Roman History, Books I III - Titus Livius
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The senate was assembled in the Capitol. Thither the tribunes came
with the commons in a state of great consternation: the multitude,
with loud clamours, implored the protection, now of the consuls,
now of the patricians: nor could they move the consul from his
determination, until the tribunes promised that they would submit to
the authority of the senate. Then, on the consul's laying before them
the demands of the tribunes and commons, decrees of the senate were
passed: that neither should the tribunes propose the law during that
year, nor should the consuls lead out the army from the city--that,
for the future, the senate decided that it was against the interests
of the commonwealth that the same magistrates should be continued
and the same tribunes be reappointed. The consuls conformed to
the authority of the senate: the tribunes were reappointed,
notwithstanding the remonstrance of the consuls. The patricians also,
that they might not yield to the commons in any particular, themselves
proposed to re-elect Lucius Quinctius consul. No address of the consul
was delivered with greater warmth during the entire year. "Can I be
surprised," said he, "if your authority with the people is held in
contempt, O conscript fathers? It is you yourselves who are weakening
it. Forsooth, because the commons have violated a decree of the
senate, by reappointing their magistrates, you yourselves also wish
it to be violated, that you may not be outdone by the populace in
rashness; as if greater power in the state consisted in the possession
of greater inconstancy and liberty of action; for it is certainly more
inconstant and greater folly to render null and void one's own decrees
and resolutions, than those of others. Do you, O conscript fathers,
imitate the unthinking multitude; and do you, who should be an example
to others, prefer to transgress by the example of others, rather
than that others should act rightly by yours, provided only I do not
imitate the tribunes, nor allow myself to be declared consul, contrary
to the decree of the senate. But as for you, Gaius Claudius, I
recommend that you, as well as myself, restrain the Roman people from
this licentious spirit, and that you be persuaded of this, as far as I
am concerned, that I shall take it in such a spirit, that I shall not
consider that my attainment of office has been obstructed by you, but
that the glory of having declined the honour has been augmented, and
the odium, which would threaten me if it were continued, lessened."
Thereupon they issued this order jointly: That no one should support
the election of Lucius Quinctius as consul: if any one should do so,
that they would not allow the vote.
The consuls elected were Quintus Fabius Vibulanus (for the third
time), and Lucius Cornelius Maluginensis. The census was taken during
that year; it was a matter of religious scruple that the lustrum
should be closed, on account of the seizure of the Capitol and the
death of the consul. In the consulship of Quintus Fabius and Lucius
Cornelius, disturbances woke out immediately at the beginning of
the year. The tribunes were urging on the commons. The Latins and
Hernicans brought word that a formidable war was threatening on the
part of the Volscians and AEquans; that the troops of the Volscians
were now in the neighbourhood of Antium. Great apprehension was also
entertained, that the colony itself would revolt: and with difficulty
the tribunes were prevailed upon to allow the war to be attended to
first. The consuls divided their respective spheres of action. Fabius
was commissioned to march the legions to Antium: to Cornelius was
assigned the duty of keeping guard at Rome, lest any portion of the
enemy's troops, as was the practice of the Aequans, should advance to
commit depredations. The Hernicans and Latins were ordered to supply
soldiers in accordance with the treaty; and of the army two thirds
consisted of allies, the remainder of Roman citizens. When the allies
arrived on the appointed day, the consul pitched his camp outside the
porta Capena.[30] Then, after the army had been reviewed, he set out
for Antium, and encamped not far from the town and fixed quarters
of the enemy. There, when the Volscians, not venturing to risk an
engagement, because the contingent from the Aequans had not yet
arrived, were making preparations to see how they might protect
themselves quietly within their ramparts, on the following day Fabius
drew up not one mixed army of allies and citizens, but three bodies
of the three states separately around the enemy's works. He himself
occupied the centre with the Roman legions. He ordered them to watch
for the signal for action, so that at the same time both the allies
might begin the action together, and retire together if he should give
orders to sound a retreat. He also posted the proper cavalry of each
division behind the front line. Having thus assailed the camp at three
different points, he surrounded it: and, pressing on from every side,
he dislodged the Volscians, who were unable to withstand his attack,
from the rampart. Having then crossed the fortifications, he drove out
from the camp the crowd who were panic-stricken and inclining to make
for one direction. Upon this the cavalry, who could not have easily
passed over the rampart, having stood by till then as mere spectators
of the fight, came up with them while flying in disorder over the
open plain, and enjoyed a share of the victory, by cutting down the
affrighted troops. Great was the slaughter of the fugitives, both
in the camp and outside the lines; but the booty was still greater,
because the enemy were scarcely able to carry off their arms with
them; and the entire army would have been destroyed, had not the woods
covered them in their flight.
While these events were taking place at Antium, the Aequans, in the
meanwhile, sending forward the flower of their youth surprised the
citadel of Tusculum by night: and with the rest of their army sat down
at no great distance from the walls of Tusculutn, so as to divide the
forces of the enemy.[31] News of this being quickly brought to Rome,
and from Rome to the camp at Antium, affected the Romans no less than
if it had been announced that the Capitol was taken; so recent was
the service rendered by the Tusculans, and the very similarity of the
danger seemed to demand a return of the aid that had been afforded.
Fabius, giving up all thought of everything else, removed the booty
hastily from the camp to Antium: and, having left a small garrison
there, hurried on his army by forced marches to Tusculum. The soldiers
were allowed to take with them nothing but their arms, and whatever
baked provision was at hand. The consul Cornelius sent up provisions
from Rome. The war was carried on at Tusculum for several months. With
one part of his army the consul assailed the camp of the Aequans;
he had given part to the Tusculans to aid in the recovery of their
citadel. They could never have made their way up to it by force: at
length famine caused the enemy to withdraw from it. When matters
subsequently came to extremities, they were all sent under the yoke,
[32] by the Tusculans, unarmed and naked. While returning home in
ignominious flight, they were overtaken by the Roman consul at
Algidum, and cut to pieces to a man.[33] After this victory, having
marched back his army to Columen (so is the place named), he pitched
his camp there. The other consul also, as soon as the Roman walls
ceased to be in danger, now that the enemy had been defeated, set out
from Rome. Thus the consuls, having entered the territories of the
enemies on two different sides, in eager rivalry plundered the
territory of the Volscians on the one hand, and of the Aequans on the
other. I find it stated by several writers that the people of Antium
revolted during the same year. That Lucius Cornelius, the consul,
conducted that war and took the town; I would not venture to assert
it for certain, because no mention is made of the matter in the older
writers.
This war being concluded, a tribunician war at home alarmed the
senate. The tribunes held that the detention of the army abroad was
due to a fraudulent motive: that that deception was intended to
prevent the passing of the law; that they, however, would none
the less go through with the matter they had undertaken. Publius
Lucretius, however, the prefect of the city, so far prevailed, that
the proceedings of the tribunes were postponed till the arrival of the
consuls. A new cause of disturbance had also arisen. The quaestors,
[34] Aulus Cornelius and Quintus Servilius, appointed a day of trial
for Marcus Volscius, because he had come forward as a manifestly false
witness against Caeso. For it was established by many proofs, that the
brother of Volscius, from the time he first fell ill, had not only
never been seen in public, but that he had not even left his bed after
he had been attacked by illness, and that he had died of a wasting
disease of several months' standing; and that at the time to which the
witness had referred the commission of the crime, Caeso had not
been seen at Rome: while those who had served in the army with him
positively stated that at that time he had regularly attended at his
post along with them without any leave of absence. Many, on their own
account, proposed to Volscius to refer the matter to the decision of
an arbitrator. As he did not venture to go to trial, all these points
coinciding rendered the condemnation of Volscius no less certain than
that of Caeso had been on the testimony of Volscius. The tribunes were
the cause of delay, who said that they would not suffer the quaestors
to hold the assembly concerning the accused, unless it were first held
concerning the law. Thus both matters were spun out till the arrival
of the consuls. When they entered the city in triumph with their
victorious army, because nothing was said about the law, many thought
that the tribunes were struck with dismay. But they in reality (for
it was now the close of the year), being eager to obtain a fourth
tribuneship, had turned away their efforts from the law to the
discussion of the elections; and when the consuls, with the object of
lessening their dignity, opposed the continuation of their tribuneship
with no less earnestness than if the law in question had been
proposed, the victory in the contest was on the side of the tribunes.
In the same year peace was granted to the Aequans on their suing for
it. The census, begun in the preceding year, was completed: this is
said to have been the tenth lustrum that was completed from the date
of the foundation of the city. The number of citizens rated was one
hundred and seventeen thousand three hundred and nineteen. The consuls
obtained great glory this year both at home and in war, because they
established peace abroad, while at home, though the state was not in a
condition of absolute harmony, yet it was less harassed by dissensions
than at other times.
Lucius Minucius and Gaius Nautius being next elected consuls took up
the two causes which remained undecided from the preceding year. As
before, the consuls obstructed the law, the tribunes the trial of
Volscius: but in the new quaestors there was greater power and greater
influence. With Marcus Valerius, son of Manius and grandson of Volesus
Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, who had been thrice consul, was appointed
quaestor. Since Caeso could neither be restored to the Quinctian
family, nor to the state, though a most promising youth, did he,
justly, and as in duty bound, prosecute the false witness who had
deprived an innocent person of the power of pleading his cause. When
Verginius, more than any of the tribunes, busied himself about the
passing of the law, the space of two months was allowed the consuls to
examine into the law: on condition that, when they had satisfied the
people as to what secret designs were concealed under it, [35] they
should then allow them to give their votes. The granting of this
respite established tranquility in the city. The Aequans, however, did
not allow them long rest: in violation of the treaty which had been
made with the Romans the year before, they conferred the chief command
on Gracchus Cloelius. He was then by far the chief man among the
Aequans. Under the command of Gracchus they advanced with hostile
depredations into the district of Labici, from thence into that of
Tusculum, and, laden with booty, pitched their camp at Algidum. To
that camp came Quintus Fabius, Publius Volumnius, Aulus Postumius,
ambassadors from Rome, to complain of the wrongs committed, and to
demand restitution in accordance with the treaty. The general of the
Aequans commanded them to deliver to the oak the message they brought
from the Roman senate; that he in the meantime would attend to
other matters. An oak, a mighty tree, whose shade formed a cool
resting-place, overhung the general's tent. Then one of the
ambassadors, when departing, cried out: "Let both this consecrated oak
and all the gods hear that the treaty has been broken by you, and
both lend a favourable ear to our complaints now, and assist our arms
presently, when we shall avenge the rights of gods and men that have
been violated simultaneously." As soon as the ambassadors returned
to Rome, the senate ordered one of the consuls to lead his army into
Algidum against Gracchus, to the other they assigned as his sphere of
action the devastation of the country of the Aequans. The tribunes,
after their usual manner, attempted to obstruct the levy, and probably
would have eventually succeeded in doing so, had not a new and
additional cause of alarm suddenly arisen.
A large force of Sabines, committing dreadful devastation advanced
almost up to the walls of the city. The fields were laid waste, the
city was smitten with terror. Then the commons cheerfully took up
arms; two large armies were raised, the remonstrance of the tribunes
being of no avail. Nautius led one against the Sabines, and, having
pitched his camp at Eretum,[36] by trifling incursions, mostly by
night, he so desolated the Sabine territory that, in comparison with
it, the Roman borders seemed almost undamaged by the war. Minucius
neither had the same good fortune nor displayed the same energy in
conducting his operations: for after he had pitched his camp at no
great distance from the enemy, without having experienced any reverse
of importance, he kept himself through fear within the camp. When the
enemy perceived this, their boldness increased, as usually happens,
from the fears of others; and, having attacked his camp by night, when
open force availed little, they drew lines of circumvallation around
it on the following day. Before these could close the means of egress,
by a rampart thrown up on all sides, five horsemen, despatched between
the enemies' posts, brought news to Rome, that the consul and his
army were besieged. Nothing could have happened so unexpected nor so
unlooked-for. Accordingly, the panic and the alarm were as great as
if the enemy were besieging the city, not the camp. They summoned
the consul Nautius; and when there seemed to be but insufficient
protection in him, and it was determined that a dictator should be
appointed to retrieve their shattered fortunes, Lucius Quinctius
Cincinnatus was appointed by universal consent.
It is worth while for those persons who despise all things human in
comparison with riches, and who suppose that there is no room either
for exalted honour, or for virtue, except where riches abound in great
profusion, to listen to the following: Lucius Quinctius, the sole hope
of the empire of the Roman people, cultivated a farm of four acres on
the other side of the Tiber, which is called the Quinctian meadows,
exactly opposite the place where the dock-yard now is. There, whether
leaning on a stake while digging a trench, or while ploughing, at any
rate, as is certain, while engaged on some work in the fields, after
mutual exchange of salutations had taken place, being requested by
the ambassadors to put on his toga, and listen to the commands of the
senate (with wishes that it might turn out well both for him and the
commonwealth), he was astonished, and, asking whether all was well,
bade his wife Racilia immediately bring his toga from the hut. As soon
as he had put it on and come forward, after having first wiped off the
dust and sweat, the ambassadors congratulating him, united in saluting
him as dictator: they summoned him into the city, and told him what
terror prevailed in the army. A vessel was prepared for Quinctius by
order of the government, and his three sons, having come out to
meet him, received him on landing at the other side; then his other
relatives and his friends: then the greater part of the patricians.
Accompanied by this numerous attendance, the lictors going before him,
he was conducted to his residence.[37] There was a numerous concourse
of the commons also: but they by no means looked on Quinctius with the
same satisfaction, as they considered both that he was vested with
excessive authority, and was likely to prove still more arbitrary
by the exercise of that same authority. During that night, however,
nothing was done except that guards were posted in the city.
On the next day the dictator, having entered the forum before
daylight, appointed as his master of the horse Lucius Tarquitius, a
man of patrician family, but who, though he had served his campaigns
on foot by reason of his scanty means, was yet considered by far the
most capable in military matters among the Roman youth. With his
master of the horse he entered the assembly, proclaimed a suspension
of public business, ordered the shops to be closed throughout the
city, and forbade any one to attend to any private affairs. Then he
commanded all who were of military age to attend under arms, in the
Campus Martius, before sunset, with dressed provisions for five days
and twelve stakes apiece: those whose age rendered them unfit for
active service were ordered to prepare victuals for the soldiers near
them, while the latter were getting their arms ready, and procuring
stakes. Accordingly, the young men ran in all directions to procure
the stakes; they took them whatever was nearest to each: no one
was prevented from doing so: all attended readily according to the
dictator's order. Then, the troops being drawn up, not more suitably
for a march than for an engagement, should occasion require it, the
dictator himself marched at the head of the legions, the master of the
horse at the head of his cavalry. In both bodies such exhortations
were delivered as circumstances required: that they should quicken
their pace; that there was need of despatch, that they might reach the
enemy by night; that the consul and the Roman army were besieged; that
they had now been shut up for three days; that it was uncertain what
each day or night might bring with it; that the issues of the most
important affairs often depended on a moment of time. The soldiers, to
please their leaders, exclaimed among themselves: "Standard-bearer,
hasten; follow, soldier." At midnight they reached Algidum: and, as
soon as they perceived that they were near the enemy, they halted.
There the dictator, riding about, and having observe as far as could
be ascertained by night, what the extent of the camp was, and what
was its nature, commanded the tribunes of the soldiers to order the
baggage to be thrown into one place, and that the soldiers with their
arms and bundles of stakes should return to their ranks. His orders
were executed. Then, with the regularity which they had observed on
the march, he drew the entire army in a long column around the enemy's
camp, and directed that, when the signal was given, they should all
raise a shout, and that, on the shout being raised, each man should
throw up a trench before his post, and fix his palisade. The orders
being issued, the signal followed: the soldiers carried out their
instructions; the shout echoed around the enemy: it then passed beyond
the camp of the enemy, and reached that of the consul: in the one it
occasioned panic, in the other great joy. The Romans, observing
to each other with exultation that this was the shout of their
countrymen, and that aid was at hand, took the initiative, and from
their watch-guards and outposts dismayed the enemy. The consul
declared that there must be no delay; that by that shouts not only
their arrival was intimated, but that hostilities were already begun
by their friends; and that it would be a wonder if the enemy's camp
were not attacked on the farther side. He therefore ordered his men to
take up arms and follow him. The battle was begun during the night.
They gave notice by a shout to the dictator's legions that on that
side also the decisive moment had arrived. The AEquans were now
preparing to prevent the works from being drawn around them, when,
the battle being begun by the enemy from within, having turned their
attention from those employed on the fortifications to those who were
fighting on the inside, lest a sally should be made through the centre
of their camp, they left the night free for the completion of the
work, and continued the fight with the consul till daylight. At
daybreak they were now encompassed by the dictator's works, and were
scarcely able to maintain the fight against one army. Then their lines
were attacked by the army of Quinctius, which, immediately after
completing its work, returned to arms. Here a new engagement pressed
on them: the former one had in no wise slackened. Then, as the danger
that beset them on both sides pressed them hard, turning from fighting
to entreaties, they implored the dictator on the one hand, the consul
on the other, not to make the victory their total destruction, and to
suffer them to depart without arms. They were ordered by the consul to
apply to the dictator: he, incensed against them, added disgrace to
defeat. He gave orders that Gracchus Cloelius, their general, and the
other leaders should be brought to him in chains, and that the town of
Corbio should be evacuated; he added that he did not desire the
lives of the AEquans: that they were at liberty to depart; but that
a confession might at last be wrung from them that their nation was
defeated and subdued, they would have to pass under the yoke. The yoke
was formed of three spears, two fixed in the ground, and one tied
across between the upper ends of them. Under this yoke the dictator
sent the AEquans.
The enemy's camp, which was full of all their belongings--for he
had sent them out of the camp half naked--having been taken, he
distributed all the booty among his own soldiers only: rebuking the
consul's army and the consul himself, he said: "Soldiers, you shall
not enjoy any portion of the spoil taken from that enemy to whom you
yourselves nearly became a spoil: and you, Lucius Minucius, until
you begin to assume a spirit worthy of a consul, shall command these
legions only as lieutenant." Minucius accordingly resigned his office
of consul, and remained with the army, as he had been commanded. But
so meekly obedient were the minds of men at that time to authority
combined with superior merit, that this army, remembering his
kindness, rather than their own disgrace, both voted a golden crown
of a pound weight to the dictator, and saluted him as their preserver
when he set out. The senate at Rome, convened by Quintus Fabius,
prefect of the city, ordered Quinctius to enter the city in triumph,
in the order of march in which he was coming. The leaders of the enemy
were led before his car: the military standards were carried before
him: his army followed laden with spoil. Banquets are said to have
been spread before the houses of all, and the soldiers, partaking of
the entertainment, followed the chariot with the triumphal hymn and
the usual jests,[38] after the manner of revellers. On that day the
freedom of the state was granted to Lucius Mamilius of Tusculum, amid
universal approbation. The dictator would have immediately laid down
his office had not the assembly for the trial of Marcus Volscius, the
false witness, detained him; the fear of the dictator prevented the
tribunes from obstructing it. Volscius was condemned and went into
exile at Lanuvium. Quinctius laid down his dictatorship on the
sixteenth day, having been invested with it for six months. During
those days the consul Nautius engaged the Sabines at Eretum with
distinguished success: besides the devastation of their lands, this
additional blow also befell the Sabines. Fabius was sent to Algidum as
successor to Minucius. Toward the end of the year the tribunes began
to agitate concerning the law; but, because two armies were away, the
patricians carried their point, that no proposal should be made before
the people. The commons succeeded in electing the same tribunes for
the fifth time. It is said that wolves seen in the Capitol were driven
away by dogs, and that on account of that prodigy the Capitol was
purified. Such were the transactions of that year.