Roman History, Books I III - Titus Livius
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CONTENTS
BOOK I
THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS--B.C. 510
Arrival of AEneas in Italy--Ascanius founds Alba Longa--Birth of
Romulus and Remus--Founding the city--Rome under the kings--Death of
Lucretia--Expulsion of the Tarquins--First consuls elected
BOOK II
THE FIRST COMMONWEALTH--B.C. 509-468
Brutus establishes the republic--A conspiracy to receive the kings
into the city--Death of Brutus--Dedication of the Capitol--Battle of
Lake Regillus--Secession of the commons to the Sacred Mount--Five
tribunes of the people appointed--First proposal of an agrarian
law--Patriotism of the Fabian family--Contests of the plebeians and
patricians
BOOK III
THE DECEMVIRATE--B.C. 468-446
Disturbances over the agrarian law--Cincinnatus called from his fields
and made dictator--Number of tribunes increased to ten--Decemvirs
appointed--The ten tables--Tyranny of the decemvirs--Death of
Virginia--Re-establishment of the consular and tribunician power
LIVY'S ROMAN HISTORY
BOOK I[1]
THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS
To begin with, it is generally admitted that, after the taking of
Troy, while all the other Trojans were treated with severity, in the
case of two, AEneas and Antenor, the Greeks forbore to exercise the
full rights of war, both on account of an ancient tie of hospitality,
and because they had persistently recommended peace and the
restoration of Helen: and then Antenor, after various vicissitudes,
reached the inmost bay of the Adriatic Sea, accompanied by a body of
the Eneti, who had been driven from Paphlagonia by civil disturbance,
and were in search both of a place of settlement and a leader, their
chief Pylaemenes having perished at Troy; and that the Eneti and
Trojans, having driven out the Euganei, who dwelt between the sea and
the Alps, occupied these districts. In fact, the place where they
first landed is called Troy, and from this it is named the Trojan
canton. The nation as a whole is called Veneti. It is also agreed that
AEneas, an exile from home owing to a like misfortune, but conducted
by the fates to the founding of a greater empire, came first to
Macedonia, that he was then driven ashore at Sicily in his quest for a
settlement, and sailing thence directed his course to the territory of
Laurentum. This spot also bears the name of Troy. When the Trojans,
having disembarked there, were driving off booty from the country, as
was only natural, seeing that they had nothing left but their arms and
ships after their almost boundless wandering, Latinus the king and the
Aborigines, who then occupied these districts, assembled in arms from
the city and country to repel the violence of the new-comers. In
regard to what followed there is a twofold tradition. Some say that
Latinus, having been defeated in battle, first made peace and then
concluded an alliance with AEneas; others, that when the armies had
taken up their position in order of battle, before the trumpets
sounded, Latinus advanced to the front, and invited the leader of the
strangers to a conference. He then inquired what manner of men they
were, whence they had come, for what reasons they had left their home,
and in quest of what they had landed on Laurentine territory. After
he heard that the host were Trojans, their chief AEneas, the son of
Anchises and Venus, and that, exiled from home, their country having
been destroyed by fire, they were seeking a settlement and a site for
building a city, struck with admiration both at the noble character of
the nation and the hero, and at their spirit, ready alike for peace or
war, he ratified the pledge of future friendship by clasping hands.
Thereupon a treaty was concluded between the chiefs, and mutual
greetings passed between the armies: AEneas was hospitably entertained
at the house of Latinus; there Latinus, in the presence of his
household gods, cemented the public league by a family one, by giving
AEneas his daughter in marriage. This event fully confirmed the Trojans
in the hope of at length terminating their wanderings by a lasting and
permanent settlement. They built a town, which AEneas called Lavinium
after the name of his wife. Shortly afterward also, a son was the
issue of the recently concluded marriage, to whom his parents gave the
name of Ascanius.
Aborigines and Trojans were soon afterward the joint objects of a
hostile attack. Turnus, king of the Rutulians, to whom Lavinia had
been affianced before the arrival of AEneas, indignant that a stranger
had been preferred to himself, had made war on AEneas and Latinus
together. Neither army came out of the struggle with satisfaction. The
Rutulians were vanquished: the victorious Aborigines and Trojans lost
their leader Latinus. Thereupon Turnus and the Rutulians, mistrustful
of their strength, had recourse to the prosperous and powerful
Etruscans, and their king Mezentius, whose seat of government was at
Caere, at that time a flourishing town. Even from the outset he had
viewed with dissatisfaction the founding of a new city, and, as at
that time he considered that the Trojan power was increasing far more
than was altogether consistent with the safety of the neighbouring
peoples, he readily joined his forces in alliance with the Rutulians.
AEneas, to gain the good-will of the Aborigines in face of a war so
serious and alarming, and in order that they might all be not only
under the same laws but might also bear the same name, called both
nations Latins. In fact, subsequently, the Aborigines were not behind
the Trojans in zeal and loyalty toward their king AEneas. Accordingly,
in full reliance on this state of mind of the two nations, who were
daily becoming more and more united, and in spite of the fact that
Etruria was so powerful, that at this time it had filled with the fame
of its renown not only the land but the sea also, throughout the whole
length of Italy from the Alps to the Sicilian Strait, AEneas led out
his forces into the field, although he might have repelled their
attack by means of his fortifications. Thereupon a battle was fought,
in which victory rested with the Latins, but for AEneas it was even the
last of his acts on earth. He, by whatever name laws human and divine
demand he should be called, was buried on the banks of the river
Numicus: they call him Jupiter Indiges.
Ascanius, the son of AEneas, was not yet old enough to rule; the
government, however, remained unassailed for him till he reached the
age of maturity. In the interim, under the regency of a woman--so
great was Lavinia's capacity--the Latin state and the boy's kingdom,
inherited from his father and grandfather, was secured for him. I will
not discuss the question--for who can state as certain a matter of
such antiquity?--whether it was this Ascanius, or one older than
he, born of Creusa, before the fall of Troy, and subsequently the
companion of his father's flight, the same whom, under the name of
Iulus, the Julian family represents to be the founder of its name.
Be that as it may, this Ascanius, wherever born and of whatever
mother--it is at any rate agreed that his father was AEneas--seeing
that Lavinium was over-populated, left that city, now a flourishing
and wealthy one, considering those times, to his mother or stepmother,
and built himself a new one at the foot of the Alban mount, which,
from its situation, being built all along the ridge of a hill, was
called Alba Longa.
There was an interval of about thirty years between the founding of
Lavinium and the transplanting of the colony to Alba Longa. Yet its
power had increased to such a degree, especially owing to the
defeat of the Etruscans, that not even on the death of AEneas, nor
subsequently between the period of the regency of Lavinia, and the
first beginnings of the young prince's reign, did either Mezentius,
the Etruscans, or any other neighbouring peoples venture to take up
arms against it. Peace had been concluded on the following terms, that
the river Albula, which is now called Tiber, should be the boundary of
Latin and Etruscan territory. After him Silvius, son of Ascanius, born
by some accident in the woods, became king. He was the father of AEneas
Silvius, who afterward begot Latinus Silvius. By him several colonies
were transplanted, which were called Prisci Latini. From this time
all the princes, who ruled at Alba, bore the surname of Silvius. From
Latinus sprung Alba; from Alba, Atys; from Atys, Capys; from Capys,
Capetus; from Capetus, Tiberinus, who, having been drowned while
crossing the river Albula, gave it the name by which it was generally
known among those of later times. He was succeeded by Agrippa, son
of Tiberinus; after Agrippa, Romulus Silvius, having received
the government from his father, became king. He was killed by a
thunderbolt, and handed on the kingdom to Aventinus, who, owing to his
being buried on that hill, which now forms part of the city of Rome,
gave it its name. After him reigned Proca, who begot Numitor and
Amulius. To Numitor, who was the eldest son, he bequeathed the ancient
kingdom of the Silvian family. Force, however, prevailed more than a
father's wish or the respect due to seniority. Amulius drove out his
brother and seized the kingdom: he added crime to crime, murdered
his brother's male issue, and, under pretence of doing honour to his
brother's daughter, Rea Silvia, having chosen her a Vestal Virgin,[2]
deprived her of all hopes of issue by the obligation of perpetual
virginity.
My opinion, however, is that the origin of so great a city and an
empire next in power to that of the gods was due to the fates. The
Vestal Rea was ravished by force, and having brought forth twins,
declared Mars to be the father of her illegitimate offspring, either
because she really imagined it to be the case, or because it was less
discreditable to have committed such an offence with a god.[3] But
neither gods nor men protected either her or her offspring from the
king's cruelty. The priestess was bound and cast into prison; the king
ordered the children to be thrown into the flowing river. By some
chance which Providence seemed to direct, the Tiber, having over flown
its banks, thereby forming stagnant pools, could not be approached at
the regular course of its channel; notwithstanding it gave the bearers
of the children hope that they could be drowned in its water however
calm. Accordingly, as if they had executed the king's orders, they
exposed the boys in the nearest land-pool, where now stands the ficus
Ruminalis, which they say was called Romularis.[4] At that time the
country in those parts was a desolate wilderness. The story goes, that
when the shallow water, subsiding, had left the floating trough, in
which the children had been exposed, on dry ground, a thirsty she-wolf
from the mountains around directed her course toward the cries of the
infants, and held down her teats to them with such gentleness, that
the keeper of the king's herd found her licking the boys with her
tongue. They say that his name was Faustulus; and that they were
carried by him to his homestead and given to his wife Larentia to be
brought up. Some are of the opinion that Larentia was called Lupa
among the shepherds from her being a common prostitute, and hence an
opening was afforded for the marvellous story. The children, thus born
and thus brought up, as soon as they reached the age of youth, did
not lead a life of inactivity at home or amid the flocks, but, in the
chase, scoured the forests. Having thus gained strength, both in body
and spirit, they now were not only able to withstand wild beasts, but
attacked robbers laden with booty, and divided the spoils with the
shepherds, in whose company, as the number of their young associates
increased daily, they carried on business and pleasure.
Even in these early times it is said that the festival of the
Lupercal, as now celebrated, was solemnized on the Palatine Hill,
which was first called Pallantium, from Pallanteum, a city of Arcadia,
and afterward Mount Palatius. There Evander, who, belonging to the
above tribe of the Arcadians, had for many years before occupied
these districts, is said to have appointed the observance of a solemn
festival, introduced from Arcadia, in which naked youths ran about
doing honour in wanton sport to Pan Lycaeus, who was afterward called
Inuus by the Romans. When they were engaged in this festival, as its
periodical solemnization was well known, a band of robbers, enraged at
the loss of some booty, lay in wait for them, and took Remus prisoner,
Romulus having vigorously defended himself: the captive Remus they
delivered up to King Amulius, and even went so far as to bring
accusations against him. They made it the principal charge that having
made incursions into Numitor's lands, and, having assembled a band
of young men, they had driven off their booty after the manner
of enemies. Accordingly, Remus was delivered up to Numitor for
punishment. Now from the very first Faustulus had entertained hopes
that the boys who were being brought up by him, were of royal blood:
for he both knew that the children had been exposed by the king's
orders, and that the time, at which he had taken them up, coincided
exactly with that period: but he had been unwilling to disclose
the matter, as yet not ripe for discovery, till either a fitting
opportunity or the necessity for it should arise. Necessity came
first. Accordingly, urged by fear, he disclosed the whole affair to
Romulus. By accident also, Numitor, while he had Remus in custody,
having heard that the brothers were twins, by comparing their age and
their natural disposition entirely free from servility, felt his mind
struck by the recollection of his grandchildren, and by frequent
inquiries came to the conclusion he had already formed, so that he
was not far from openly acknowledging Remus. Accordingly a plot was
concerted against the king on all sides. Romulus, not accompanied by a
body of young men--for he was not equal to open violence--but having
commanded the shepherds to come to the palace by different roads at
a fixed time, made an attack upon the king, while Remus, having got
together another party from Numitor's house, came to his assistance;
and so they slew the king.
Numitor, at the beginning of the fray, giving out that enemies had
invaded the city and attacked the palace, after he had drawn off the
Alban youth to the citadel to secure it with an armed garrison, when
he saw the young men, after they had compassed the king's death,
advancing toward him to offer congratulations, immediately summoned a
meeting of the people, and recounted his brother's unnatural behaviour
toward him, the extraction of his grandchildren, the manner of their
birth, bringing up, and recognition, and went on to inform them of the
king's death, and that he was responsible for it. The young princes
advanced through the midst of the assembly with their band in orderly
array, and, after they had saluted their grandfather as king, a
succeeding shout of approbation, issuing from the whole multitude,
ratified for him the name and authority of sovereign. The government
of Alba being thus intrusted to Numitor, Romulus and Remus were seized
with the desire of building a city on the spot where they had been
exposed and brought up. Indeed, the number of Alban and Latin
inhabitants was too great for the city; the shepherds also were
included among that population, and all these readily inspired hopes
that Alba and Lavinium would be insignificant in comparison with that
city, which was intended to be built. But desire of rule, the bane
of their grandfather, interrupted these designs, and thence arose a
shameful quarrel from a sufficiently amicable beginning. For as they
were twins, and consequently the respect for seniority could not
settle the point, they agreed to leave it to the gods, under whose
protection the place was, to choose by augury which of them should
give a name to the new city, and govern it when built. Romulus chose
the Palatine and Remus the Aventine, as points of observation for
taking the auguries.
It is said that an omen came to Remus first, six vultures; and
when, after the omen had been declared, twice that number presented
themselves to Romulus, each was hailed king by his own party, the
former claiming sovereign power on the ground of priority of time, the
latter on account of the number of birds. Thereupon, having met and
exchanged angry words, from the strife of angry feelings they turned
to bloodshed: there Remus fell from a blow received in the crowd. A
more common account is that Remus, in derision of his brother, leaped
over the newly-erected walls, and was thereupon slain by Romulus in
a fit of passion, who, mocking him, added words to this effect:"
So perish every one hereafter, who shall leap over my walls." Thus
Romulus obtained possession of supreme power for himself alone. The
city, when built, was called after the name of its founder.[5] He
first proceeded to fortify the Palatine Hill, on which he himself had
been brought up. He offered sacrifices to Hercules, according to the
Grecian rite, as they had been instituted by Evander; to the other
gods, according to the Alban rite. There is a tradition that Hercules,
having slain Geryon, drove off his oxen, which were of surpassing
beauty,[6] to that spot: and that he lay down in a grassy spot on the
banks of the river Tiber, where he had swam across, driving the cattle
before him, to refresh them with rest and luxuriant pasture, being
also himself fatigued with journeying. There, when sleep had
overpowered him, heavy as he was with food and wine, a shepherd who
dwelt in the neighbourhood, by name Cacus, priding himself on his
strength, and charmed with the beauty of the cattle, desired to carry
them off as booty; but because, if he had driven the herd in front of
him to the cave, their tracks must have conducted their owner thither
in his search, he dragged the most beautiful of them by their tails
backward into a cave. Hercules, aroused from sleep at dawn, having
looked over his herd and observed that some of their number were
missing, went straight to the nearest cave, to see whether perchance
their tracks led thither. When he saw that they were all turned away
from it and led in no other direction, troubled and not knowing what
to make up his mind to do, he commenced to drive off his herd from so
dangerous a spot. Thereupon some of the cows that were driven away,
lowed, as they usually do, when they missed those that were left; and
the lowings of those that were shut in being heard in answer from
the cave, caused Hercules to turn round. And when Cacus attempted
to prevent him by force as he was advancing toward the cave, he was
struck with a club and slain, while vainly calling upon the shepherds
to assist him. At that time Evander, who was an exile from the
Peloponnesus, governed the country more by his personal ascendancy
than by absolute sway. He was a man held in reverence on account
of the wonderful art of writing, an entirely new discovery to men
ignorant of accomplishments,[7] and still more revered on account of
the supposed divinity of his mother Carmenta, whom those peoples had
marvelled at as a prophetess before the arrival of the Sybil in Italy.
This Evander, roused by the assembling of the shepherds as they
hastily crowded round the stranger, who was charged with open murder,
after he heard an account of the deed and the cause of it, gazing
upon the personal appearance and mien of the hero, considerably more
dignified and majestic than that of a man, asked who he was. As soon
as he heard the name of the hero, and that of his father and native
country, "Hail!" said he, "Hercules, son of Jupiter! my mother,
truthful interpreter of the will of the gods, has declared to me that
thou art destined to increase the number of the heavenly beings, and
that on this spot an altar shall be dedicated to thee, which in after
ages a people most mighty on earth shall call Greatest, and honour in
accordance with rites instituted by thee." Hercules, having given him
his right hand, declared that he accepted the prophetic intimation,
and would fulfil the predictions of the fates, by building and
dedicating an altar. Thereon then for the first time sacrifice was
offered to Hercules with a choice heifer taken from the herd, the
Potitii and Pinarii, the most distinguished families who then
inhabited those parts, being invited to serve at the feast. It so
happened that the Potitii presented themselves in due time and the
entrails were set before them: but the Pinarii did not arrive until
the entrails had been eaten up, to share the remainder of the feast.
From that time it became a settled institution, that, as long as the
Pinarian family existed, they should not eat of the entrails of
the sacrificial victims. The Potitii, fully instructed by Evander,
discharged the duties of chief priests of this sacred function
for many generations, until their whole race became extinct, in
consequence of this office, the solemn prerogative of their family,
being delegated to public slaves. These were the only religious rites
that Romulus at that time adopted from those of foreign countries,
being even then an advocate of immortality won by merit, to which the
destiny marked out for him was conducting him.
The duties of religion having been thus duly completed, the people
were summoned to a public meeting: and, as they could not be united
and incorporated into one body by any other means save legal
ordinances, Romulus gave them a code of laws: and, judging that these
would only be respected by a nation of rustics, if he dignified
himself with the insignia of royalty, he clothed himself with greater
majesty--above all, by taking twelve lictors to attend him, but also
in regard to his other appointments. Some are of opinion that he was
influenced in his choice of that number by that of the birds which had
foretold that sovereign power should be his when the auguries were
taken. I myself am not indisposed to follow the opinion of those,
who are inclined to believe that it was from the neighbouring
Etruscans--from whom the curule chair and purple-bordered toga were
borrowed--that the apparitors of this class, as well as the number
itself, were introduced: and that the Etruscans employed such a number
because, as their king was elected from twelve states in common, each
state assigned him one lictor.
In the meantime, the city was enlarged by taking in various plots of
ground for the erection of buildings, while they built rather in the
hope of an increased population in the future, than in view of the
actual number of the inhabitants of the city at that time. Next, that
the size of the city might not be without efficiency, in order to
increase the population, following the ancient policy of founders of
cities, who, by bringing together to their side a mean and ignoble
multitude, were in the habit of falsely asserting that an offspring
was born to them from the earth, he opened as a sanctuary the place
which, now inclosed, is known as the "two groves," and which people
come upon when descending from the Capitol. Thither, a crowd of all
classes from the neighbouring peoples, without distinction, whether
freemen or slaves, eager for change, flocked for refuge, and therein
lay the foundation of the city's strength, corresponding to the
commencement of its enlargement. Having now no reason to be
dissatisfied with his strength, he next instituted a standing council
to direct that strength. He created one hundred senators, either
because that number was sufficient, or because there were only one
hundred who could be so elected. Anyhow they were called fathers[8],
by way of respect, and their descendants patricians.
By this time the Roman state was so powerful, that it was a match for
any of the neighbouring states in war: but owing to the scarcity of
women its greatness was not likely to outlast the existing generation,
seeing that the Romans had no hope of issue at home, and they did
not intermarry with their neighbours. So then, by the advice of the
senators, Romulus sent around ambassadors to the neighbouring states,
to solicit an alliance and the right of intermarriage for his new
subjects, saying, that cities, like everything else, rose from the
humblest beginnings: next, that those which the gods and their own
merits assisted, gained for themselves great power and high renown:
that he knew full well that the gods had aided the first beginnings of
Rome and that merit on their part would not be wanting: therefore, as
men, let them not be reluctant to mix their blood and stock with men.
The embassy nowhere obtained a favourable hearing: but, although the
neighbouring peoples treated it with such contempt, yet at the same
time they dreaded the growth of such a mighty power in their midst to
the danger of themselves and of their posterity. In most cases when
they were dismissed they were asked the question, whether they had
opened a sanctuary for women also: for that in that way only could
they obtain suitable matches.