Roman History, Books I III - Titus Livius
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There I find that he spoke to this effect: "Though I am conscious to
myself of no fault, Quirites, yet it is with the greatest shame I have
come forward to your assembly. To think that you should know this,
that this should be handed down on record to posterity, that the
AEquans and Volscians a short time since scarcely a match for the
Hernicans, have with impunity come with arms in their hands to the
walls of Rome, in the fourth consulate of Titus Quinctius! Had I known
that this disgrace was reserved for this year, above all others,
though we have now long been living in such a manner, and such is the
state of affairs, that my mind can forebode nothing good, I would have
avoided this honour either by exile or by death, if there had been no
other means of escaping it. Then, if men of courage had held those
arms, which were at our gates, Rome could have been taken during my
consulate. I have had sufficient honours, enough and more than enough
of life: I ought to have died in my third consulate. Whom, I pray, did
these most dastardly enemies despise? Us, consuls, or you, Quirites?
If the fault lies in us, take away the command from those who are
unworthy of it; and, if that is not enough, further inflict punishment
on us. If the fault is yours, may there be none of gods or men to
punish your offences: do you yourselves only repent of them. It is not
your cowardice they have despised, nor their own valour that they have
put their trust in: having been so often routed and put to flight,
stripped of their camp, mulcted in their land, sent under the yoke,
they know both themselves and you. It is the discord among the several
orders that is the curse of this city, the contests between the
patricians and commons. While we have neither bounds in the pursuit of
power, nor you in that of liberty, while you are wearied of patrician,
we of plebeian magistrates, they have taken courage. In the name of
Heaven, what would you have? You desired tribunes of the commons; we
granted them for the sake of concord. You longed for decemvirs;
we suffered them to be created. You became weary of decemvirs; we
compelled them to resign office. Your resentment against these same
persons when they became private citizens still continuing, we
suffered men of the highest family and rank to die or go into exile.
You wished asecond time to create tribunes of the commons; you created
them. You wished to elect consuls attached to your party; and,
although we saw that it was unjust to the patricians, we have even
resigned ourselves to see a patrician magistracy conceded as an
offering to the people. The aid of tribunes, right of appeal to the
people, the acts of the commons made binding on the patricians under
the pretext of equalizing the laws, the subversion of our privileges,
we have endured and still endure. What end is there to be to our
dissensions? When shall it be allowed us to have a united city, one
common country? We, when defeated, submit with greater resignation
than you when victorious. Is it enough for you, that you are objects
of terror to us? The Aventine is taken against us: against us the
Sacred Mount is seized. When the Esquiline was almost taken by the
enemy, no one defended it, and when the Volscian foe was scaling the
rampart, no one drove him off: it is against us you behave like men,
against us you are armed.
"Come, when you have blockaded the senate-house here, and have made
the forum the seat of war, and filled the prison with the leading men
of the state, march forth through the Esquiline gate, with that same
determined spirit; or, if you do not even venture thus far, behold
from your walls your lands laid waste with fire and sword, booty
driven off, houses set on fire in every direction and smoking. But, I
may be told, it is only the public weal that is in a worse condition
through this: the land is burned, the city is besieged, the glory of
the war rests with the enemy. What in the name of Heaven--what is the
state of your own private affairs? Even now to each of you his own
private losses from the country will be announced. What, pray, is
there at home, whence you can recruit them? Will the tribunes restore
and re-establish what you have lost? Of sound and words they will heap
on you as much as you please, and of charges against the leading men,
laws one after another, and public meetings. But from these meetings
never has one of you returned home more increased in substance or in
fortune. Has any one ever brought back to his wife and children aught
save hatred, quarrels, grudges public and private, from which you may
ever be protected, not by your own valour and integrity, but by the
aid of others? But, by Hercules! When you served under the command of
us consuls, not under tribunes, in the camp and not in the forum, and
the enemy trembled at your shout in the field of battle, not the Roman
patricians in the assembly, having gained booty and taken land from
the enemy, loaded with wealth and glory, both public and private, you
used to return home in triumph to your household gods: now you allow
the enemy to go off laden with your property. Continue fast bound to
your assemblies, live in the forum; the necessity of taking the field,
which you strive to escape, still follows you. It was hard on you to
march against the AEquans and the Volscians: the war is at your gates:
if it is not driven from thence, it will soon be within your walls,
and will scale the citadel and Capitol, and follow you into your very
houses. Two years ago the senate ordered a levy to be held, and an
army to be marched out to Algidum; yet we sit down listless at home,
quarrelling with each other like women, delighting in present peace,
and not seeing that after that short-lived inactivity war will return
with interest. That there are other topics more pleasing than these,
I well know; but even though my own mind did not prompt me to it,
necessity obliges me to speak the truth rather than what is pleasing.
I would indeed like to meet with your approval, Quirites; but I am
much more anxious that you should be preserved, whatever sentiments
you shall entertain toward me. It has been so ordained by nature, that
he who addresses a crowd for his own private interest, is more welcome
than the man whose mind has nothing in view but the public interest
unless perhaps you suppose that those public sycophants those
flatterers of the commons, who neither suffer you to take up arms nor
to live in peace, excite and work you up for your own interests. When
excited, you are to them sources either of position or of profit: and,
because, when the orders are in accord, they see that they themselves
are of no importance in anything, they prefer to be leaders of a bad
cause, of tumults and sedition, rather than of no cause at all. If
you can at last become wearied of all this, and if you are willing to
resume the habits practised by your forefathers of old, and formerly
by yourselves, in place of these new ones, I am ready to submit to
any punishment, if I do not in a few days rout and put to flight, and
strip of their camp those devastators of our lands, and transfer from
our gates and walls to their cities this terror of war, by which you
are now thrown into consternation."
Scarcely ever was the speech of a popular tribune more acceptable to
the commons than this of a most austere consul on that occasion. The
young men also, who, during such alarms, had been accustomed to employ
the refusal to enlist as the sharpest weapon against the patricians,
began to turn their attention to war and arms: and the flight of the
rustics, and those who had been robbed and wounded in the country, by
announcing events more revolting even than what was before their eyes,
filled the whole city with exasperation. When they came into the
senate, there all, turning to Quinctius, looked upon him as the only
champion of the majesty of Rome: and the leading senators declared
that his harangue was worthy of the consular authority, worthy of so
many consulships formerly borne by him, worthy of his whole life, full
of honours frequently enjoyed, more frequently deserved. That other
consuls had either flattered the commons by betraying the dignity of
the patricians, or by harshly maintaining the rights of their order,
had rendered the multitude more exasperated by their efforts to subdue
them: that Titus Quinctius had delivered a speech mindful of the
dignity of the patricians, of the concord of the different orders,
and above all, of the needs of the times. They entreated him and his
colleague to assume the management of the commonwealth; they entreated
the tribunes, by acting in concert with the consuls, to join in
driving back the war from the city and the walls, and to induce the
commons to be obedient to the senate at so perilous a conjuncture:
declaring that, their lands being devastated, and their city in a
manner besieged, their common country appealed to them as tribunes,
and implored their aid. By universal consent the levy was decreed and
held. When the consuls gave public notice that there was no time for
considering claims for exemption; that all the young men should attend
on the following morning at dawn in the Campus Martius; that when the
war was over, they would afford time for inquiring into the excuses of
those who had not given in their names; that the man should be held
as a deserter, whose excuse they found unsatisfactory; all the youth
attended on the following day. The cohorts [70] chose each their
centurions: two senators were placed at the head of each cohort.
We have read that all these measures were carried out with such
expedition that the standards, which had been brought forth from the
treasury on that very day by the quaestors and conveyed to the Campus,
started from thence at the fourth hour; and the newly-raised army
halted at the tenth milestone, followed only by a few cohorts of
veteran soldiers as volunteers. The following day brought the enemy
within sight, and camp was joined to camp near Corbio. On the third
day, when resentment urged on the Romans, and a consciousness of guilt
for having so often rebelled and a feeling of despair, the others,
there was no delay in coming to an engagement.
In the Roman army, though the two consuls were invested with equal
authority, the supreme command was, by the concession of Agrippa,
resigned to his colleague, an arrangement most salutary in the conduct
of matters of great importance; and he who was preferred made a polite
return for the ready condescension of the other, who thus lowered
himself, by making him his confidant in all his plans and sharing with
him his honours, and by putting him on an equality with him although
he was by no means as capable. On the field of battle Quinctius
commanded the right, Agrippa the left wing; the command of the centre
was intrusted to Spurius Postumius Albus, as lieutenant-general.
Publius Sulpicius, the other lieutenant-general, was placed at the
head of the cavalry. The infantry on the right wing fought with
distinguished valour, while the Volscians offered a stout resistance.
Publius Sulpicius with his cavalry broke through the centre of the
enemy's line; and, though he might have returned thence in the same
way to his own party, before the enemy restored their broken ranks,
it seemed more advisable to attack them in the rear, and in a moment,
charging the line in the rear, he would have dispersed the enemy by
the double attack, had not the cavalry of the Volscians and AEquans
kept him for some time engaged by a mode of fighting like his own.
Then indeed Sulpicius declared that there was no time for delay,
crying out that they were surrounded and would be cut off from their
own friends, unless they united all their efforts and despatched the
engagement with the cavalry. Nor was it enough to rout the enemy
without disabling them; they must slay horses and men, that none might
return to the fight or renew the battle; that these could not resist
them, before whom a compact body of infantry had given way. His orders
were addressed to no deaf ears; by a single charge they routed the
entire cavalry, dismounted great numbers, and killed with their
javelins both the riders and the horses. Thus ended the cavalry
engagement. Then, having attacked the enemy's infantry, they sent an
account to the consuls of what had been done, where the enemy's line
was already giving way. The news both gave fresh courage to the
Romans who were now gaining the day, and dismayed the AEquans who were
beginning to give way. They first began to be beaten in the centre,
where the furious charge of the cavalry had broken their ranks. Then
the left wing began to lose ground before the consul Quinctius; the
contest was most obstinate on the right. Then Agrippa, in the vigour
of his youth and strength, seeing matters going more favourably in
every part of the battle than in his own quarter, snatched some of the
standards from the standard-bearers and carried them on himself, some
even he began to throw into the thick of the enemy.[71]
The soldiers, urged on by the fear of this disgrace, attacked the
enemy; thus the victory was equalized in every quarter. News then came
from Quinctius that he, being now victorious, was about to attack
the enemy's camp; that he was unwilling to break into it, before he
learned that they were beaten in the left wing also. If he had routed
the enemy, let him now join him, that all the army together might
take possession of the booty. Agrippa, being victorious, with mutual
congratulations advanced toward his victorious colleague and the
enemy's camp. There, as there were but few to defend it, and these
were routed in a moment they broke into the fortifications without a
struggle, and marched back the army, in possession of abundant spoil,
having recovered also their own effects, which had been lost by the
devastation of the lands. I have not heard that they either themselves
demanded a triumph, or that one was offered to them by the senate; nor
is any cause assigned for the honour being either overlooked or not
hoped for. As far as I can conjecture at so great a distance of time,
since a triumph had been refused to the consuls Horatius and Valerius,
who, in addition to the victory over the AEquans and Volscians, had
gained the glory of having also finished the Sabine war, the consuls
were ashamed to demand a triumph for one half of the services done by
them, lest, even if they should have obtained it, regard might appear
to have been paid to persons rather than to merit.
A disgraceful decision of the people regarding the boundaries of their
allies marred the honourable victory obtained over their enemies. The
people of Aricia [72] and of Ardea, who had frequently contended in
arms concerning a disputed piece of land, wearied out by many losses
on either side, appointed the Roman people as arbitrators. When they
arrived to support their claims, an assembly of the people being
granted them by the magistrates, the matter was debated with great
warmth. The witnesses being now produced, when it was time for the
tribes to be called, and for the people to give their votes, Publius
Scaptius, a plebeian advanced in years, rose up and said, "Consuls, if
it is permitted me to speak on the public interest, I will not suffer
the people to be led into a mistake in this matter." When the consuls
said that he, as unworthy of attention, ought not to be heard, and, on
his shouting that the public interest was being betrayed, ordered him
to be put aside, he appealed to the tribunes. The tribunes, as they
are nearly always directed by the multitude rather than direct it,
granted Scaptius leave to say what he pleased in deference to the
people, who were anxious to hear him. He then began: That he was now
in his eighty-third year, and that he had served in that district
which was now in dispute, not even then a young man, as he was already
serving in his twentieth campaign, when operations were going on at
Corioli. He therefore brought forward a fact forgotten by length of
time--one, however, deeply fixed in his memory, namely, that the
district now in dispute had belonged to the territory of Corioli, and,
after the taking of Corioli, it had become come by right of war the
public property of the Roman people. That he was surprised how the
states of Ardea and Aricia could have the face to hope to deprive the
Roman people, whom instead of lawful owners they had made arbitrators;
of a district the right of which they had never claimed while the
state of Corioli existed. That he for his part had but a short time
to live; he could not, however, bring himself, old as he now was, to
desist claiming by his voice, the only means he now had, a district
which, as a soldier, he had contributed to acquire, as far as a man
could. That he strenuously advised the people not to ruin their own
interest by an idle feeling of delicacy.
The consuls, when they perceived that Scaptius was listened to not
only in silence, but even with approbation, calling gods and men to
witness, that a disgraceful enormity was being committed, summoned
the principal senators: with them they went round to the tribes,
entreated, that, as judges, they would not be guilty of a most heinous
crime, with a still worse precedent, by converting the subject of
dispute to their own interest, more especially when, even though it
may be lawful for a judge to look after his own interest, so much
would by no means be acquired by keeping the land, as would be lost by
alienating the affections of their allies by injustice; for that the
loss of reputation and confidence was of greater importance than could
be estimated. Was this the answer the ambassadors were to carry home;
was this to go out to the world; were their allies to hear this; were
their enemies to hear it--with what sorrow the one--with what joy the
other? Could they suppose that the neighbouring states would ascribe
this proceeding to Scaptius, an old babbler at assemblies? That
Scaptius would be rendered distinguished by this statue: but that the
Roman people would assume the character of a corrupt informer [73]
and appropriator of the claims of others. For what judge in a private
cause ever acted in such a way as to adjudge to himself the property
in dispute? That even Scaptius himself would not act so, though he had
now outlived all sense of shame. Thus the consuls, thus the senators
exclaimed; but covetousness, and Scaptius, the adviser of that
covetousness, had more influence. The tribes, when convened, decided
that the district was the public property of the Roman people. Nor can
it be denied that it might have been so, if they had gone to other
judges; but, as it is, the infamy of the decision is not in any
way diminished by the justice of the cause: nor did it appear more
disgraceful or more repulsive to the people of Aricia and of Ardea,
than it did to the Roman senate. The remainder of the year continued
free from disturbances both at home and abroad. [74]
Footnotes:
[Footnote 1: The ager publicus or public land consisted of the landed
estates which had belonged to the kings, and were increased by land
taken from enemies who had been captured in war. The patricians had
gained exclusive occupation of this, for which they paid a nominal
rent in the shape of produce and tithes: the state, however, still
retained the right of disposal of it. By degrees the ager publicus
fell into the hands of a few rich individuals, who were continually
buying up smaller estates, which were cultivated by slaves, thus
reducing the number of free agricultural labourers.]
[Footnote 2: Directly, rather than by lot as was usual.]
[Footnote 4: In later times the censor performed this office.--D.O.]
[Footnote 5: This decree was practically a bestowal of absolute
power.--D.O.]
[Footnote: In later times the proconsul was the consul of the previous
year, appointed to act as such over one of the provinces.--D.O.]
[Footnote 7: This gate was on the west side, in the rear, farthest
from the enemy: it was so called from the decumanus, a line drawn from
east to west, which divided the camp into two halves: see note in
revised edition of Prendeville's Livy.]
[Footnote 8: August 1st]
[Footnote 9: The consular year, not the civil one, which began in
January: the time at which the consuls entered upon office varied very
much until B.C. 153, when it was finally settled that the date of
their doing so should be January 1st.]
[Footnote 10: Called "Via Praenestina" beyond Gabii.]
[Footnote 11: That is, broke up camp.--D.O.]
[Footnote 12: The people of Rome had been divided in early times into
thirty curies: each of these had an officiating priest, called curio,
and the whole body was under the presidency of the curio maximus.]
[Footnote 13: The ten leading senators held the office in rotation for
five days each, until the consular comitia were held.--D.O.]
[Footnote 14: August 11th]
[Footnote 15: A lesser form of triumph.]
[Footnote 16: The Sibylline books, supposed to have been sold to
Tarquinius Superbus by the Sibyl of Cumae: they were written in Greek
hexameter verses. In times of emergency and distress they were
consulted and interpreted by special priests (the duumviri here
mentioned).]
[Footnote 17: It will be frequently observed that the patricians
utilized their monopoly of religious offices to effect their own
ends.--D.O.]
[Footnote 18: Curule chairs of office.]
[Footnote 19: That is, recruits.--D.O.]
[Footnote 20: The worst quarter of the city--its White chapel as it
were. It lay, roughly speaking, from the Forum eastward along the
valley between Esquiline and Viminial Hills.--D.O.]
[Footnote 21: That is, to insure punishment and practically abnegate
the right an accused person had of escaping sentence by voluntary
exile.--D.O.]
[Footnote 22: Perhaps the first bail-bond historically noted.--D.O.]
[Footnote 23: That is, refused to accept the plea.]
[Footnote 24: That is, defended them in court.]
[Footnote 25: The Temple of Jupiter in the Capitol was divided into
three parts: the middle was sacred to Jupiter, the right to Minerva,
the left to Juno. By "other gods" are meant Terminus, Fides,
Juventas.]
[Footnote 26: Publicola, the father of Brutus.]
[Footnote 27: That is, personal violence from the young
patricians.--D.O.]
[Footnote 28: Their control over the auspices was a favourite weapon
of the patricians, and one which could naturally be better used at
a distance from Rome. The frequency of its use would seem to argue
adaptability in the devotional feelings of the nobles at least, which
might modify our reliance upon the statement made above as to the
respect for the gods then prevalent in Rome.--D.O.]
[Footnote 29: This was the limit of the tribunes' authority.--D.O.]
[Footnote 30: This gate, from which at a later date the Via Appia and
the Via Latina started, stood near what is now the junction of the Via
S. Gregorio with the Vi di Porta S. Sebastiano.--D.O.]
[Footnote 31: By drawing part of the Roman army to the defence of the
allied city.--D.O.]
[Footnote 32: Two spears were set upright and a third lashed across.
To pass through and under this "yoke" was, among the Italian states,
the greatest indignity that could be visited upon a captured army. It
symbolized servititude in arms.--D. O.]
[Footnote 33: This would seem to augur some treachery, unless we are
to believe that only the young men taken in the citadel were
sent under the yoke, the slaughter took place among the flying
besiegers.--D.O.]
[Footnote 34: "Quaestors," these officers are first mentioned in Book
II, ch. xii. In early times it appears to have been part of their duty
to prosecute those guilty of treason, and to carry the punishment into
execution.]
[Footnote 35: Evidently a new pretext for delay.--D.O.]
[Footnote 36: A little beyond Crustumerium, on the Via Salaria.--D.O.]
[Footnote 37: Possibly to one assigned to him officially.
Freese regards the expression as inconsistent with his alleged
poverty.--D.O.]
[Footnote 38: A curious feature of a triumph were the disrespectful
and often scurrilous verses chanted by the soldiers at the expense of
their general--D.O.]
[Footnote 39: The meaning of this passage is obscure. Many
explanations have been attempted, none of which, to my mind, is quite
satisfactory.--D.O.]
[Footnote 40: Priest of Quirinus.--D. O.]
[Footnote 41: The law forbade burial within the limits of the city
except in certain cases.--D.O.]
[Footnote 42: That is, relinquished his right of acting as judge in
favour of the people and of popular trial.--D.O.]
[Footnote 43: A new law was hung up in the Forum for public
perusal.--D.O.]
[Footnote 44: As in the case of a dictator. At first half, and finally
all, of the consular lictors carried only the fasces.--D.O.]
[Footnote 45: That is, the incumbents of the past year, now of right
private persons, their term of office having expired.--D. O.]
[Footnote 46: The fine for non-attendance.--D.O.]