was proper, he said, that the city and lands of the Bolani should belong to those who had captured them in war. “Woe to my soldiers,” exclaimed Postumius, “unless they hold their peace!” [12] —a saying which presently, on being reported to the senators, offended them no less than it had the assembly. And the tribune of the plebs, a keen and not uneloquent man, having got for one of his adversaries a man of haughty spirit and unbridled tongue, whom he could irritate and provoke to say things that would not only make himself disliked [p. 421]but his cause and the entire senate as well, made a¹⁶⁸ point of involving Postumius in a dispute more [13??] often than any other member of the college of military tribunes. On this particular occasion, after that savage and brutal threat, he cried, “Do you hear him, Quirites, threatening his soldiers with punishment like slaves? [14] Shall this wild beast seem to you, notwithstanding, more deserving of so great an office than those who would present you with a city and with lands, and send you out to colonies; who would provide a home for your old age; who fight for your interests against these cruel and insolent adversaries? [15] And does it surprise you that so few espouse your cause? What are they to expect of you? Those offices which you give by preference to your opponents, rather than to the champions of the Roman People? [16] You groaned just now when you heard his remark. What of it? If you should be asked to vote this very moment, you would elect this man who threatens you with chastisement in preference to those who wish to secure you lands and houses and fortunes.”

50. When this saying of Postumius reached the¹⁶⁹ troops, it stirred up much greater indignation in the camp: did the man who had fraudulently cut off his soldiers from their spoils also threaten them with punishment? [2] And while they murmured openly, the quaestor Publius Sestius, thinking that the mutiny could be quelled with the same violence which had occasioned it, sent a lictor to arrest a certain brawling soldier; [3] whereupon shouts and objurgations broke forth, and Sestius was hit with a stone and retreated from the scuffle, while the man who had wounded him thundered after him that the quaestor [p. 423]had got what the general had threatened to give his¹⁷⁰ men. [4] Being summoned to deal with this disturbance, Postumius aggravated everything by his harsh inquisitions and savage punishments. Finally his anger got beyond all bounds, and when the shout of those whom he had ordered to be put to death under a hurdle¹⁷¹ had caused a crowd to gather, he ran down in a frenzy of passion from his tribunal to those who would have interrupted the execution. [5] There, when the lictors and centurions assailed the mob and tried to drive them back, on this side and on that, resentment ran so high that a military tribune was overwhelmed with a volley of stones from his own soldiers. [6] This dreadful deed having been announced in Rome, the tribunes of the soldiers wished to institute a senatorial inquiry into the death of their colleague, but the plebeian tribunes interposed their vetoes. [7] The dispute was closely connected with another struggle. The senators had become apprehensive lest the plebs, what with their fear of investigations and their indignation, should elect military tribunes from their own class; they therefore used all their efforts to have consuls chosen. [8] Since the plebeian tribunes would not allow the resolution of the senate¹⁷² to go through, and also vetoed the election of consuls, the state reverted to an interregnum. The victory then rested with the senators.

51. Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, acting as interrex,¹⁷³ held an election, and Aulus Cornelius Cossus and Lucius Furius Medullinus were chosen consuls. [2] In their consulship, early in the year, a senatorial resolution was passed that the tribunes should bring the investigation of Postumius's murder before the plebs at the earliest possible moment, and that the [p. 425]plebs should appoint whomsoever they wished to¹⁷⁴ have charge of the inquiry. [3] The plebs unanimously referred the matter to the consuls. They accomplished their task with the utmost moderation and leniency, punishing a few only, —and these are generally believed to have committed suicide; —yet [4] they were unable to prevent the transaction from being bitterly resented by the plebs, who complained that the measures which had been proposed in their interests lay all this while neglected, whereas the law that was passed concerning their punishment and their lives was carried out at once, and most effectually. It would have been a very suitable occasion, now that the mutiny had been avenged, to appease their anger by offering to divide the Bolan territory. [5] Had the senators done this, they would have lessened men's desire for the agrarian law which was meant to expel the patricians from their wrongful occupation of the public domain. [6] As it was, a sense of injury was aroused by the very circumstance that the nobility not only persisted in retaining the public lands, which they held by force, but would not even divide among the plebeians the unoccupied ground which had recently been taken from the enemy and would soon, they thought, become, like all the rest, the booty of a few.

[7] The same year the Volsci laid waste the borders of the Hernici, and the legions were led out to meet them by the consul Furius. Not finding the enemy there, they captured Ferentinum, to which a great number of Volsci had retired. [8] There was less plunder there than they had expected, because the Volsci, having small hopes of defending the town, removed their possessions by night and abandoned [p. 427]it; next day, when it was taken, it was practically¹⁷⁵ deserted. The town itself and its territory were given to the Hernici.

52. After this year, which the moderation of the¹⁷⁶ tribunes had made a quiet one, came the plebeian tribuneship of Lucius Icilius, when Quintus Fabius Ambustus and Gaius Furius Paculus were consuls. [2] While Icilius, at the very outset of the year, was endeavouring to stir up sedition by the promulgation of agrarian laws, as [3??] if it had been the appointed task of his name and family, a pestilence broke out, which, though it was more threatening than fatal, diverted men's thoughts from the Forum and political conflicts to their homes and the care of the sick, and is thought to have been less hurtful than the sedition would have been. [4] The state had escaped with very few deaths, considering the great number of those who had fallen ill, when the year of pestilence was succeeded, in the consulship of Marcus Papirius Atratinus and Gaius Nautius Rutulus, by a scarcity of corn, owing to the neglect of tillage usual at such times. [5] Indeed the famine would have been more baneful than the disease, had they not supplemented the supply of corn by dispatching emissaries to all the peoples round about who dwelt on the Tuscan sea or by the Tiber, to purchase it. [6] The Samnites who held Capua and Cumae insolently refused to permit the envoys to trade with them, but the Sicilian tyrants,¹⁷⁷ on the contrary, lent them generous assistance; and the largest supplies of all were brought down the Tiber, with the hearty goodwill of the Etruscans. [7] The consuls experienced a lack of men in the afflicted City, and, being unable to find more than one senator for an embassy, were obliged to add [p. 429]two knights to each. [8] With the exception of the¹⁷⁸ disease and the shortage of corn, there was no internal or foreign trouble during these two years. But no sooner had these anxieties departed, than there came an outbreak of all the ills which were wont to harass the state, domestic quarrels and war abroad.

53. In the consulship of Marcus Aemilius and¹⁷⁹ Gaius Valerius Potitus the Aequi prepared to go to war, and the Volsci, though they did not take up arms as a nation, made the campaign as volunteers serving for pay. [2] When, on the rumour of their advance, — for they had already crossed over into Latin and Hernican territory, —Valerius the consul was raising troops, and Marcus Menenius, tribune of the plebs and proposer of an agrarian law, was obstructing the levy, and everybody who did not [3??] wish to go was availing himself of the tribune's protection and refusing the oath, on a sudden came the news that the citadel of Carventum had been seized by the enemy. [4] This humiliation not only gave the patricians the means of stirring up feeling against Menenius, but supplied the rest of the tribunes, who had already been persuaded to veto the agrarian law, with a more justifiable pretext for resisting their colleague. [5] The dispute was long drawn out. The consuls called gods and men to witness that the responsibility for whatever defeat or disgrace had already been or threatened to be visited on them by the enemy would rest with Menenius, because of his interference with the levy; [6] Menenius, on the other hand, protested loudly that if the occupants of the public domain would surrender their illegal possession of it, he was prepared to withdraw his opposition to the muster. At this juncture nine tribunes interposed a resolution [p. 431]which ended the contention. [7] They proclaimed in¹⁸⁰ the name of the college that they would support the consul Gaius Valerius if, in enforcing the levy, he resorted, despite the veto of their colleague, to fines and other forms of coercion against those who refused to serve. [8] Armed with this decree, the consul caused the few who appealed to the tribune to be haled before him; the rest were cowed into taking the oath. [9] The army marched to the citadel of Carventum; and although the soldiers were hated by the consul and returned his hostility, yet the moment they came to the place, they manfully drove out the garrison and recovered the stronghold, which had been laid open to attack by the negligence that had permitted men to slip away from the garrison in quest of booty. [10] There was a considerable accumulation of spoils from this constant raiding, because everything had been heaped up there for safety. All this the consul ordered the quaestors to sell at auction and place the proceeds in the public treasury, giving out word that the army should share in the plunder only when the men had not refused to serve. [11] This increased the enmity of plebs and soldiers towards the consul. [12] And so when he entered the City in an ovation, as the senate had decreed, the soldiers, with military freedom, shouted out rude verses now abusing the consul and now praising Menenius, while at every mention of the tribune's name the enthusiasm of the attendant populace vied with the voices of the men in cheers and applause. [13] This circumstance caused the patricians more anxiety than the sauciness of the soldiers towards the consul, which was virtually an established custom; and as though they made no question that Menenius would be chosen for one of the military tribunes, if he were [p. 433]a candidate, they held a consular election and so¹⁸¹ excluded him.

54. The consuls elected were Gnaeus Cornelius¹⁸² Cossus and (for the second time) Lucius Furius Medullinus. [2] Never before had the plebs felt so aggrieved that they were not allowed to choose military tribunes. They showed their disappointment, and likewise avenged it, at the election of quaestors, when plebeians were for the first time chosen to that office; though among the four to be elected room was made for one patrician, Caeso Fabius Ambustus. [3] Three plebeians, Quintus Silius, Publius Aelius, and Publius Pupius, were preferred before young men of the most distinguished families. I find that those who encouraged the people to make so free with their votes were the Icilii. [4] Three members of that family, a family most hostile to the patricians, had been made plebeian tribunes for that year, in consequence of the many great hopes they had held out to the populace, always more than eager to accept such promises. [5] These men had declared that they would make no move in their behalf, if even in the election of quaestors —the only election which the senate had left open to both classes —the people could not find sufficient resolution to accomplish what they had so long wished to do and the laws permitted. [6] And so the plebs felt that they had won a great victory, not estimating the significance of that quaestorship by the limits of the office itself, but feeling that the way to consulships and triumphs was thrown open to new men. [7] The patricians, on the other hand, were as angry as though they had not merely shared their offices with the plebs but had lost them. They said that if such [p. 435]things were to be, it was wrong for them to rear¹⁸³ children, who after being driven out from the places of their forefathers would behold others in possession of their honours, and would be left, without power or authority, to serve no other purpose than to offer up sacrifices, as salii and flamens,¹⁸⁴ for the people. [8] The feelings of both sides were overwrought. The plebs had plucked up courage and they had three very distinguished leaders for the popular cause. The patricians, perceiving that every election where the plebs were free to choose either sort of candidate would be like that of the quaestors, strove to bring about a consular election, which was not yet open to both orders. [9] The Icilii, on the contrary, maintained that military tribunes should be chosen; it was high time, they said, that the plebs were given their share of honours.

55. But the consuls had no measure on foot which the tribunes could oppose and so wring from them what they wanted, when, by a wonderful piece of luck, the Volsci and Aequi were reported to have crossed the border and raided the lands of the Latins and the Hernici. [2] As the consuls, in order to meet this invasion, were commencing to raise an army, in pursuance of a resolution of the senate, the tribunes obstructed the levy with all their might, declaring that the incident had been a fortunate one for the plebeians and themselves. [3] There were three of them, and they were all very active and belonged to a family which might now be called noble, considering that they were plebeians. [4] Two of them assumed the task of keeping constant watch on the consuls, each taking one of them; to the third was given the duty of haranguing the plebs, for the purpose, now of [p. 437]restraining, now of urging them on. The consuls could¹⁸⁵ neither bring about the levy, nor the tribunes the election, they desired. Then, as fortune was inclining to the cause of the plebs, came couriers who reported that while the soldiers who were in garrison at the citadel of Carventum had dispersed to plunder, the Aequi had come, and killing the few guards, had rushed the place. [5] Some of the soldiers had been cut down as they were hurrying back to the fortress, others as they roamed the fields. This national reverse added strength to the contention of the tribunes. It was in vain they were importuned to cease at last their opposition to the war. [6] They yielded neither to the public need nor to men's hatred of themselves, and carried their point —that the senate should pass a decree for the election of military tribunes. It was, however, expressly provided that no one should be accepted as a candidate who had that year been tribune of the plebs, and that no tribune of the Plebs should be re-elected. [7] It is evident that the senate wished to stigmatize the Icilii, whom they charged with seeking the consulship¹⁸⁶ as a reward for their seditious conduct while tribunes. [8] The levy was then begun and preparation made for war, with the consent of all the orders. Whether both consuls marched to the citadel of Carventum, or one stayed behind to hold an election, is uncertain in view of the contradictory accounts of the authorities. Thus much is clear (for in this they do not differ), that the Romans, after a long and futile siege, retired from the citadel of Carventum and recaptured Verrugo,¹⁸⁷ in the Volscian country, with the same army, which spread great [p. 439]devastation both among the Aequi and in the¹⁸⁸ territory of the Volsci, and gathered enormous spoils.

56. At Rome, though the plebeians were so far¹⁸⁹ victorious as to have the election they preferred, yet in the outcome of the election the patricians won the day. [2] For the military tribunes with consular authority were all three, contrary to the universal expectation, chosen from the patricians, viz., Gaius Julius lulus, Publius Cornelius Cossus, and Gaius Servilius Ahala. [3] The patricians are said to have employed a ruse (and the Icilii taxed them with it at the time), in that they mixed a rabble of unworthy competitors with the deserving, and the disgust which the notorious turpitude of certain of them provoked turned the people against the plebeian candidates.

[4] Then came a rumour that the Volsci and Aequi, whether encouraged by their defence of the citadel of Carventum or angered by the loss of the garrison at Verrugo, had risen in prodigious strength; [5] that the Antiates were the head and front of the war; that their envoys had gone about among the tribes of both races, upbraiding their cowardice in having hidden behind their walls the year before and allowed the Romans to pillage their lands and overwhelm the garrison at Verrugo. [6] They would presently be sending out, not merely armed expeditions across their borders, but colonies too; and not only, they said, had the Romans divided up their possessions amongst themselves, but they had even taken Ferentinum from them and bestowed it on the Hernici. [7] These words aroused indignation, and a number of young men were enlisted wherever the envoys went. So the forces of all the tribes drew together at Antium, where they encamped and waited for the enemy. [8] [p. 441]When these things had been reported at Rome,¹⁹⁰ amid excitement even greater than the situation warranted, the senate at once had recourse to its final counsel in emergencies, and ordered the appointment of a dictator. [9] It is said that Julius and Cornelius resented this, and that a very bitter discussion took place. [10] In vain the leading senators complained that the military tribunes were not amenable to senatorial control, and eventually appealed to the tribunes of the plebs and reminded them that their authority had in a similar case operated to restrain the consuls. But the tribunes of the plebs were delighted with the want of harmony amongst the senators. [11] They could give no assistance, they said, to men who did not regard them as citizens, or even as human beings. [12] If some day offices were thrown open to all, and they were given a share in the government, they would then see to it that no proud magistrate thwarted the decrees of the senate. [13] Meanwhile let the patricians live with no regard for laws and magistracies, and let the tribunes act as they saw fit.

57. This quarrel, so inopportune at a time when¹⁹¹ a great war was in hand, had quite taken possession of men's thoughts, and for a long time Julius and Cornelius —first [2] one and then the other —had argued that, since they were themselves quite capable of directing that campaign, it was unfair that they should be summarily deprived of the office which the people had intrusted to them; [3] when Servilius Ahala arose and said that he had been so long silent not because of any doubt as to his opinion —for what good citizen considered his own interests apart from those of the nation? —but because he had [p. 443]wished that his colleagues should of their own free¹⁹² will give in to the senators' authority, instead of suffering the power of the tribunes to be invoked against them. [4] Even then, if the circumstances allowed of it, he would gladly, he said, have given them time to retreat from their too obstinate contention; but since war's necessity did not wait upon man's deliberations, he should place the public welfare above the favour of his colleagues; [5] and if the senate held to its opinion, he should name a dictator that night, contenting himself, if any one vetoed the senate's resolution, with the expression of its wishes. [6] Having by this course gained the well-merited praise and friendly support of all, he named as dictator Publius Cornelius, by whom he was himself appointed master of the horse, thus showing such persons as considered the case of his colleagues and himself that favour and high office sometimes come more easily when men do not covet them. [7] The war was no way noteworthy. In a single battle, and an easy one, they defeated the enemy at Antium. The victorious army laid waste the Volscian country and took by storm a fortress at Lake Fucinus, where three thousand men were taken prisoners, the rest being driven within their city-walls, leaving their fields defenceless. [8] The dictator, after so conducting the campaign that he seemed barely to have taken advantage of his luck, returned to the City, with more good fortune than renown, and resigned his magistracy. [9] The tribunes of the soldiers, without saying a word about electing consuls, —I suppose because of their indignation at the appointment of a dictator, —proclaimed an election of military tribunes. [10] At that the patricians were [p. 445]more concerned than ever, as they might well be¹⁹³ when they saw their cause betrayed by their own fellows. [11] Accordingly, just as in the preceding year they had used the least worthy of the plebeian competitors to arouse a dislike of them all, even the deserving, so at this time, by setting up as candidates the senators of the greatest splendour and popularity, they secured all the places, in order that no plebeian might be chosen. [12] Four men were elected, all of whom had held that office before. They were Lucius Furius Medullinus, Gaius Valerius Potitus, Numerius Fabius Vibulanus, and Gaius Servilius Ahala. This last was continued in office partly for his other good qualities, partly because of the approval he had just gained by his singular moderation.

58. In that year, since the term of the truce¹⁹⁴ with Veii had run out, steps were taken to demand restitution, through ambassadors and fetials. [2] Arriving at the frontier, these men were met by an embassy of the Veientes, who asked them not to proceed to Veii until they themselves should have gone before the Roman senate. The senate, considering that the Veientes were in the throes of civil discord, agreed not to demand a settlement of them; so far were they from taking advantage of another people's difficulties. [3] And in the Volscian country the Romans suffered a disaster, in the loss of their garrison at Verrugo. On that occasion the element of time was of such moment that, although the troops who were being besieged there by the Volsci appealed for help and might have been relieved if their friends had made haste, yet the army dispatched for that purpose only arrived in season to surprise [p. 447]the enemy as they were dispersed in quest of booty,¹⁹⁵ just after putting the garrison to the sword. [4] The delay was due quite as much to the tribunes as to the senate, for they got reports that the garrison was making a strenuous resistance and failed to consider that no valour can transcend the limits of human endurance. [5] But the heroic soldiers were not unavenged, living or dead.

[6] The following year, when Publius and Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus, Numerius Fabius Ambustus, and Lucius Valerius Potitus were consular tribunes, war broke out with Veii on account of the insolent reply of the Veientine senate, who, when envoys demanded restitution of them, bade them be [7??] answered that unless they got quickly out from their city and their borders, they would give them what Lars Tolumnius had given the others.¹⁹⁶ [8] This angered the Fathers, and they decreed that the military tribunes should propose to the people a declaration of war on the Veientes at the earliest possible day. [9] As soon as this was promulgated, the young men protested loudly that the Volscian war was not yet brought to a conclusion; two garrisons had just been destroyed, and the other outposts were being held at great risk; not a year went by without a pitched battle; [10] and as though they had not troubles enough, a new war was being started with a neighbouring and very powerful people, who were sure to raise all Etruria against them.

This smouldering discontent was fanned into a blaze by the plebeian tribunes. [11] They persistently declared that it was the plebs with whom the senators were chiefly at war; [12] them they deliberately plagued with campaigning and exposed to be [p. 449]slaughtered by the enemy; them they kept at a¹⁹⁷ distance from the City, and assigned to foreign service, lest they might have thoughts, if they remained peaceably at home, of liberty and colonies, and might agitate for public lands or the free use of their votes. [13] And laying hold of veteran soldiers, they enumerated the campaigns of each and his wounds and scars; asking where one could now find a whole place on their bodies to receive fresh wounds, or what blood they had left to shed for their country. [14] When the tribunes by repeating these arguments in their talk and in their speeches had produced in the plebs a reluctance to undertake the war, the authors of the bill put off the time for voting on it, since it was clear that if subjected to the storm of disapproval it would fail to pass.

59. Meantime it was determined that the military tribunes should lead the army into the country of the Volsci; only Gnaeus Cornelius was left in Rome. [2] The three tribunes, on its appearing that the Volsci had no camp anywhere and did not propose to risk a battle, divided their army into three and advanced in different directions to lay waste the country. [3] Valerius marched upon Antium, Cornelius against Ecetrae, and wherever they went they plundered farms and buildings far and wide, to divide the forces of the Volsci; Fabius led his troops to Anxur, the principal object of their attack, and laid siege to it, without doing any pillaging. [4] Anxur, the Tarracinae of our day,¹⁹⁸ was a city which sloped down towards the marshes. [5] On this side Fabius threatened an assault, while four cohorts [p. 451]marched round under Gaius Servilius Ahala, and¹⁹⁹ seizing the hill which overhangs the city, assailed the walls from this superior position, where there was no force to oppose them, with great noise and confusion. [6] Hearing the din, the soldiers who were defending the lowest part of the town against Fabius were bewildered, and permitted him to bring up scaling-ladders; and soon the whole place was alive with enemies, who for a long time gave no quarter, slaughtering without distinction those who fled and those who resisted, the armed and the unarmed. [7] And so the vanquished, since they could hope for no mercy if they yielded, were compelled to fight; when suddenly the command was given that none should be hurt but those who carried weapons. Thereupon, all the survivors voluntarily laid down their arms, and about twenty-five hundred of them were taken alive. [8] Fabius made his soldiers leave the rest of the spoils until his colleagues could [9??] come up, saying that their armies had helped to capture Anxur by diverting the rest of the Volsci from the defence of that place. [10] When they arrived, the three armies sacked the town, which long years of prosperity had filled with riches. It was this generous treatment on the part of their commanders which first reconciled the plebs to the patricians. [11] In addition to this the senate then granted the people the most seasonable boon which has ever been bestowed on them by the chiefs of the state, when they decreed, without waiting for any suggestion by the plebs or their tribunes, that the soldiers should be paid from the public treasury, whereas till then every man had served at his own costs.

60. Nothing, it is said, was ever welcomed by [p. 453]the plebs with such rejoicing. Crowds gathered at B.C. 406 the Curia and men grasped the hands of the senators as they came out, saying that they were rightly called Fathers, and confessing that they had brought it to pass that no one, so long as he retained a particle of strength, would grudge his life's blood to so generous a country. [2] Not only were they pleased at the advantage that their property would at least not diminish while their bodies were impressed for the service of the state, but the voluntary character of the offer, which had never been mooted by plebeian tribunes nor extorted by any words of their own, multiplied their satisfaction and increased their gratitude. [3] The tribunes of the plebs were the only persons who did not partake in the general joy and good feeling of both orders. They said that the measure would neither be so agreeable to the Fathers nor so favourable to the whole body of the citizens as the latter believed; it was a plan which at first sight had promised to be better than experience would prove it. [4] For where, they asked, could the money be got together, save by imposing a tribute on the people? The senators had therefore been generous at other men's expense; and even though everyone else should submit to it, those who had already earned their discharge would not endure that others should serve on better terms than they had themselves enjoyed, and that the same men who had paid their own expenses should also contribute to the expenses of others. [5] By these arguments they influenced a part of the plebs. Finally, when the assessment had already been proclaimed, the tribunes even announced that they would protect anybody who should refuse to contribute to a tax for paying the soldiers. [6] The [p. 455]Fathers had made a good beginning and persevered²⁰⁰ in supporting it. They were themselves the first to contribute, and since there was as yet no silver coinage,²⁰¹ some of them brought uncoined bronze in waggons to the treasury, and even made a display of their contributing. [7] After the senators had paid most faithfully, according to their rating, the chief men of the plebs, friends of the nobles, began, as had been agreed, to bring in their quota. [8] When the crowd saw that these men were applauded by the patricians and were looked upon as good citizens by those of military age, they quickly rejected the protection of the tribunes and vied with one another who should be the first to pay. [9] And on the law being passed declaring war on the Veientes, an army consisting in great part of volunteers marched, under command of the new military tribunes, upon that city.

61. Now the tribunes were Titus Quinctius²⁰² Capitolinus, Quintus Quinctius Cincinnatus, Gaius Julius Iulus (for the second time), Aulus Manlius, Lucius Furius Medullinus (for the third time), and Manius Aemilius Mamercus. [2] By them Veii was for the first time besieged. Shortly after this siege began, the Etruscans held a numerously attended council at the shrine of Voltumna, but could reach no decision as to whether the entire nation should go to war in defence of the Veientes. [3] The siege languished during the year that followed, for some of the tribunes and a part of the army were called away to fight the Volsci.

[4] The military tribunes with consular powers for this year were Gaius Valerius Potitus (for the third time), Manius Sergius Fidenas, Publius Cornelius Maluginensis, Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus, Gaius Fabius Ambustus, and (for the second time) Spurius Nautius [p. 457]Rutulus. [5] A pitched battle was fought with the²⁰³ Volsci between Ferentinum and Ecetra, in which fortune favoured the Romans. The tribunes then laid siege to Artena, a Volscian town. [6] While attempting a sortie the enemy were driven back into the city and afforded the Romans an opportunity of forcing an entrance, so that the whole place, except the citadel, was captured; to this fortress, which was naturally strong, a band of armed men retired; below the citadel a large number were killed or taken prisoner. [7] The citadel was then besieged, but could neither be taken by assault, having a sufficient garrison in proportion to its area, nor appeared likely to surrender, for the whole public store of grain had been conveyed into the fortress before the capture of the town. The Romans would have withdrawn, discouraged, had not a slave betrayed the place into their hands. [8] This man admitted some soldiers by way of a steep approach, and they captured it and slew the sentries; whereupon the rest of the garrison was seized with a sudden panic and surrendered. [9] After demolishing the citadel and the town of Artena, the legions were withdrawn from the Volsci and all the might of Rome was brought to bear upon Veii. [10] The traitor was given the property of two families as a reward, besides his liberty, and was named Servius Romanus.²⁰⁴ There are those who think that Artena had belonged to the Veientes, not to the Volsci. [11] Their mistake is due to the fact that there was a city of the same name between Caere and Veii; but this place was destroyed by the Roman kings,²⁰⁵ and it had been a dependency of Caere, not of Veii; the other town of the same name, whose overthrow I have just related, was in Volscian territory.

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