When both the consuls came forward into the assembly, and the matter had changed from a long series of harangues to altercation, the tribune, on asking why it was not right that a plebeian should be made a consul, an answer was returned truly perhaps, though by no means expediently for the present contest, "that no plebeian could have the auspices, and for this reason the decemvirs had prohibited the intermarriage, lest from uncertainty of descent the auspices might be vitiated." The commons were fired with indignation at this above all, because, as if hateful to the immortal gods, they were denied to be qualified to take auspices. And now (as the commons both had a most energetic supporter in the tribune, and they themselves vied with him in perseverance) there was no end of the contentions, until the patricians, being at length overpowered, agreed that the law regarding intermarriage should be passed, judging that by these means most probably the tribunes would either give up altogether or postpone till after the war the question concerning the plebeian consuls; and that in the mean time the commons, content with the intermarriage-law (being passed,) would be ready to enlist. When Canuleius was now in high repute by his victory over the patricians and by the favour of the commons, the other tribunes being excited to contend for their bill, set to work with all their might, and, the accounts regarding the war augmenting daily, obstruct the levy. The consuls, when nothing could be transacted through the senate in consequence of the opposition of the tribunes, held meetings of the leading men at their own houses. It was becoming evident that they must concede the victory either to the enemies or to their countrymen. Valerius and Horatius alone of the consulars did not attend the meetings. The opinion of Caius Claudius was for arming the consuls against the tribunes. The sentiments of the Quintii, both Cincinnatus and Capitolinus, were averse to bloodshed, and to violating (persons) whom by the treaty concluded with the commons they had admitted to be sacred and inviolable. Through these meetings the matter was brought to this, that they suffered tribunes of the soldiers with consular authority to be elected from the patricians and commons without distinction; that with respect to the election of consuls no change should be made; and with this the tribunes were content, as were also the commons. An assembly is now proclaimed for electing three tribunes with consular power. This being proclaimed, forthwith whoever had contributed to promote sedition by word or deed, more particularly men who had been tribunes, began to solicit support and to bustle about the forum as candidates; so that despair, in the first instance, of obtaining the honour, by reason of the irritated state of the people's mind, then indignation at having to hold the office with such persons, deterred the patricians; at length however, being forced, they stood as candidates, lest they might appear to have relinquished all share in the government. The result of this election showed that the sentiments of persons in the struggle for liberty and dignity are different from those they feel when the contest is laid aside, the judgment being unbiassed; for the people elected all patricians as tribunes, content with this, that the plebeians had been taken into account. Where could you now find in an individual such moderation, disinterestedness, and elevation of mind, as was then displayed by the entire people?

In the three hundred and tenth year after the city of Rome was built, for the first time military tribunes in the room of consuls enter into office, Aulus Sempronius Atratinus, Lucius Atilius, Titus ClÆlius; in whose office the concord prevailing at home afforded peace also abroad. There are some who, without mentioning the proposal of the law concerning the election of consuls from among the commons, say that three military tribunes were elected on account of the Veientian war being added to the war of the Æquans and the Volscians and to the revolt of the Ardeates, because two consuls could not execute so many wars together, these tribunes being invested also with the authority and insignia of consuls. The jurisdiction of that office however did not stand on a firm footing, because the third month after they entered on the office, they resigned the honour, in pursuance of a decree of the augurs, as if unduly elected; because Caius Curtius, who had presided at the election, had not selected his tent with due regard to ceremony. Ambassadors came to Rome from Ardea complaining of the injustice in such a manner, that it appeared that, if it were redressed, they would continue in amity and the observance of the treaty, on the restitution of their land. The answer returned by the senate was: "that the judgment of the people could not be rescinded by the senate, besides such a measure could not be adopted on precedent or with justice;, as an additional reason also for the purpose of preserving concord between the several orders of the state. If the Ardeans were willing to abide a seasonable conjuncture, and leave to the senate the mode of redressing the injustice done to them, that the consequence would be that they would rejoice for having moderated their resentment, and that they should be convinced that the patricians were equally anxious that no injustice should arise against them, and that any which may have arisen should not be lasting." Thus the ambassadors, saying that they should lay the whole matter anew before their friends, were dismissed courteously. The patricians, now that the republic was without any curule magistrate, assembled together and elected an interrex. The contest whether consuls or military tribunes should be elected, kept the matter for several days in a state of interregnum. The interrex and senate strive that the elections of consuls be held; the tribunes of the people, and the people themselves, that elections of the military tribunes be held. The patricians succeeded, because both the commons, sure to confer the one or the other honour on patricians, gave up a needless contest, and the leaders of the commons preferred those elections at which no account was to be taken of them (as candidates) to those at which they should be passed by as unworthy. The tribunes of the commons also gave up the contest without a decision, as a compliment to the chiefs of the patricians. Titus Quintius Barbatus, the interrex, elects consuls Lucius Papirius Mugillanus, Lucius Sempronius Atratinus. During their consulship, the treaty was renewed with the Ardeans; and that is a record to prove, that they were consuls in that year, though they are not to be found among the ancient annals, nor in the books of the magistrates. I suppose because military tribunes existed at the commencement of the year, on that account, though these consuls were substituted, the names of the consuls were left out, just as if the military tribunes were the entire year in office. Licinius Macer states, that they were found both in the Ardean treaty and in the linen books at the temple of Moneta. There was tranquillity both at home and abroad, though so many alarms were held out by the neighbouring states.

This year (whether it had tribunes only, or consuls substituted in the room of tribunes) is followed by a year when there were undoubtedly consuls, scil. Marcus Geganius Macerinus a second time, Titus Quintius Capitolinus a fifth time. This same year was the commencement of the censorship, a thing which arose from an humble origin, which afterwards increased so much in importance, that in it was vested the regulation of the morals and discipline of Rome, the senate and the centuries of the knights, the distinction of honour and of ignominy were under the sway of that office, the legal right to public and private places, the revenues of the Roman people fell under their beck and jurisdiction. The institution of the thing originated in this, that the people not having been subjected to a survey for several years, the census could neither be deferred, nor had the consuls leisure to discharge their duty, when wars impended from so many states. An observation was made by the senate, "that an office laborious in itself, and one little suited to the consular office, required a magistrate for itself, to whose authority should be submitted the duties of the several scribes, the custody and care of the records, as well as the adjustment of the form to be adopted in the census." And inconsiderable though the proposal might be, still the senate received it with great pleasure, because it increased the number of patrician magistrates in the state, judging also that that would come to pass, which really did occur, viz. that the influence of those who should preside, and the honour of the office would derive on it additional authority and dignity. The tribunes also, considering the discharge of the duty (as was really the case) as necessary rather than the duty itself, as being attended with lustre, did not indeed offer opposition, lest they should through perverseness show a disposition to thwart them even in trifles. After the honour was rejected by the leading men of the state, the people by their suffrages appointed to the office of conducting the census Papirius and Sempronius, concerning whose consulate doubts are entertained, that in that magistracy they might have some recompence for the incompleteness of their consulate. They were called censors from the nature of their office.

Whilst these matters are transacting at Rome, ambassadors come from Ardea, imploring aid for their city, which was nearly destroyed, in consideration of their very ancient alliance, and of the treaty recently renewed. For by intestine wars they were not allowed to enjoy the peace with Rome, which they had by the soundest policy preserved; the cause and origin of which is said to have arisen from a struggle between factions; which have proved and ever will prove more a cause of destruction to several states, than foreign wars, famine, or disease, or any of the other evils which men refer to the anger of heaven, as the severest of public calamities. Two young men courted a maiden of a plebeian family, highly distinguished for beauty: one of them on a level with the maid in point of birth, and favoured by her guardians, who were themselves of the same rank; the other of noble birth, captivated by nothing but her beauty. The latter was aided by the good wishes of the nobles, through which party disputes made their way even into the girl's family. The nobleman was preferred in the judgment of the mother, who was anxious that her daughter should have the most splendid match possible: the guardians, mindful of party even in that transaction, strove for the person of their own order. As the matter could not be settled within the walls of the house, they proceeded to a court of justice. On hearing the claim of the mother and of the guardians, the magistrate decides the right of marriage in conformity with the wish of the mother. But violence was the more powerful. For the guardians, having harangued openly in the forum among persons of their own faction, on the injustice of the decree, collected a party and carry off the girl from her mother's house: against whom a body of nobles having arisen more incensed than before, attends the young man rendered furious by the outrage. A desperate battle takes place; the commons in no respect like to the Roman commons were worsted, and having set out from the city in arms, and taken possession of a hill, make excursions into the lands of the nobles with fire and sword. The city too, which had been previously free from all contest, they set about besieging, having induced, by the hope of plunder, a multitude of artisans to join them: nor was any appearance or calamity of war absent; as if the whole state were infested by the mad rage of the two young men, who sought the accomplishment of the fatal match through their country's ruin. The arms and war at home seemed insufficient to both parties. The nobles called in the Romans to the relief of their besieged city; the commons called upon the Volscians to join them in storming Ardea. The Volscians, under the command of ClÆlius, an Æquan, came first to Ardea, and drew a line of circumvallation around the enemy's walls. When news of this was brought to Rome, Marcus Geganius, the consul, having set out immediately at the head of an army, selected a place for his camp about three miles from the enemy; and the day being now fast declining, he orders his soldiers to refresh themselves; then at the fourth watch he puts his troops in motion; and the work, once commenced, was expedited in such a manner, that at sun-rise the Volscians found themselves enclosed by the Romans with stronger works than the city was by themselves. The consul had also at another place connected an arm to the wall of Ardea, through which his friends might pass to and from the town.

The Volscian general, who up to that period had maintained his army, not out of provisions which had been previously provided, but with corn brought in daily from the plunder of the country, when now encompassed by a rampart he perceives himself suddenly destitute of every thing, calling the consul to a conference, says, that "if the Roman came for the purpose of raising the siege, he would withdraw the Volscians from thence." To this the consul made answer, that "the vanquished had to accept terms, not to dictate them; and as the Volscians came at their own discretion to attack the allies of the Roman people, they should not go off in the same same way." He orders, "that their general be given up, their arms laid down, acknowledging themselves vanquished, and ready to submit to his further orders: otherwise, whether they went away or stayed, that he would prove a determined enemy, and would prefer to carry to Rome a victory over the Volscians than an insidious peace." The Volscians, determined on trying the slender hope they had in arms, all other being now cut off, besides many other disadvantages, having come to an engagement in a place unfavourable for fighting, and still more so for retreat, when they were being cut down on every side, from fighting have recourse to entreaties; having given up their general and surrendered their arms, they are sent under the yoke and dismissed full of disgrace and suffering, with one garment each. And when they halted not far from the city of Tusculum, in consequence of an old grudge of the Tusculans they were surprised, unarmed as they were, and suffered severe punishment, a messenger being scarcely left to bring an account of their defeat. The Roman general quieted the disturbed state of affairs at Ardea, beheading the principal authors of that commotion, and confiscating their effects to the public treasury of the Ardeans; the Ardeans considered the injustice of the decision completely repaired by such kindness on the part of the Roman people; it seemed to the senate, however, that something remained to be done to obliterate the remembrance of public avarice. The consul returns to the city in triumph, ClÆlius, the general of the Volscians, being led before his chariot, and the spoils being carried before him, of which he had stripped the enemy's army after he had sent them under the yoke. Quintius the consul, by his civil administration, equalled, which is no easy matter, the glory attained by his colleague in war; for he so regulated the domestic care of harmony and peace, by dispensing justice with moderation to the highest and the lowest, that both the patricians considered him a strict consul, and the commons, as one sufficiently lenient. Against the tribunes too he carried his measures more by his influence than by striving against them. Five consulships conducted with the same even tenor of conduct, and every part of his life being passed in a manner worthy of the consular dignity, rendered himself almost more venerable than the high office itself. On this account no mention was made of the military tribunes during this consulate.

They appoint as consuls Marcus Fabius Vibulanus, Publius Æbutius Cornicen. Fabius and Æbutius, the consuls, inasmuch as they perceived that they succeeded to a greater glory of achievements performed at home and abroad, (the year was rendered particularly remarkable among the neighbouring states, both friendly and hostile, because relief had been afforded to the Ardeans in their perilous situation with so much zeal,) the more strenuously exerted themselves in obtaining a decree of the senate, that they might completely efface the infamy of the decision from the memory of men, to the effect that since the state of the Ardeans had been reduced to a few by intestine war, a colony should be sent thither as a protection against the Volscians. This is what was stated publicly on the tables, that the intention entertained of rescinding the decision might escape the knowledge of the commons and tribunes. But they had agreed that, a much greater number of Rutulian colonists being enrolled than of Romans, no land should be distributed, except that which had been intercepted by the infamous decision; and that not a sod of it should be assigned to any Roman, until all the Rutulians had had their share. In this way the land returned to the Ardeans. The commissioners appointed to transplant the colony to Ardea were Agrippa Menenius, Titus ClÆlius Siculus, and Marcus Æbutius Elva. When they, in the discharge of their by no means popular office, had given offence to the commons by assigning to the allies the land which the Roman people had decided to be their own, and were not even much supported by the patricians, because they had not deferred in any way to the influence of any one, a day having been appointed for them by the tribunes to appear before the people, they escaped all vexatious annoyance by enrolling themselves as settlers and remaining in the colony, which they now had as a testimony of their integrity and justice.

There was peace at home and abroad both this and the following year, Caius Furius Pacilus and Marcus Papirius Crassus being consuls. The games which had been vowed by the decemvirs, in pursuance of a decree of the senate on occasion of the secession of the commons from the patricians, were performed this year. An occasion for sedition was sought in vain by PÆtelius, who, having been made a tribune of the commons a second time, by denouncing these same threats, could neither prevail on the consuls to submit to the senate the questions concerning the division of the lands among the people; and when, after a hard struggle, he had succeeded so far that the patricians should be consulted as to whether it was their pleasure that an election should be held of consuls or of tribunes, consuls were ordered to be elected; and the menaces of the tribune were now laughed at, when he threatened that he would stop the levy, inasmuch as the neighbouring states being now quiet, there was no occasion either for war or for preparations for war. This tranquil state of things is followed by a year, in which Proculus Geganius Macerinus, Lucius Menenius Lanatus were consuls, remarkable for a variety of disasters and dangers, also for disturbances, famine, for their having almost submitted their necks to the yoke of arbitrary power through the allurement of largesses. Foreign war alone was wanting, by which if matters had been aggravated, they could scarcely have stood out against them by the aid of all the gods. Their misfortunes began with famine; whether it was that the season was unfavourable to the crops, or that the cultivation of the land was relinquished for the allurements of the city, and of public harangues; for both causes are assigned. And the patricians accused the commons as being idle; the tribunes of the commons complained sometimes of the fraud, at other times of the negligence of the consuls. At length the commons prevailed, without opposition on the part of the senate, that Lucius Minutius should be appointed president of the market; doomed to be more successful in that office in preserving liberty than in the discharge of his own peculiar province: although in the end he bore away the well-earned gratitude of the people as well as the glory of having lowered the price of provisions. When he had made but slight advance in relieving the markets by sending embassies around the neighbouring states by land and sea to no purpose, except that an inconsiderable quantity of corn was imported from Etruria, and applying himself to the careful dispensations of their scanty stock, by obliging persons to show their supply, and to sell whatever was over and above a month's provision, and by depriving the slaves of one half of their daily allowance; then by censuring and holding up to the resentment of the people the corn-hoarders, he rather discovered the great scarcity of grain than relieved it by this rigorous inquisition. Many of the commons, all hope being lost, rather than be tortured by dragging out existence, muffled up their heads and precipitated themselves into the Tiber.

Then Spurius MÆlius, of the equestrian order, extremely rich considering these times, set about a project useful in itself, but having a most pernicious tendency, and a still more pernicious motive. For having, by the assistance of his friends and clients, bought up corn from Etruria at his private expense, (which very circumstance, I think, had been an impediment in the endeavour to reduce the price of corn by the exertions of the state,) he set about giving out largesses of corn: and having won over the commons by this munificence, he drew them with him wherever he went, conspicuous and consequential beyond the rank of a private citizen, insuring to him as undoubted the consulship by the favour (they manifested towards him) and the hopes (they excited in him.) He himself, as the mind of man is not to be satiated with that which fortune holds out the hope of, began to aspire to things still higher, and altogether unwarrantable; and since even the consulship would have to be taken from the patricians against their will, he began to set his mind on kingly power;—that that would be the only prize worthy of such grand designs and of the struggle which would have to be endured. The consular elections were now coming on, which circumstance destroyed him completely, his plans being not yet arranged or sufficiently matured. Titus Quintius Capitolinus was elected consul for the sixth time, a man by no means well suited to answer the views of one meditating political innovations: Agrippa Menenius is attached to him as colleague, who bore the cognomen of Lanatus: and Lucius Minutius as president of the markets, whether he was re-elected, or created for an indefinite period, as long as circumstances should require; for there is nothing certain in the matter, except this, his name was entered as president in the linen books among the magistrates for both years. Here Minucius, conducting the same office in a public capacity which MÆlius had undertaken to conduct in a private character, the same class of persons frequenting the houses of both, having ascertained the matter, lays it before the senate, "that arms were collecting in the house of MÆlius, and that he held assemblies in his house: and that his designs were unquestionably bent on regal dominion: that the time for the execution of the project was not yet fixed: that all other matters were settled; and that the tribunes were bought over for hire to betray the public liberty, and that the several parts were assigned to the leaders of the multitude. That he laid these things before them almost later than was consistent with safety, lest he might be the reporter of any thing uncertain or ill-grounded." When these things were heard, the chiefs of the patricians both rebuked the consuls of the former year, for having suffered those largesses and meetings of the people to go on in a private house, as well as the new consuls for having waited until a matter of such importance should be reported to the senate by the president of the markets, which required the consul to be not only the reporter, but the punisher also; then Titus Quintius said, "that the consuls were unfairly censured, who being fettered by the laws concerning appeal, enacted to weaken their authority, by no means possessed as much power in their office as will, to punish that proceeding according to its atrocity. That there was wanting a man not only determined in himself, but one who was unshackled and freed from the fetters of those laws. That he would therefore appoint Lucius Quintius dictator; that in him there would be a determination suitable to so great a power." Whilst all approved, Quintius at first refused; and asked them what they meant, in exposing him in the extremity of age to such a contest. Then when they all said that in that aged mind there was not only more wisdom, but more energy also, than in all the rest, and went on loading him with deserved praises, whilst the consul relaxed not in his original determination; Cincinnatus at length having prayed to the immortal gods, that his old age might not prove a detriment or disgrace to the republic at so dangerous a juncture, is appointed dictator by the consul: he himself then appoints Caius Servilius Ahala his master of the horse.

On the next day, having stationed proper guards, when he had gone down to the forum, and the attention of the commons was attracted to him by the strangeness and extraordinary nature of the thing, and MÆlius's friends and himself their leader perceived that the power of such high authority was directly aimed at them; when, moreover, those who were not aware of the designs on regal power, went on asking, "what tumult, what sudden war, had called for either the dictatorial authority, or Quintius, after his eightieth year, administrator of affairs," Servilius, master of the horse, being sent by the dictator to MÆlius, says, "The dictator summons you." When he, being alarmed, asked what he meant, and Servilius stated that "he must stand a trial," and answer the charge brought against him before the senate by Minucius, MÆlius drew back into the band of his adherents, and at first, looking around him, he began to skulk off: at length when the beadle, by order of the master of the horse, was bringing him off, being rescued by those present, and running away, he implored the protection of the Roman people, and alleged that he was persecuted by a conspiracy of the patricians because he had acted kindly towards the people: he besought them that they would assist him in this critical emergency, and not suffer him to be butchered before their eyes. Ahala Servilius overtook and slew him whilst exclaiming in this manner; and smeared with the blood of the person so slain, and surrounded by a body of young nobles, he carries back word to the dictator that MÆlius having been summoned to him, and commencing to excite the multitude after he had repulsed the beadle, had received condign punishment. "Thou hast acted nobly, Caius Servilius," said the dictator, "in having saved the republic."

He then ordered the multitude, who were much agitated, not knowing what judgment to form of the deed, to be called to an assembly: and he openly declared, "that MÆlius had been justly put to death, even though he may have been innocent of the charge of aiming at regal power, who, when summoned to attend the dictator by the master of the horse, had not come. That he himself had taken his seat to examine into the case; that, after it had been investigated, MÆlius should have met a result corresponding to his deserts; that when employing force, in order that he might not commit himself to a trial, he had been checked by force. Nor should they proceed with him as with a citizen, who, born in a free state amid laws and rights, in a city from which he knew that kings had been expelled, and on the same year the sons of the king's sister and the children of the consul, the liberator of his country, had been put to death by their father, on a plot for readmitting the royal family into the city having been discovered, from which Collatinus Tarquinius the consul, through a hatred of his name, was ordered to resign his office and go into exile; in which capital punishment was inflicted on Spurius Cassius several years after for forming designs to assume the sovereignty; in which the decemvirs were recently punished with confiscation, exile, and death, in consequence of regal tyranny in that city, Spurius MÆlius conceived a hope of attaining regal power. And who was this man? Although no nobility, no honours, no deserts should open to any man the road to domination, yet still the Claudii and Cassii, by reason of the consulates, the decemvirates, the honours of their own and those of their ancestors, and from the splendour of their families, had raised their aspiring minds to heights to which it was impious to raise them: that Spurius MÆlius, to whom a tribuneship of the commons should rather be an object of wishes than of hope, a wealthy corn-merchant, had conceived the hope to purchase the liberty of his countrymen for two pounds of corn; had supposed that a people victorious over all their neighbours could be cajoled into servitude by throwing them a morsel of food; so that a person whom the state could scarcely digest as a senator, it should tolerate as king, possessing the ensigns and authority of Romulus their founder, who had descended from and had returned to the gods. This was to be considered not more criminal than it was monstrous: nor was it sufficiently expiated by his blood; unless the roof and walls within which so mad a project had been conceived, should be levelled to the ground, and his effects were confiscated, as being contaminated with the price of purchasing kingly domination. He ordered, therefore, that the quÆstors should sell this property and deposit the proceeds in the treasury."

He then ordered his house to be immediately razed, that the vacant ground might serve as a monument of nefarious hopes destroyed. This was called ÆquimÆlium. Lucius Minucius was presented with a gilded ox on the outside of the gate Trigemina, and this not even against the will of the commons, because he distributed MÆlius's corn, after valuing it at one as per bushel. In some writers I find that this Minucius had changed sides from the patricians to the commons, and that having been chosen as eleventh tribune of the people, he quieted a commotion which arose on the death of MÆlius. But it is scarcely credible that the patricians would have suffered the number of the tribunes to be increased, and that such a precedent should be introduced more particularly in the case of a man who was a patrician; or that the commons did not afterwards maintain, or at least attempt, that privilege once conceded to them. But the legal provision made a few years before, viz. that it should not be lawful for the tribunes to choose a colleague, refutes beyond every thing else the false inscription on the statue. Quintus CÆcilius, Quintus Junius, Sextus Titinius, were the only members of the college of tribunes who had not been concerned in passing the law for conferring honours on Minucius; nor did they cease both to throw out censures one time on Minucius, at another time on Servilius, before the commons, and to complain of the unmerited death of MÆlius. They succeeded, therefore, in having an election held for military tribunes rather than for consuls, not doubting but that in six places, for so many were now allowed to be elected, some plebeians also might be appointed, by their professing to be avengers of the death of MÆlius. The commons, though they had been agitated that year by many and various commotions, neither elected more than three tribunes with consular power; and among them Lucius Quintius, son of Cincinnatus, from the unpopular nature of whose dictatorship an occasion for disturbance was sought. Mamercus Æmilius, a man of the highest dignity, was voted in, prior to Quintius. In the third place they appoint Lucius Julius.

During their office FidenÆ, a Roman colony, revolted to Lars Tolunmius, king of the Veientians, and to the Veientians. To the revolt a more heinous crime was added. By order of Tolumnius they put to death Caius Fulcinius, ClÆlius Tullus, Spurius Antius, Lucius Roscius, Roman ambassadors, who came to inquire into the reason of this new line of conduct. Some palliate the guilt of the king; that an ambiguous expression of his, during a lucky throw of dice, having been mistaken by the Fidenatians, as if it seemed to be an order for their execution, had been the cause of the ambassadors' death. An incredible tale; that his thoughts should not have been drawn away from the game on the arrival of the Fidenatians, his new allies, when consulting him on a murder tending to violate the law of nations; and that the act was not afterwards viewed by him with horror. It is more probable that he wished the state of the Fidenatians to be so compromised by their participation in so great a crime, that they might not afterwards look to any hope from the Romans. Statues of the ambassadors, who were slain at FidenÆ, were set up in the rostra at the public expense. A desperate struggle was coming on with the Veientians and Fidenatians, who, besides that they were neighbouring states, had commenced the war with so heinous a provocation. Therefore, the commons and their tribunes being now quiet, so as to attend to the general welfare, there was no dispute with respect to the electing of Marcus Geganius Macerinus a third time, and Lucius Sergius Fidenas, as consuls; so called, I suppose, from the war which he afterwards conducted. For he was the first who fought a successful battle with the king of the Veientians on this side of the Anio, nor did he obtain an unbloody victory. Greater grief was therefore felt from the loss of their countrymen, than joy from the defeat of the enemy: and the senate, as in an alarming crisis, ordered Mamercus Æmilius to be appointed dictator. He appointed as his master of the horse from the college of the preceding year, in which there had been tribunes of the soldiers with consular power, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, a youth worthy of his parent. To the levy held by the consuls were added the old centurions well versed in war, and the number of those lost in the late battle was made up. The dictator ordered Lucius Quintius Capitolinus and Marcus Fabius Vibulanus to attend him as his lieutenants-general. Both the higher powers, and the man suitable to such powers, caused the enemy to move from the Roman territory to the other side of the Anio, and continuing their retrograde movement, they took possession of the hills between FidenÆ and the Anio, nor did they descend into the plains until the troops of the Faliscians came to their aid; then at length the camp of the Etrurians was pitched before the walls of FidenÆ. The Roman dictator took his post at no great distance from thence at the conflux on the banks of both rivers, lines being run across between them, as far as he was able to follow by a fortification. Next day he marched out his army into the field.

Among the enemy there was a diversity of opinion. The Faliscians, impatient of the hardships of war at a distance from home, and sufficiently confident of their own strength, earnestly demanded battle; the Veientians and Fidenatians placed more hope in protracting the war. Tolumnius, though the measures of his own subjects were more agreeable to him, proclaims that he would give battle on the following day, lest the Faliscians might not brook the service at so great a distance from their home. The dictator and the Romans took additional courage from the fact of the enemy having declined giving battle: and on the following day, the soldiers exclaiming that they would attack the camp and the city, if an opportunity of fighting were not afforded them, the armies advance on both sides into the middle of a plain between the two camps. The Veientians, having the advantage in numbers, sent around a party behind the mountains to attack the Roman camp during the heat of the battle. The army of the three states stood drawn up in such a manner, that the Veientians occupied the right wing, the Faliscians the left, whilst the Fidenatians constituted the centre. The dictator charged on the right wing against the Faliscians, Quintius Capitolinus on the left against the Veientians, and the master of the horse with the cavalry advanced in the centre. For a short time all was silence and quiet, the Etrurians being determined not to engage unless they were compelled, and the dictator looking back towards a Roman fort, until a signal should be raised, as had been agreed on, by the augurs, as soon as the birds had given a favourable omen. As soon as he perceived this, he orders the cavalry first to charge the enemy, after raising a loud shout; the line of infantry following, engaged with great fury. In no quarter did the Etrurian legions withstand the shock of the Romans. The cavalry made the greatest resistance; and the king himself, far the bravest of the cavalry, charging the Romans whilst they were pursuing in disorder in every direction, prolonged the contest.

There was then among the cavalry, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, a tribune of the soldiers, distinguished for the beauty of his person, and equally so for courage and great strength of body, and mindful of his rank, which, having received in a state of the highest lustre, he left to his posterity still greater and more distinguished. He perceiving that the Roman troops gave way at the approach of Tolumnius, wherever he directed his charge, and knowing him as being remarkable by his royal apparel, as he flew through the entire line, exclaims, "Is this the infringer of human treaties and the violator of the law of nations? This victim I shall now slay, (provided the gods wish that there should be any thing sacred on earth,) and shall offer him up to the manes of the ambassadors." Having clapped spurs to his horse, he advances against this single foe with spear presented; and after having struck and unhorsed him, he immediately, by help of his lance, sprung on the ground. And as the king attempted to rise, he throws him back again with the boss of his shield, and with repeated thrusts pins him to the earth. He then stripped off the spoils from the lifeless body; and having cut off his head and carrying it on the point of his spear, he puts the enemy to rout through terror on seeing their king slain. Thus the line of cavalry, which alone had rendered the combat doubtful, was beaten. The dictator pursues closely the routed legions, and drove them to their camp with slaughter. The greater number of the Fidenatians, through their knowledge of the country, made their escape to the mountains. Cossus, having crossed the Tiber with the cavalry, carried off great plunder from the Veientian territory to the city. During the battle there was a fight also at the Roman camp against a party of the forces, which, as has been already mentioned, had been sent by Tolumnius to the camp. Fabius Vibulanus first defends his lines by a ring; then, whilst the enemy were wholly taken up with the entrenchment, sallying out from the principal gate on the right, he suddenly attacks them with the triarii: and a panic being thus struck into them there was less slaughter, because they were fewer, but their flight was no less disorderly than it had been on the field of battle.

Matters being managed successfully in every direction, the dictator, by a decree of the senate and order of the people, returned to the city in triumph. By far the most remarkable object in the triumph was Cossus, bearing the spolia opima of the king he had slain. The soldiers chaunted their uncouth verses on him, extolling him as equal to Romulus. With the usual form of dedication, he presented, as an offering, the spoils in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, near the spoils of Romulus, which, having been the first called opima, were the only ones at that time; and he attracted the eyes of all the citizens from the dictator's chariot to himself, and enjoyed almost solely the honour of that day's solemnity. The dictator offered up to Jupiter in the Capitol a golden crown a pound in weight, at the public expense, by order of the people. Following all the Roman writers, I have represented Aulus Cornelius Cossus as a military tribune, when he carried the second spolia opima to the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. But besides that those spoils are rightly considered opima, which one general has taken from another; and we know no general but the person under whose auspices the war is conducted, the inscription itself written on the spoils proves, against both me and them, that Cossus was consul when he took them. Having once heard Augustus CÆsar, the founder or restorer of all our temples, on entering the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, which being dilapidated by time he rebuilt, aver that he himself had read the said inscription on the linen breastplate, I thought it would be next to sacrilege to rob Cossus of such a testimony respecting his spoils as that of CÆsar, the renovator of the temple itself. Whether the mistake is chargeable on the very ancient annals and the linen books of the magistrates, deposited in the temple of Moneta, and which Licinius Macer occasionally cites as authorities, which have Aulus Cornelius Cossus consul with Titus Quintius Pennus, in the ninth year after this, every person may form his own opinion. For there is this additional proof, that a battle so celebrated could not be transferred to that year; that the three years before and after the consulship of Aulus Cornelius were entirely free from war, in consequence of a pestilence and a scarcity of grain; so that some annals, as if in mourning, present nothing but the names of the consuls. The third year from the consulship of Cossus has him as military tribune with consular power; in the same year as master of the horse, in which office he fought another distinguished horse battle. Conjecture is open on the matter; but, as I think, idle surmises may be turned to support any opinion: when the hero of the fight, having placed the recent spoils in the sacred repository, having before him Jove himself, to whom they were consecrated, and Romulus, no contemptible witnesses in case of a false inscription, entitled himself Aulus Cornelius Cossus consul.

Marcus Cornelius Maluginensis and Lucius Papirius Crassus being consuls, the armies were led into the territories of the Veientians and Faliscians; numbers of men and cattle were driven off as spoil; the enemy was no where to be found on the land, and no opportunity of fighting was afforded; the cities however were not attacked, because a pestilential disorder ran through the people. Disturbances were also sought at home, but not actually excited, however, by Spurius MÆlius, tribune of the people; who thinking that he might create some tumult through the popularity of his name, had both appointed a day of trial for Minucius, and had also proposed a law for confiscating the property of Servilius Ahala: alleging that MÆlius had been circumvented through false impeachments by Minucius, charging Servilius with the killing of a citizen on whom no sentence had been passed; charges which, when brought before the people, proved to be more idle than the author himself. But the virulence of the disease now becoming worse, was more an object of concern to them, as also the terrors and prodigies, more especially because accounts were being brought, that houses were falling throughout the country, in consequence of frequent earthquakes. A supplication was therefore performed by the people, according to the form dictated by the decemvirs.[153] The year being still more pestilential, Caius Julius a second time and Lucius Virginius being consuls, occasioned such dread of desolation through the city and country, that not only no one left the Roman territory for the purpose of committing depredations, and not only did none of the patricians or commons entertain an idea of commencing any military aggressions; but the Fidenatians, who at first had shut themselves up either within their town, or mountains, or fortifications, now descended without provocation to commit depredations on the Roman territory. Then the army of the Veientians being called in to their aid, (for the Faliscians could be induced to renew the war neither by the distresses of the Romans, nor by the remonstrances of their allies,) the two states crossed the Anio; and displayed their ensigns at no great distance from the Colline gate. Great consternation arose therefore, not more in the country than in the city. Julius the consul draws up his troops on the rampart and walls; the senate is consulted by Virginius in the temple of Quirinus. It is determined that Aulus Servilius be appointed dictator, who some say had the cognomen of Priscus, others that of Structus. Virginius having delayed whilst he consulted his colleague, with his permission, named the dictator at night. He appoints Postumus Æbutius Elva his master of the horse.

The dictator orders all to attend at break of day outside the Colline gate. All whosoever had sufficient strength to bear arms, attended; the standards were quickly brought forth from the treasury and conveyed to the dictator. Whilst these matters were going on, the enemies retired to the higher grounds; thither the dictator follows them with a determined army; and having come to a general engagement not far from Nomentum, he routed the Etrurian legions; he then drove them into the city of FidenÆ, and surrounded it with a rampart. But neither could the city be taken by storm as being high and well fortified, nor was there any effect in a blockade, because corn was supplied to them in abundance not only for necessary consumption, but for plenty also, in consequence of that previously laid up. Thus all hope being lost of taking it by assault, or of forcing it to a surrender, the dictator determined on carrying a sap into the citadel in places which were well known to him on account of their near situation on the remote side of the city, as being most neglected because it was best protected by reason of its own nature; he himself by advancing up to the walls in places most remote, with his army divided into four sections, which were to succeed each other in the action, by continuing the fight day and night continuously he prevented the enemy from perceiving the work; until the mountain being dug through from the camp, a passage was opened up into the citadel; and the Etrurians being diverted from the real danger by the idle threats, the shouting of the enemy over their heads proved to them that their city was taken. On that year Caius Furius Pacilus and Marcus Geganius Macerinus, censors, approved of the public edifice[154] in the Campus Martius, and the census of the people was there performed for the first time.

That the same consuls were re-elected on the following year, Julius for the third time, Virginius for the second time, I find in Licinius Macer. Valerius Antias and Quintus Tubero state that Marcus Manlius and Quintus Sulpicius were, the consuls for that year. But in representations so different both Tubero and Macer cite the linen books as their authority; neither of them denies that it was said by ancient historians that there were military tribunes on that year. Licinius thinks that we should unhesitatingly follow the linen books; and Tubero is uncertain as to the truth. But this also is left unsettled among other points not ascertained from length of time. Alarm was raised in Etruria after the capture of FidenÆ, not only the Veientians being terrified by the apprehension of similar ruin, but the Faliscians also, from the recollection of the war having first commenced with them, although they had not joined with those who renewed hostilities. Accordingly when the two nations, having sent ambassadors around to the twelve states, succeeded so far that a general meeting was proclaimed for all Etruria at the temple of Voltumna; the senate, apprehending a great attack threatening from that quarter, ordered Mamercus Æmilius again to be appointed dictator. Aulus Postumius Tubertus was appointed by him as master of the horse; and preparations for war were made with so much the more energy than on the last occasion, in proportion as there was more danger from the whole body of Etruria than from two of its states.

That matter passed off much more quietly than any one expected. Therefore when word was brought by certain traders, that aid was refused to the Veientians, and that they were bid to prosecute with their own strength a war entered into on their own separate views, and not to seek out persons as sharers in their distresses, to whom they had not communicated their hopes when flourishing; the dictator, that his appointment might not be in vain, all opportunity of acquiring military glory being now taken from him, desirous of performing during peace some work which might serve as a memorial of his dictatorship, sets about limiting the censorship, either judging its powers excessive, or disapproving of the duration rather than the extent of the office. Accordingly, having summoned a meeting, he says "that the immortal gods had taken on themselves that the public affairs should be managed externally, and that the general security should be insured; that with respect to what was to be done within the walls, he would provide for the liberty of the Roman people. But that the most effectual guarding of it was, that offices of great power should not be of long continuance; and that a limit of time should be set to those to which a limit of jurisdiction could not be set. That other offices were annual, that the censorship was quinquennial; that it was a grievance to be subject to the same individuals for such a number of years in a considerable part of the affairs of life. That he would propose a law, that the censorship should not last longer than a year and half." Amid the great approbation of the people he passed the law on the following day, and says, "that you may know, Romans, in reality, how little pleasing to me are offices of long duration, I resign the dictatorship." Having laid down his own office, and set a limit to the office of others, he was escorted home with the congratulation and great good will of the people. The censors resenting Mamercus' conduct for his having diminished the duration of one of the offices of the Roman people, degraded him from his tribe, and increasing his taxes eight-fold, disfranchised[155] him. They say that he bore this with great magnanimity, as he considered the cause of the disgrace, rather than the disgrace itself; that the principal patricians also, though they had been averse to the curtailing the privileges of the censorship, were much displeased at this instance of censorial severity; inasmuch as each saw that he would be longer and more frequently subjected to the censors, than he should hold the office of censor. Certain it is that such indignation is said to have arisen on the part of the people, that violence could not be kept off from the censors through the influence of any person except of Mamercus himself.

The tribunes of the people, by preventing the election of consuls by incessant harangues, succeeded at length, after the matter had been well nigh brought to an interregnum, in having tribunes of the soldiers elected with consular authority: as for the prize of their victory, which was the thing sought, scil. that a plebeian should be elected, there was none. All patricians were elected, Marcus Fabius Vibulanus, Marcus Foslius, Lucius Sergius Fidenas. The pestilence during that year afforded a quiet in other matters. A temple was vowed to Apollo for the health of the people. The duumvirs did much, by direction of the books, for the purpose of appeasing the wrath of heaven and averting the plague from the people; a great mortality however was sustained in the city and country, by the death of men and of cattle promiscuously. Apprehending a famine for the agriculturists, they sent into Etruria, and the Pomptine district, and to CumÆ, and at last to Sicily also to procure corn. No mention was made of electing consuls. Military tribunes with consular authority were appointed, all patricians, Lucius Pinarius Mamercinus, Lucius Furius Medullinus, Spurius Postumius Albus. In this year the violence of the distemper abated, nor was there any danger from a scarcity of corn, because provision had been previously made against it. Schemes for exciting wars were agitated in the meetings of the Æquans and Volscians, and in Etruria at the temple of Voltumna. Here the matter was postponed for a year, and by a decree it was enacted, that no meeting should be held before that time, the Veientian state in vain complaining that the same destiny hung over Veii, as that by which FidenÆ was destroyed. Meanwhile at Rome the chiefs of the commons, who had now for a long time been vainly pursuing the hope of higher dignity, whilst there was tranquillity abroad, appointed meetings to be held in the houses of the tribunes of the commons. There they concerted plans in secret: they complained "that they were so despised by the commons, that though tribunes of the soldiers, with consular authority, were now appointed for so many years, no plebeian ever obtained access to that honour. That their ancestors had shown much foresight in providing that plebeian offices should not be open to any patrician; otherwise they should be forced to have patricians as tribunes of the commons; so despicable were they even with their own party, and were not less despised by the commons than by the patricians." Others exculpated the commons, and threw the blame on the patricians,—"that by their intriguing and schemes it happened that the road to honour was barred against the commons. If the commons were allowed to breathe from their mixed entreaties and menaces, that they would enter on their suffrages with a due regard to men of their own party; and, assistance being already procured, that they would assume a share in the government also." It is determined that, for the purpose of doing away with all intriguing, the tribunes should propose a law, that no person be allowed to add white to his garment for the purposes of canvassing. The matter may now appear trivial and scarcely deserving serious consideration, which then enkindled such strife between the patricians and commons. The tribunes, however, prevailed in carrying the law; and it appeared evident, that in their present state of irritation, the commons would incline their support to men of their own party; and lest this should be optional with them, a decree of the senate is passed, that the election for consuls should be held.

The cause was the rising, which the Hernicians and Latins announced as about to take place on the part of the Æquans and Volscians. Titus Quintius Cincinnatus, son of Lucius, (to the same person the cognomen of Pennus also is annexed,) and Caius Julius Mento were elected consuls: nor was the terror of war longer deferred. A levy being held under the devoting law, which with them is the most powerful instrument of forcing men into service, powerful armies set out from thence, and met at Algidum; and there the Æquans and Volscians fortified their camps separately; and the general took greater care than ever before to fortify their posts and train their soldiers; so much the more terror did the messengers bring to Rome. The senate wished that a dictator should be appointed, because though these nations had been often conquered, yet they renewed hostilities with more vigorous efforts than ever before, and a considerable number of the Roman youth had been carried off by sickness. Above all, the perverseness of the consuls, and the disagreement between them, and their contentions in all the councils, terrified them. There are some who state that an unsuccessful battle was fought by these consuls at Algidum, and that such was the cause of appointing a dictator. This much is certain, that, though differing in other points, they perfectly agreed in one against the wishes of the patricians, not to nominate a dictator; until when accounts were brought, one more alarming than another, and the consuls would not be swayed by the authority of the senate, Quintus Servilius Priscus, who had passed through the highest honours with singular honour, says, "Tribunes of the people, since we are come to extremities, the senate calls on you, that you would, by virtue of your authority, compel the consuls to nominate a dictator in so critical a conjuncture of the state." On hearing this, the tribunes, conceiving that an opportunity was presented to them of extending their power, retire together, and declare for their college, that "it was their wish that the consuls should be obedient to the instruction of the senate; if they persisted further against the consent of that most illustrious order, that they would order them to be taken to prison." The consuls were better pleased to be overcome by the tribunes than by the senate, alleging that the prerogatives of the highest magistracy were betrayed by the patricians and the consulship subjugated to tribunitian power, inasmuch as the consuls were liable to be overruled by a tribune in any particular by virtue of his power, and (what greater hardship could a private man have to dread?) even to be carried off to prison. The lot to nominate the dictator (for the colleagues had not even agreed on that) fell on Titus Quintius. He appointed a dictator, Aulus Postumius Tubertus, his own father-in-law, a man of the utmost strictness in command: by him Lucius Julius was appointed master of the horse: a suspension of civil business is also proclaimed; and, that nothing else should be attended to throughout the city but preparations for war, the examination of the cases of those who claimed exemption from the military service is deferred till after the war. Thus even doubtful persons are induced to give in their names. Soldiers were also enjoined of the Hernicians and Latins: the most zealous obedience is shown to the dictator on both sides.

All these measures were executed with great despatch: and Caius Julius the consul being left to guard the city, and Lucius Julius master of the horse, for the sudden exigencies of the war, lest any thing which they might want in the camp should cause delay, the dictator, repeating the words after Aulus Cornelius the chief pontiff, vowed the great games on account of the sudden war; and having set out from the city, after dividing his army with the consul Quintius, he came up with the enemy. As they had observed two separate camps of the enemy at a small distance one from the other, they in like manner encamped separately about a mile from them, the dictator towards Tusculum, the consul towards Lanuvium. Thus they had their four armies, as many fortified posts, having between them a plain sufficiently extended not only for excursions to skirmish, but even for drawing up the armies on both sides in battle-array. From the time camp was brought close to camp, they ceased not from light skirmishing, the dictator readily allowing his soldiers, by comparing strength, to entertain beforehand the hope of a general victory, after they had gradually essayed the result of slight skirmishes. Wherefore the enemy, no hope being now left in a regular engagement, attacked the consuls' camp in the night, and bring the matter to the chance of a doubtful result. The shout which arose suddenly awoke not only the consuls' sentinels and then all the army, but the dictator also. When circumstances required instant exertion, the consul evinced no deficiency either in spirit or in judgment. One part of the troops reinforce the guards at the gates, another man the rampart around. In the other camp with the dictator, inasmuch as there is less of confusion, so much the more readily is it observed, what is required to be done. Despatching then forthwith a reinforcement to the consuls' camp, to which Spurius Postumius Albus is appointed lieutenant-general, he himself with a part of his forces, making a small circuit, proceeds to a place entirely sequestered from the bustle, whence he might suddenly attack the enemy's rear. Quintus Sulpicius, his lieutenant-general, he appoints to take charge of the camp; to Marcus Fabius as lieutenant he assigns the cavalry, and orders that those troops, which it would be difficult to manage amid a nightly conflict, should not stir before day-light. All the measures which any other prudent and active general could order and execute at such a juncture, he orders and executes with regularity; that was an extraordinary specimen of judgment and intrepidity, and one deserving of no ordinary praise, that he despatched Marcus Geganius with some chosen troops to attack the enemy's camp, whence it had been ascertained that they had departed with the greater part of their troops. When he fell on these men, wholly intent on the result of the danger of their friends, and incautious with respect to themselves, the watches and advanced guards being even neglected, he took their camp almost before the enemy were perfectly sure that it was attacked. Then when the signal given with smoke, as had been agreed on, was perceived by the dictator, he exclaims that the enemy's camp was taken, and orders it to be announced in every direction.

And now day was appearing, and every thing lay open to view; and Fabius had made an attack with his cavalry, and the consul had sallied from the camp on the enemy now disconcerted; when the dictator on the other side, having attacked their reserve and second line, threw his victorious troops, both horse and foot, in the way of the enemy as they turned themselves about to the dissonant shouts and the various sudden assaults. Thus surrounded on every side, they would to a man have suffered the punishment due to their reassumption of hostilities, had not Vectius Messius, a Volscian, a man more ennobled by his deeds than his extraction, upbraiding his men as they were forming a circle, called out with a loud voice, "Are ye about offering yourselves here to the weapons of the enemy, undefended, unavenged? why is it then ye have arms? or why have you undertaken an offensive war, ever turbulent in peace, and dastardly in war? What hopes have you in standing here? do you expect that some god will protect you and bear you hence? With the sword way must be opened. Come on ye, who wish to behold your homes, your parents, your wives, and your children, follow me in the way in which you shall see me lead you on. It is not a wall, not a rampart, but armed men that stand in your way with arms in your hands. In valour you are equal to them; in necessity, which is the ultimate and most effective weapon, superior." As he uttered these words and was putting them into execution, they, renewing the shout and following him, make a push in that quarter where Postumius Alba had opposed his troops to them: and they made the victor give ground, until the dictator came up, as his own men were now retreating. To that quarter the whole weight of the battle was now turned. On Messius alone the fortune of the enemy depends. Many wounds and great slaughter now took place on both sides. By this time not even the Roman generals themselves fight without receiving wounds, one of them, Postumius, retired from the field having his skull fractured by a stroke of a stone; neither the dictator could be removed by a wound in the shoulder, nor Fabius by having his thigh almost pinned to his horse, nor the consul by his arm being cut off, from the perilous conflict.

Messius, with a band of the bravest youths, by a furious charge through heaps of slaughtered foes, was carried on to the camp of the Volscians, which had not yet been taken: the same route the entire body of the army followed. The consul, pursuing them in their disordered flight to the very rampart, attacks both the camp and the rampart; in the same direction the dictator also brings up his forces on the other side. The assault was conducted with no less intrepidity than the battle had been. They say that the consul even threw a standard within the rampart, in order that the soldiers might push on the more briskly, and that the first impression was made in recovering the standard. The dictator also, having levelled the rampart, had now carried the fight into the camp. Then the enemy began in every direction to throw down their arms and to surrender: and their camp also being taken, all the enemy were set up to sale, except the senators.[156] Part of the plunder was restored to the Latins and Hernicians, when they demanded their property; the remainder the dictator sold by auction: and the consul, being invested with the command of the camp, he himself, entering the city in triumph, resigned his dictatorship. Some writers cast a gloom on the memory of this glorious dictatorship, when they state that his son, though victorious, was beheaded by Aulus Postumius, because, tempted by a favourable opportunity of fighting to advantage, he had left his post without orders. We are disposed to refuse our belief; and we are warranted by the variety of opinions on the matter. And it is an argument against it, that such orders have been entitled "Manlian," not "Postumian," since the person who first set on foot so barbarous a precedent, was likely to obtain the signal title of cruelty. Besides, the cognomen of "Imperiosus" was affixed to Manlius: Postumius has not been marked by any hateful brand. Caius Julius the consul, in the absence of his colleague, without casting lots, dedicated the temple of Apollo: Quintius resenting this, when, after disbanding his army, he returned into the city, made a complaint of it in the senate to no purpose.

To the year marked by great achievements is added an event which seemed to have no relation to the interest of Rome, viz. that the Carthaginians, destined to be such formidable enemies, then, for the first times on the occasion of some disturbances among the Sicilians, transported an army into Sicily in aid of one of the parties.

In the city efforts were made by the tribunes of the people that military tribunes with consular power should be elected; nor could the point be carried. Lucius Papirius Crassus and Lucius Junius were made consuls. When the ambassadors of the Æquans solicited a treaty from the senate, and instead of a treaty a surrender was pointed out to them, they obtained a truce for eight years. The affairs of the Volscians, in addition to the disaster sustained at Algidum, were involved in strifes and seditions by an obstinate contention between the advocates for peace and those for war. The Romans enjoyed tranquillity on all sides. The consuls, having ascertained through the information of one of the college, that a law regarding the appraising of the fines,[157] which was very acceptable to the people, was about to be introduced by the tribunes, took the lead themselves in proposing it. The new consuls were Lucius Sergius Fidenas a second time, and Hostus Lucretius Tricipitinus. During their consulate nothing worth mentioning occurred. The consuls who followed them were Aulus Cornelius Cossus and Titus Quintius Pennus a second time. The Veientians made excursions into the Roman territory. A report existed that some of the youth of the Fidenatians had been participators in that depredation; and the cognizance of that matter was left to Lucius Sergius, and Quintus Servilius and Mamercus Æmilius. Some of them were sent into banishment to Ostia, because it did not appear sufficiently clear why during these days they had been absent from FidenÆ. A number of new settlers was added, and the land of those who had fallen in war was assigned to them. There was very great distress that year in consequence of drought; there was not only a deficiency of rain; but the earth also destitute of its natural moisture, scarcely enabled the rivers to flow. In some places the want of water occasioned heaps of cattle, which had died of thirst, around the springs and rivulets which were dried up; others were carried off by the mange; and the distempers spread by infection to the human subject, and first assailed the husbandmen and slaves; soon after the city becomes filled with them; and not only were men's bodies afflicted by the contagion, but superstitions of various kinds, and most of them of foreign growth, took possession of their minds; persons, to whom minds enslaved by superstition were a source of gain, introducing by pretending to divination new modes of sacrificing; until a sense of public shame now reached the leading men of the state, seeing in all the streets and chapels extraneous and unaccustomed ceremonies of expiation for the purpose of obtaining the favour of the gods. A charge was then given to the Ædiles, that they should see that no other than Roman gods should be worshipped, nor in any other manner, save that of the country. Their resentment against the Veientians was deferred till the following year, Caius Servilius Ahala and Lucius Papirius Mugillanus being consuls. Then also superstitious influences prevented the immediate declaration of war or the armies being sent; they deemed it necessary that heralds should be first sent to demand restitution. There had been battles fought lately with the Veientians at Nomentum and FidenÆ; and after that a truce, not a peace, had been concluded; of which both the time had expired and they had renewed hostilities before the expiration. Heralds however were sent; and when, according to ancient usage, they were sworn and demanded restitution, their application was not listened to. Then arose a dispute whether a war should be declared by order of the people, or whether a decree of the senate would be sufficient. The tribunes, by threatening that they would stop the levy, so far prevailed that the consuls should take the sense of the people concerning the war. All the centuries voted for it. In this particular also the commons showed a superiority by gaining this point, that consuls should not be elected for the next year.

Four military tribunes with consular authority were elected—Titus Quintius Pennus, from the consulship, Caius Furius, Marcus Postumius, and Aulus Cornelius Cossus. Of these Cossus held the command in the city. The other three, after the levy was held, set out to Veii, and were an instance how mischievous in military affairs is a plurality of commanders. By insisting each on his own plans, whilst they severally entertained different views, they left an opportunity open to the enemy to take them at advantage. For the Veientians, taking an opportunity, attacked their line whilst still uncertain as to their movements, some ordering the signal to be given, others a retreat to be sounded: their camp, which was nigh at hand, received them in their confusion and turning their backs. There was more disgrace therefore than loss. The state, unaccustomed to defeat, was become melancholy; they hated the tribunes, they insisted on a dictator, the hopes of the state now seemed to rest on him. When a religious scruple interfered here also, lest a dictator could not be appointed except by a consul, the augurs on being consulted removed that scruple. Aulus Cornelius nominated Mamercus Æmilius, and he himself was nominated by him master of the horse. So little did censorial animadversion avail, so as to prevent them from seeking a regulator of their affairs from a family unmeritedly censured, as soon as the condition of the state stood in need of genuine merit. The Veientians elated with their success, having sent ambassadors around the states of Etruria, boasting that three Roman generals had been beaten by them in an engagement, though they could not effect a public co-operation in their designs, procured volunteers from all quarters allured by the hope of plunder. The state of the Fidenatians alone determined on renewing hostilities; and as if it would be an impiety to commence war unless with guilt, after staining their arms with the blood of the new settlers there, as they had on a former occasion with that of the ambassadors, they join the Veientians. After this the leading men of the two states consulted whether they should select Veii or FidenÆ as the seat of war. FidenÆ appeared the more convenient. Accordingly, having crossed the Tiber, the Veientians transferred the war thither. There was great consternation at Rome. The army being recalled from Veii, and that same army dispirited in consequence of their defeat, the camp is pitched before the Colline gate, and armed soldiers are posted along the walls, and a suspension of all civil business is proclaimed in the forum, and the shops were closed; and every place becomes more like to a camp than a city.

Then the dictator, having sent criers through the streets, and having summoned the alarmed citizens to an assembly, began to chide them "that they allowed their minds to depend on such slight impulses of fortune, that, on the receipt of a trifling loss, which itself was sustained not by the bravery of the enemy, nor by the cowardice of the Roman army, but by the disagreement of the generals, they now dreaded the Veientian enemy, six times vanquished, and FidenÆ, which was almost taken oftener than attacked. That both the Romans and the enemies were the same as they were for so many ages: that they retained the same spirits, the same bodily strength, the same arms. That he himself, Mamercus Æmilius, was also the same dictator, who formerly defeated the armies of the Veientians and Fidenatians, with the additional support of the Faliscians, at Nomentum. That his master of the horse, Aulus Cornelius, would be the same in the field, he who, as military tribune in a former war, slew Lar Tolumnius, king of the Veientians, in the sight of both armies, and brought the spolia opima into the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Wherefore that they should take up arms, mindful that with them were triumphs, with them spoils, with them victory; with the enemy the guilt of murdering the ambassadors contrary to the law of nations, the massacre of the Fidenatian colonists in time of peace, the infraction of truces, a seventh unsuccessful revolt. As soon as they should bring their camp near them, he was fully confident that the joy of these most impious enemies at the disgrace of the Roman army would not be of long continuance, and that the Roman people would be convinced how much better those persons deserved of the republic, who nominated him dictator for the third time, than those who, in consequence of his abolishing the despotism of the censorship, would cast a slur on his second dictatorship." Having offered up his vows and set out on his march, he pitches his camp fifteen hundred paces on this side of FidenÆ, covered on his right by mountains, on his left by the river Tiber. He orders Titus Quintius Pennus to take possession of the mountains, and to post himself secretly on some eminence which might be in the enemy's rear. On the following day, when the Etrurians had marched out to the field, full of confidence in consequence of their accidental success of the preceding day, rather than of their good fighting, he himself, having delayed a little until the senate brought back word that Quintius had gained an eminence nigh to the citadel of FidenÆ, puts his troops into motion and led on his line of infantry in order of battle in their quickest pace against the enemy: the master of the horse he directs not to commence the fight without orders; that, when it would be necessary, he would give the signal for the aid of the cavalry; then that he would conduct the action, mindful of his fight with the king, mindful of the rich oblation, and of Romulus and Jupiter Feretrius. The legions begin the conflict with impetuosity. The Romans, fired with hatred, gratified that feeling both with deeds and words, calling the Fidenatian impious, the Veientian robbers, truce-breakers, stained with the horrid murder of ambassadors, sprinkled with the blood of their own brother-colonists, treacherous allies, and dastardly enemies.

In the very first onset they had made an impression on the enemy; when on a sudden, the gates of FidenÆ flying open, a strange sort of army sallies forth, unheard of and unseen before that time. An immense multitude armed with fire and all blazing with fire-brands, as if urged on by fanatical rage, rush on the enemy: and the form of this unusual mode of fighting frightened the Romans for the moment. Then the dictator, having called to him the master of the horse and the cavalry, and also Quintius from the mountains animating the fight, hastens himself to the left wing, which, more nearly resembling a conflagration than a battle, had from terror given way to the flames, and exclaims with a loud voice, "Vanquished by smoke, driven from your ground as if a swarm of bees, will ye yield to an unarmed enemy? will ye not extinguish the fires with the sword? or if it is with fire, not with weapons, we are to fight, will ye not, each in his post, snatch those brands, and hurl them on them? Come, mindful of the Roman name, of the valour of your fathers, and of your own, turn this conflagration against the city of your enemy, and destroy FidenÆ by its own flames, which ye could not reclaim by your kindness. The blood of your ambassadors and colonists and the desolation of your frontiers suggest this." At the command of the dictator the whole line advanced; the firebrands that were discharged are partly caught up; others are wrested by force: the armies on either side are now armed with fire. The master of the horse too, on his part, introduces among the cavalry a new mode of fighting; he commands his men to take the bridles off their horses: and he himself at their head, putting spurs to his own, dashing forward, is carried by the unbridled steed into the midst of the fires: the other horses also being urged on carry their riders with unrestrained speed against the enemy. The dust being raised and mixed with smoke excluded the light from the eyes of both men and horses. That appearance which had terrified the soldiers, no longer terrified the horses. The cavalry therefore, wherever they penetrated, produced a heap of bodies like a ruin. A new shout then assailed their ears; and when this attracted the attention of the two armies looking with amazement at each other, the dictator cries out "that his lieutenant-general and his men had attacked the enemy on the rear:" he himself, on the shout being renewed, advances against them with redoubled vigour. When two armies, two different battles pressed on the Etrurians, now surrounded, in front and rear, and there was now no means of flight back to their camp, nor to the mountains, where new enemies were ready to oppose them, and the horses, now freed from their bridles, had scattered their riders in every direction, the principal part of the Veientians make precipitately for the Tiber. Such of the Fidenatians as survived, bend their course to the city of FidenÆ. Their flight hurries them in their state of panic into the midst of slaughter; they are cut to pieces on the banks; others, when driven into the water, were carried off by the eddies; even those who could swim were weighed down by fatigue, by their wounds, and by fright; a few out of the many make their way across. The other party make their way through the camp into the city. In the same direction their impetuosity carries the Romans in pursuit; Quintius more especially, and with him those who had just come down from the mountain, being the soldiers who were freshest for labour, because they had come up towards the close of the engagement.

These, after they entered the gate mixed with the enemy, make their way to the walls, and raise from their summit a signal to their friends of the town being taken. When the dictator saw this, (for he had now made his way into the deserted camp of the enemy,) he leads on the soldiers, who were now anxious to disperse themselves in quest of booty, entertaining a hope of a greater spoil in the city, to the gate; and being admitted within the walls, he proceeds to the citadel, whither he saw the crowds of fugitives hurrying. Nor was the slaughter in the city less than in the battle; until, throwing down their arms, begging nothing but their life, they surrendered to the dictator. The city and camp are plundered. On the following day, one captive being allotted to each horseman and centurion, and two to those whose valour had been conspicuous, and the rest being sold by auction, the dictator in triumph led back to Rome his army victorious and enriched with spoil; and having ordered the master of the horse to resign his office, he immediately resigned his own on the sixteenth day (after he had obtained it); surrendering in peace that authority which he had received during war and trepidations. Some annals have reported that there was a naval engagement with the Veientians at FidenÆ, a thing as difficult as it was incredible, the river even now not being broad enough for such a purpose; and at that time, as we learn from old writers, being considerably narrower: except that perhaps in disputing the passage of the river, magnifying, as will happen, the scuffle of a few ships, they sought the empty honour of a naval victory.

The following year had as military tribunes with consular power Aulus Sempronius Atratinus, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, Lucius Furius Medullinus, Lucius Horatius Barbatus. To the Veientians a truce for twenty years was granted, and one for three years to the Æquans, though they had solicited one for a longer term. There was quiet also from city riots. The year following, though not distinguished either by war abroad or by disturbance at home, was rendered celebrated by the games which had been vowed during the war, both through the magnificence displayed in them by the military tribunes, and also through the concourse of the neighbouring states. The tribunes with consular power were Appius Claudius Crassus, Spurius Nautilus Rutilus, Lucius Sergius Fidenas, Sextus Julius Iulus. The exhibition, besides that they had come with the public concurrence of their states, was rendered still more grateful to the strangers by the courtesy of their hosts. After the games seditious harangues were delivered by the tribunes of the commons upbraiding the multitude; "that stupified with admiration of those persons whom they hated, they kept themselves in a state of eternal bondage; and they not only had not the courage to aspire to the recovery of their hopes of a share in the consulship, but even in the electing of military tribunes, which elections lay open to both patricians and commons, they neither thought of themselves nor of their party. That they must therefore cease feeling surprised why no one busied himself about the interests of the commons: that labour and danger would be expended on objects whence emolument and honour might be expected. That there was nothing men would not attempt if great rewards were proposed for those who make great attempts. That any tribune of the commons should rush blindly at great risk and with no advantage into contentions, in consequence of which he may rest satisfied that the patricians against whom he should strive, will persecute him with inexpiable war, whilst with the commons in whose behalf he may have contended he will not be one whit the more honoured, was a thing neither to be expected nor required. That by great honours minds became great. That no plebeian would think meanly of himself, when they ceased to be despised by others. That the experiment should be at length made in the case of one or two, whether there were any plebeian capable of sustaining a high dignity, or whether it were next to a miracle and a prodigy that any one sprung from the commons should be a brave and industrious man. That by the utmost energy the point had been gained, that military tribunes with consular power might be chosen from among the commons also. That men well approved both in the civil and military line had stood as candidates. That during the first years they were hooted at, rejected, and ridiculed by the patricians: that at length they had ceased to expose themselves to insult. Nor did he for his part see why the law itself might not be repealed; by which that was made lawful which never could take place; for that there would be less cause for blushing at the injustice of the law, than if they were to be passed over through their own want of merit."

Harangues of this kind, listened to with approbation, induced some persons to stand for the military tribuneship, each avowing that if in office he would propose something to the advantage of the commons. Hopes were held out of a distribution of the public land, of colonies to be planted, and of money to be raised for the pay of the soldiers, by a tax imposed on the proprietors of estates. Then an opportunity was laid hold of by the military tribunes, so that during the absence of most persons from the city, when the patricians who were to be recalled by a private intimation were to attend on a certain day, a decree of the senate might be passed in the absence of the tribunes of the commons; that a report existed that the Volscians had gone forth into the lands of Hernici to commit depredations, the military tribunes were to set out to examine into the matter, and that an assembly should be held for the election of consuls. Having set out, they leave Appius Claudius, son of the decemvir, as prefect of the city, a young man of great energy, and one who had ever from his cradle imbibed a hatred of the tribunes and the commons. The tribunes of the commons had nothing for which they should contend, either with those persons now absent, who had procured the decree of the senate, nor with Appius, the matter being now all over.

Caius Sempronius Atratinus, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus were elected consuls. An affair in a foreign country, but one deserving of record, is stated to have happened in that year. Vulturnum, a city of the Etrurians, which is now Capua, was taken by the Samnites; and was called Capua from their leader, Capys, or, what is more probable, from its champaign grounds. But they took possession of it, after having been admitted into a share of the city and its lands, when the Etrurians had been previously much harassed in war; afterwards the new-comers attacked and massacred during the night the old inhabitants, when on a festival day they had become heavy with wine and sleep. After those transactions the consuls whom we have mentioned entered on office on the ides of December. Now not only those who had been expressly sent, reported that a Volscian war was impending; but ambassadors also from the Latins and Hernicians brought word, "that never at any former period were the Volscians more intent either in selecting commanders, or in levying an army; that they commonly observed either that arms and war were to be for ever consigned to oblivion, and the yoke to be submitted to; or that they must not yield to those, with whom they contended for empire, either in valour, perseverance, or military discipline." The accounts they brought were not unfounded; but neither the senate were so much affected by the circumstance; and Caius Sempronius, to whom the province fell by lot, relying on fortune, as if a most constant object, because he was the leader of a victorious state against one frequently vanquished, executed all his measures carelessly and remissly; so that there was more of the Roman discipline in the Volscian than in the Roman army. Success therefore, as on many other occasions, attended merit. In the first battle, which was entered on by Sempronius without either prudence or caution, they met, without their lines being strengthened by reserves, or their cavalry being properly stationed. The shout was the first presage which way the victory would incline; that raised by the enemy was louder and more continued; that by the Romans, being dissonant, uneven, and frequently repeated in a lifeless manner, betrayed the prostration of their spirits. The enemy advancing the more boldly on this account, pushed with their shields, brandished their swords; on the other side the helmets drooped, as the men looked around, and disconcerted they waver, and keep close to the main body. The ensigns at one time standing their ground are deserted by their supporters, at another time they retreat between their respective companies. As yet there was no absolute flight, nor was there victory. The Romans rather covered themselves than fought. The Volscians advanced, pushed against their line, saw more of the enemy slain than running away.

They now give way in every direction, the consul Sempronius in vain chiding and exhorting them; neither his authority nor his dignity availed any thing; and they would presently have turned their backs to the enemy, had not Sextus Tempanius, a commander of a troop of horse, with great presence of mind brought them support, when matters were now desperate. When he called out aloud, "that the horsemen who wished for the safety of the commonwealth should leap from their horses," the horsemen of all the troops being moved, as if by the consul's orders, he says, "unless this cohort by its arms can stop the progress of the enemy, there is an end of the empire. Follow my spear as your standard. Show to the Romans and Volscians, that no cavalry are equal to you as cavalry, nor infantry to you as infantry." When this exhortation was approved by a loud shout, he advances, holding his spear aloft. Wherever they go, they open a passage for themselves; putting forward their targets they force on to the place where they saw the distress of their friends greatest. The fight is restored in every part, as far as their onset reached; nor was there a doubt but that if so few could, accomplish every thing at the same time, the enemy would have turned their backs.

And when they could now be withstood in no part, the Volscian commander gives a signal, that an opening should be made for the targeteers, the enemy's new cohort; until carried away by their impetuosity they should be cut off from their own party. When this was done, the horsemen were intercepted; nor were they able to force their way in the same direction as that through which they had passed; the enemy being thickest in that part through which they had made their way; and the consul and Roman legions, when they could no where see that party which had lately been a protection to the entire army, lest the enemy should cut down so many men of distinguished valour by cutting them off, push forward at all hazards. The Volscians, forming two fronts, sustained the attack of the consul and the legions on the one hand, with the other front pressed on Tempanius and the horsemen: and when they after repeated attempts were unable to force their way to their own party, they took possession of an eminence, and defended themselves by forming a circle, not without taking vengeance on their enemies. Nor was there an end of the battle before night. The consul also, never relaxing his efforts as long as any light remained, kept the enemy employed. The night at length separated them undecided as to victory; and such a panic seized both camps, from their uncertainty as to the issue, that, leaving behind their wounded and a great part of the baggage, both armies, as if vanquished, betook themselves to the adjoining mountains. The eminence, however, continued to be besieged till beyond midnight; but when word was brought to the besiegers that the camp was deserted, supposing that their own party had been defeated, they too fled, each whithersoever his fears carried him in the dark. Tempanius, through fear of an ambush, detained his men till daylight. Then having himself descended with a few men to look about, when he ascertained by inquiring from some of the wounded enemy that the camp of the Volscians was deserted, he joyously calls down his men from the eminence, and makes his way into the Roman camp: where, when he found every thing waste and deserted, and the same unsightliness as with the enemy, before the discovery of this mistake should bring back the Volscians, taking with him all the wounded he could, and not knowing what route the consul had taken, he proceeds by the shortest roads to the city.

The report of the unsuccessful battle and of the abandonment of the camp had already reached there; and, above all other objects, the horsemen were mourned not more with private than with public grief; and the consul Fabius, the city also being now alarmed, stationed guards before the gates; when the horsemen, seen at a distance, not without some degree of terror by those who doubted who they were, but soon being recognised, from a state of dread produced such joy, that a shout pervaded the city, of persons congratulating each other on the horsemen having returned safe and victorious; and from the houses a little before in mourning, as they had given up their friends for lost, persons were seen running into the street; and the affrighted mothers and wives, forgetful of all ceremony through joy, ran out to meet the band, each one rushing up to her own friends, and through extravagance of delight scarcely retaining power over body or mind. The tribunes of the people who had appointed a day of trial for Marcus Postumius and Titus Quintius, because of the unsuccessful battle fought near Veii by their means, thought that an opportunity now presented itself for renewing the public odium against them by reason of the recent displeasure felt against the consul Sempronius. Accordingly, a meeting being convened, when they exclaimed aloud that the commonwealth had been betrayed at Veii by the generals, that the army was afterwards betrayed by the consul in the country of the Volscians, because they had escaped with impunity, that the very brave horsemen were consigned to slaughter, that the camp was shamefully deserted; Caius Julius, one of the tribunes, ordered the horseman Tempanius to be cited, and in presence of them he says, "Sextus Tempanius, I ask of you, whether do you think that Caius Sempronius the consul either commenced the battle at the proper time, or strengthened his line with reserves, or that he discharged any duty of a good consul? or did you yourself, when the Roman legions were beaten, of your own judgment dismount the cavalry and restore the fight? then when you and the horsemen with you were cut off from our army, did either the consul himself come to your relief, or did he send you succour? Then again, on the following day, had you any assistance any where? or did you and your cohort by your own bravery make your way into your camp? Did you find a consul or an army in the camp, or did you find the camp forsaken, the wounded soldiers left behind? These things are to be declared by you this day, as becomes your valour and honour, by which alone the republic has stood its ground on this day. In a word, where is Caius Sempronius, where are our legions? Have you been deserted, or have you deserted the consul and the army? In a word, have we been defeated, or have we gained the victory?"

In answer to these questions the language of Tempanius is said to have been entirely devoid of elegance, but firm as became a soldier, not vainly parading his own merits, nor exulting in the inculpation of others: "How much military skill Caius Sempronius possessed, that it was not his business as a soldier to judge with respect to his commander, but the business of the Roman people when they were choosing consuls at the election. Wherefore that they should not require from him a detail of the plans to be adopted by a general, nor of the qualifications to be looked for in a consul; which matters required to be considered by great minds and great capacities; but what he saw, that he could state. That before he was separated from his own party, he saw the consul fighting in the first line, encouraging his men, actively employed amid the Roman ensigns and the weapons of the enemy; that he was afterwards carried out of sight of his friends. That from the din and shouting he perceived that the contest was protracted till night; nor did he think it possible, from the great numbers of the enemy, that they could force their way to the eminence which he had seized on. Where the army might be, he did not know; he supposed that as he protected himself and his men, by advantage of situation when in danger, in the same way the consul, for the purpose of preserving his army, had selected a more secure place for his camp. Nor did he think that the affairs of the Volscians were in a better condition than those of the Roman people. That fortune and the night had occasioned a multitude of mistakes on both sides:" and then when he begged that they would not detain him, fatigued with toil and wounds, he was dismissed with high encomiums, not more on his bravery than his modesty. While these things were going on, the consul was at the temple of Rest on the road leading to Lavici. Waggons and other modes of conveyance were sent thither from the city, and took up the army, exhausted by the action and the travelling by night. Soon after the consul entered the city, not more anxious to remove the blame from himself, than to bestow on Tempanius the praises so well deserved. Whilst the citizens were still sorrowful in consequence of their ill success, and incensed against their leaders, Marcus Postumius, being arraigned and brought before them, he who had been military tribune with consular power at Veii, is condemned in a fine of ten thousand asses in weight, of brass. His colleague, Titus Quintius, who endeavoured to shift the entire blame of that period on his previously condemned colleague, was acquitted by all the tribes, because both in the country of the Volscians, when consul, he had conducted business successfully under the auspices of the dictator, Postumius Tubertus, and also at FidenÆ, as lieutenant-general of another dictator, Mamercus Æmilius. The memory of his father, Cincinnatus, a man highly deserving of veneration, is said to have been serviceable to him, as also Capitolinus Quintius, now advanced in years, humbly entreating that they would not suffer him who had so short a time to live to be the bearer of such dismal tidings to Cincinnatus.

The commons elected as tribunes of the people, though absent, Sextus Tempanius, Aulus Sellius, Sextus Antistius, and Spurius Icilius, whom the horsemen by the advice of Tempanius had appointed to command them as centurions. The senate, inasmuch as the name of consuls was now becoming displeasing through the hatred felt towards Sempronius, ordered that military tribunes with consular power should be elected. Those elected were Lucius Manlius Capitolinus, Quintus Antonius Merenda, Lucius Papirius Mugillanus. At the very commencement of the year, Lucius Hortensius, a tribune of the people, appointed a day of trial for Caius Sempronius, a consul of the preceding year, and when his four colleagues, in sight of the Roman people, entreated him that he would not involve in vexation their unoffending general, in whose case nothing but fortune could be blamed, Hortensius took offence, thinking it to be a trying of his perseverance, and that the accused depended not on the entreaties of the tribunes, which were merely used for show, but on their protection. Therefore now turning to him, he asked, "Where were those patrician airs, where the spirit supported and confiding in conscious innocence; that a man of consular dignity took shelter under the shade of the tribunes?" Another time to his colleagues, "What do you intend doing, if I go on with the prosecution; will you wrest their jurisdiction from the people and overturn the tribunitian authority?" When they said that, "both with respect to Sempronius and all others, the power of the Roman people was supreme; that they had neither the will nor the power to do away with the judgment of the people; but if their entreaties for their commander, who was to them in the light of a parent, were to prove of no avail, that they would change their apparel along with him:" then Hortensius says, "The commons of Rome shall not see their tribunes in the garb of culprits. To Caius Sempronius I have nothing more to say, since when in office he has attained this good fortune, to be so dear to his soldiers." Nor was the dutiful attachment of the four tribunes more grateful alike to the commons and patricians, than was the temper of Hortensius, which yielded so readily to their just entreaties. Fortune no longer indulged the Æquans, who had embraced the doubtful victory of the Volscians as their own.

In the year following, when Numerius Fabius Vibulanus and Titus Quintius Capitolinus, son of Capitolinus, were consuls, nothing worth mentioning was performed under the conduct of Fabius, to whom that province had fallen by lot. When the Æquans had merely showed their dastardly army, they were routed by a shameful flight, without any great honour to the consul; therefore a triumph is refused. However in consequence of having effaced the ignominy of Sempronius's defeat, he was allowed to enter the city with an ovation. As the war was terminated with less difficulty than they had apprehended, so in the city, from a state of tranquillity, an unexpected mass of dissensions arose between the commons and patricians, which commenced with doubling the number of quÆstors. When the patricians approved most highly of this measure, (viz. that, besides the two city quÆstors, two should attend the consuls to discharge some duties of the military service,) after it was moved by the consuls, the tribunes of the commons contended in opposition to the consuls, that half of the quÆstors should be appointed from the commons; for up to that time all patricians were appointed. Against this proceeding both the consuls and patricians at first strove with all their might; then by making a concession that the will of the people should be equally free in the case of quÆstors, as they enjoyed in the election of tribunes with consular power, when they produced but little effect, they gave up the entire matter about increasing the number of quÆstors. When relinquished, the tribunes take it up, and other seditious schemes are continually started, among which is that of the agrarian law. On account of these disturbances the senate was desirous that consuls should be elected rather than tribunes, but no decree of the senate could be passed in consequence of the protests of the tribunes; the government from being consular came to an interregnum, and not even that without a great struggle (for the tribunes prevented the patricians from meeting). When the greater part of the following year was wasted in contentions by the new tribunes of the commons and some interreges, the tribunes at one time hindering the patricians from assembling to declare an interrex, at another time preventing the interrex from passing a decree regarding the election of consuls; at length Lucius Papirius Mugillanus, being nominated interrex, censuring now the patricians, now the tribunes of the people, asserted "that the state, deserted and forsaken by man, being taken up by the providence and care of the gods, subsisted by the Veientian truce and the dilatoriness of the Æquans. From which quarter if any alarm of danger be heard, did it please them that the state, left without a patrician magistrate, should be taken by surprise? that there should be no army, nor general to enlist one? Will they repel a foreign war by an intestine one? And if they both meet, the Roman state can scarcely be saved, even by the aid of the gods, from being overwhelmed. That they, by resigning each a portion of their strict right, should establish concord by a compromise; the patricians, by suffering military tribunes with consular authority to be elected; the tribunes of the commons, by ceasing to protest against the four quÆstors being elected promiscuously from the commons and patricians by the free suffrage of the people."

The election of tribunes was first held. There were chosen tribunes with consular power, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus a third time, Lucius Furius Medullinus a second time, Marcus Manlius, Aulus Sempronius Atratinus. On the last-named tribune presiding at the election of quÆstors, and among several other plebeians a son of Antistius, a plebeian tribune, and a brother of Sextus Pompilius, also a tribune of the commons, becoming candidates, neither the power nor interest of the latter at all availed so as to prevent those, whose fathers and grandfathers they had seen consuls, from being preferred for their high birth. All the tribunes of the commons became enraged, above all Pompilius and Antistius were incensed at the rejection of their relatives. "What could this mean? that neither through their own kindnesses, nor in consequence of the injurious treatment of the patricians, nor even through the natural desire of making use of their new right, as that is now allowed which was not allowed before, was any individual of the commons elected if not a military tribune, not even a quÆstor. That the prayers of a father in behalf of a son, those of one brother in behalf of another, had been of no avail, though proceeding from tribunes of the people, a sacrosanct power created for the support of liberty. There must have been some fraud in the matter, and Aulus Sempronius must have used more of artifice at the elections than was compatible with honour." They complained that by the unfairness of his conduct their friends had been kept out of office. Accordingly as no attack could be made on him, secured by his innocence and by the office he then held, they turned their resentment against Caius Sempronius, uncle to Atratinus; and, with the aid of their colleague Marcus Cornelius, they entered a prosecution against him on account of the disgrace sustained in the Volscian war. By the same tribunes mention was frequently made in the senate concerning the division of the lands, (which scheme Caius Sempronius had always most vigorously opposed,) they supposing, as was really the case, that the accused, should he give up the question, would become less valued among the patricians, or by persevering up to the period of trial he would give offence to the commons. He preferred to expose himself to the torrent of popular prejudice, and to injure his own cause, than to be wanting to the public cause; and he stood firm in the same sentiment, "that no largess should be made, which was sure to turn to the benefit of the three tribunes; that it was not land was sought for the people, but odium for him. That he too would undergo that storm with a determined mind; nor should either himself, nor any other citizen, be of so much consequence to the senate, that in showing tenderness to an individual, a public injury may be done." When the day of trial came, he, having pleaded his own cause with a spirit by no means subdued, is condemned in a fine of fifteen thousand asses, though the patricians tried every means to make the people relent. The same year Postumia, a Vestal virgin, is tried for a breach of chastity, though guiltless of the charge; having fallen under suspicion in consequence of her dress being too gay and her manners less reserved than becomes a virgin, not avoiding the imputation with sufficient care. The case was first deferred, she was afterwards acquitted; but the chief pontiff, by the instruction of the college, commanded her to refrain from indiscreet mirth, and to dress with more regard to sanctity than elegance. In the same year CumÆ, a city which the Greeks then occupied, was taken by the Campanians.

The following year had for military tribunes with consular power, Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, Publius Lucretius Tricipitinus, Spurius Nautius Rutilus: to the good fortune of the Roman people, the year was remarkable rather by great danger than by losses. The slaves conspire to set fire to the city in several quarters, and whilst the people should be intent in bearing assistance to the houses in every direction, to take up arms and seize the citadel and Capitol. Jupiter frustrated their horrid designs; and the offenders, being seized on the information of two (accomplices), were punished. Ten thousand asses in weight of brass paid out of the treasury, a sum which at that time was considered wealth, and their freedom, was the reward conferred on the parties who discovered. The Æquans then began to prepare for a renewal of hostilities; and an account was brought to Rome from good authority, that new enemies, the Lavicanians, were forming a coalition with the old ones. The state had now become habituated, as it were, to the anniversary arms of the Æquans. When ambassadors were sent to Lavici and brought back from thence an evasive answer, from which it became evident that neither war was intended there, nor would peace be of long continuance, instructions were given to the Tusculans, that they should observe attentively, lest any new commotion should arise at Lavici. To the military tribunes, with consular power, of the following year, Lucius Sergius Fidenas, Marcus Papirius Mugillanus, Caius Servilius the son of Priscus, in whose dictatorship FidenÆ had been taken, ambassadors came from Tusculum, just as they entered on their office. The ambassadors brought word that the Lavicanians had taken arms, and having ravaged the Tusculan territory in conjunction with the army of the Æquans, that they had pitched their camp at Algidum. Then war was proclaimed against the Lavicanians; and a decree of the senate having been passed, that two of the tribunes should proceed to the war, and that one should manage affairs at Rome, a contest suddenly sprung up among the tribunes. Each represented himself as a fitter person to take the lead in the war, and scorned the management of the city as disagreeable and inglorious. When the senate beheld with surprise the indecent contention between the colleagues, Quintus Servilius says, "Since there is no respect either for this house, or for the commonwealth, parental authority shall set aside this altercation of yours. My son, without having recourse to lots, shall take charge of the city. I wish that those who are so desirous of managing the war, may conduct it with more consideration and harmony than they covet it."

It was determined that the levy should not be made out of the entire body of the people indiscriminately. Ten tribes were drawn by lot; the two tribunes enlisted the younger men out of these, and led them to the war. The contentions which commenced between them in the city, were, through the same eager ambition for command, carried to a much greater height in the camp: on no one point did they think alike; they contended strenuously for their own opinion; they desired their own plans, their own commands only to be ratified; they mutually despised each other, and were despised, until, on the remonstrances of the lieutenant-generals, it was at length so arranged, that they should hold the supreme command on alternate days. When an account of these proceedings was brought to Rome, Quintus Servilius, taught by years and experience, is said to have prayed to the immortal gods, that the discord of the tribunes might not prove more detrimental to the commonwealth than it had done at Veii: and, as if some certain disaster was impending over them, he pressed his son to enlist soldiers and prepare arms. Nor was he a false prophet. For under the conduct of Lucius Sergius, whose day of command it was, being suddenly attacked by the Æquans on disadvantageous ground near the enemy's camp, after having been decoyed thither by the vain hope of taking it, because the enemy had counterfeited fear and betaken themselves to their rampart, they were beaten down a declivity, and great numbers were overpowered and slaughtered by their tumbling one over the other rather than by flight: and the camp, retained with difficulty on that day, was, on the following day, deserted by a shameful flight through the opposite gate, the enemy having invested it in several directions. The generals, lieutenant-generals, and such of the main body of the army as kept near the colours, made their way to Tusculum; others, dispersed in every direction through the fields, hastened to Rome by different roads, announcing a heavier loss than had been sustained. There was less of consternation, because the result corresponded to the apprehensions of persons; and because the reinforcements, which they could look to in this distressing state of things, had been prepared by the military tribune: and by his orders, after the disturbance in the city was quieted by the inferior magistrates, scouts were instantly despatched, and brought intelligence that the generals and the army were at Tusculum; that the enemy had not removed their camp. And, what raised their spirits most, Quintus Servilius Priscus was created dictator in pursuance of a decree of the senate; a man whose judgment in public affairs the state had experienced as well on many previous occasions, as in the issue of that war, because he alone had expressed his apprehensions of the result of the disputes among the tribunes, before the occurrence of the misfortune; he having appointed for his master of the horse, by whom, as military tribune, he had been nominated dictator, his own son, as some have stated, (for others mention that Ahala Servilius was master of the horse that year;) and setting out to the war with his newly-raised army, after sending for those who were at Tusculum, chose ground for his camp at the distance of two miles from the enemy.

The arrogance and negligence arising from success, which had previously existed in the Roman generals, were now transferred to the Æquans. Accordingly, when in the very first engagement the dictator had thrown the enemy's van into disorder by a charge of his cavalry, he immediately ordered the infantry to advance, and slew one of his own standard-bearers who hesitated in so doing. So great was the ardour to fight, that the Æquans did not stand the shock; and when, vanquished in the field, they made for their camp in a precipitate flight, the taking of it was shorter in time and less in trouble than the battle had been. After the camp had been taken and plundered, and the dictator had given up the spoil to the soldiers, and the cavalry, who had pursued the enemy in their flight, brought back intelligence that all the Lavicanians were vanquished, and that a considerable number of the Æquans had fled to Lavici, the army was marched to Lavici on the following day; and the town, being invested on all sides, was taken by storm and plundered. The dictator, having marched back his victorious army to Rome, resigned his office on the eighth day after he had been appointed; and before agrarian disturbances could be raised by the tribunes of the commons, allusion having been made to a division of the Lavicanian land, the senate very opportunely voted in full assembly that a colony should be conducted to Lavici. One thousand five hundred colonists were sent from the city, and received each two acres. Lavici being taken, and subsequently Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, and Lucius Servilius Structus, and Publius Lucretius Tricipitinus, all these a second time, and Spurius Rutilius Crassus being military tribunes with consular authority, and on the following year Aulus Sempronius Atratinus a third time, and Marcus Papirius Mugillanus and Spurius Nautius Rutilus both a second time, affairs abroad were peaceable for two years, but at home there was dissension from the agrarian laws.

The disturbers of the commons were Spurius MÆcilius a fourth time, and Spurius MÆtilius a third time, tribunes of the people, both elected during their absence. And after they had proposed a bill, that the land taken from the enemy should be divided man by man, and the property of a considerable part of the nobles would be confiscated by such a measure; for there was scarcely any of the land, considering the city itself was built on a strange soil, that had not been acquired by arms; nor had any other persons except the commons possession of that which had been sold or publicly assigned, a violent contest between the commons and patricians seemed to be at hand; nor did the military tribunes discover either in the senate, or in the private meetings of the nobles, any line of conduct to pursue; when Appius Claudius, the grandson of him who had been decemvir for compiling the laws, being the youngest senator of the meeting, is stated to have said; "that he brought from home an old and a family scheme, for that his great-grandfather, Appius Claudius, had shown the patricians one method of baffling tribunitian power by the protests of their colleagues; that men of low rank were easily led away from their opinions by the influence of men of distinction, if language were addressed to them suitable to the times, rather than to the dignity of the speakers. That their sentiments were regulated by their circumstances. When they should see that their colleagues, having the start in introducing the measure, had engrossed to themselves the whole credit of it with the commons, and that no room was left for them, that they would without reluctance incline to the interest of the senate, through which they may conciliate the favour not only of the principal senators, but of the whole body." All expressing their approbation, and above all, Quintius Servilius Priscus eulogizing the youth, because he had not degenerated from the Claudian race, a charge is given, that they should gain over as many of the college of the tribunes as they could, to enter protests. On the breaking up of the senate the tribunes are applied to by the leading patricians: by persuading, admonishing, and assuring them "that it would be gratefully felt by them individually, and gratefully by the entire senate, they prevailed on six to give in their protests." And on the following day, when the proposition was submitted to the senate, as had been preconcerted, concerning the sedition which MÆcilius and MÆtilius were exciting by urging a largess of a most mischievous precedent, such speeches were delivered by the leading senators, that each declared "that for his part he had no measure to advise, nor did he see any other resource in any thing, except in the aid of the tribunes. That to the protection of that power the republic, embarrassed as it was, fled for succour, just as a private individual in distress. That it was highly honourable to themselves and to their office that there resided not in the tribuneship more strength to harass the senate and to excite disunion among the several orders, than to resist their perverse colleagues." Then a shout arose throughout the entire senate, when the tribunes were appealed to from all parts of the house: then silence being established, those who had been prepared through the interest of the leading men, declare that they will protest against the measure which had been proposed by their colleagues, and which the senate considers to tend to the dissolution of the state. Thanks were returned to the protestors by the senate. The movers of the law, having convened a meeting, and styling their colleagues traitors to the interests of the commons and the slaves of the consulars, and after inveighing against them in other abusive language, relinquished the measure.

The following year, on which Publius Cornelius Cossus, Caius Valerius Potitus, Quintus Quintius Cincinnatus, Numerius Fabius Vibulanus were military tribunes with consular power, would have brought with it two continual wars, had not the Veientian campaign been deferred by the religious scruples of the leaders, whose lands were destroyed, chiefly by the ruin of the country-seats, in consequence of the Tiber having overflowed its banks. At the same time the loss sustained three years before prevented the Æquans from affording assistance to the Bolani, a state belonging to their own nation. Excursions had been made from thence on the contiguous territory of Lavici, and hostilities were committed on the new colony. As they had expected to be able to defend this act of aggression by the concurrent support of all the Æquans, when deserted by their friends they lost both their town and lands, after a war not even worth mentioning, through a siege and one slight battle. An attempt made by Lucius Sextius, tribune of the people, to move a law by which colonists might be sent to BolÆ also, in like manner as to Lavici, was defeated by the protests of his colleagues, who declared openly that they would suffer no order of the commons to be passed, unless with the approbation of the senate. On the following year the Æquans, having recovered BolÆ, and sent a colony thither, strengthened the town with additional fortifications, the military tribunes with consular power at Rome being Cneius Cornelius Cossus, Lucius Valerius Potitus, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus a second time, Marcus Postumius Regillensis. The war against the Æquans was intrusted to the latter, a man of depraved mind, which victory manifested more effectually than war. For having with great activity levied an army and marched it to BolÆ, after breaking down the spirits of the Æquans in slight engagements, he at length forced his way into the town. He then turned the contest from the enemy to his countrymen; and when during the assault he had proclaimed, that the plunder should belong to the soldiers, after the town was taken he broke his word. I am more inclined to believe that this was the cause of the displeasure of the army, than that in a city lately sacked and in a colony still young there was less booty found than the tribune had represented. An expression of his heard in the assembly, which was very silly and almost insane, after he returned into the city on being sent for on account of some tribunitian disturbances, increased this bad feeling; on Sextus, a tribune of the commons, proposing an agrarian law, and at the same time declaring that he would also propose that colonists should be sent to BolÆ; for that those who had taken them by their arms were deserving that the city and lands of BolÆ should belong to them, he exclaimed, "Woe to my soldiers, if they are not quiet;" which words, when heard, gave not greater offence to the assembly, than they did soon after to the patricians. And the plebeian tribune being a sharp man and by no means devoid of eloquence, having found among his adversaries this haughty temper and unbridled tongue, which by irritating and exciting he could urge into such expressions as might prove a source of odium not only to himself, but to his cause and to the entire body, he strove to draw Postumius into discussion more frequently than any of the college of military tribunes. Then indeed, after so brutal and inhuman an expression, "Romans," says he, "do ye hear him threatening woe to his soldiers as to slaves? Yet this brute will appear to you more deserving of so high an honour than those who send you into colonies, after having granted to you cities and lands; who provide a settlement for your old age, who fight against such cruel and arrogant adversaries in defence of your interests. Begin then to wonder why few persons now undertake your cause. What are they to expect from you? is it honours which you give to your adversaries rather than to the champions of the Roman people. You felt indignant just now, on hearing an expression of this man? What matters that, if you will prefer this man who threatens woe to you, to those who are desirous to secure for you lands, settlements, and property?"

This expression of Postumius being conveyed to the soldiers, excited in the camp much greater indignation. "Did the embezzler of the spoils and the defrauder threaten woe also to the soldiers?" Accordingly, when the murmur of indignation now became avowed, and the quÆstor, Publius Sestius, thought that the mutiny might be quashed by the same violence by which it had been excited; on his sending a lictor to one of the soldiers who was clamorous, when a tumult and scuffle arose from the circumstance, being struck with a stone he retired from the crowd; the person who had given the blow, further observing with a sneer, "That the quÆstor got what the general had threatened to the soldiers." Postumius being sent for in consequence of the disturbance, exasperated every thing by the severity of his inquiries and the cruelty of his punishment. At last, when he set no bounds to his resentment, a crowd collecting at the cries of those whom he had ordered to be put to death under a hurdle, he himself madly ran down from his tribunal to those who were interrupting the execution. There, when the lictors, endeavouring to disperse them, as also the centurions, irritated the crowd, their indignation burst forth to such a degree, that the military tribune was overwhelmed with stones by his own army. When an account was brought to Rome of so heinous a deed, the military tribunes endeavouring to procure a decree of the senate for an inquiry into the death of their colleague, the tribunes of the people entered their protest. But that contention branched out of another subject of dispute; because the patricians had become uneasy lest the commons, through dread of the inquiries and through resentment, might elect military tribunes from their own body: and they strove with all their might that consuls should be elected. When the plebeian tribunes did not suffer the decree of the senate to pass, and when they also protested against the election of consuls, the affair was brought to an interregnum. The victory was then on the side of the patricians.

Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, interrex, presiding in the assembly, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, Lucius Furius Medullinus were elected consuls. During their office, at the commencement of the year, a decree of the senate was passed that the tribunes should, at the earliest opportunity, propose to the commons an inquiry into the murder of Postumius, and that the commons should appoint whomsoever they thought proper to conduct the inquiry. The office is intrusted to the consuls by the commons with the consent of the people at large, who, after having executed the task with the utmost moderation and lenity by punishing only a few, who there are sufficient grounds for believing put a period to their own lives, still could not succeed so as to prevent the people from feeling the utmost displeasure. "That constitutions, which were enacted for their advantages, lay so long unexecuted; while a law passed in the mean time regarding their blood and punishment was instantly put into execution and possessed full force." This was a most seasonable time, after the punishment of the mutiny, that the division of the territory of BolÆ should be presented as a soother to their minds; by which proceeding they would have diminished their eagerness for an agrarian law, which tended to expel the patricians from the public land unjustly possessed by them. Then this very indignity exasperated their minds, that the nobility persisted not only in retaining the public lands, which they got possession of by force, but would not even distribute to the commons the unoccupied land lately taken from the enemy, and which would, like the rest, soon become the prey of a few. The same year the legions were led out by the consul Furius against the Volscians, who were ravaging the country of the Hernicians, and finding no enemy there, they took Ferentinum, whither a great multitude of the Volscians had betaken themselves. There was less plunder than they had expected; because the Volscians, seeing small hopes of keeping it, carried off their effects and abandoned the town. It was taken on the following day, being nearly deserted. The land itself was given to the Hernicians.

The year, tranquil through the moderation of the tribunes, was succeeded by one in which Lucius Icilius was plebeian tribune, Quintus Fabius Ambustus, Caius Furius Pacilus being consuls. When this man, at the very commencement of the year, began to excite disturbances by the publication of agrarian laws, as if such was the task of his name and family, a pestilence broke out, more alarming however than deadly, which diverted men's thoughts from the forum and political disputes to their domestic concerns and the care of their personal health; and persons think that it was less mischievous than the disturbance would have proved. The state being freed from this (which was attended) with a very general spread of illness, though very few deaths, the year of pestilence was followed by a scarcity of grain, the cultivation of the land having been neglected, as usually happens, Marcus Papirius Atratinus, Caius Nautius Rutilus being consuls. The famine would now have proved more dismal than the pestilence, had not the scarcity been relieved by sending envoys around all the states, which border on the Tuscan Sea and the Tiber, to purchase the corn. The envoys were prevented from trading in an insolent manner by the Samnitians, who were in possession of Capua and CumÆ; on the contrary, they were kindly assisted by the tyrants of Sicily. The Tiber brought down the greatest supplies, through the very active zeal of the Etrurians. In consequence of the sickness, the consuls laboured under a paucity of hands in conducting the government; when not finding more than one senator for each embassy, they were obliged to attach to it two knights. Except from the pestilence and the scarcity, there was no internal or external annoyance during those two years. But as soon as these causes of anxiety disappeared, all those evils by which the state had hitherto been distressed, started up, discord at home, war abroad.

In the consulship of Mamercus Æmilius and Caius Valerius Potitus, the Æquans made preparations for war; the Volscians, though not by public authority, taking up arms, and entering the service as volunteers for pay. When on the report of these enemies having started up, (for they had now passed into the Latin and Hernican land,) Marcus MÆnius, a proposer of an agrarian law, would obstruct Valerius the consul when holding a levy, and when no one took the military oath against his own will under the protection of the tribune; an account is suddenly brought that the citadel of Carventa had been seized by the enemy. The disgrace incurred by this event was both a source of odium to MÆnius in the hands of the fathers, and it moreover afforded to the other tribunes, already pre-engaged as protestors against an agrarian law, a more justifiable pretext for resisting their colleague. Wherefore after the matter had been protracted for a long time by wrangling, the consuls calling gods and men to witness, that whatever disgrace or loss had either been already sustained or hung over them from the enemy, the blame of it would be imputed to MÆnius, who hindered the levy; MÆnius, on the other hand, exclaiming "that if the unjust occupiers would yield up possession of the public land, he would cause no delay to the levy:" the nine tribunes interposing a decree, put an end to the contest; and they proclaimed as the determination of their college, "that they would, for the purposes of the levy, in opposition to the protest of their colleague, afford their aid to Caius Valerius the consul in inflicting fines and other penalties on those who refused to enlist." When the consul, armed with this decree, ordered into prison a few who appealed to the tribune, the rest took the military oath from fear. The army was marched to the citadel of Carventa, and though hated by and disliking the consul, they on their first arrival recovered the citadel in a spirited manner, having dislodged those who were protecting it; some in quest of plunder having straggled away through carelessness from the garrison, afforded an opportunity for attacking them. There was considerable booty from the constant devastations, because all had been collected into a safe place. This the consul ordered the quÆstors to sell by auction and carry it into the treasury, declaring that the army should then participate in the booty, when they had not declined the service. The exasperation of the commons and soldiers against the consul was then augmented. Accordingly, when by a decree of the senate the consul entered the city in an ovation, rude verses in couplets were thrown out with military licence; in which the consul was severely handled, whilst the name of MÆnius was cried up with encomiums, when at every mention of the tribune the attachment of the surrounding people vied by their applause and commendation with the loud praises of the soldiers. And that circumstance occasioned more anxiety to the patricians, than the wanton raillery of the soldiers against the consul, which was in a manner a usual thing; and the election of MÆnius among the military tribunes being deemed as no longer questionable, if he should become a candidate, he was kept out of it by an election for consuls being appointed.

Cneius Cornelius Cossus and Lucius Furius Medullinus were elected consuls. The commons were not on any other occasion more dissatisfied at the election of tribunes not being conceded to them. This sense of annoyance they both manifested at the nomination of quÆstors, and avenged by then electing plebeians for the first time as quÆstors; so that in electing four, room was left for only one patrician; whilst three plebeians, Quintus Silius, Publius Aelius, and Publius Pupius, were preferred to young men of the most illustrious families. I learn that the principal advisers of the people, in this so independent a bestowing of their suffrage, were the Icilii, three out of this family most hostile to the patricians having been elected tribunes of the commons for that year, by their holding out the grand prospect of many and great achievements to the people, who became consequently most ardent; after they had affirmed that they would not stir a step, if the people would not, even at the election of quÆstors, the only one which the senate had left open to the commons and patricians, evince sufficient spirit to accomplish that which they had so long wished for, and which was allowed by the laws. This therefore the people considered an important victory; and that quÆstorship they estimated not by the extent of the honour itself; but an access seemed opened to new men to the consulship and the honours of a triumph. The patricians, on the other hand, expressed their indignation not so much at the honours of the state being shared, but at their being lost; they said that, "if matters be so, children need no longer be educated; who being driven from the station of their ancestors, and seeing others in the possession of their dignity, would be left without command or power, as mere salii and flamens, with no other employment than to offer sacrifices for the people." The minds of both parties being irritated, since the commons had both assumed new courage, and had now three leaders of the most distinguished reputation for the popular side; the patricians seeing that the result of all the elections would be similar to that for quÆstors, wherever the people had the choice from both sides, strove vigorously for the election of consuls, which was not yet open to them. The Icilii, on the contrary, said that military tribunes should be elected, and that posts of honour should be at length imparted to the commons.

But the consuls had no proceeding on hand, by opposing which they could extort that which they desired; when by an extraordinary and favourable occurrence an account is brought that the Volscians and Æquans had proceeded beyond their frontiers into the Latin and Hernican territory to commit depredations. For which war when the consuls commence to hold a levy in pursuance of a decree of the senate, the tribunes then strenuously opposed them, affirming that such a fortunate opportunity was presented to them and to the commons. There were three, and all very active men, and of respectable families, considering they were plebeians. Two of them choose each a consul, to be watched by them with unremitting assiduity; to one is assigned the charge sometimes of restraining, sometimes of exciting, the commons by his harangues. Neither the consuls effected the levy, nor the tribunes the election which they desired. Then fortune inclining to the cause of the people, expresses arrive that the Æquans had attacked the citadel of Carventa, the soldiers who were in garrison having straggled away in quest of plunder, and had put to death the few left to guard it; that others were slain as they were returning to the citadel, and others who were dispersed through the country. This circumstance, prejudicial to the state, added force to the project of the tribunes. For, assailed by every argument to no purpose that they would then at length desist from obstructing the war, when they yielded neither to the public storm, nor to the odium themselves, they succeed so far as to have a decree of the senate passed for the election of military tribunes; with an express stipulation, however, that no candidate should be considered, who was tribune of the people that year, and that no one should be re-elected plebeian tribune for the year following; the senate undoubtedly pointing at the Icilians, whom they suspected of aiming at the consular tribuneship as the reward of their turbulent tribuneship of the commons. Then the levy began to proceed, and preparations for war began to be made with the concurrence of all ranks. The diversity of the statements of writers leaves it uncertain whether both the consuls set out for the citadel of Carventa, or whether one remained behind to hold the elections; those facts in which they do not disagree are to be received as certain, that they retired from the citadel of Carventa, after having carried on the attack for a long time to no purpose: that Verrugo in the Volscian country was taken by the same army, and that great devastation had been made, and considerable booty captured both amongst the Æquans and in the Volscian territory.

At Rome, as the commons gained the victory so far as to have the kind of elections which they preferred, so in the issue of the elections the patricians were victorious; for, contrary to the expectation of all, three patricians were elected military tribunes with consular power, Caius Julius Julus, Publius Cornelius Cossus, Caius Servilius Ahala. They say that an artifice was employed by the patricians (with which the Icilii charged them even at the time); that by intermixing a crowd of unworthy candidates with the deserving, they turned away the thoughts of the people from the plebeian through the disgust excited by the remarkable meanness of some. Then tidings are brought that the Volscians and Æquans, whether the retention of the citadel of Carventa raised their hopes, or the loss of the garrison at Verrugo excited their resentment, united in making preparations for war with the utmost energy: that the Antians were the chief promoters of the project; that their ambassadors had gone about the states of both these nations, upbraiding their dastardly conduct; that shut up within their walls, they had on the preceding year suffered the Romans to carry their depredations throughout their country, and the garrison of Verrugo to be overpowered. That now not only armed troops but colonies also were sent into their territories; and that not only the Romans distributed among themselves and kept their property, but that they had made a present to the Hernici of Ferentinum what had been taken from them. After their minds were inflamed by these remonstrances, according as they made applications to each, a great number of young men were enlisted. Thus the youth of all the states were drawn together to Antium: there they pitched their camp and awaited the enemy. When these accounts are reported at Rome with much greater alarm than the circumstance warranted, the senate instantly ordered a dictator to be nominated, which was their last resource in perilous circumstances. They say that Julius and Cornelius were much offended at this proceeding, and that the matter was accomplished with great warmth of temper: when the leading men of the patricians, complaining fruitlessly that the military tribunes would not conform to the judgment of the senate, at last appealed even to the tribunes of the commons, and stated that force had been used even with the consuls by that body on a similar occasion. The plebeian tribunes, overjoyed at the dissension among the patricians, said, "that there was no support in persons who were not held in the rank of citizens, nor even of human beings; if ever the posts of honour were open, and the administration of government were shared, that they should then see that the decrees of the senate should not be invalidated by the arrogance of magistrates; that in the mean while, the patricians, unrestrained as they were by respect for laws or magistrates, must manage the tribunitian office also by themselves."

This contention occupied men's thoughts at a most unseasonable time, when a war of such importance was on hand: until when Julius and Cornelius descanted for a long time by turns, on "how unjust it was that a post of honour conferred on them by the people was now to be wrested from them, since they were generals sufficiently qualified to conduct that war." Then Ahala Servilius, military tribune, says, "that he had remained silent for so long a time, not because he was uncertain as to his opinion, (for what good citizen can separate his own interests from those of the public,) but because he wished that his colleagues should of their own accord yield to the authority of the senate, rather than suffer the tribunitian power to be suppliantly appealed to against them. That even then, if circumstances permitted, he would still give them time to retract an opinion too pertinaciously adhered to. But since the exigences of war do not await the counsels of men, that the public weal was of deeper importance to him than the good will of his colleagues, and if the senate continued in the same sentiments, he would, on the following night, nominate a dictator; and if any one protested against a decree of the senate being passed, that he would be content with its authority."[158] When by this conduct he bore away the well-merited praises and good will of all, having named Publius Cornelius dictator, he himself being appointed by him as master of the horse, served as an instance to those who considered his case and that of his colleagues, how much more attainable public favour and honour sometimes were to those who evinced no desire for them. The war was in no respect a memorable one. The enemy were beaten at Antium in one, and that an easy battle; the victorious army laid waste the Volscian territory; their fort at the lake Fucinus was taken by storm, and in it three thousand men made prisoners; the rest of the Volscians being driven within the walls, and not defending the lands. The dictator having conducted the war in such a manner as to show that he was not negligent of fortune's favours, returned to the city with a greater share of success than of glory, and resigned his office. The military tribunes, without making any mention of an election of consuls, (through pique, I suppose, for the appointment of a dictator,) issued a proclamation for the election of military tribunes. Then indeed the perplexity of the patricians became still greater, as seeing their cause betrayed by their own party. Wherefore, as on the year before, by bringing forward as candidates the most unworthy individuals from amongst the plebeians, they produced a disgust against all, even those who were deserving; so then by engaging such of the patricians as were most distinguished by the splendour of their character and by their influence to stand as candidates, they secured all the places; so that no plebeian could get in. Four were elected, all of them men who had already served the office, Lucius Furius Medullinus, Caius Valerius Potitus, Numerius Fabius Vibulanus, Caius Servilius Ahala. The last had the honour continued to him by re-election, as well in consequence of his other deserts, as on account of his recent popularity, acquired by his singular moderation.

In that year, because the term of the truce with the Veientian nation was expired, restitution began to be demanded through ambassadors and heralds, who on coming to the frontiers were met by an embassy from the Veientians. They requested that they would not proceed to Veii, until they should first have access to the Roman senate. They obtained from the senate, that, because the Veientians were distressed by intestine dissension, restitution would not be demanded from them; so far were they from seeking, in the troubles of others, an opportunity for advancing their own interest. In the Volscian territory also a disaster was sustained in the loss of the garrison at Verrugo; where so much depended on time, that when the soldiers who were besieged there, and were calling for succour, might have been relieved, if expedition had been used, the army sent to their aid only came in time to surprise the enemy, who were straggling in quest of plunder, just after their putting [the garrison] to the sword. The cause of the dilatoriness was less referrible to the tribunes than to the senate, who, because word was brought that they were holding out with the most vigorous resistance, did not duly reflect that there is a limit to human strength, which no bravery can exceed. These very gallant soldiers, however, were not without revenge, both before and after their death. In the following year, Publius and Cneius Cornelius Cossus, Numerius Fabius Ambustus, and Lucius Valerius Potitus, being military tribunes with consular power, the Veientian war was commenced on account of an insolent answer of the Veientian senate, who, when the ambassadors demanded restitution, ordered them to be told, that if they did not speedily quit the city and the territories, they should give them what Lars Tolumnius had given them. The senate, indignant at this, decreed that the military tribunes should, on as early a day as possible, propose to the people the proclaiming war against the Veientians. When this was first made public, the young men expressed their dissatisfaction. "That the war with the Volscians was not yet over; that a little time ago two garrisons were utterly destroyed, and that [one of the forts] was with great risk retained. That there was not a year in which they had not to fight in the field: and, as if they were dissatisfied at the insufficiency of these toils, a new war was now set on foot with a neighbouring and most powerful nation, who were likely to rouse all Etruria." These discontents, first discussed among themselves, were further aggravated by the plebeian tribunes. These constantly affirm that the war of the greatest moment was that between the patricians and commons. That the latter was designedly harassed by military service, and exposed to be butchered by the enemy; that they were kept at a distance from the enemy, and as it were banished, lest during the enjoyment of rest at home, mindful of liberty and of establishing colonies, they may form plans for obtaining some of the public land, or for giving their suffrages freely; and taking hold of the veterans, they recounted the campaigns of each, and their wounds and scars, frequently asking what sound spot was there on their body for the reception of new wounds? what blood had they remaining which could be shed for the commonwealth? When by discussing these subjects in private conversations, and also in public harangues, they produced in the people an aversion to undertaking a war, the time for proposing the law was adjourned; which would obviously have been rejected, if it had been subjected to the feeling of discontent then prevailing.

In the mean time it was determined that the military tribunes should lead an army into the Volscian territory. Cneius Cornelius alone was left at Rome. The three tribunes, when it became evident that the Volscians had not established a camp any where, and that they would not venture an engagement, separated into three different parties to lay waste the country. Valerius makes for Antium, Cornelius for EcetrÆ. Wherever they came, they committed extensive devastations on the houses and lands, so as to separate the Volscians: Fabius, without committing any devastation, proceeded to attack Auxur, which was a principal object in view. Auxur is the town now called TarracinÆ; a city built on a declivity leading to a morass: Fabius made a feint of attacking it on that side. When four cohorts sent round under Caius Servilius Ahala took possession of a hill which commanded the city, they attacked the walls with a loud shout and tumult, from the higher ground where there was no guard of defence. Those who were defending the lower parts of the city against Fabius, astounded at this tumult, afforded him an opportunity of applying the scaling ladders, and every place soon became filled with the enemy, and a dreadful slaughter continued for a long time, indiscriminately of those who fled and those who resisted, of the armed or unarmed. The vanquished were therefore obliged to fight, there being no hope for those who gave way, when a proclamation suddenly issued, that no persons except those with arms in their hands should be injured, induced all the remaining multitude voluntarily to lay down their arms; of whom two thousand five hundred are taken alive. Fabius kept his soldiers from the spoil, until his colleagues should come; affirming that Auxur had been taken by these armies also, who had diverted the other Volscian troops from the defence of that place. When they came, the three armies plundered the town, which was enriched with wealth of many years' accumulation; and this generosity of the commanders first reconciled the commons to the patricians. It was afterwards added, by a liberality towards the people on the part of the leading men the most seasonable ever shown, that before any mention should be made of it by the commons or tribunes, the senate should decree that the soldiers should receive pay out of the public treasury, whereas up to that period every one had discharged that duty at his own expense.

It is recorded that nothing was ever received by the commons with so much joy; that they ran in crowds to the senate-house, and caught the hands of those coming out, and called them fathers indeed; acknowledging that the result of such conduct was that no one would spare his person or his blood, whilst he had any strength remaining, in defence of a country so liberal. Whilst the prospect of advantage pleased them, that their private property should remain unimpaired at the time during which their bodies should be devoted and employed for the interest of the commonwealth, it further increased their joy very much, and rendered their gratitude for the favour more complete, because it had been offered to them voluntarily, without ever having been agitated by the tribunes of the commons, or made the subject of a demand in their own conversations. The tribunes of the commons, the only parties who did not participate in the general joy and harmony prevailing through the different ranks, denied "that this measure would prove so much a matter of joy, or so honourable to the patricians,[159] as they themselves might imagine. That the measure at first sight was better than it would prove by experience. For from what source was that money to be raised, except by levying a tax on the people. That they were generous to some therefore at the expense of others; and even though others may endure it, those who had already served out their time in the service, would never endure that others should serve on better terms than they themselves had served; and that these same individuals should have to bear the expense of their own service, and then that of others." By these arguments they influenced a part of the commons. At last, when the tax was now announced, the tribunes publicly declared, that they would afford protection to any one who should refuse to contribute his proportion for the pay of the soldiers. The patricians persisted in supporting a matter so happily commenced. They themselves were the first to contribute; and because there was as yet no coined silver, some of them conveying their weighed brass to the treasury in waggons, rendered their contribution very showy. After the senate had contributed with the utmost punctuality according to their rated properties, the principal plebeians, friends of the nobility, according to a concerted plan, began to contribute. And when the populace saw these men highly applauded by the patricians, and also looked up to as good citizens by men of the military age, scorning the support of the tribunes, an emulation commenced at once about paying the tax. And the law being passed about declaring war against the Veientians, the new military tribunes with consular power marched to Veii an army consisting in a great measure of volunteers.

The tribunes were Titus Quintius Capitolinus, Publius Quintius Cincinnatus, Caius Julius Julus a second time, Aulus Manlius, Lucius Furius Medullinus a second time, and Manius Æmilius Mamercinus. By these Veii was first invested. A little before the commencement of this siege, when a full meeting of the Etrurians was held at the temple of Voltumna, it was not finally determined whether the Veientians were to be supported by the public concurrence of the whole confederacy. The siege was less vigorous in the following year, some of the tribunes and their army being called off to the Volscian war. The military tribunes with consular power in this year were Caius Valerius Potitus a third time, Manius Largius Fidenas, Publius Cornelius Maluginensis, Cneius Cornelius Cossus, KÆso Fabius Ambustus, Spurius Nautius Rutilus a second time. A pitched battle was fought with the Volscians between Ferentinum and Ecetra; the result of the battle was favourable to the Romans. Artena then, a town of the Volscians, began to be besieged by the tribunes. Thence during an attempt at a sally, the enemy being driven back into the town, an opportunity was afforded to the Romans of forcing in; and every place was taken except the citadel. Into the fortress, well protected by nature, a body of armed men retired. Beneath the fortress many were slain and made prisoners. The citadel was then besieged; nor could it either be taken by storm, because it had a garrison sufficient for the size of the place, nor did it hold out any hope of surrender, all the public corn having been conveyed to the citadel before the city was taken; and they would have retired from it, being wearied out, had not a slave betrayed the fortress to the Romans: the soldiers being admitted by him through a place difficult of access, took it; by whom when the guards were being killed, the rest of the multitude, overpowered with sudden panic, surrendered. After demolishing both the citadel and city of Artena, the legions were led back from the Volscian territory; and the whole Roman power was turned against Veii. To the traitor, besides his freedom, the property of two families was given as a reward. His name was Servius Romanus. There are some who think that Artena belonged to the Veientians, not to the Volscians. What occasions the mistake is that there was a city of the same name between CÆre and Veii. But the Roman kings destroyed it; and it belonged to the CÆretians, not to the Veientians. The other of the same name, the demolition of which has been mentioned, was in the Volscian territory.

Camillus returned to the city in triumph, being victorious in three wars at the same time. By far the greatest number of the prisoners whom he led before his chariot were from among the Etrurians. And these being sold by auction, such a sum of money was raised, that after paying the matrons the price of their gold, out of that which was over and above, three golden bowls were made; which, inscribed with the name of Camillus, it is certain, lay, before the burning of the Capitol, in the recess of Jupiter's temple at the feet of Juno. On that year such of the Veientians, Capenatians, and Faliscians as had come over to the Romans during the wars with those nations, were admitted into the state, and land was assigned to these new citizens. Those also were recalled by a decree of the senate from Veii, who, from a dislike to building at Rome, had betaken themselves to Veii, and had seized on the vacant houses there. And at first there was a murmuring on their part disregarding the order; then a day having been appointed, and capital punishment [denounced against any one] who did not return to Rome, from being refractory as they were collectively, rendered them when taken singly obedient, each through fear for himself. And Rome both now increased in numbers, and rose throughout its entire extent by its buildings, the state assisting in the expenses, and the Ædiles urging on the work as if public, and private persons (for the want felt of accommodation stimulated them) hastening to complete the work; and within a year a new city was erected. At the termination of the year an election was held of military tribunes with consular power. Those elected were, Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus, Quintus Servilius Fidenas a fifth time, Lucius Julius Iulus, Lucius Aquillius Corvus, Lucius Lucretius Tricipitinus, Servius Sulpicius Rufus. They led one army against the Æquans, not to war, (for they owned themselves conquered,) but from motives of animosity, to lay waste their territories, lest they should leave them any strength for new designs; the other into the territory of Tarquinii. Here Cortuosa and Contenebra, towns belonging to the Etrurians, were taken by storm and demolished. At Cortuosa there was no contest; having attacked it by surprise, they took it at the first shout and onset; the town was plundered and burned. Contenebra sustained a siege for a few days; and it was continual labour, abated neither by night nor by day, that reduced them. When the Roman army, having been divided into six parts, each [division] relieved the other in the battle one hour in six in rotation, and the paucity of numbers exposed the same individual townsmen, wearied as they were, to a contest ever new, they at length yielded, and an opportunity was afforded to the Romans of entering the city. It was the wish of the tribunes that the spoil should be made public property; but the order [that such should be so] was too late for their determination. Whilst they hesitate, the spoil already became the property of the soldiers; nor could it be taken from them, except by means calculated to excite dissatisfaction. On the same year, that the city should not increase by private buildings only, the lower parts of the Capitol also were built of hewn stone; a work deserving of admiration even amid the present magnificence of the city.

Now, whilst the state was busily occupied in building, the tribunes of the commons endeavoured to draw crowds to their harangues by [proposing] the agrarian laws. The Pomptine territory was then, for the first time since the power of the Volscians had been reduced by Camillus, held out to them as their indisputable right. They alleged it as a charge, that "that district was much more harassed on the part of the nobility than it had been on that of the Volscians, for that incursions were made by the one party on it, only as long as they had strength and arms; that persons belonging to the nobility encroached on the possession of land that was public, nor would there be any room in it for the commons, unless a division were now made, before they seized on all." They made not much impression on the commons, who through their anxiety for building attended the forum only in small numbers, and were drained by their expenses on the same object, and were therefore careless about land for the improvement of which means were wanting. The state being full of religious impressions, and then even the leading men having become superstitious by reason of their recent misfortunes, in order that the auspices might be taken anew, the government had once more recourse to an interregnum. The successive interreges were, Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, Servius Sulpicius Camerinus, and Lucius Valerius Potitus. The last at length held an election of military tribunes with consular power. He nominates Lucius Papirius, Caius Cornelius, Caius Sergius, Lucius Æmilius a second time, Lucius Menenius, and Lucius Valerius Publicola a third time. These entered on their office after the interregnum. This year the temple of Mars, vowed in the Gallic war, was dedicated by Titus Quinctius, duumvir for performing religious rites. Four tribes were added from the new citizens, the Stellatine, the Tormentine, the Sabatine, and the Arnian, and they made up the number of twenty-five tribes.

Regarding the Pomptine land the matter was pressed by Lucius Sicinius, plebeian tribune, on the people, who now attended in greater numbers, and more readily aroused to the desire of land than they had been. And mention having been introduced in the senate regarding war against the Latins and Hernicians, the matter was deferred in consequence of their attending to a more important war, because Etruria was up in arms. Matters reverted to their electing Camillus military tribune with consular power. Five colleagues were added, Servius Cornelius Maluginensis, Quintus Servilius Fidenas a sixth time, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Lucius Horatius Pulvillus, and Publius Valerius. At the commencement of the year the attention of the people was drawn away from the Etrurian war, because a body of fugitives from the Pomptine district, suddenly entering the city, brought word that the Antians were up in arms; and that the states of the Latins privately sent their youth to that war, denying that there was any public concert in it, they alleging that volunteers were only not prevented from serving in whatever quarter they pleased. They had now ceased to despise any wars. Accordingly the senate returned thanks to the gods, because Camillus was in office; for (they knew) that it would have been necessary to nominate him dictator, if he were in a private station. And his colleagues agreed that when any terror with respect to war threatened, the supreme direction of every thing should be vested in one man, and that they had determined to consign their authority into the hands of Camillus; and that they did not consider, that any concession they should make to the dignity of that man, derogated in any way from their own. The tribunes having been highly commended by the senate, Camillus himself also, covered with confusion, returned thanks. He then said that "a heavy burden was laid on him by the Roman people, by their having now nominated him dictator for the fourth time; a great one by the senate, by reason of such flattering judgments of that house concerning him; the greatest of all, however, by the condescension of such distinguished colleagues. Where if any addition could be made to his diligence and vigilance, that, vying with himself, he would strive to render the opinion of the state, [expressed] with such unanimity regarding him, as permanent as it was most honourable." In reference to the war and to the people of Antium, that there was more of threats there than of danger; that he, however, would advise that, as they should fear nothing, so should they despise nothing. That the city of Rome was beset by the ill-will and hatred of its neighbours: therefore that the commonwealth should be maintained by a plurality, both of generals and of armies. "It is my wish," said he, "that you, Publius Valerius, as my associate in command and counsel, should lead the troops with me against the enemy at Antium; that you, Quintus Servilius, after raising and equipping another army, shall encamp in the city, ready to act, whether Etruria, as lately, or these new causes of anxiety, the Latins and Hernicians, should bestir themselves. I deem it as certain that you will conduct matters, as is worthy of your father and grandfather, and of yourself and six tribuneships. Let a third army be raised by Lucius Quinctius, out of those excused from service and the seniors, [those past the military age,] who may protect the city and the walls. Let Lucius Horatius provide arms, weapons, corn, and whatever the other exigencies of the war shall demand. You, Servius Cornelius, we your colleagues appoint the president of this council of the state, the guardian of religion, of the assemblies, of the laws, and of all matters pertaining to the city." All cheerfully promising their utmost endeavours in the discharge of their apportioned offices, Valerius, chosen as his associate in command, added, "that Marcus Furius should be considered by him as dictator, and that he would act as master of the horse to him. Wherefore, that they should entertain hopes regarding the war, proportioned to the opinion they formed of their sole commander." The senate, elated with joy, cry out, that "they entertained good hopes, both regarding war, and peace, and the republic in general; and that the republic would never have need of a dictator, if it were to have such men in office, united together in such harmony of sentiments, prepared alike to obey and to command, and who were laying up praise as common stock, rather than taking it from the common fund to themselves individually."

A suspension of civil business being proclaimed, and a levy being held, Furius and Valerius set out to Satricum; to which place the Antians had drawn together not only the youth of the Volscians, selected out of the new generation, but immense numbers of the Latins and Hernicians, out of states which by a long [enjoyment of] peace were in the most unimpaired condition. The new enemy then added to the old shook the spirits of the Roman soldiers. When the centurions reported this to Camillus, whilst forming his line of battle, that "the minds of the soldiers were disturbed, that arms were taken up by them with backwardness, and that they left the camp with hesitation and reluctance; nay, that some expressions were heard, that they should each have to fight with one hundred enemies, and that such numbers, even if unarmed, much less when furnished with arms, could with difficulty be withstood," he leaped on his horse, and in front of the troops, turning to the line, and riding between the ranks, "What dejection of mind is this, soldiers, what backwardness? Is it with the enemy, or me, or yourselves you are unacquainted? What else are the enemy, but the constant subject of your bravery and your glory? on the other hand, with me as your general, to say nothing of the taking of Falerii and Veii, you have lately celebrated a triple triumph for a three-fold victory over these self-same Volscians and Æquans, and Etruria. Do you not recognise me as your general, because I gave you the signal, not as dictator, but as tribune? I neither feel the want of the highest authority over you, and you should look to nothing in me but myself; for the dictatorship neither added to my courage, any more than exile took it from me. We are all therefore the same individuals; and as we bring to this war the same requisites as we brought to former wars, let us look for the same result of the war. As soon as you commence the fight, each will do that which he has learned and been accustomed to do. You will conquer, they will run."

Then having given the signal, he leaps from his horse, and seizing the standard-bearer who was next him by the hand, he hurries him on with him against the enemy, calling aloud, "Soldiers, advance the standard." And when they saw Camillus himself, now disabled through age for bodily exertion, advancing against the enemy, they all rush forwards together, having raised a shout, each eagerly crying out, "Follow the general." They say further that the standard was thrown into the enemy's line by order of Camillus, and that the van was then exerted to recover it. That there first the Antians were forced to give way, and that the panic spread not only to the first line, but to the reserve troops also. Nor was it merely the ardour of the soldiers animated by the presence of their general that made this impression, but because nothing was more terrible to the minds of the Volscians, than the sight of Camillus which happened to present itself. Thus, in whatever direction he went, he carried certain victory with him. This was particularly evident, when, hastily mounting his horse, he rode with a footman's shield to the left wing, which was almost giving way, by the fact of showing himself he restored the battle, pointing out the rest of the line gaining the victory. Now the result was decided, but the flight of the enemy was impeded by their great numbers, and the wearied soldiers would have had tedious work in putting so great a number to the sword, when rain suddenly falling with a violent storm, put an end to the pursuit of the victory which was now decided, rather than to the battle. Then the signal for retreat being given, the fall of night put an end to the war, without further trouble to the Romans. For the Latins and Hernicians, having abandoned the Volscians, marched to their homes, having attained results corresponding to their wicked measures. The Volscians, when they saw themselves deserted by those through reliance on whom they had resumed hostilities, abandoned their camp, and shut themselves up within the walls of Satricum. Camillus at first prepared to surround them by lines of circumvallation, and to prosecute the siege by a mound and other works. But seeing that this was obstructed by no sally from the town, and considering that the enemy possessed too little spirit for him to wait in tedious expectation of victory under the circumstances, after exhorting his soldiers not to waste themselves by tedious labours, as [they had done] when besieging Veii, that the victory was in their hands, he attacked the walls on every side, amid the great alacrity of the soldiers, and took the town by scalade. The Volscians, having thrown down their arms, surrendered themselves.

But the general's thoughts were fixed on a higher object, on Antium: [he knew] that that was the great aim of the Volscians, and main source of the late war. But because so strong a city could not be taken without great preparations, engines and machines, leaving his colleague with the army, he set out for Rome, in order to advise the senate to have Antium destroyed. In the middle of his discourse, (I suppose that it was the wish of the gods that the state of Antium should last a longer time,) ambassadors came from Nepete and Sutrium, soliciting aid against the Etrurians, urging that the time for giving them aid would soon pass by. Thither did fortune avert the force of Camillus from Antium; for as those places were situate opposite Etruria, and were barriers or gates as it were on that side, both they had a wish to get possession of them, whenever they meditated any new enterprise, and the Romans to recover and secure them. Wherefore the senate resolved to treat with Camillus, that he would relinquish Antium and undertake the Etrurian war. The city troops, which Quinctius had commanded, are decreed to him. Though he would have preferred the army which was in the Volscian territory, as being tried and accustomed to him, he made no objection: he only demanded Valerius as his associate in command. Quinctius and Horatius were sent against the Volscians, as successors to Valerius. Furius and Valerius, having set out from the city to Sutrium, found one part of the town already taken by the Etrurians, and on the other part, the approaches to which were barricaded, the townsmen with difficulty repelling the assault of the enemy. Both the approach of aid from Rome, as also the name of Camillus, universally respected both with the enemy and the allies, sustained their tottering state for the present, and afforded time for bringing them relief. Accordingly Camillus, having divided his army, orders his colleague to lead round his troops to that side which the enemy already possessed, and to assault the walls; not so much from any hope that the city could be taken by scalade, as that, by turning away the enemy's attention to that quarter, both the townsmen who were wearied with fighting might have some relaxation of their toil, and that he himself might have an opportunity of entering the city without a contest. This having been done on both sides, and the double terror now surrounding the Etrurians, when they saw that the walls were assailed with the utmost fury, and that the enemy were within the walls, they threw themselves out in consternation, in one body, by a gate which alone happened not to be guarded. Great slaughter was made on them as they fled, both in the city and through the fields. The greater number were slain within the walls by Furius' soldiers: those of Valerius were more alert for the pursuit; nor did they put an end to the slaughter until night, which prevented them from seeing. Sutrium being recovered and restored to the allies, the army was led to Nepete, which having been received by capitulation, was now entirely in the possession of the Etrurians.

It appeared probable, that there would be more of labour in recovering the city, not only for this reason, because it was all in possession of the enemy, but also because the surrender had been made in consequence of a party of the Nepesinians having betrayed the state. It was determined, however, that a message should be sent to their leading men, to separate themselves from the Etrurians, and that they themselves should evince that strict fidelity, which they had implored from the Romans. Whence as soon as an answer was brought that there was nothing in their power, that the Etrurians occupied the walls and the guards of the gates, first, terror was struck into the townsmen by laying waste their land; then, when the faith of the capitulation was more religiously observed than that of the alliance, the army was led up to the walls with fascines of bushes collected from the fields, and the ditches being filled, the scaling ladders were raised, and the town was taken at the first shout and attack. Proclamation was then made to the Nepesinians, that they should lay down their arms, and orders were given that the unarmed should be spared. The Etrurians, armed and unarmed, were put to the sword without distinction: of the Nepesinians also the authors of the surrender were beheaded. To the unoffending multitude their property was restored, and the town was left with a garrison. Thus having recovered two allied cities from the enemy, the tribunes marched back their victorious army to Rome. During the same year restitution was demanded from the Latins and Hernicians, and the cause was asked why they had not during some years supplied soldiers according to stipulation. An answer was given in a full assembly of both nations, "that neither the blame was public, nor was there any design in the circumstance of some of their youth having served among the Volscians. That these individuals, however, suffered the penalty of their improper conduct, and that none of them had returned. But that the cause of their not supplying the soldiers had been their continual terror from the Volscians, which pest adhering to their side, had not been capable of being destroyed by so many successive wars." Which answer being reported to the senate, they decided that there was wanting rather a seasonable time for declaring war than sufficient grounds for it.

In the following year, Aulus Manlius, Publius Cornelius, Titus and Lucius Quintii Capitolini, Lucius Papirius Cursor a second time, Caius Sergius a second time, being military tribunes with consular power, a grievous war broke out abroad, a still more grievous disturbance at home; the war originated on the part of the Volscians, to which was added a revolt of the Latins and Hernicians; the sedition from one from whom it could be least of all apprehended, a man of patrician birth and distinguished character, Marcus Manlius Capitolinus; who being too aspiring in mind, whilst he despised the other leading men, envied one, who was peculiarly distinguished both by honours and by merit, Marcus Furius: he became indignant that he should be the only man among the magistrates; the only man at the head of the armies; that he now attained such eminence that he treated not as colleagues but as mere tools the persons elected under the same auspices; though, in the mean time, if any one would form a just estimate, his country could not have been recovered by Marcus Furius from the siege of the enemy, had not the Capitol and citadel been first preserved by him; and the other attacked the Gauls, whilst their attention was distracted between receiving the gold and the hope of peace, when he himself drove them off when armed and taking the citadel; of the other's glory, a man's share appertained to all the soldiers who conquered along with him; that in his victory no man living was a sharer. His mind puffed by these notions, and moreover, from a viciousness of disposition being vehement and headstrong, when he perceived that his influence among the patricians did not stand forth as prominent as he thought it should, he, the first of all the patricians, became a plebeian partisan, and formed plans in conjunction with the plebeian magistrates; and by criminating the fathers, and alluring the commons to his side, he now came to be carried along by the tide of popular applause, not by prudence, and preferred to be of a great, rather than of a good character: and not content with agrarian laws, which had ever served the tribunes of the commons as material for disturbances, he now began to undermine public credit; for [he well knew] "that the incentives of debt were sharper, as not only threatening poverty and ignominy, but intimidated personal liberty with stocks and chains." And the amount of the debt was immense, contracted by building, a circumstance most destructive even to the rich. The Volscian war therefore, heavy in itself, charged with additional weight by the defection of the Latins and Hernicians, was held out as a colourable pretext, for having a higher authority resorted to. But it was rather the reforming plans that drove the senate to create a dictator. Aulus Cornelius Cossus having been elected dictator, nominated Titus Quinctius Capitolinus his master of the horse.

The dictator, though he perceived that a greater struggle was reserved for him at home than abroad; still, either because there was need of despatch for the war, or supposing that by a victory and a triumph he should add to the powers of the dictatorship itself, held a levee and proceeds into the Pomptine territory, where he had heard that the Volscians had appointed their army to assemble. I doubt not but that, in addition to satiety, to persons reading of so many wars waged with the Volscians, this same circumstance will suggest itself, which often served as an occasion of surprise to me when perusing the writers who lived nearer to the times of these occurrences, from what source the Volscians and Æquans, so often vanquished, could have procured supplies of soldiers. And as this has been unnoticed and passed over in silence by ancient writers; on which matter what can I state, except mere opinion, which every one may from his own conjecture form for himself? It seems probable, either that they employed, as is now practised in the Roman levies, successive generations of their young men one after the other, during the intervals between the wars; or that the armies were not always recruited out of the same states, though the same nation may have made war; or that there was an innumerable multitude of free-men in those places, which, at the present day, Roman slaves save from being a desert, a scanty seminary of soldiers being scarcely left. Certain it is, (as is agreed upon among all authors,) although their power was very much impaired under the guidance and auspices of Camillus, the forces of the Volscians were strong: besides, the Latins and Hernicians had been added, and some of the Circeians, and some Roman colonists also from VelitrÆ. The dictator, having pitched his camp on that day, and on coming forth on the day following after taking the auspices, and having, by sacrificing a victim, implored the favour of the gods, with joyful countenance presented himself to the soldiers, who were now taking arms at day-break, according to orders, on the signal for battle being displayed. "Soldiers," says he, "the victory is ours, if the gods and their prophets see aught into futurity. Accordingly, as it becomes men full of well-grounded hope, and who are about to engage with their inferiors, let us place our spears at our feet, and arm our right hands only with our swords. I would not even wish that any should push forward beyond the line; but that, standing firm, you receive the enemy's charge in a steady posture. When they shall have discharged their ineffective missives, and, breaking their ranks, they shall rush on you as you stand firm, then let your swords glitter, and let each man recollect, that there are gods who aid the Roman; those gods, who have sent us into battle with favourable omens. Do you, Titus Quinctius, keep back the cavalry, attentively observing the very commencement of the contest; as soon as you observe the armies closed foot to foot, then, whilst they are taken up with another panic, strike terror into them with your cavalry, and by making a charge on them, disperse the ranks of those engaged in the fight." The cavalry, the infantry conduct the fight, just as he had ordered them. Nor did either the general disappoint the legions, nor fortune the general.

The army of the enemy, relying on nothing but on their number, and measuring both armies merely by the eye, entered on the battle inconsiderately, and inconsiderately gave it over: fierce only in their shout and with their missive weapons, and at the first onset of the fight, they were unable to withstand the swords, and the close engagement foot to foot, and the looks of the enemy, darting fire through their ardour for the fight. Their front line was driven in, and confusion spread to the reserve troops, and the cavalry occasioned alarm on their part: the ranks were then broken in many places, every thing was set in motion, and the line seemed as it were fluctuating. Then when, the foremost having fallen, each saw that death was about to reach himself, they turn their backs. The Roman followed close on them; and as long as they went off armed and in bodies, the labour in the pursuit fell to the infantry; when it was observed that their arms were thrown away in every direction, and that the enemy's line was scattered in flight through the country; then squadrons of horse were sent out, intimation being given that they should not, by losing time with the massacre of individuals, afford an opportunity in the mean time to the multitude to escape: it would be sufficient that their speed should be retarded by missive weapons and by terror, and that the progress of their forces should be detained by skirmishing, until the infantry should be able to overtake and despatch the enemy by regular slaughter. There was no end of the flight and slaughter before night; on the same day the camp of the Volscians was taken also and pillaged, and all the plunder, save the persons of free condition, was given up to the soldiers. The greatest part of the prisoners consisted of Latins and Hernicians, and these not men of plebeian rank, so that it could be supposed that they had served for hire, but some young men of rank were found among them: an evident proof that the Volscian enemies had been aided by public authority. Some of the Circeians also were recognised, and colonists from VelitrÆ; and being all sent to Rome, on being interrogated by the leading senators, plainly revealed the same circumstances as they had done to the dictator, the defection each of his respective state.

The dictator kept his army in the standing camp, not at all doubting that the senate would order war with these states; when a more momentous difficulty having occurred at home, rendered it necessary that he should be sent for to Rome, the sedition gaining strength every day, which the fomenter was now rendering more than ordinarily formidable. For now it was easy to see from what motives proceeded not only the discourses of Manlius, but his actions also, apparently suggested by popular zeal, but at the same time tending to create disturbance. When he saw a centurion, illustrious for his military exploits, leading off to prison by reason of a judgment for debt, he ran up with his attendants in the middle of the forum and laid hands on him; and exclaiming aloud against the insolence of the patricians, the cruelty of the usurers, and the grievances of the commons, and the deserts and misfortunes of the man. "Then indeed," said he, "in vain have I preserved the Capitol and citadel by this right hand, if I am to see my fellow-citizen and fellow-soldier, as if captured by the victorious Gauls, dragged into slavery and chains." He then paid the debt to the creditor openly before the people, and having purchased his freedom with the scales and brass, he sets the man at liberty, whilst the latter implored both gods and men, that they would grant a recompence to Marcus Manlius, his liberator, the parent of the Roman commons; and being immediately received into the tumultuous crowd, he himself also increased the tumult, displaying the scars received in the Veientian, Gallic, and other succeeding wars: "that he, whilst serving in the field, and rebuilding his dwelling which had been demolished, though he had paid off the principal many times over, the interest always keeping down the principal, had been overwhelmed with interest: that through the kind interference of Marcus Manlius, he now beheld the light, the forum, and the faces of his fellow-citizens: that he received from him all the kind services usually conferred by parents; that to him therefore he devoted whatever remained of his person, of his life, and of his blood; whatever ties subsisted between him and his country, public and private guardian deities, were all centred in that one man." When the commons, worked upon by these expressions, were now wholly in the interest of the one individual, another circumstance was added, emanating from a scheme still more effectually calculated to create general confusion. A farm in the Veientian territory, the principal part of his estate, he subjected to public sale: "that I may not," says he, "suffer any of you, Romans, as long as any of my property shall remain, to be dragged off to prison, after judgment has been given against him, and he has been consigned to a creditor." That circumstance, indeed, so inflamed their minds, that they seemed determined on following the assertor of their freedom through every thing, right and wrong. Besides this, speeches [were made] at his house, as if he were delivering an harangue, full of imputations against the patricians; among which he threw out, waving all distinction whether he said what was true or false, that treasures of the Gallic gold were concealed by the patricians; that "they were now no longer content with possessing the public lands, unless they appropriated the public money also; if that were made public, that the commons might be freed from their debt." When this hope was presented to them, then indeed it seemed a scandalous proceeding, that when gold was to be contributed to ransom the state from the Gauls, the collection was made by a public tribute; that the same gold, when taken from the Gauls, had become the plunder of a few. Accordingly they followed up the inquiry, where the furtive possession of so enormous a treasure could be kept; and when he deferred, and told them that he would inform them at the proper time, all other objects being given up, the attention of all was directed to this point; and it became evident that neither their gratitude, if the information were true, nor their displeasure if it proved false, would know any bounds.

Matters being in this state, the dictator, being summoned home from the army, came into the city. A meeting of the senate being held on the following day, when, having sufficiently sounded the inclinations of the people, he forbade the senate to leave him, attended by that body, he placed his throne in the comitium, and sent his sergeant to Marcus Manlius; who on being summoned by the dictator's order, after he had given intimation to his party that a contest was at hand, came to the tribunal, attended by a numerous party. On the one side stood the senate, on the other the people as if in battle-array, attentively observing, each party, their respective leader. Then silence being made, the dictator said, "I wish that I and the Roman patricians may agree with the commons on all other matters, as I am confident we shall agree on the business which regards you, and on that about which I am about to interrogate you. I perceive that hopes have been raised by you in the minds of the citizens, that, with safety to the public credit, their debts may be paid off out of the Gallic treasures, which it is alleged the leading patricians are secreting. To which proceeding so far am I from being any obstruction, that on the contrary, Marcus Manlius, I exhort you to free the Roman commons from the weight of interest; and to tumble from their secreted spoil, those who lie now brooding on those public treasures. If you refuse to do this, whether because you yourself desire to be a sharer in the spoil, or because the information is unfounded, I shall order you to be carried off to prison, nor will I any longer suffer the multitude to be disquieted by you with delusive hopes." To this Manlius replied, "That it had not escaped him, that it was not against the Volscians, who were enemies as often as it suited the interests of the patricians, nor against the Latins and Hernicians, whom they were driving into hostilities by false charges, but against him and the Roman commons, that he was appointed dictator. Now the war being dropped, which was only feigned, that an attack was being made against himself; that the dictator now professed to defend the usurers against the commons; that now a charge and destruction was sought for him out of the favour of the multitude. Does the crowd that surrounds my person offend you," said he, "Aulus Cornelius, and you, conscript fathers? Why then do you not draw it away from me, each of you by your own acts of kindness? by becoming surety, by delivering your fellow-citizens from the stocks, by preventing those cast in law-suits, and assigned over to their creditors, from being dragged away to prison, by sustaining the necessities of others out of your own superfluities? But why do I exhort you to expend out of your own property? Fix some capital; deduct from the principal what has been paid in interest; soon will my crowd not be a whit more remarkable than that of any other person. But [I may be asked] why do I alone thus interest myself in behalf of my fellow-citizens? I have no other answer to give, than if you were to ask me, why in the same way did I alone preserve the Capitol and the citadel. Both then I afforded the aid which I could to all collectively, and now I will afford it to each individually. Now with respect to the Gallic treasures, the mode of interrogation renders difficult a matter which in itself is easy. For why do you ask that which you know? why do you order that which is in your own laps to be shaken out of them rather than resign it, unless some fraud lurks beneath? The more you require your own impositions to be examined into, the more do I dread lest you should blind the eyes of those narrowly watching you. Wherefore, it is not I that am to be compelled to discover your hoard, but you must be forced to produce it to the public."

When the dictator ordered him to lay aside evasion, and urged him to prove the truth of his information, or to own the guilt of having advanced a false accusation against the senate, and of having exposed them to the odium of a lying charge of concealment; when he refused to speak, to meet the wishes of his enemies, he ordered him to be carried off to prison. When arrested by the sergeant, he said, "O Jupiter, supremely great and good, imperial Juno, and Minerva, and ye other gods and goddesses, who inhabit the Capitol and citadel, do ye suffer your soldier and defender to be thus harassed by his enemies? Shall this right hand, by which I beat off the Gauls from your temples, be now in bonds and chains?" Neither the eyes nor ears of any one could well endure the indignity [thus offered him], but the state, most patient of legitimate authority, had rendered certain offices absolute to themselves; nor did either the tribunes of the commons, nor the commons themselves, dare to raise their eyes or utter a sentence in opposition to the dictatorial power. On Manlius being thrown into prison, it appears that a great part of the commons put on mourning, that a great many persons had let their hair and beard grow, and that a dejected crowd presented itself at the entrance of the prison. The dictator triumphed over the Volscians; and that triumph was the occasion rather of ill-will than of glory. For they murmured that "it had been acquired at home, not abroad, and that it was celebrated over a citizen, not over an enemy; that only one thing was wanting to his arrogance, that Manlius was not led before his car." And now the affair fell little short of sedition, for the purpose of appeasing which, the senate, without the solicitation of any one, suddenly becoming bountiful of their own free-will, decreed that a colony of two thousand Roman citizens should be conducted to Satricum; two acres and half of land were assigned to each. And when they considered this, both as scanty in itself, conferred on a few, and as a bribe for betraying Marcus Manlius, the sedition was irritated by the remedy. And now the crowd of Manlius' partisans was become more remarkable, both by their squalid attire and by the appearance of persons under prosecutions, and terror being removed by the resignation of the dictatorship, after the triumph had set both the tongues and thoughts of men at liberty.

Expressions were therefore heard freely uttered of persons upbraiding the multitude, that "by their favour they always raised their defenders to a precipice, then at the very critical moment of danger they forsook them. That in this way Spurius Cassius, when inviting the commons to a share in the lands, in this way Spurius MÆlius, when warding off famine from the mouths of his fellow-citizens at his own expense, had been undone; thus Marcus Manlius was betrayed to his enemies, whilst drawing forth to liberty and light one half of the state, when sunk and overwhelmed with usury. That the commons fattened their favourites that they might be slaughtered. Was this punishment to be suffered, if a man of consular rank did not answer at the nod of a dictator? Suppose that he had lied before, and that on that account he had had no answer to make; what slave was ever imprisoned in punishment of a lie? Did not the memory of that night present itself, which was well nigh the last and an eternal one to the Roman name? nor any idea of the band of Gauls climbing up the Tarpeian rock? nor that of Marcus Manlius himself, such as they had seen him in arms, covered with sweat and blood, after having in a manner rescued Jupiter himself from the hands of the enemy? Was a recompence made to the preserver of their country with their half pounds of corn? and would they suffer a person, whom they almost deified, whom they had set on a footing with Jupiter, at least with respect to the surname of Capitolinus, to drag out an existence subject to the will of an executioner, chained in a prison and in darkness? Was there thus sufficient aid in one person for all; and no relief for one in so many?" The crowd did not disperse from that place even during the night, and they threatened that they would break open the prison; when that being conceded which they were about to take by force, Manlius was discharged from prison by a decree of the senate; by which proceeding the sedition was not terminated, but a leader was supplied to the sedition. About the same time the Latins and Hernicians, as also the colonists of Circeii and VelitrÆ, when striving to clear themselves of the charge [of being concerned] in the Volscian war, and demanding back the prisoners, that they may punish them according to their own laws, received a harsh answer; the colonists the severer, because being Roman citizens they had formed the abominable design of attacking their own country. They were therefore not only refused with respect to the prisoners, but notice was given them in the name of the senate, who however forbore from such a proceeding in the case of the allies, instantly to depart from the city, from the presence and sight of the Roman people; lest the law of embassy, provided for the foreigner, not for the citizen, should afford them no protection.

The sedition excited by Manlius reassuming its former violence, on the expiration of the year the election was held, and military tribunes with consular power were elected from among the patricians; they were Servius Cornelius Maluginensis a third time, Publius Valerius Potitus a second time, Marcus Furius Camillus, Servius Sulpicius Rufus a second time, Caius Papirius Crassus, Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus a second time. At the commencement of which year peace with foreign countries afforded every opportunity both to the patricians and plebeians: to the plebeians, because not being called away by any levy, they conceived hopes of destroying usury, whilst they had so influential a leader; to the patricians, because their minds were not called away by any external terror from relieving the evils existing at home. Accordingly, as both sides arose much more strenuous then ever, Manlius also was present for the approaching contest. Having summoned the commons to his house, he holds consultations both by night and day with the leading men amongst them with respect to effecting a revolution of affairs, being filled with a much higher degree both of spirit and of resentment than he had been before. The recent ignominy had lighted up resentment in a mind unused to affront; it gave him additional courage, that the dictator had not ventured to the same extent against him, as Quinctius Cincinnatus had done in the case of Spurius MÆlius, and because the dictator had not only endeavoured to avoid the unpopularity of his imprisonment by abdicating the dictatorship, but not even the senate could bear up against it. Elated by these considerations, and at the same time exasperated, he set about inflaming the minds of the commons, already sufficiently heated of themselves: "How long," says he, "will you be ignorant of your own strength, which nature has not wished even the brutes to be ignorant of? At least count how many you are, and how many enemies you have. Even if each of you were to attack an individual antagonist, still I should suppose that you would strive more vigorously in defence of liberty, than they in defence of tyranny. For as many of you as have been clients around each single patron, in the same number will ye be against a single enemy. Only make a show of war; ye shall have peace. Let them see you prepared for open force; they themselves will relax their pretensions. Collectively you must attempt something, or individually submit to every thing. How long will you look to me? I for my part will not be wanting to any of you: do you see that my fortune fail not. I, your avenger, when my enemies thought well of it, was suddenly reduced to nothing; and you all in a body beheld that person thrown into chains, who had warded off chains from each one of you. What am I to hope, if my enemies attempt more against me? Am I to expect the fate of Cassius and MÆlius? You acted kindly in appearing shocked at it: the gods will avert it: but never will they come down from heaven on my account: they must inspire you with a determination to avert it; as they inspired me, in arms and in peace, to defend you from barbarous foes and tyrannical fellow-citizens. Is the spirit of so great a people so mean, that aid against your adversaries always satisfies you? And are you not to know any contest against the patricians, except how you may suffer them to domineer over you? Nor is this implanted in you by nature; but you are theirs by possession. For why is it you bear such spirit with respect to foreigners, as to think it meet that you should rule over them? because you have been accustomed to vie with them for empire, against these to essay liberty rather than to maintain it. Nevertheless, whatsoever sort of leaders you have, whatever has been your own conduct, ye have up to this carried every thing which ye have demanded, either by force, or your own good fortune. It is now time to aim at still higher objects. Only make trial both of your own good fortune, and of me, who have been, as I hope, already tried to your advantage. Ye will with less difficulty set up some one to rule the patricians, than ye have set up persons to resist their rule. Dictatorships and consulships must be levelled to the ground, that the Roman commons may be able to raise their heads. Wherefore stand by me, prevent judicial proceedings from going on regarding money. I profess myself the patron of the commons—a title with which my solicitude and zeal invests me. If you will dignify your leader by any more distinguishing title of honour or command, ye will render him still more powerful to obtain what ye desire." From this his first attempt is said to have arisen with respect to the obtaining of regal power; but no sufficiently clear account is handed down, either with whom [he acted], or how far his designs extended.

But, on the other side, the senate began to deliberate regarding the secession of the commons into a private house, and that, as it so happened, situate in the citadel, and regarding the great danger that was threatening liberty. Great numbers cry out, that a Servilius Ahala was wanted, who would not irritate a public enemy by ordering him to be led to prison, but would finish an intestine war with the loss of one citizen. They came to a resolution milder in terms, but possessing the same force, that the magistrates should see that "the commonwealth received no detriment from the designs of Marcus Manlius." Then the consular tribunes, and the tribunes of the commons, (for these also had submitted to the authority of the senate, because they saw that the termination of their own power and of the liberty of all would be the same,) all these then consult together as to what was necessary to be done. When nothing suggested itself to the mind of any, except violence and bloodshed, and it was evident that that would be attended with great risk; then Marcus MÆnius, and Quintus Publilius, tribunes of the commons, say, "Why do we make that a contest between the patricians and commons, which ought to be between the state and one pestilent citizen? Why do we attack, together with the commons, a man whom it is safer to attack through the commons themselves, that he may fall overpowered by his own strength? We have it in contemplation to appoint a day of trial for him. Nothing is less popular than regal power; as soon as the multitude shall perceive that the contest is not with them, and that from advocates they are to be made judges, and shall behold the prosecutors from among the commons, the accused a patrician, and that the charge between both parties is that of aiming at regal power, they will favour no object more than their own liberty."

With the approbation of all, they appoint a day of trial for Manlius. When this took place, the commons were at first excited, especially when they saw the accused in a mourning habit, and with him not only none of the patricians, but not even any of his kinsmen or relatives, nay, not even his brothers Aulus and Titus Manlius; a circumstance which had never occurred before, that at so critical a juncture a man's nearest friends did not put on mourning. When Appius Claudius was thrown into prison [they remarked], that Caius Claudius, who was at enmity with him and the entire Claudian family, appeared in mourning; that this favourite of the people was about to be destroyed by a conspiracy, because he was the first who had come over from the patricians to the commons. When the day arrived, I find in no author, what acts were alleged by the prosecutors against the accused bearing properly on the charge of aspiring to kingly power, except his assembling the multitude, and his seditious expressions and his largesses, and pretended discovery; nor have I any doubt that they were by no means unimportant, as the people's delay in condemning him was occasioned not by the merits of the cause, but by the place of trial. This seems deserving of notice, that men may know what great and glorious achievements his depraved ambition of regal power rendered not only bereft of all merit, but absolutely hateful. He is said to have brought forward near four hundred persons to whom he had lent money without interest, whose goods he had prevented from being sold, whom he had prevented from being carried off to prison after being adjudged to their creditors. Besides this, that he not only enumerated also his military rewards, but also produced them to view; spoils of enemies slain up to thirty; presents from generals to the number of forty; in which the most remarkable were two mural crowns and eight civic. In addition to this, that he brought forward citizens saved from the enemy, amongst whom was mentioned Caius Servilius, when master of the horse, now absent. Then after he had recounted his exploits in war, in pompous language suitable to the dignity of the subject, equalling his actions by his eloquence, he bared his breast marked with scars received in battle: and now and then, directing his eyes to the Capitol, he called down Jupiter and the other gods to aid him in his present lot; and he prayed, that the same sentiments with which they had inspired him when protecting the fortress of the Capitol, for the preservation of the Roman people, they would now inspire the Roman people with in his critical situation: and he entreated them singly and collectively, that they would form their judgment of him with their eyes fixed on the Capitol and citadel and their faces turned to the immortal gods. As the people were summoned by centuries in the field of Mars, and as the accused, extending his hands towards the Capitol, directed his prayers from men to the gods; it became evident to the tribunes, that unless they removed the eyes of men also from the memory of so great an exploit, the best founded charge would find no place in minds prejudiced by services. Thus the day of trial being adjourned, a meeting of the people was summoned in the Poeteline grove outside the Nomentan gate, from whence there was no view of the Capitol; there the charge was made good, and their minds being now unmoved [by adventitious circumstances], a fatal sentence, and one which excited horror even in his judges, was passed on him. There are some who state that he was condemned by duumvirs appointed to inquire concerning cases of treason. The tribunes cast him down from the Tarpeian rock: and the same place in the case of one man became a monument of distinguished glory and of extreme punishment. Marks of infamy were offered to him when dead: one, a public one; that, when his house had been that where the temple of Moneta and the mint-office now stand, it was proposed to the people, that no patrician should dwell in the citadel and Capitol: the other appertaining to his family; it being commanded by a decree that no one of the Manlian family should ever after bear the name of Marcus Manlius. Such was the fate of a man, who, had he not been born in a free state, would have been celebrated with posterity. In a short time, when there was no longer any danger from him, the people, recollecting only his virtues, were seized with regret for him. A pestilence too which soon followed, no causes of so great a calamity presenting themselves, seemed to a great many to have arisen from the punishment inflicted on Manlius: "The Capitol" [they said] "had been polluted with the blood of its preserver; nor was it agreeable to the gods that the punishment of him by whom their temples had been rescued from the hands of the enemy, had been brought in a manner before their eyes."

The pestilence was succeeded by a scarcity of the fruits of the earth, and the report of both calamities by spreading [was followed] by a variety of wars in the following year, Lucius Valerius a fourth time, Aulus Manlius a third time, Servius Sulpicius a third time, Lucius Lucretius, Lucius Æmilius a third time, Marcus Trebonius, being military tribunes with consular power. Besides the Volscians, assigned by some fatality to give eternal employment to the Roman soldiery, and the colonies of Circeii and VelitrÆ, long meditating a revolt, and Latium which had been suspected, new enemies suddenly sprung up in the people of Lanuvium, which had been a most faithful city. The fathers, considering that this arose from contempt, because the revolt of their own citizens, the people of VelitrÆ, had been so long unpunished, decreed that a proposition should be submitted to the people at the earliest opportunity on the subject of declaring war against them: and in order that the commons might be the more disposed for that service, they appointed five commissioners for distributing the Pomptine land, and three for conducting a colony to Nepete. Then it was proposed to the people that they should order a declaration of war; and the plebeian tribunes in vain endeavouring to dissuade them, all the tribes declared for war. That year preparations were made for war; the army was not led out into the field on account of the pestilence. And that delay afforded full time to the colonists to deprecate the anger of the senate; and a great number of the people were disposed that a suppliant embassy should be sent to Rome, had not the public been involved, as is usual, with the private danger, and the abettors of the revolt from the Romans, through fear, lest they, being alone answerable for the guilt, might be given up as victims to the resentment of the Romans, dissuaded the colonies from counsels of peace. And not only was the embassy obstructed by them in the senate, but a great part of the commons were excited to make predatory excursions into the Roman territory. This new injury broke off all hope of peace. This year a report first originated regarding a revolt of the PrÆnestines; and the people of Tusculum, Gabii and Lavici, into whose territories the incursions had been made, accusing them of the fact, the senate returned so placid an answer, that it became evident that less credit was given to the charges, because they wished them not to be true.

In the following year the Papirii, Spurius and Lucius, new military tribunes, led the legions to VelitrÆ; their four colleagues in the tribuneship, Servius Cornelius Maluginensis a fourth time, Quintus Servilius, Servius Sulpicius, Lucius Æmilius a fourth time, being left behind to protect the city, and in case any new commotion should be announced from Etruria; for every thing was apprehended from that quarter. At VelitrÆ they fought a successful battle against the auxiliaries of the PrÆnestines, who were almost greater than the number of colonists themselves; so that the proximity of the city was both the cause of an earlier flight to the enemy, and was their only refuge after the flight. The tribunes refrained from besieging the town, both because [the result] was uncertain, and they considered that the war should not be pushed to the total destruction of the colony. Letters were sent to Rome to the senate with news of the victory, expressive of more animosity against the PrÆnestine enemy than against those of VelitrÆ. In consequence, by a decree of the senate and an order of the people, war was declared against the PrÆnestines: who, in conjunction with the Volscians, took, on the following year, Satricum, a colony of the Roman people, by storm, after an obstinate defence by the colonists, and made, with respect to the prisoners, a disgraceful use of their victory. Incensed at this, the Romans elected Marcus Furius Camillus a seventh time military tribune. The colleagues conjoined with him were the two Postumii Regillenses, Aulus and Lucius, and Lucius Furius, with Lucius Lucretius and Marcus Fabius Ambustus. The Volscian war was decreed to Marcus Furius out of the ordinary course, Lucius Furius is assigned by lot from among the tribunes his assistant; [which proved] not so advantageous to the public as a source of all manner of praise to his colleague: both on public grounds, because he restored the [Roman] interest which had been prostrated by his rash conduct; and on private grounds, because from his error he sought to obtain his gratitude rather than his own glory. Camillus was now in the decline of life, and when prepared at the election to take the usual oath for the purpose of excusing himself on the plea of his health, he was opposed by the consent of the people: but his active mind was still vigorous within his ardent breast, and he enjoyed all his faculties entire, and now that he concerned himself but little in civil affairs, war still aroused him. Having enlisted four legions of four thousand men each, and having ordered the troops to assemble the next day at the Esquiline gate, he set out to Satricum. There the conquerors of the colony, nowise dismayed, confiding in their number of men, in which they had considerably the advantage, awaited him. When they perceived that the Romans were approaching, they marched out immediately to the field, determined to make no delay to put all to the risk of an engagement, that by proceeding thus they should derive no advantage from the judgment of their distinguished commander, on which alone they confided.

The same ardour existed also in the Roman army; nor did any thing, but the wisdom and authority of one man, delay the fortune of the present engagement, who sought, by protracting the war, an opportunity of aiding their strength by skill. The enemy urged them the more on that account, and now not only did they draw out their troops in order of battle before their camp, but advanced into the middle of the plain, and by throwing up trenches near the battalions of the enemy, made a show of their insolent confidence in their strength. The Roman soldier was indignant at this; the other military tribune, Lucius Furius, still more so, who, encouraged both by his youth and his natural disposition, was still further elated by the hopes entertained by the multitude, who assumed great spirits on grounds the most uncertain. The soldiers, already excited of themselves, he still further instigated by disparaging the authority of his colleague by reference to his age, the only point on which he could do so: saying constantly, "that wars were the province of young men, and that with the body the mind also flourishes and withers; that from having been a most vigorous warrior he was become a drone; and that he who, on coming up, had been wont to carry off camps and cities at the first onset, now consumed the time inactive within the trenches. What accession to his own strength, or diminution of that of the enemy, did he hope for? What opportunity, what season, what place for practising stratagem? that the old man's plans were frigid and languid. Camillus had both sufficient share of life as well as of glory. What use was it to suffer the strength of a state which ought to be immortal, to sink into old age along with one mortal body." By such observations, he had attracted to himself the attention of the entire camp; and when in every quarter battle was called for, "We cannot," he says, "Marcus Furius, withstand the violence of the soldiers; and the enemy, whose spirits we have increased by delaying, insults us by insolence by no means to be borne. Do you, who are but one man, yield to all, and suffer yourself to be overcome in counsel, that you may the sooner overcome in battle." To this Camillus replies, that "whatever wars had been waged up to that day under his single auspices, in these that neither himself nor the Roman people had been dissatisfied either with his judgment or with his fortune; now he knew that he had a colleague, his equal in command and in authority, in vigour of age superior; with respect to the army, that he had been accustomed to rule, not to be ruled; with his colleague's authority he could not interfere. That he might do, with the favour of the gods, whatever he might deem to be to the interest of the state. That he would even solicit for his years the indulgence, that he might not be placed in the front line; that whatever duties in war an old man could discharge, in these he would not be deficient; that he prayed to the immortal gods, that no mischance might prove his plan to be the more advisable." Neither his salutary advice was listened to by men, nor such pious prayers by the gods. The adviser of the battle draws up the front line; Camillus forms the reserve, and posts a strong guard before the camp; he himself took his station on an elevated place as a spectator, anxiously watching the result of the other's plan.

As soon as the arms clashed at the first encounter, the enemy, from stratagem, not from fear, retreated. There was a gentle acclivity in their rear, between the army and their camp; and because they had sufficient numbers, they had left in the camp several strong cohorts, armed and ready for action, which were to rush forth, when the battle was now commenced, and when the enemy had approached the rampart. The Roman being drawn into disadvantageous ground by following the retreating enemy in disorder, became exposed to this sally. Terror therefore being turned on the victor, by reason of this new force, and the declivity of the valley, caused the Roman line to give way. The Volscians, who made the attack from the camp, being fresh, press on them; those also who had given way by a pretended flight, renew the fight. The Roman soldiers no longer recovered themselves; but unmindful of their recent presumption and former glory, were turning their backs in every direction, and with disorderly speed were making for their camp, when Camillus, being mounted on his horse by those around him, and hastily opposing the reserved troops to them, "Is this," says he, "soldiers, the battle which ye called for? What man, what god is there, whom ye can blame? That was your rashness, this your cowardice. Having followed another leader, now follow Camillus; and as ye are accustomed to do under my leadership, conquer. Why do ye look to the rampart and camp? Not a man of you shall that camp receive, except as victor." Shame at first stopped their disorderly flight; then when they saw the standards wheel about, and a line formed to meet the enemy, and the general, besides being distinguished by so many triumphs, venerable also by his age, presented himself in front of the battalions, where the greatest toil and danger was, every one began to upbraid both himself and others, and mutual exhortation with a brisk shout pervaded the entire line. Nor was the other tribune deficient on the occasion. Being despatched to the cavalry by his colleague, who was restoring the line of the infantry, not by rebuking them, (for which task his share in their fault had rendered him an authority of little weight,) but from command turning entirely to entreaties, he besought them individually and collectively, "to redeem him from blame, who was answerable for the events of that day. Notwithstanding the repugnance and dissuasion of my colleague, I gave myself a partner in the rashness of all rather than in the prudence of one. Camillus sees his own glory in your fortune, whatever it be; for my part, unless the battle is restored, I shall feel the result with you all, the infamy alone (which is most distressing)." It was deemed best that the horse should be transferred into the line whilst still unsteady, and that they should attack the enemy by fighting on foot. Distinguished by their arms and courage, they proceed in whatever direction they perceive the line of the infantry most pressed; nor among either the officers or soldiers is there any abatement observed from the utmost effort of courage. The result therefore felt the aid of the bravery exerted; and the Volscians being put to real flight in that direction in which they had lately retreated under pretended fear, great numbers were slain both in the battle itself, and afterwards in flight; the others in the camp, which was taken in the same onset: more, however, were captured than slain.

Where when, on taking an account of the prisoners, several Tusculans were recognised, being separated from the rest, they are brought to the tribunes; and they confessed to those who interrogated them, that they had taken up arms by the authority of the state. By the fear of which war so near home Camillus being alarmed, says that he would immediately carry the prisoners to Rome, that the senate might not be ignorant, that the Tusculans had revolted from the alliance; meanwhile his colleague, if he thought proper, should command the camp and army. One day had been a lesson to him not to prefer his own counsels to better. However neither himself, nor any person in the army, supposed that Camillus would pass over his misconduct without some angry feelings, by which the commonwealth had been brought into so perilous a situation; and both in the army and at Rome, the uniform account of all was, that, as matters had been conducted with varying success among the Volscians, the blame of the unsuccessful battle and of the flight lay with Lucius Furius, all the glory of the successful one was to be attributed to Camillus. The prisoners being brought into the senate, when the senate decreed that the Tusculans should be punished with war, and they intrusted the management of that war to Camillus, he requests one assistant for himself in that business, and being allowed to select which ever of his colleagues he pleased, contrary to the expectation of every one, he solicited Lucius Furius. By which moderation of feeling he both alleviated the disgrace of his colleague, and acquired great glory to himself. There was no war, however, with the Tusculans. By firm adherence to peace they warded off the Roman violence, which they could not have done by arms. When the Romans entered their territories, no removals were made from the places adjoining to the road, the cultivation of the lands was not interrupted: the gates of the city lying open, they came forth in crowds clad in their gowns to meet the generals; provision for the army was brought with alacrity from the city and the lands. Camillus having pitched his camp before the gates, wishing to know whether the same appearance of peace, which was displayed in the country, prevailed also within the walls, entered the city, where he beheld the gates lying open, and every thing exposed to sale in the open shops, and the workmen engaged each on their respective employments, and the schools of learning buzzing with the voices of the scholars, and the streets filled amid the different kinds of people, with boys and women going different ways, whithersoever the occasions of their respective callings carried them; nothing in any quarter that bore any appearance of panic or even of surprise; he looked around at every object, attentively inquiring where the war had been. No trace was there of any thing having been removed, or brought forward for the occasion; so completely was every thing in a state of steady tranquil peace, so that it scarcely seemed that even the rumour of war could have reached them.

Overcome therefore by the submissive demeanour of the enemy, he ordered their senate to be called. "Tusculans," he says, "ye are the only persons who have yet found the true arms and the true strength, by which to protect your possessions from the resentment of the Romans. Proceed to Rome to the senate. The fathers will consider, whether you have merited more punishment for your former conduct, or forgiveness for your present. I shall not anticipate your gratitude for a favour to be conferred by the state. From me ye shall have the power of seeking pardon. The senate will grant to your entreaties such a result, as they shall consider meet." When the Tusculans came to Rome, and the senate [of a people], who were till a little before faithful allies, were seen with sorrowful countenances in the porch of the senate-house, the fathers, immediately moved [at the sight,] even then ordered them to be called in rather in a friendly than a hostile manner. The Tusculan dictator spoke as follows: "Conscript fathers, we against whom ye proclaimed and made war, just as you see us now standing in the porch of your house, so armed and so attired did we go forth to meet your generals and your legions. This was our habit, this the habit of our commons; and ever shall be, unless whenever we shall receive arms from you and defence of you. We return thanks to your generals and your troops for having trusted their eyes more than their ears; and for having committed nothing hostile, where none subsisted. The peace, which we observed, the same we solicit at your hands: we pray you, avert war to that quarter where, if any where, it subsists. What your arms may be able to effect on us, if after our submission we are to experience it, we will experience unarmed. This is our determination. May the immortal gods grant that it be as successful as it is dutiful! With respect to the charges, by which you were induced to declare war against us, though it is needless to refute by words what has been contradicted by facts; yet, admitting they were true, we think it safe for us to confess them, after having shown such evident marks of repentance. Admit then that we have offended against you, since ye deserve that such satisfaction be made to you." These were nearly the words used by the Tusculans. They obtained peace at the present, and not long after the freedom of the state also. The legions were withdrawn from Tusculum.

Camillus, distinguished by his prudence and bravery in the Volscian war, by his success in the Tusculan expedition, in both by his extraordinary moderation and forbearance towards his colleague, went out of office; the military tribunes for the following year being Lucius and Publius Valerius, Lucius a fifth, Publius a third time, and Caius Sergius a third time, Lucius Menenius a second time, Spurius Papirius, and Servius Cornelius Maluginensis. The year required censors also, chiefly on account of the uncertain representations regarding the debt; the tribunes of the commons exaggerating the amount of it on account of the odium of the thing, whilst it was underrated by those whose interest it was that the difficulty of procuring payment should appear to depend rather on [the want of] integrity, than of ability in the debtors. The censors appointed were Caius Sulpicius Camerinus, Spurius Postumius Regillensis; and the matter having been commenced was interrupted by the death of Postumius, because it was not conformable to religion that a substitute should be colleague to a censor. Accordingly after Sulpicius had resigned his office, other censors having been appointed under some defect, they did not discharge the office; that a third set should be appointed was not allowed, as though the gods did not admit a censorship for that year. The tribunes denied that such mockery of the commons was to be tolerated; "that the senate were averse to the public tablets, the witnesses of each man's property, because they were unwilling that the amount of the debt should be seen, which would clearly show that one part of the state was depressed by the other; whilst in the mean time the commons, oppressed with debt, were exposed to one enemy after another. Wars were now sought out in every direction without distinction. Troops were marched from Antium to Satricum, from Satricum to VelitrÆ, and thence to Tusculum. The Latins, Hernicians, and the PrÆnestines were now threatened with hostilities, more through a hatred of their fellow-citizens than of the enemy, in order to wear out the commons under arms, and not suffer them to breathe in the city, or to reflect on their liberty at their leisure, or to stand in an assembly where they may hear a tribune's voice discussing concerning the reduction of interest and the termination of other grievances. But if the commons had a spirit mindful of the liberty of their fathers, that they would neither suffer any Roman citizen to be assigned to a creditor on account of debt, nor a levy to be held; until, the debts being examined, and some method adopted for lessening them, each man should know what was his own, and what another's; whether his person was still free to him, or that also was due to the stocks." The price held out for sedition soon raised it: for both several were made over to creditors, and on account of the rumour of the PrÆnestine war, the senate decreed that new legions should be levied; both which measures began to be obstructed by tribunitian interposition and the combined efforts of the commons. For neither the tribunes suffered those consigned to their creditors to be thrown into prison, nor did the young men give in their names. While the senate felt less pressing anxiety about enforcing the laws regarding the lending of money than about the levy; for now it was announced that the enemy, having marched from PrÆneste, had encamped in the Gabinian territory; meanwhile this very report rather aroused the tribunes of the commons to the struggle commenced than deterred them; nor did any thing else suffice to allay the discontent in the city, but the approach of hostilities to the very walls.

For when the PrÆnestines had been informed that no army was levied at Rome, no general fixed on, that the senate and people were turned the one against the other; their leaders thinking that an opportunity presented itself, making a hasty march, and laying waste the country as they went along, they advanced their standards as far as the Colline gate. The panic in the city was great. The alarm was given to take up arms; persons ran together to the walls and gates, and at length turning from sedition to war, they created Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus dictator. He appointed Aulus Sempronius Atratinus his master of the horse. When this was heard, (such was the terror of that office,) the enemy retired from the walls, and the young Romans assembled to the edict without refusal. Whilst the army is being levied at Rome, in the mean time the enemy's camp is pitched not far from the river Allia: thence laying waste the land far and wide, they boasted one to the other that they had chosen a place fatal to the Roman city; that there would be a similar consternation and flight from thence as occurred in the Gallic war. For "if the Romans dread a day deemed inauspicious, and marked with the name of that place, how much more than the Allian day would they dread the Allia itself, the monument of so great a disaster. No doubt the fierce looks of the Gauls and the sound of their voices would recur to their eyes and ears." Turning over in mind those groundless notions of circumstances as groundless, they rested their hopes on the fortune of the place. On the other hand, the Romans [considered] that, "in whatever place a Latin enemy stood, they knew full well that they were the same whom, after having utterly defeated at the lake Regillus, they kept in peaceable subjection for one hundred years; that the place being distinguished by the memory of their defeat, would rather stimulate them to blot out the remembrance of their disgrace, than raise a fear that any land should be unfavourable to their success. Were even the Gauls themselves presented to them in that place, that they would fight just as they fought at Rome in recovering their country, as the day after at Gabii; then, when they took care, that no enemy, who had entered the walls of Rome, should carry home an account of their success or defeat."

With these feelings on either side they came to the Allia. The Roman dictator, when the enemy were in view drawn up and ready for action, says, "Aulus Sempronius, do you see that these men have taken their stand at the Allia, relying on the fortune of the place? nor have the immortal gods granted them any thing of surer confidence, or any more effectual support. But do you, relying on arms and on courage, make a brisk charge on the middle of their line; I will bear down on them when thrown into disorder and consternation with the legions. Ye gods, witnesses of the treaty, assist us, and exact the penalty, due for yourselves having been violated, and for us who have been deceived through the appeal made to your divinity." The PrÆnestines sustained not the attack of cavalry, or infantry; their ranks were broken at the first charge and shout. Then when their line maintained its ground in no quarter, they turn their backs; and being thrown into consternation and carried beyond their own camp by their panic, they stop not from their precipitate speed, until PrÆneste came in view. There, having been dispersed in consequence of their flight, they select a post for the purpose of fortifying it in a hasty manner; lest, if they betook themselves within the walls, the country should be burned forthwith, and when all places should be desolated, siege should be laid to the city. But when the victorious Romans approached, the camp at the Allia having been plundered, that fortress also was abandoned, and considering the walls scarcely secure, they shut themselves up within the town of PrÆneste. There were eight towns besides under the sway of the PrÆnestines. Hostilities were carried round to these also; and these being taken one after the other without much difficulty, the army was led to VelitrÆ. This also was taken by storm. They then came to PrÆneste, the main source of the war. That town was obtained, not by force, but by capitulation. Titus Quinctius, being once victorious in a pitched battle, having taken also two camps belonging to the enemy, and nine towns by storm, and PrÆneste being obtained by surrender, returned to Rome: and in his triumph brought into the Capitol the statue of Jupiter Imperator, which he had conveyed from PrÆneste. It was dedicated between the recesses of Jupiter and Minerva, and a tablet fixed under it, as a monument of his exploits, was engraved with nearly these words: "Jupiter and all the gods granted, that Titus Quinctius, dictator, should take nine towns." On the twentieth day after the appointment he abdicated the dictatorship.

An election was then held of military tribunes with consular power; in which the number of patricians and plebeians was equal. From the patricians were elected Publius and Caius Manlius, with Lucius Julius; the commons gave Caius Sextilius, Marcus Albinius, and Lucius Antistius. To the Manlii, because they had the advantage of the plebeians in family station, and of Julius in interest, the province of the Volscians was assigned out of the ordinary course, without lots, or mutual arrangement; of which circumstance both themselves and the patricians who conferred it afterwards repented. Without any previous reconnoitre they sent out some cohorts to forage. It having been falsely reported to them that these were ensnared, whilst they march in great haste, in order to support them, without even retaining the author [of the report] who had deceived them, he being a Latin enemy instead of a Roman soldier, they themselves fell into an ambuscade. There, whilst they suffer and commit great havoc, making resistance on disadvantageous ground solely by the valour of the soldiers, the enemy in the mean time in another quarter attacked the Roman camp which was situate on a plain. By their temerity and want of skill, matters were brought into jeopardy in both places by the generals. Whatever portion [of the army] was saved, the good fortune of the Roman people, and the steady valour of the soldiers, even without a director, protected. When an account of these events was brought to Rome, it was at first agreeable to them that a dictator should be appointed; then when intelligence was received from the Volscian country that matters were quiet, and it appeared manifest that they knew not how to take advantage of victory and of opportunity, the army and generals were recalled from thence also; and there was quiet from that quarter, as far as regarded the Volscians. The only disturbance there was towards the end of the year was, that the PrÆnestines, having stirred up some of the states of the Latins, renewed hostilities. During the same year new colonists were enrolled for Setia, the colony itself complaining of the paucity of men. Domestic tranquillity, which the influence of the plebeian military tribunes and the respect shown to them among their own party procured, was a consolation for the want of success in war.

The commencement of the following year blazed forth with violent sedition, the military tribunes with consular power being Spurius Furius, Quintus Servilius a second time, Caius Licinius, Publius Cloelius, Marcus Horatius, Lucius Geganius. The debt was both the ground-work and cause of the disturbance: for the purpose of ascertaining which Spurius Servilius Priscus and Quintus Cloelius Siculus, being appointed censors, were prevented by war from proceeding in the business. For alarming news at first, then the flight [of the country people] from the lands, brought intelligence that the legions of the Volscians had entered the borders, and were laying waste the Roman land in every direction. In which alarm, so far was the fear of the foreign enemy from putting a check to the domestic feuds, that on the contrary the tribunitian power became even more vehement in obstructing the levy; until these conditions were imposed on the patricians, that no one was to pay tribute as long as the war lasted, nor issue any judicial process respecting money due. This relaxation being obtained for the commons, there was no delay with respect to the levy. New legions being enlisted, it was resolved that two armies should be led into the Volscian territory, the legions being divided. Spurius Furius and Marcus Horatius proceed to the right, towards the sea-coast and Antium; Quintus Servilius and Lucius Geganius to the left, to Ecetra towards the mountains. On neither side did the enemy meet them. Devastation was therefore committed, not similar to that straggling kind which the Volscian had practised by snatches under the influence of trepidation after the manner of a banditti, relying on the dissensions among the enemy and dreading their valour; but committed with the full meed of their resentment by a regular army, more severe also by reason of their continuance. For the incursions had been made by the Volscians on the skirts of the borders, as they were afraid lest an army might in the mean time come forth from Rome: the Romans, on the contrary, had a motive for tarrying in the enemy's country, in order to entice them to an engagement. All the houses therefore on the lands, and some villages also, being burnt down, not a fruit-tree nor the seed being left for the hope of a harvest, all the booty both of men and cattle, which was outside the walls, being driven off, the troops were led back from both quarters to Rome.

A short interval having been granted to the debtors to recover breath, when matters became perfectly quiet with respect to the enemy, legal proceedings began to be instituted anew; and so remote was all hope of relieving the former debt, that a new one was now contracted by a tax for building a wall of hewn stone bargained for by the censors: to which burden the commons were obliged to submit, because the tribunes of the commons had no levy which they could obstruct. Forced by the influence of the nobles, they elected all the military tribunes from among the patricians, Lucius Æmilius, Publius Valerius a fourth time, Caius Veturius, Servius Sulpicius, Lucius and Caius Quinctius Cincinnatus. By the same influence they succeeded in raising three armies against the Latins and Volscians, who with combined forces were encamped at Satricum, all the juniors being bound by the military oath without any opposition; one army for the protection of the city; the other to be sent for the sudden emergencies of war, if any disturbance should arise elsewhere. The third, and by far the most powerful, Publius Valerius and Lucius Æmilius led to Satricum. Where when they found the enemy's line of battle drawn up on level ground, they immediately engaged; and before the victory was sufficiently declared, the battle, which held out fair hopes of success, was put a stop to by rain accompanied by a violent storm of wind. On the following day the battle was renewed; and for a considerable time the Latin troops particularly, who had learned the Roman discipline during the long confederacy, stood their ground with equal bravery and success. A charge of cavalry broke their ranks; when thus confused, the infantry advanced upon them; and as much as the Roman line advanced, so much were the enemy dislodged from their ground; and when once the battle gave way, the Roman prowess became irresistible. When the enemy being routed made for Satricum, which was two miles distant, not for their camp, they were cut down chiefly by the cavalry; their camp was taken and plundered. The night succeeding the battle, they betake themselves to Antium in a march resembling a flight; and though the Roman army followed them almost in their steps, fear however possessed more swiftness than anger. Wherefore the enemy entered the walls before the Roman could annoy or impede their rear. After that several days were spent in laying waste the country, as the Romans were neither supplied with military engines to attack walls, nor the others to hazard the chance of a battle.

At this time a dissension arose between the Antians and the Latins; when the Antians, overcome by misfortunes and reduced by a war, in which they had both been born and had grown old, began to think of a surrender; whilst their recent revolt after a long peace, their spirits being still fresh, rendered the Latins more determined to persevere in the war. There was an end to the contest, when it became evident to both parties that neither would stand in the way of the other so as to prevent them from following out their own views. The Latins by departing redeemed themselves from a share in what they deemed a dishonourable peace. The Antians, on the removal of those who by their presence impeded their salutary counsels, surrender their city and lands to the Romans. The resentment and rage of the Latins, because they were neither able to damage the Romans in war, nor to retain the Volscians in arms, vented itself in setting fire to the city of Satricum, which had been their first place of retreat after their defeat; nor did any other building in that city remain, since they cast firebrands indiscriminately into those sacred and profane, except the temple of Mother Matuta. From that neither the sanctity of the building itself, nor respect for the gods, is said to have restrained them, but an awful voice, emitted from the temple with threats of dismal vengeance, unless they removed their abominable fires to a distance from the temples. Fired with this rage, their impetuosity carried them on to Tusculum, under the influence of resentment, because, having abandoned the general association of the Latins, they joined themselves not only in alliance with the Romans, but also as members of their state. As they unexpectedly rushed in at the gates, which were lying open, the town, except the citadel, was taken at the first shout. The townsmen with their wives and children took refuge in the citadel, and sent messengers to Rome, to inform the senate of their situation. An army was led to Tusculum with no less expedition than was worthy of the honour of the Roman people. Lucius Quinctius and Servius Sulpicius, military tribunes, commanded it. They beheld the gates of Tusculum shut, and the Latins, with the feelings of besiegers and besieged, on the one side defending the walls of Tusculum, on the other hand attacking the citadel; they struck terror and felt it at the same time. The arrival of the Romans produced a change in the minds of both parties: it turned the Tusculans from great alarm into the utmost alacrity, and the Latins from almost assured confidence of soon taking the citadel, as they were masters of the town, to very slender hope of even their own safety. A shout is raised by the Tusculans from the citadel; it is answered by a much louder one from the Roman army. The Latins are hard pressed on both sides: they neither withstand the force of the Tusculans pouring down on them from the higher ground; nor are they able to repel the Romans advancing up to the walls, and forcing the bars of the gates. The walls were first taken by scalade; the gates were then broken open; and when the two enemies pressed them both in front and in the rear, nor did there remain any strength for fight, nor any room for running away, between both they were all cut to pieces to a man. Tusculum being recovered from the enemy, the army was led back to Rome.

In proportion as all matters were more tranquil abroad in consequence of their successes in war this year, so much did the violence of the patricians and the distresses of the commons in the city increase every day; as the ability to pay was prevented by the very fact that it was necessary to pay. Accordingly, when nothing could now be paid out of their property, being cast in suits and assigned over to custody, they satisfied their creditors by their character and persons, and punishment was substituted for payment. Wherefore not only the lowest, but even the leading men in the commons had sunk so low in spirit, that no enterprising and adventurous man had courage, not only to stand for the military tribuneship among the patricians, (for which privilege they had strained all their energies,) but not even to take on them and sue for plebeian magistracies: and the patricians seemed to have for ever recovered the possession of an honour that had been only usurped by the commons for a few years. A trifling cause, as generally happens, which had the effect of producing a mighty result, intervened to prevent the other party from exulting too much in that. Two daughters of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, an influential man, both among persons of his own station, and also with the commons, because he was by no means considered a despiser of persons of that order, had been married, the elder to Servius Sulpicius, the younger to Caius Licinius Stolo, a distinguished person, but still a plebeian; and the fact of such an alliance not having been scorned, had gained influence for Fabius with the people. It so happened, that when the two sisters, the FabiÆ, were passing away the time in conversation in the house of Servius Sulpicius, military tribune, a lictor of Sulpicius, when he returned home from the forum, rapped at the door, as is usual, with the rod. When the younger Fabia, a stranger to this custom, was frightened at it, she was laughed at by her sister, who was surprised at her sister not knowing the matter. That laugh, however, gave a sting to the female mind, sensitive as it is to mere trifles. From the number of persons attending on her, and asking her commands, her sister's match, I suppose, appeared to her to be a fortunate one, and she repined at her own, according to that erroneous feeling, by which every one is most annoyed at being outstripped by those nearest to him. When her father happened to see her disappointed after the recent mortification, by kindly inquiring he prevailed on her, who was dissembling the cause of her annoyance, (as being neither affectionate with respect to her sister, nor respectful towards her husband,) to confess, that the cause of her chagrin was, that she had been united to an inferior, and married into a house which neither honour nor influence could enter. Ambustus then, consoling his daughter, bid her keep up good spirits; that she should soon see the same honours at her own house, which she now sees at her sister's. Upon this he began to draw up his plans with his son-in-law, having attached to himself Lucius Sextius, an enterprising young man, and one to whose hope nothing was wanting but patrician descent.

There appeared a favourable opportunity for making innovations on account of the immense load of debt, no alleviation of which evil the commons could hope for unless their own party were placed in the highest authority. To [bring about] that object [they saw] that they should exert themselves. That the plebeians, by endeavouring and persevering, had already gained a step towards it, whence, if they struggled forward, they might reach the summit, and be on a level with the patricians, in honour as well as in merit. For the present it was resolved that plebeian tribunes should be created, in which office they might open for themselves a way to other honours. And Caius Licinius and Lucius Sextius, being elected tribunes, proposed laws all against the power of the patricians, and for the interests of the commons: one regarding the debt, that, whatever had been paid in interest being deducted from the principal, the remainder should be paid off in three years by equal instalments; the other concerning the limitation of land, that no one should possess more than five hundred acres of land; a third, that there should be no election of military tribunes, and that one at least of the consuls should be elected from the commons; all matters of great importance, and such as could not be attained without the greatest struggles. A contest therefore for all those objects, of which there is ever an inordinate desire among men, viz. land, money, and honours, being now proposed, the patricians became terrified and dismayed, and finding no other remedy in their public and private consultations except the protest, which had been tried in many previous contests, they gained over their colleagues to oppose the bills of the tribunes. When they saw the tribes summoned by Licinius and Sextius to announce their votes, surrounded by bands of patricians, they neither suffered the bills to be read, nor any other usual form for taking the votes of the commons to be gone through. And now assemblies being frequently convened to no purpose, when the propositions were now considered as rejected; "It is very well," says Sextius; "since it is determined that a protest should possess so much power, by that same weapon will we protect the people. Come, patricians, proclaim an assembly for the election of military tribunes; I will take care that that word, I forbid it, which you listen to our colleagues chaunting with so much pleasure, shall not be very delightful to you." Nor did the threats fall ineffectual: no elections were held, except those of Ædiles and plebeian tribunes. Licinius and Sextius, being re-elected plebeian tribunes, suffered not any curule magistrates to be appointed, and this total absence of magistrates continued in the city for the space of five years, the people re-electing the two tribunes, and these preventing the election of military tribunes.

There was an opportune cessation of other wars: the colonists of VelitrÆ, becoming wanton through ease, because there was no Roman army, made repeated incursions on the Roman territory, and set about laying siege to Tusculum. This circumstance, the Tusculans, old allies, new fellow-citizens, imploring aid, moved not only the patricians, but the commons also, chiefly with a sense of honour. The tribunes of the commons relaxing their opposition, the elections were held by the interrex; and Lucius Furius, Aulus Manlius, Servius Sulpicius, Servius Cornelius, Publius and Caius Valerius, found the commons by no means so complying in the levy as in the elections; and an army having been raised amid great contention, they set out, and not only dislodged the enemy from Tusculum, but shut them up even within their own walls. VelitrÆ began to be besieged by a much greater force than that with which Tusculum had been besieged; nor still could it be taken by those by whom the siege had been commenced. The new military tribunes were elected first: Quintius Servilius, Caius Veturius, Aulus and Marcus Cornelius, Quintus Quinctius, Marcus Fabius. Nothing worthy of mention was performed even by these at VelitrÆ. Matters were involved in greater peril at home: for besides Sextius and Licinius, the proposers of the laws, re-elected tribunes of the commons now for the eighth time, Fabius also, military tribune, father-in-law of Stolo, avowed himself the unhesitating supporter of those laws of which he had been the adviser. And whereas, there had been at first eight of the college of the plebeian tribunes protesters against the laws, there were now only five: and (as is usual with men who leave their own party) dismayed and astounded, they in words borrowed from others, urged as a reason for their protest, that which had been taught them at home; "that a great number of the commons were absent with the army at VelitrÆ; that the assembly ought to be deferred till the coming of the soldiers, that the entire body of the commons might give their vote concerning their own interests." Sextius and Licinius with some of their colleagues, and Fabius one of the military tribunes, well-versed now by an experience of many years in managing the minds of the commons, having brought forward the leading men of the patricians, teased them by interrogating them on each of the subjects which were about to be brought before the people: "would they dare to demand, that when two acres of land a head were distributed among the plebeians, they themselves should be allowed to have more than five hundred acres? that a single man should possess the share of nearly three hundred citizens; whilst his portion of land scarcely extended for the plebeian to a stinted habitation and a place of burial? Was it their wish that the commons, surrounded with usury, should surrender their persons to the stocks and to punishment, rather than pay off their debt by [discharging] the principal; and that persons should be daily led off from the forum in flocks, after being assigned to their creditors, and that the houses of the nobility should be filled with prisoners? and that wherever a patrician dwelt, there should be a private prison?"

When they had uttered these statements, exasperating and pitiable in the recital, before persons alarmed for themselves, exciting greater indignation in the hearers than was felt by themselves, they affirmed "that there never would be any other limit to their occupying the lands, or to their butchering the commons by usury, unless the commons were to elect one consul from among the plebeians, as a guardian of their liberty. That the tribunes of the commons were now despised, as being an office which breaks down its own power by the privilege of protest. That there could be no equality of right, where the dominion was in the hands of the one party, assistance only in that of the other. Unless the authority were shared, the commons would never enjoy an equal share in the commonwealth; nor was there any reason why any one should think it enough that plebeians were taken into account at the consular elections; unless it were made indispensable that one consul at least should be from the commons, no one would be elected. Or had they already forgotten, that when it had been determined that military tribunes should be elected rather than consuls, for this reason, that the highest honours should be opened to plebeians also, no one out of the commons was elected military tribune for forty-four years? How could they suppose, that they would voluntarily confer, when there are but two places, a share of the honour on the commons, who at the election of military tribunes used to monopolize the eight places? and that they would suffer a way to be opened to the consulship, who kept the tribuneship so long a time fenced up? That they must obtain by a law, what could not be obtained by influence at elections; and that one consulate must be set apart out of the way of contest, to which the commons may have access; since when left open to dispute it is sure ever to become the prize of the more powerful. Nor can that now be alleged, which they used formerly to boast of, that there were not among the plebeians qualified persons for curule magistracies. For, was the government conducted with less activity and less vigour, since the tribunate of Publius Licinius Calvus, who was the first plebeian elected to that office, than it was conducted during those years when no one but patricians was a military tribune? Nay, on the contrary, several patricians had been condemned after their tribuneship, no plebeian. QuÆstors also, as military tribunes, began to be elected from the commons a few years before; nor had the Roman people been dissatisfied with any one of them. The consulate still remained for the attainment of the plebeians; that it was the bulwark, the prop of their liberty. If they should attain that, then that the Roman people would consider that kings were really expelled from the city, and their liberty firmly established. For from that day that every thing in which the patricians surpassed them, would flow in on the commons, power and honour, military glory, birth, nobility, valuable at present for their own enjoyment, sure to be left still more valuable to their children." When they saw such discourses favourably listened to, they publish a new proposition; that instead of two commissioners for performing religious rites, ten should be appointed; so that one half should be elected out of the commons, the other half from the patricians; and they deferred the meeting [for the discussion] of all those propositions, till the coming of that army which was besieging VelitrÆ.

The year was completed before the legions were brought back from VelitrÆ. Thus the question regarding the laws was suspended and deferred for the new military tribunes; for the commons re-elected the same two plebeian tribunes, because they were the proposers of the laws. Titus Quinctius, Servius Cornelius, Servius Sulpicius, Spurius Servilius, Lucius Papirius, Lucius Valerius, were elected military tribunes. Immediately at the commencement of the year the question about the laws was pushed to the extreme of contention; and when the tribes were called, nor did the protest of their colleagues prevent the proposers of the laws, the patricians being alarmed have recourse to their two last aids, to the highest authority and the highest citizen. It is resolved that a dictator be appointed: Marcus Furius Camillus is appointed, who nominates Lucius Æmilius his master of the horse. To meet so powerful a measure of their opponents, the proposers of the laws also set forth the people's cause with great determination of mind, and having convened an assembly of the people, they summon the tribes to vote. When the dictator took his seat, accompanied by a band of patricians, full of anger and of threats, and the business was going on at first with the usual contention of the plebeian tribunes, some proposing the law and others protesting against it, and though the protest was more powerful by right, still it was overpowered by the popularity of the laws themselves and of their proposers, and when the first tribes pronounced, "Be it as you propose," then Camillus says, "Since, Romans, tribunitian extravagance, not authority, sways you now, and ye are rendering the right of protest, acquired formerly by a secession of the commons, totally unavailing by the same violent conduct by which you acquired it, I, as dictator, will support the right of protest, not more for the interest of the whole commonwealth than for your sake; and by my authority I will defend your rights of protection, which have been overturned. Wherefore if Caius Licinius and Lucius Sextius give way to the protest of their colleagues, I shall not introduce a patrician magistrate into an assembly of the commons. If, in opposition to the right of protest, they will strive to saddle laws on the state as though captive, I will not suffer the tribunitian power to be destroyed by itself." When the plebeian tribunes still persisted in the matter with unabated energy and contemptuously, Camillus, being highly provoked, sent his lictors to disperse the commons; and added threats, that if they persisted he would bind down the younger men by the military oath, and would forthwith lead an army out of the city. He struck great terror into the people; by the opposition he rather inflamed than lessened the spirits of their leaders. But the matter inclining neither way, he abdicated his dictatorship, either because he had been appointed with some informality, as some have stated; or because the tribunes of the people proposed to the commons, and the commons passed it, that if Marcus Furius did any thing as dictator, he should be fined five hundred thousand asses. But both the disposition of the man himself, and the fact that Publius Manlius was immediately substituted as dictator for him, incline me to believe, that he was deterred rather by some defect in the auspices than by this unprecedented order. What could be the use of appointing him (Manlius) to manage a contest in which Camillus had been defeated? and because the following year had the same Marcus Furius dictator, who certainly would not without shame have resumed an authority which but the year before had been worsted in his hands; at the same time, because at the time when the motion about fining him is said to have been published, he could either resist this order, by which he saw himself degraded, or he could not have obstructed those others on account of which this was introduced, and throughout the whole series of disputes regarding the tribunitian and consular authority, even down to our own memory, the pre-eminence of the dictatorship was always decided.

Between the abdication of the former dictatorship and the new one entered on by Manlius, an assembly of the commons being held by the tribunes, as if it were an interregnum, it became evident which of the laws proposed were more grateful to the commons, which to the proposers. For they passed the bills regarding the interest and the land, rejected the one regarding the plebeian consulate. And both decisions would have been carried into effect, had not the tribunes declared that they consulted the people on all the laws collectively. Publius Manlius, dictator, then inclined the advantage to the side of the people, by naming Caius Licinius from the commons, who had been military tribune, as master of the horse. The patricians, I understand, were much displeased at this nomination, but the dictator used to excuse himself to the senate, alleging the near relationship between him and Licinius; at the same time denying that the authority of master of the horse was higher than that of consular tribune. When the elections for the appointment of plebeian tribunes were declared, Licinius and Sextius so conducted themselves, that by denying that they any longer desired a continuation of the honour, they most powerfully stimulated the commons to effectuate that which they were anxious for notwithstanding their dissimulation. "That they were now standing the ninth year as it were in battle-array against the patricians, with the greatest danger to their private interests, without any benefit to the public. That the measures published, and the entire strength of the tribunitian authority, had grown old with them; the attack was made on their propositions, first by the protest of their colleagues, then by banishing their youth to the war at VelitrÆ; at length the dictatorial thunder was levelled against them. That now neither colleagues, nor war, nor dictator stood in their way; as being a man, who by nominating a plebeian as master of the horse, has even given an omen for a plebeian consul. That the commons retarded themselves and their interests. They could, if they liked, have the city and forum free from creditors, their lands immediately free from unjust possessors. Which kindnesses, when would they ever estimate them with sufficiently grateful feelings, if, whilst receiving the measures respecting their own interests, they cut away from the authors of them all hopes of distinction? That it was not becoming the modesty of the Roman people to require that they themselves be eased from usury, and be put in possession of the land unjustly occupied by the great, whilst they leave those persons through whom they attained these advantages, become old tribunitians, not only without honour, but even without the hope of honour. Wherefore they should first determine in their minds what choice they would make, then declare that choice at the tribunitian elections. If they wished that the measures published by them should be passed collectively, there was some reason for re-electing the same tribunes; for they would carry into effect what they published. But if they wished that only to be entertained which may be necessary for each in private, there was no occasion for the invidious continuation of honour; that they would neither have the tribuneship, nor the people those matters which were proposed."

In reply to such peremptory language of the tribunes, when amazement at the insolence of their conduct and silence struck all the rest of the patricians motionless, Appius Claudius Crassus, the grandson of the decemvir, is said to have stepped forward to refute their arguments, [urged on] more by hatred and anger than by hope [of succeeding], and to have spoken nearly to this effect: "Romans, to me it would be neither new nor surprising, if I too on the present occasion were to hear that one charge, which has ever been advanced against our family by turbulent tribunes, that even from the beginning nothing in the state has been of more importance to the Claudian family than the dignity of the patricians; that they have ever resisted the interests of the commons. Of which charges I neither deny nor object to the one, that we, since we have been admitted into the state and the patricians, have strenuously done our utmost, that the dignity of those families, among which ye were pleased that we should be, might be truly said rather to have been increased than diminished. With respect to the other, in my own defence and that of my ancestors, I would venture to maintain, Romans, (unless any one may consider those things, which may be done for the general good of the state, were injurious to the commons as if inhabitants of another city,) that we, neither in our private nor in our official capacity, ever knowingly did any thing which was intended to be detrimental to the commons; and that no act nor word of ours can be mentioned with truth contrary to your interest (though some may have been contrary to your inclinations). Even though I were not of the Claudian family, nor descended from patrician blood, but an ordinary individual of the Roman citizens, who merely felt that I was descended from free-born parents, and that I lived in a free state, could I be silent on this matter: that Lucius Sextius and Caius Licinius, perpetual tribunes, forsooth, have assumed such a stock of arrogance during the nine years in which they have reigned, as to refuse to allow you the free exercise of your suffrage either at the elections or in enacting laws. On a certain condition, one of them says, ye shall re-elect us tribunes for the tenth time. What else is it, but saying, what others sue for, we disdain so thoroughly, that without some consideration we will not accept it? But in the name of goodness, what is that consideration, for which we may always have you tribunes of the commons? that ye admit collectively all our measures, whether they please or displease, are profitable or unprofitable. I beg you, Tarquinii, tribunes of the commons, suppose that I, an individual citizen, should call out in reply from the middle of the assembly, With your good leave be it permitted us to select out of these measures those which we deem to be beneficial to us; to reject the others. It will not be permitted, he says. Must you enact concerning the interest of money and the lands, that which tends to the interest of you all; and must not this prodigy take place in the city of Rome, that of seeing Lucius Sextius and this Caius Licinius consuls, a thing which you loathe and abominate? Either admit all; or I propose none. Just as if any one were to place poison and food together before any one who was oppressed with famine, and order him either to abstain from that which would sustain life, or to mix with it that which would cause death. Wherefore, if this state were free, would they not all in full assembly have replied to you, Begone hence with your tribuneships and your propositions? What? if you will not propose that which it is the interest of the people to accept, will there be no one who will propose it? If any patrician, if (what they desire to be still more invidious) any Claudius should say, Either accept all, or I propose nothing; which of you, Romans, would bear it? Will ye never look at facts rather than persons? but always listen with partial ears to every thing which that officer will say, and with prejudiced ears to what may be said by any of us? But, by Jove, their language is by no means becoming members of a republic. What! what sort is the measure, which they are indignant at its having been rejected by you? very like their language, Romans. I ask, he says, that it may not be lawful for you to elect, as consuls, such persons as ye may wish. Does he require any thing else, who orders that one consul at least be elected from the commons; nor does he grant you the power of electing two patricians? If there were wars at the present day, such as the Etrurian for instance, when Porsenna took the Janiculum, such as the Gallic war lately, when, except the Capitol and citadel, all these places were in possession of the enemy; and should Lucius Sextius stand candidate for the consulate with Marcus Furius or any other of the patricians: could ye endure that Sextius should be consul without any risk; that Camillus should run the risk of a repulse? Is this allowing a community of honours, that it should be lawful that two plebeians, and not lawful that two patricians, be made consuls, and that it should be necessary that one be elected from among the commons, and lawful to pass by both of the patricians? what fellowship, what confederacy is that? Is it not sufficient, if you come in for a share of that in which you had no share hitherto, unless whilst suing for a part you seize on the whole? I fear, he says, lest, if it be lawful that two patricians are to be elected, ye will elect no plebeian. What else is this but saying, Because ye will not of your own choice elect unworthy persons, I will impose on you the necessity of electing persons whom you do not wish? What follows, but that if one plebeian stand candidate with two patricians, he owes no obligation to the people, and may say that he was appointed by the law, not by suffrages?

"How they may extort, not how they may sue for honours, is what they seek: and they are anxious to attain the highest honour, so that they may not owe the obligations incurred even for the lowest; and they prefer to sue for honours rather through favourable conjunctures than by merit. Is there any one who can feel it an affront to have himself inspected and estimated; who thinks it reasonable that to himself alone, amidst struggling competitors, honours should be certain? who would withdraw himself from your judgment? who would make your suffrages necessary instead of voluntary; servile instead of free? I omit mention of Licinius and Sextius, whose years of perpetuated power ye number, as that of the kings in the Capitol; who is there this day in the state so mean, to whom the road to the consulate is not rendered easier through the advantages of that law, than to us and to our children? inasmuch as you will sometimes not be able to elect us even though you may wish it; those persons you must elect, even though you were unwilling. Of the insult offered to merit enough has been said (for merit appertains to human beings); what shall I say respecting religion and the auspices, which is contempt and injustice relating exclusively to the immortal gods? Who is there who does not know that this city was built by auspices, that all things are conducted by auspices during war and peace, at home and abroad? In whom therefore are the auspices vested according to the usage of our forefathers? In the patricians, no doubt; for no plebeian magistrate is ever elected by auspices. So peculiar to us are the auspices, that not only do the people elect in no other manner, save by auspices, the patrician magistrates whom they do elect, but even we ourselves, without the suffrages of the people, appoint the interrex by auspices, and in our private station we hold those auspices, which they do not hold even in office. What else then does he do, than abolish auspices out of the state, who, by creating plebeian consuls, takes them away from the patricians who alone can hold them? They may now mock at religion. For what else is it, if the chickens do not feed? if they come out too slowly from the coop? if a bird chaunt an unfavourable note? These are trifling: but by not despising these trifling matters, our ancestors have raised this state to the highest eminence. Now, as if we had no need of the favour of the gods, we violate all religious ceremonies. Wherefore let pontiffs, augurs, kings of the sacrifices be appointed at random. Let us place the tiara of Jupiter's flamen on any person, provided he be a man. Let us hand over the ancilia, the shrines, the gods, and the charge of the worship of the gods, to those to whom it is impious to commit them. Let not laws be enacted, nor magistrates elected under auspices. Let not the senate give their approbation, either to the assemblies of the centuries or of the CuriÆ. Let Sextius and Licinius, like Romulus and Tatius, reign in the city of Rome, because they give away as donations other persons' money and lands. So great is the charm of plundering the possessions of other persons: nor does it occur to you that by the one law vast wilds are produced throughout the lands by expelling the proprietors from their territories; by the other credit is destroyed, along with which all human society ceases to exist. For every reason, I consider that those propositions ought to be rejected by you. Whatever ye may do, I pray the gods to render it successful."

The speech of Appius merely had this effect, that the time for passing the propositions was deferred. The same tribunes, Sextius and Licinius, being re-elected for the tenth time, succeeded in passing a law, that of the decemvirs for religious matters, one half should be elected from the commons. Five patricians were elected, and five out of the plebeians; and by that step the way appeared opened to the consulship. The commons, content with this victory, yielded to the patricians, that, all mention of consuls being omitted for the present, military tribunes should be elected. Those elected were, Aulus and Marcus Cornelius a second time, Marcus Geganius, Publius Manlius, Lucius Veturius, and Publius Valerius a sixth time. When, except the siege of VelitrÆ, a matter rather of a slow than dubious result, there was no disquiet from foreign concerns among the Romans; the sudden rumour of a Gallic war being brought, influenced the state to appoint Marcus Furius dictator for the fifth time. He named Titus Quinctius Pennus master of the horse. Claudius asserts that a battle was fought that year with the Gauls, on the banks of the Anio; and that then the famous battle was fought on the bridge, in which Titus Manlius, engaging with a Gaul by whom he had been challenged, slew him in the sight of the two armies and despoiled him of his chain. But I am induced by the authority of several writers to believe that those things happened not less than ten years later; but that in this year a pitched battle was fought with the Gauls by the dictator, Marcus Furius, in the territory of Alba. The victory was neither doubtful nor difficult to the Romans, though from the recollection of the former defeat the Gauls had diffused great terror. Many thousands of the barbarians were slain in the field, and great numbers in the storming of the camp. The rest dispersing, making chiefly for Apulia, saved themselves from the enemy, both by continuing their flight to a great distance, as also because panic and terror had scattered them very widely. A triumph was decreed to the dictator with the concurrence of the senate and commons. Scarcely had he as yet finished the war, when a more violent disturbance awaited him at home; and by great struggles the dictator and the senate were overpowered, so that the measures of the tribunes were admitted; and the elections of the consuls were held in spite of the resistance of the nobility, at which Lucius Sextius was made consul, the first of plebeian rank. And not even was that an end of the contests. Because the patricians refused to give their approbation, the affair came very near a secession of the people, and other terrible threats of civil contests: when, however, the dissensions were accommodated on certain terms through the interference of the dictator; and concessions to the commons were made by the nobility regarding the plebeian consul; by the commons to the nobility, with respect to one prÆtor to be elected out of the patricians, to administer justice in the city. The different orders being at length restored to concord after their long-continued animosity, when the senate were of opinion that for the sake of the immortal gods they would readily do a thing deserving, and that justly, if ever on any occasion before, that the most magnificent games should be performed, and that one day should be added to the three; the plebeian Ædiles refusing the office, the young patricians cried out with one accord, that they, for the purpose of paying honour to the immortal gods, would readily undertake the task, so that they were appointed Ædiles. And when thanks were returned to them by all, a decree of the senate passed, that the dictator should ask of the people two persons as Ædiles from among the patricians; that the senate should give their approbation to all the elections of that year.