Roman History, Books I III - Titus Livius
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The multitude was excited partly by the heinousness of the misdeed,
partly by the hope of recovering their liberty on a favourable
opportunity. Appius first ordered Icilius to be summoned before
him, then, when he refused to come, to be seized: finally, when the
officers were not allowed an opportunity of approaching him, he
himself, proceeding through the crowd with a body of young patricians,
ordered him to be led away to prison. Now not only the multitude, but
Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, the leaders of the multitude,
stood around Icilius and, having repulsed the lictor, declared, that,
if Appius should proceed according to law, they would protect Icilius
from one who was but a private citizen; if he should attempt to employ
force, that even in that case they would be no unequal match for him.
Hence arose a violent quarrel. The decemvir's lictor attacked Valerius
and Horatius: the fasces were broken by the people. Appius ascended
the tribunal; Horatius and Valerius followed him. They were
attentively listened to by the assembly: the voice of the decemvir was
drowned with clamour. Now Valerius, as if he possessed the authority
to do so, was ordering the lictors to depart from one who was but a
private citizen, when Appius, whose spirits were now broken, alarmed
for his life, betook himself into a house in the vicinity of the
forum, unobserved by his enemies, with his head covered up. Spurius
Oppius, in order to assist his colleague, rushed into the forum by the
opposite side: he saw their authority overpowered by force. Distracted
then by various counsels and by listening to several advisers from
every side, he had become hopelessly confused: eventually he ordered
the senate to be convened. Because the official acts of the decemvirs
seemed displeasing to the greater portion of the patricians, this
step quieted the people with the hope that the government would be
abolished through the senate. The senate was of opinion that the
commons should not be stirred up, and that much more effectual
measures should be taken lest the arrival of Verginius should cause
any commotion in the army.
Accordingly, some of the junior patricians, being sent to the camp
which was at that time on Mount Vecilius, announced to the decemvirs
that they should do their utmost to keep the soldiers from mutinying.
There Verginius occasioned greater commotion than he had left behind
him in the city. For besides that he was seen coming with a body
of nearly four hundred men, who, enraged in consequence of the
disgraceful nature of the occurrence, had accompanied him from the
city, the unsheathed knife, and his being himself besmeared with
blood, attracted to him the attention of the entire camp; and the
gowns,[56] seen in many parts of the camp had caused the number of
people from the city to appear much greater than it really was. When
they asked him what was the matter, in consequence of his weeping, for
a long time he did not utter a word. At length, as soon as the crowd
of those running together became quiet after the disturbance, and
silence ensued, he related everything in order as it had occurred.
Then extending his hands toward heaven, addressing his
fellow-soldiers, he begged of them, not to impute to him that which
was the crime of Appius Claudius, nor to abhor him as the murderer of
his child. To him the life of his daughter was dearer than his own, if
she had been allowed to live in freedom and chastity. When he beheld
her dragged to prostitution as if she were a slave, thinking it better
that his child should be lost by death rather than by dishonour,
through compassion for her he had apparently fallen into cruelty. Nor
would he have survived his daughter had he not entertained the hope of
avenging her death by the aid of his fellow-soldiers. For they too had
daughters, sisters, and wives; nor was the lust of Appius Claudius
extinguished with his daughter; but in proportion as it escaped with
greater impunity, so much the more unbridled would it be. That by the
calamity of another a warning was given to them to guard against a
similar injury. As far as he was concerned, his wife had been taken
from him by destiny; his daughter, because she could no longer have
lived as a chaste woman, had met with an unfortunate but honourable
death; that there was now no longer in his family an opportunity for
the lust of Appius; that from any other violence of his he would
defend his person with the same spirit with which he had vindicated
that of his daughter: that others should take care for themselves and
their children. While he uttered these words in a loud voice, the
multitude responded with a shout that they would not be backward,
either to avenge his wrongs or to defend their own liberty. And the
civilians mixing with the crowd of soldiers, by uttering the same
complaints, and by showing how much more shocking these things must
have appeared when seen than when merely heard of, and also by telling
them that the disturbance at Rome was now almost over--and others
having subsequently arrived who asserted that Appius, having with
difficulty escaped with life, had gone into exile--all these
individuals so far influenced them that there was a general cry to
arms, and having pulled up the standards, they set out for Rome. The
decemvirs, being alarmed at the same time both by what they now saw,
as well as by what they had heard had taken place at Rome, ran about
to different parts of the camp to quell the commotion. While they
proceeded with mildness no answer was returned to them: if any of them
attempted to exert authority, the soldiers replied that they were men
and were armed. They proceeded in a body to the city and occupied the
Aventine, encouraging the commons, as each person met them, recover
their liberty, and elect tribunes of the people; no other expression
of violence was heard. Spurius Oppius held a meeting of the senate;
it was resolved that no harsh measures should be adopted, inasmuch as
occasion for sedition had been given by themselves.[57] Three men of
consular rank, Spurius Tarpeius, Gaius Julius, Publius Sulpicius, were
sent as ambassadors, to inquire, in the name of the senate, by whose
order they had deserted the camp? Or what they meant by having
occupied the Aventine in arms, and, turning away their arms from the
enemy, having seized their own country? They were at no loss for an
answer: but they wanted some one to give the answer, there being as
yet no certain leader, and individuals were not bold enough to expose
themselves to the invidious office. The multitude only cried out with
one accord, that they should send Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius
to them, saying that they would give their answer to them.
The ambassadors being dismissed, Verginius reminded the soldiers that
a little while before they had been embarrassed in a matter of no very
great difficulty, because the multitude was without a head; and that
the answer given, though not inexpedient, was the result rather of an
accidental agreement than of a concerted plan. His opinion was, that
ten persons should be elected to preside over the management of state
affairs, and that they should be called tribunes of the soldiers, a
title suited to their military dignity. When that honour was offered
to himself in the first instance, he replied, "Reserve for an occasion
more favourable to both of us your kind recognition of me. The fact of
my daughter being unavenged, does not allow any office to be agreeable
to me, nor, in the present disturbed condition of the state, is it
advantageous that those should be at your head who are most exposed to
party animosity. If I am of any use, the benefit to be gained from my
services will be just as great while I am a private individual." They
accordingly elected military tribunes ten in number.
Meanwhile the army among the Sabines was not inactive. There also, at
the instance of Icilius and Numitorius, a secession from the decemvirs
took place, men's minds being no less moved when they recalled to mind
the murder of Siccius, than when they were fired with rage at the
recent account of the disgraceful attempt made on the maiden to
gratify lust. When Icilius heard that tribunes of the soldiers had
been elected on the Aventine, lest the election assembly in the city
should follow the precedent of the military assembly, by electing the
same persons tribunes of the commons, being well versed in popular
intrigues and having an eye to that office himself, he also took care,
before they proceeded to the city, that the same number should be
elected by his own party with equal power. They entered the city by
the Colline gate under their standards, and proceeded in a body to the
Aventine through the midst of the city. There, joining the other army,
they commissioned the twenty tribunes of the soldiers to select two
out of their number to preside over state affairs. They elected Marcus
Oppius and Sextus Manilius. The patricians, alarmed for the general
safety, though there was a meeting of the senate every day, wasted the
time in wrangling more frequently than in deliberation. The murder of
Siccius, the lust of Appius, and the disgraces incurred in war were
urged as charges against the decemvirs. It was resolved that Valerius
and Horatius should proceed to the Aventine. They refused to go on any
other condition than that the decemvirs should lay down the badges of
that office, which they had resigned at the end of the previous year.
The decemvirs, complaining that they were now being degraded, declared
that they would not resign their office until those laws, for the sake
of which they had been appointed, were passed.
The people being informed by Marcus Duillius, who had been tribune of
the people, that by reason of their continual contentions no business
was transacted, passed from the Aventine to the Sacred Mount, as
Duillius asserted that no concern for business would enter the minds
of the patricians, until they saw the city deserted: that the Sacred
Mount would remind them of the people's firmness: that they would then
know that matters could not be brought back to harmony without the
restoration of the tribunician power. Having set out along the
Nomentan way, which was then called the Ficulean,[58] they pitched
their camp on the Sacred Mount, imitating the moderation of their
fathers by committing no violence. The commons followed the army,
no one whose age would permit him declining to go. Their wives and
children attended them, piteously asking to whom they were leaving
them, in a city where neither chastity nor liberty were respected.
When the unusual solitude had created everywhere at Rome a feeling
of desolation; when there was no one in the forum but a few old men:
when, after the patricians had been summoned into the senate, the
forum appeared deserted, by this time more besides Horatius and
Valerius began to exclaim, "What will you now wait for, conscript
fathers? If the decemvirs do not put an end to their obstinacy, will
you suffer all things to go to wreck and ruin? What power is that of
yours, decemvirs, which you embrace and hold so firmly? Do you mean to
administer justice to walls and houses? Are you not ashamed that an
almost greater number of your lictors is to be seen in the forum than
of the other citizens? What are you going to do, in case the enemy
should approach the city? What, if the commons should come presently
in arms, in case we show ourselves little affected by their secession?
Do you mean to end your power by the fall of the city? Well, then,
either we must not have the commons, or they must have their tribunes.
We shall sooner be able to dispense with our patrician magistrates,
than they with their plebeian. That power, when new and untried,
they wrested from our fathers; much less will they now, when once
captivated by its charm, endure the loss of: more especially since we
do not behave with such moderation in the exercise of our power that
they are in no need of the aid of the tribunes." When these arguments
were thrown out from every quarter, the decemvirs, overpowered by the
united opinions of all, declared that, since such seemed to be the
feeling, they would submit to the authority of the patricians. All
they asked for themselves was that they might be protected from
popular odium; they warned the senate, that they should not, by
shedding their blood, habituate the people to inflict punishment on
the patricians.
Then Valerius and Horatius, having been sent to bring back the people
on such terms as might seem fit, and to adjust all differences, were
directed to make provision also to protect the decemvirs from the
resentment and violence of the multitude. They set forth and were
received into the camp amid the great joy of the people, as their
undoubted liberators, both at the beginning of the disturbance and
at the termination of the matter. In consideration of these things,
thanks were returned to them on their arrival. Icilius delivered
a speech in the name of the people. When the terms came to be
considered, on the ambassadors inquiring what the demands of the
people were, he also, having already concerted the plan before the
arrival of the ambassadors, made such demands, that it became evident
that more hope was placed in the justice of their case than in arms.
For they demanded the restoration of the tribunician office and the
right of appeal, which, before the appointment of decemvirs, had been
the supports of the people, and that it should be without detriment
to any one to have instigated the soldiers or the commons to seek to
recover their liberty by a secession. Concerning the punishment only
of the decemvirs was their demand immoderate: for they thought it but
just that they should be delivered up to them, and threatened to burn
them alive. The ambassadors replied: "Your demands which have been
the result of deliberation are so reasonable, that they should be
voluntarily offered to you: for you demand therein safeguards for
your liberty, not a means of arbitrary power to assail others. Your
resentment we must rather pardon than indulge, seeing that from your
hatred of cruelty you rush into cruelty, and almost before you are
free yourselves, already wish to lord it over your opponents. Shall
our state never enjoy rest from punishments, inflicted either by the
patricians on the Roman commons, or by the commons on the patricians?
You need a shield rather than a sword. He is sufficiently and
abundantly humbled who lives in the state on an equal footing with his
fellow-citizens, neither inflicting nor suffering injury. Should you,
however, at any time wish to render yourselves formidable, when, after
you have recovered your magistrates and laws, decisions on our
lives and fortunes shall be in your hands, then you shall determine
according to the merits of each case: for the present it is sufficient
that your liberty be recovered."
All assenting that they should act just as they thought proper, the
ambassadors assured them that they would speedily return, having
brought everything to a satisfactory termination. When they had gone
and laid before the patricians the message of the commons--while the
other decemvirs, since, contrary to their own expectation, no mention
was made of their punishment--raised no objection, Appius, being of a
truculent disposition and the chief object of detestation, measuring
the rancour of others toward him by his own toward them, said: "I am
not ignorant of the fate which threatens me. I see that the contest
against us is only deferred until our arms are delivered up to our
adversaries. Blood must be offered up to popular rage. I do not even
hesitate to resign my decemvirate." A decree of the senate was then
passed: that the decemvirs should as soon as possible resign their
office; that Quintus Furius, chief pontiff, should hold an election of
plebeian tribunes, and that the secession of the soldiers and commons
should not be detrimental to any one. These decrees of the senate
being completed, and the senate dismissed, the decemvirs came forth
into the assembly, and resigned their office, to the great joy of all.
News of this was carried to the commons. All those who remained in the
city escorted the ambassadors. This crowd was met by another joyous
body from the camp; they congratulated each other on the restoration
of liberty and concord to the state. The deputies spoke as follows
before the assembly: "Be it advantageous, fortunate, and happy for you
and the republic--return to your country, to your household gods, your
wives and children; but carry into the city the same moderation which
you observed here, where in spite of the pressing need of so many
things necessary for so large a number of persons, no man's field has
been injured. Go to the Aventine, whence you set out. There, in that
auspicious place, where you laid the first beginnings of your liberty,
you shall elect tribunes of the people. The chief pontiff will be at
hand to hold the elections." Great was their approval and joy, as
evinced in their assent to every measure. They then pulled up their
standards, and having set out for Rome, vied in exultation with all
they met. Silently, under arms, they marched through the city and
reached the Aventine. There, the chief pontiff holding the meeting
for the elections, they immediately elected as their tribunes of
the people, first of all Lucius Verginius, then Lucius Icilius, and
Publius Numitorius, the uncle of Verginius, who had recommended the
secession: then Gaius Sicinius, the offspring of him who is recorded
to have been elected first tribune of the commons on the Sacred Mount;
and Marcus Duillius, who had held a distinguished tribuneship before
the appointment of the decemvirs, and never failed the commons in
their contests with the decemvirs. Marcus Titinius, Marcus Pomponius,
Gaius Apronius, Appius Villius, and Gaius Oppius, were elected more
from hope entertained of them than from any actual services. When he
entered on his tribuneship, Lucius Icilius immediately brought before
the people, and the people enacted, that the secession from the
decemvirs which had taken place should not prove detrimental to any
individual. Immediately after Duillius carried a proposition for
electing consuls, with right of appeal[59]. All these things were
transacted in an assembly of the commons in the Flaminian meadows,
which are now called the Flaminian Circus.[60]
Then, through an interrex, Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius were
elected consuls, and immediately entered on their office; their
consulship, agreeable to the people, although it did no injury to
the patricians, was not, however, without giving them offence; for
whatever measures were taken to secure the liberty of the people, they
considered to be a diminution of their own power. First of all, when
it was as it were a disputed point of law, whether patricians were
bound by regulations enacted in an assembly of the commons, they
proposed a law in the assembly of the centuries, that whatever the
commons ordered in the assembly of the tribes, should be binding on
the entire people; by which law a most keen-edged weapon of offence
was given to the motions introduced by tribunes. Then another law made
by a consul concerning the right of appeal, a singularly effective
safeguard of liberty, that had been upset by the decemviral power,
was not only restored but also guarded for the time to come, by the
passing of a new law, that no one should appoint any magistrate
without appeal:[61] if any person should so appoint, it should be
lawful and right that he be put to death; and that such killing should
not be deemed a capital offence. And when they had sufficiently
secured the commons by the right of appeal on the one hand by
tribunician aid on the other, they revived for the tribunes themselves
the privilege that their persons should be considered inviolable--the
recollection of which was now almost forgotten--by renewing after a
long interval certain ceremonies which had fallen into disuse; and
they rendered them inviolable by religion, as well as by a law,
enacting that whosoever should offer injury to tribunes of the people,
aediles, or judicial decemvirs, his person should be devoted to
Jupiter, and his property be sold at the Temple of Ceres, Liber, and
Libera. Expounders of the law deny that any person is by this law
inviolable, but assert that he, who may do an injury to any of them,
is deemed by law accursed: and that, accordingly, an aedile may be
arrested and carried to prison by superior magistrates, which, though
it be not expressly warranted by law (for an injury is done to a
person to whom it is not lawful to do an injury according to this
law), is yet a proof that an aedile is not considered as sacred and
inviolable; the tribunes, however, are sacred and inviolable according
to the ancient oath of the commons, when first they created that
office. There have been some who supposed that by this same Horatian
law provision was made for the consuls also and the praetors, because
they were elected under the same auspices as the consuls; for a consul
was called a judge. This interpretation is refuted, because at this
time it had not yet been customary for the consul to be styled judge,
but praetor.[62] These were the laws proposed by the consuls. It was
also arranged by the same consuls, that decrees of the senate, which
before that used to be suppressed and altered at the pleasure of the
consuls, should be deposited in the Temple of Ceres, under the care
of the aediles of the commons. Then Marcus Duillius, tribune of the
commons, brought before the people and the people enacted, that
whoever left the people without tribunes, and whoever caused a
magistrate to be elected without appeal, should be punished with
stripes and beheaded. All these enactments, though against the
feelings of the patricians, passed off without opposition from them,
because as yet no severity was aimed at any particular individual.
Then, both the tribunician power and the liberty of the commons having
been firmly established, the tribunes, now deeming it both safe and
seasonable to attack individuals, singled out Verginius as the first
prosecutor and Appius as defendant. When Verginius had appointed a day
for Appius to take his trial, and Appius had come down to the forum,
accompanied by a band of young patricians, the recollection of his
most profligate exercise of power was instantly revived in the minds
of all, as soon as they beheld the man himself and his satellites.
Then said Verginius: "Long speeches are only meant for matters of a
doubtful nature. Accordingly, I shall neither waste time in dwelling
on the guilt of this man before you, from whose cruelty you have
rescued yourselves by force of arms, nor will I suffer him to add
impudence to his other crimes in defending himself. Wherefore, Appius
Claudius, I pardon you for all the impious and nefarious deeds you
have had the effrontery to commit one after another for the last two
years; with respect to one charge only, unless you shall choose a
judge who shall acquit you that you have not sentenced a free person
to slavery, contrary to the laws, I shall order that you be taken into
custody." Neither in the aid of the tribunes, nor in the judgment of
the people, could Appius place any hope: still he both appealed to the
tribunes, and, when no one heeded him, being seized by the officer, he
exclaimed, "I appeal." The hearing of this one word that safeguard of
liberty, and the fact that it was uttered from that mouth, by which
a free citizen was so recently consigned to slavery, caused silence.
And, while they loudly declared, each on his own behalf, that at
length the existence of the gods was proved, and that they did not
disregard human affairs; and that punishments awaited tyranny and
cruelty, which punishments, though late, were, however, by no means
light; that that man now appealed, who had abolished all right of
appeal; and that he implored the protection of the people, who had
trampled under foot all the rights of the people: and that he was
being dragged off to prison, destitute of the rights of liberty, who
had doomed a free person to slavery, the voice of Appius himself was
heard, amid the murmurs of the assembly, imploring the protection of
the Roman people. He enumerated the services of his ancestors to
the state, at home and abroad: his own unfortunate anxiety for the
interests of the Roman commons, owing to which he had resigned the
consulship, to the very great displeasure of the patricians, for the
purpose of equalizing the laws; he then went on to mention those laws
of his, the framer of which was dragged off to prison, though the laws
still remained in force. However, in regard to what bore especially on
his own case, his personal merits and demerits, he would make trial
of them, when an opportunity should be afforded him of stating his
defence; at present, he, a Roman citizen, demanded, by the common
right of citizenship, that he be allowed to speak on the day
appointed, and to appeal to the judgment of the Roman people: he
did not dread popular odium so much as not to place any hope in the
fairness and compassion of his fellow-citizens. But if he were led to
prison without being heard, that he once more appealed to the tribunes
of the people, and warned them not to imitate those whom they hated.
But if the tribunes acknowledged themselves bound by the same
agreement for abolishing the right of appeal, which they charged the
decemvirs with having conspired to form, then he appealed to the
people, he implored the aid of the laws passed that very year, both by
the consuls and tribunes, regarding the right of appeal. For who
would there be to appeal, if this were not allowed a person as yet
uncondemned, whose case had not been heard? What plebeian or humble
individual would find protection in the laws, if Appius Claudius
could not? That he would be a proof whether tyranny or liberty was
established by the new laws, and whether the right of appeal and of
challenge against the injustice of magistrates was only held out in
idle words, or really granted.