BOOK 3

1. 467 BCE. The consul’s support of a tribunician land bill arouses senatorial opposition. As a compromise, the other consul proposes that a colony be established at Antium, but the plebs express their preference for land near Rome.

After the capture of Antium, Titus Aemilius and Quintus Fabius became consuls [467 BCE]. This was the Fabius who was the sole survivor of the family that was wiped out at the Cremera.¹ In his earlier consulship, Aemilius had already supported the granting of land to the plebs. And so, in his second consulship, not only those who wanted a land bill had raised their hopes of a law, but the tribunes also supported the cause because they thought that a measure they had often attempted to pass in opposition to the consuls could be won if they had a consul’s cooperation. And the consul continued to be of the same mind. The occupiers of the land (and a great number of them were senators) complained that a leader of the state was behaving like a tribune and making himself popular by giving away other people’s property. And so they diverted the unpopularity for the whole matter from the tribunes to the consul. A fierce struggle was imminent, had not Fabius settled the matter with a plan that did not cause bitterness to either side.

He pointed out that, in the previous year under the leadership and auspices of Titus Quinctius, a considerable amount of land had been captured from the Volsci. So, a colony could be planted at Antium, a well-situated coastal city. The plebs could get farmland without causing the land-holders to complain, and the state would then be harmonious. This proposal was accepted. Fabius appointed Titus Quinctius, Aulus Verginius, and Publius Furius as commissioners for granting the land. Those who wished to receive land were ordered to hand in their names. But, as usually happens, abundance immediately created aversion, and so few persons submitted their names that Volscian colonists were added to fill up the number. The rest of the populace preferred to demand land near Rome rather than receive it elsewhere. The Aequi begged Quintus Fabius for peace when he invaded their territory and invalidated it themselves by making a sudden raid on Latin territory.

2. 466–465 BCE. After refusing to discuss peace, the Aequi are defeated by two consular armies on Mount Algidus but remain unyielding.

In the following year, Quintus Servilius, who was consul with Spurius Postumius [466 BCE], was sent against the Aequi. He established a permanent camp in Latin territory,² where the army was afflicted with a plague that enforced a period of inactivity. The war dragged on into its third year, the consulship of Quintus Fabius and Titus Quinctius [465 BCE]. An extraordinary command against the Aequi was given to Fabius because he had defeated them and granted peace.³ He set out with the sure hope that the glory of his name would bring the Aequi to terms. And so he sent envoys to the Aequian council with orders to announce that Quintus Fabius the consul said that, whereas earlier he had brought peace from the Aequi to Rome, he was now bringing war from Rome to the Aequi. Furthermore, the same right hand that he had earlier extended to them in peace was now armed. The gods had witnessed those who had broken faith and committed perjury, and would soon exact vengeance. Whatever the case, he would rather that the Aequi repent of their own accord than suffer hostilities. If they should repent, they would find a safe refuge in the clemency they had previously experienced. But if they rejoiced in perjury, they would be waging war more against the angry gods than against their enemies. These words had such a lack of effect that the Roman envoys were all but assaulted, and an army was sent to Mount Algidus to oppose the Romans.⁴

When this news reached Rome, the insult, rather than the danger, brought the other consul out of the city. Two consular armies, drawn up in battle array, approached the enemy, ready to engage them immediately. But since it happened that not much of the day was left, one of the enemy sentries cried out, “Romans, this is making a show of war, not waging it. You are drawing up your battle line as night is coming on. We need more light for the impending struggle. Return to the battle line tomorrow at sunrise. There will be plenty of fighting, never fear!” Irritated by these words, the troops were led back into camp to await the next day, thinking that the night that delayed the battle would be long. Then they refreshed themselves with food and sleep. The following day, when it was light, the Roman battle line took up its position considerably earlier than did that of the enemy. At last the Aequi marched forth. There was fierce fighting on both sides because the Romans were fighting in anger and hatred; whereas the Aequi, aware that the danger was of their own making, despaired of ever being trusted again, and so they were forced to risk and try everything. They did not, however, withstand the Roman battle line. They were driven back, but once they had retreated into their own territory, their minds were in no way inclined to peace. A fierce mob of soldiers criticized the commanders for staking the issue on a pitched battle, a type of warfare in which the Romans excelled. The Aequi, they said, were better at raiding and plundering; many small bands here and there were more effective at waging war than was the great mass of a single army.

3. 465 BCE. An unexpected raid by the Aequi creates panic in Rome and the suspension of all state business. The consul Quinctius calms the city and Fabius deals a deadly blow to the raiders as they return home.

Leaving a garrison in their camp, the Aequi marched out and invaded Roman territory, causing such confusion that the terror reached even as far as Rome. The unexpectedness of this move caused more alarm, because the last thing anyone could have feared was that an enemy who had been conquered and almost besieged in his camp would think of making a raid. The panicked countryfolk tumbled inside the gates, crying out that this was neither a raid nor small bands of pillagers. Exaggerating everything in their baseless fear, they cried out that armies and legions of the enemy were rushing toward the city in an armed attack. The bystanders heard these unsubstantiated reports and passed them on to others with further exaggerations. The running and shouts of men as they called “To arms!” was almost like the panic in a captured city. By chance, the consul Quinctius had returned from Algidus to Rome. This was the remedy for their fear. When he had stilled the uproar and reprimanded them for being afraid of a conquered enemy, he stationed guards at the gates. Then he summoned the senate and proclaimed a suspension of public business in accordance with a proposal passed by the senators.⁵ Leaving Quintus Servilius in charge of the city, he set out to protect Rome’s borders but did not find the enemy in the countryside.

Fabius, the other consul, was highly successful. Knowing where the enemy would come, he attacked them when they were weighed down with booty and thus impeded in their progress, and brought death upon their raid. Few escaped from the ambush, and all the booty was recovered. The return of his colleague Quinctius put an end to the suspension of business, which had lasted four days. The census was then taken, and Quinctius performed the closing of the lustrum.⁶ It is said that 104,714 citizens were enrolled, in addition to orphans and widows. Thereafter there was no memorable action against the Aequi, who retired to their own towns and allowed their farms to be burned and ravaged. After making several hostile raids throughout enemy territory, the consul returned to Rome with great praise and booty.

4. 464 BCE. The Aequi and Volsci again threaten war, and a revolt at Antium is imminent. The consul Spurius Furius is blockaded in his camp, and emergency forces are enrolled from the allies.

The next consuls were Aulus Postumius Albus and Spurius Furius Fusus [464 BCE]. Some writers spell Furius as Fusius; I note this to avoid anyone thinking that the different spelling indicates different men. There was no doubt that one of the consuls would make war on the Aequi. And so, the Aequi sought help from the Volsci of Ecetra.⁷ This was eagerly offered—to such an extent did these states vie with each other in their everlasting hatred of Rome. Preparations for war were begun with the utmost vigor. The Hernici realized this and warned the Romans that Ecetra had defected to the Aequi. The colony of Antium was also under suspicion because a large force of men had fled from there when the town was captured, taking refuge with the Aequi. These soldiers had fought very fiercely throughout the Aequian war. Then, when the Aequi had been shut up in their towns, this large group escaped and returned to Antium, where they won the support of the colonists who were already disaffected for their own part with the Romans. Their plot was not yet complete when the news was brought to the senate that a revolt was imminent. And so the consuls were commissioned to summon the colony’s leading men to Rome and find out what was going on. These men were not reluctant to come, but, when introduced to the senate by the consuls, they replied to the questions they were asked in such a way that they were dismissed under greater suspicion than they had been when they arrived.

War was then in no doubt. Spurius Furius, one of the consuls, was allotted the Aequi as his province.⁸ He set out and came upon the enemy plundering in the territory of the Hernici. Unaware of their numbers because they had never been sighted en masse, he rashly engaged an army that was no match for their forces. Driven back at the first attack, he retreated into his camp. This was not the end of the danger. Both that night and the following day, the camp was under such vigorous siege and attack that not even a messenger could be sent to Rome. The Hernici reported the defeat and blockade of the consul and his army, striking such terror into the senators that they commissioned the other consul Postumius to see to it that the state suffered no harm—a form of senatorial decree that is always considered to indicate the most dire emergency.⁹ It seemed best that the consul himself should remain in Rome to enroll all those capable of bearing arms, and that Titus Quinctius should be sent in place of the consul to relieve the camp with an army from the allies.¹⁰ To fill up this army, Latins, Hernici, and the colony of Antium were ordered to supply “emergency soldiers”—this was the name of hastily levied auxiliaries in those days.

5. The consul’s brother is killed in a sortie, and the consul wounded. Titus Quinctius rescues the beleaguered army.

Throughout these days there were many maneuvers and many attacks here and there, because the enemy with his superior numbers tried to erode Rome’s strength in many places at once, in the expectation that the Romans would not be able to react to all of them. At the same time that the camp was under attack, part of the army was sent to plunder Roman territory and attack the city itself, should the opportunity arise. Lucius Valerius was left to guard the city, while the consul Postumius was sent to protect the borders from pillagers. Nowhere was there any relaxation from vigilance or effort. Watches were set in the city, outposts stationed outside the gates, and troops placed on the walls. And, as was essential amid such confusion, there was a suspension of public business for several days.

Meanwhile in the camp, the consul Furius at first endured the siege quietly. Then he broke out by the decuman gate and caught the Aequi off their guard.¹¹ He could have pursued them, but he stopped for fear that the camp might be attacked from another direction. The charge carried Furius, the military legate who was the consul’s brother, too far into the field. In his eager pursuit, he did not see his own men turning back, nor the enemy attacking from the rear. And so he was cut off, and, after many futile attempts to force his way back to the camp, he fell, fighting bravely. On the news that his brother was surrounded, the consul returned to the battle and was wounded while rushing into the midst of the fray with more recklessness than caution. He was barely rescued by those around him, causing his own troops to be dispirited and making the enemy even more ferocious.

The Aequi, fired up by the death of the legate and the wounding of the consul, could hardly be withstood by any force. The Romans were driven back into their camp and would again have been under siege, no match for the enemy either in confidence or strength, and the entire operation would have been endangered had not Titus Quinctius come to their rescue with foreign troops, an army of Latins and Hernici.¹² As the Aequi were concentrating on the Roman camp and boldly displaying the legate’s head, Quinctius attacked them from the rear at the same time that a sortie was made from the camp in response to a signal he had given from a distance. In this way he surrounded a large force of the enemy. As for the Aequi who were in Roman territory, fewer were killed, but more scattered in flight. These men were ranging around collecting booty, when Postumius attacked them at various points where he had opportunely positioned his troops. The fugitives were wandering in disarray when they encountered the victorious Quinctius, who was returning with the wounded consul. Then, in a splendid fight, the consular army avenged the wounding of the consul and the slaughter of the legate and his cohorts.

During these days, great losses were inflicted and sustained on both sides. In a matter of such antiquity, it is difficult to confirm with a precise and reliable number just how many fought or died. Valerius Antias, however, dares to draw up the totals, saying that 5,800 Romans fell in Hernican territory.¹³ Of the Aequian pillagers who were wandering and plundering in Roman territory, 2,400 were killed by the consul Postumius. The rest of the group that encountered Quinctius as they were driving off their booty did not get off so lightly. Antias gives the number of their dead down to the last detail: 4,230. When the army returned to Rome, the suspension of public business was ended. The sky was seen to blaze with a great fire, and other portents were either actually seen or falsely imagined by terrified observers.¹⁴ A three-day religious holiday was declared, during which all the shrines were filled with people begging for the favor of the gods.¹⁵ Then the Latin and Hernican cohorts were thanked by the senate for their energetic service and sent back home. A thousand men from Antium, who arrived after the battle and thus too late to be of help, were dismissed almost in disgrace.

6. 463 BCE. Plague causes overcrowding and devastation in the city, preventing the Romans from helping the Latins and Hernici against the invading Aequi and Volsci.

The elections were then held, and Lucius Aebutius and Publius Servilius became consuls [463 BCE]. On August 1, which at that time was the beginning of the year, they entered office.¹⁶ It was an oppressive time and also happened to be a year of plague afflicting both men and beasts, in the city and countryside alike. Because of the fear of enemy pillaging, beasts and countryfolk were brought into the city, thus increasing the virulence of the disease. Amid this conglomeration of every kind of living creature, the city-dwellers were stifled with strange smells and the countryfolk with heat and lack of sleep, packed as they were into narrow quarters. Mere contact spread the disease as they tended each other. They could barely endure the stress of these calamities, when envoys from the Hernici suddenly announced that the Aequi and Volsci had joined forces, had pitched camp in their territory, and were using this as a base from which to plunder their lands with a huge army. Not only did the sparse numbers of the senate show their allies that the state was stricken with plague, but the envoys received the dismal response that the Hernici, together with the Latins, must defend their property on their own. The sudden anger of the gods was causing the city of Rome to be devastated by disease.¹⁷ If some respite from this suffering should occur, they would help their allies as they had done the previous year and on every other occasion. The allies departed, taking home a gloomier message in return for their gloomy news: they had to endure this war by themselves, a war that they would have had difficulty in enduring even with the powerful support of the Romans.

No longer did the enemy confine themselves to Hernican territory. From there they proceeded to invade the Roman fields that had already been desolated, even without the ravages of war. After encountering no one there—not even an unarmed man—and passing through areas that were neither defended nor cultivated, they reached the third milestone on the Gabinian Way. The consul Aebutius had died, and there was little hope for his colleague Servilius, who was scarcely breathing. Most of the leading men were sick, as were the majority of the senate and almost all the men of military age. Consequently they not only did not have the strength to mount the expeditions that such an emergency required, but they scarcely had the strength for guard duty. The senators whose age and health permitted acted as sentries. The inspection and supervision of the watch were in the hands of the plebeian aediles.¹⁸ To them had come the supreme control and majesty of consular power.

7. By divine providence, the Volsci and Aequi withdraw to attack Tusculum. After so many deaths from disease and war, the senate orders the people to supplicate the gods.

The city was completely desolate, without a leader and without strength, when Rome’s guardian deities and good fortune saved her, inspiring the Volsci and Aequi with the mentality of looters rather than that of enemies. The enemy entertained no hope of getting possession of the city, let alone approaching its walls. The distant sight of Rome’s houses and towering hills so deterred their spirits that grumbling started throughout the camp. They began to ask why they were wasting time in devastated and desolate fields amid the rotting carcasses of beasts and men, sitting idle without any booty, when they could attack healthy places like the territory of Tusculum that was abounding in riches. And so they suddenly tore up their standards and went by crossroads through the territory of Labici to the hills of Tusculum, where the entire might and storm of war were now focused.

Meanwhile the Hernici and Latins were moved, not only by pity, but also by a sense of shame, if they should fail to oppose a common enemy that was attacking Rome and to help their beleaguered ally. And so they joined forces and proceeded to Rome. When they did not find the enemy, they followed reports and traces of their march and encountered them as they were coming down from the Tusculan valley into that of Alba. The engagement was by no means on equal terms, and, for the moment, loyalty to their allies did not produce success.

In Rome, deaths caused by disease were no fewer than the number of their allies who died by the sword. The surviving consul died. Also dead were other famous men: Marcus Valerius and Titus Verginius Rutulus, who were augurs, and Servius Sulpicius, the chief curio.¹⁹ The violence of the plague also ranged far and wide throughout the nameless populace. The senate, finding no human help, directed the people to pray to the gods, bidding them go with their wives and children to supplicate the gods and beg for their favor. Summoned by the authority of the state to do whatever their individual distress forced upon them, the people filled all the shrines. Everywhere, matrons were prostrate, their hair sweeping the floors of the temples, as they begged the angry gods for pardon and an end to the plague.²⁰

8. After a setback, the consuls of 462 BCE defeat the Volsci.

After that, whether the gods granted their favor or whether the oppressive time of year had now passed, little by little those who had survived the disease began to regain their health. Attention then turned to the business of the state. When several interregna had elapsed, Publius Valerius Publicola, on the third day after beginning his interregnum, declared the election to the consulship of Lucius Lucretius Tricipitinus and Titus Veturius Geminus (Vetusius is an alternative spelling).²¹ These men took office on August 11, when the state was already so strong that it could not only protect itself but could even take the offensive. And so, when the Hernici announced that the enemy had encroached on their territory, help was promptly offered. Two consular armies were enrolled. Veturius was sent to take the initiative against the Volsci, whereas Tricipitinus, who was positioned to defend the allies’ territory from pillaging, proceeded no farther than the land of the Hernici. In his first engagement, Veturius routed the enemy and put them to flight. But Lucretius, encamped among the Hernici, missed a company of pillagers who marched over the mountains near Praeneste and descended into the plain.²² Then they devastated the territory of Praeneste and Gabii and turned from the area of Gabii to the hills of Tusculum.

This caused great fear even in the city of Rome, more on account of the surprise than because of a lack of ability to defend themselves. Quintus Fabius was in charge of the city.²³ By arming the young men and stationing them here and there as guards, he ensured complete calm and safety. Consequently the enemy did not dare to approach the city, though they had seized booty from the neighboring areas. They were returning by a roundabout route, becoming more careless the farther they were from the enemy’s city. Then they encountered the consul Lucretius, who had already reconnoitered their line of march and now, reinforced with auxiliary troops, was eager to do battle. Thus the Romans were mentally prepared as they attacked the enemy, who were suddenly stricken with panic. Though considerably fewer in number, the Romans routed and put to flight a huge multitude. They drove them into deep valleys from which it was not easy to escape and then surrounded them. The Volscian nation was all but wiped out.

I find in some sources that 13,470 fell in the battle and flight, 1,750 were captured alive, and 27 military standards taken. Although there may be some exaggeration of the numbers, there was certainly great slaughter.²⁴ The victorious consul obtained huge booty and returned to his permanent camp. Then the consuls combined their camps, while the Volsci and Aequi united their shattered forces. There was a third battle in that year, and fortune again gave victory to the Romans. The enemy were routed and their camp was also captured.

9. 462 BCE. In the absence of the consuls, a tribune, Gaius Terentilius Harsa, proposes a bill to limit their power. Fabius, the city prefect, vehemently opposes the measure, which is shelved.

Rome was thus restored to her former condition, and her military success immediately aroused disturbances in the city. Gaius Terentilius Harsa was tribune of the plebs in that year. Thinking that the absence of the consuls offered an opportunity for the tribunes to take action, he spent several days complaining to the plebs about the arrogance of the patricians, criticizing in particular the power of the consuls as excessive and intolerable in a free state. Only in name, he said, was it less hateful than that of king; in reality it was almost more outrageous, since they had gotten two masters in place of one. These magistrates had unrestrained and infinite power; free and unbridled themselves, they turned all the terrors of the law and all its punishments upon the plebs. To prevent their license from going on forever, he was going to propose a law that five men should be elected to write up laws concerning the power of the consuls.²⁵ The people would decide what sanctions a consul could use against them. The consuls’ whims and license would not serve in place of laws.

When the law was proposed, the senators were afraid that, in the absence of the consuls, they would be forced to submit. Then the senate was summoned by Quintus Fabius, the city prefect. He made such a fierce attack on the proposal and its proposer that if both consuls had been there to oppose the tribune, there was no threat or terror that they could have added to his invective. Terentilius, he said, had laid an ambush and picked an opportune time to attack the state. If the gods in their anger had given them a tribune like this in the previous year amid war and plague, there would have been no withstanding him. With the two consuls dead, the citizenry lying sick, and everything in a mess, Terentilius would have proposed laws to do away with consular power and would have led the Volsci and Aequi in an attack on the city. But what was his motive? If the consuls had acted arrogantly or cruelly toward one of the citizens, was he not empowered to summon them into court and accuse them before a jury of the very people who had experienced the outrage? It was not the power of the consuls that Terentilius was making hateful and unbearable, but that of the tribunate—a power that had been reconciled and brought into harmony with the senators but was now being reduced to its old, evil ways.

But, he said, he was not imploring Terentilius to abandon his undertaking.²⁶ “We beg you other tribunes,” said Fabius, “first of all to reflect that tribunician power was designed to help individuals, not to destroy us all. You were elected to be tribunes of the plebs, not enemies of the senators. That the state is being attacked when it is defenseless makes us unhappy, whereas it makes you unpopular. You will diminish not your authority, but your unpopularity, if you plead with your colleague to leave the question alone until the arrival of the consuls. Last year, when both consuls perished, not even the Aequi and Volsci were so arrogant or cruel as to continue the pressure of war on us.” The tribunes pleaded with Terentilius, and, after the measure had been ostensibly postponed but actually thwarted, the consuls were immediately summoned.

10. 462–461 BCE. The consuls return. Terentilius holds up the granting of a triumph but eventually yields. A prodigy foretells an attack on the city. The tribunes protest that the patricians have invented reports of imminent invasion by the Volsci and Aequi in order to block Terentilius’ law.

Lucretius returned with huge booty and even greater glory. On his arrival, he increased his glory by displaying all the booty for three days on the Campus Martius, so that everyone could identify and take what belonged to him. The rest was sold when no owner showed up. There was universal agreement that the consul had earned a triumph, but the matter was postponed because the tribune was pushing for his law. This was the more important issue for the consul. The proposal was debated for several days, not only in the senate but also among the people. Finally the tribune yielded to the authority of the consul and desisted. Then the general and his army were granted their due honor. He triumphed over the Volsci and Aequi, and his legions followed him in the triumphal procession. The other consul was granted an ovation to enter the city without soldiers.²⁷

In the following year, the new consuls, Publius Volumnius and Servius Sulpicius [461 BCE], were confronted by the Terentilian law, which was brought up by the whole tribunician college. In that year the sky was seen to blaze with fire and the earth was shaken by a huge quake. A report that a cow had spoken was given credence, though such a report had not been believed in the previous year. Among other prodigies, there was a rain of flesh that is said to have been seized upon by a large number of birds as they flew in its midst. What was scattered on the ground lay there for several days without making any smell. The Sibylline books were consulted by the two officials in charge of the sacred rites.²⁸ Danger was predicted from a concourse of foreigners lest they attack the highest places of the city and cause bloodshed.²⁹ Among other things, there was a warning to refrain from political strife. The tribunes were charging that this prophecy was intended to hinder the law. A mighty struggle was imminent when—lo and behold!—in order to repeat the same cycle, the Hernici announced that the Volsci and Aequi were again equipping their armies, despite their losses. Antium, they said, was the center of the undertaking; colonists from Antium were openly holding public meetings at Ecetra. This was the source and strength of the war. After this report in the senate, a levy was declared. The consuls were ordered to divide the administration of the war between them; one was to deal with the Volsci, the other with the Aequi.

The tribunes openly and loudly proclaimed in the forum that the story of the Volscians was a fiction, alleging that the Hernici had been prepared for their role. Now the liberty of the Roman people was not even being suppressed by honorable means, but frustrated by artifice. New enemies were being sought now that no one believed that the Volsci and Aequi could possibly prepare for war on their own initiative after their virtual massacre. So, the patricians were maligning a loyal neighboring colony. War was being declared on the innocent people of Antium, but it was being waged against the Roman plebs. The plebs were the people whom the consuls would load with arms, leading them out of the city on a hasty march, to take vengeance on the tribunes by exiling and banishing the citizens. By this means—and they should not think of any other motive—the law was already defeated. The only alternative was for the plebeians to see that they were not driven from the city and subjected to the yoke, while the question was still open and they were resident in Rome, wearing the toga. If they were courageous, help would not be lacking; the tribunes were all of one mind. There was no fear of foreign enemies, no danger. The gods had seen to it in the previous year that liberty could be safely defended. Such were the points made by the tribunes.

11. 461 BCE. The tribunes prevent the consuls from holding a levy. A young noble, Caeso Quinctius, has almost defeated the tribunes when he is indicted by one of them.

But on the other side of the forum, the consuls placed their chairs in view of the tribunes and began to hold the levy. The tribunes ran over to them, drawing the people along with them. A few men were called up as a test. Violence immediately arose. Whenever a lictor arrested a man on the consul’s order, a tribune ordered his release. It was not an individual’s rights that moderated his behavior, but the confidence he had in his physical strength. Force had to be used to get what one wanted. The tribunes employed the same behavior in preventing the levy as the senators did in blocking the law that was brought up every day that a voting assembly could be held. A brawl started because the patricians refused to move when the tribunes ordered the people to separate into their voting units. Almost no older nobles were involved in this matter, which was not to be guided by wisdom, but was given over to reckless bravado. For the most part, even the consuls held back, in order to avoid an affront to their dignity in this mess.

There was a young man, Caeso Quinctius, emboldened by not only his noble birth but also his physical strength and size.³⁰ To these god-given gifts, he himself had added many honors in warfare and an eloquence in the forum, with the result that no one in the state was considered to be a readier speaker or soldier. When he took his place in the midst of a group of patricians, he towered above the others as if he represented all the dictators and consuls in his voice and physique. He alone withstood the attacks of the tribunes and the storms of the demagogues. He often took the lead in driving the tribunes from the forum, routing and putting the plebs to flight. A man who encountered him would come away mauled and stripped. It was quite apparent that if they were to let him behave this way, the law was defeated.

Then, when the other tribunes had almost been beaten down, one of their college named Aulus Verginius indicted Caeso on a capital charge.³¹ This action inflamed rather than terrified Caeso’s fierce nature. He opposed the bill all the more fiercely, stirring up the plebs and harassing the tribunes as if he were fighting a real war. His accuser allowed the defendant to rush around fueling the flames of unpopularity and so adding to the charges against him. Meanwhile Verginius introduced the law, not so much in the expectation of having it passed, as to provoke Caeso’s recklessness. So many things that had often been ill-advisedly said or done by the young nobles were blamed solely on Caeso, since his character was under suspicion. Nevertheless he continued to resist the law. Aulus Verginius repeatedly said to the plebeians, “Now don’t you realize, Quirites, that you can’t at the same time have Caeso as fellow citizen and the law that you desire? And yet why do I say ‘law’? It’s your liberty that he is opposing. He surpasses all the Tarquins in his arrogance. Just wait until this man becomes consul or dictator—this private citizen whom you see ruling by virtue of his strength and audacity!” There were many who agreed with the tribune, complaining of the beatings they had received, and so they freely urged him to see the matter through to the end.

12. The leading men speak on Caeso’s behalf.

The day of the trial was already drawing near, and it was generally clear that men believed that their liberty depended on Caeso’s condemnation. Then, at last, he was forced, though with great disdain, to canvass the support of individuals. His relatives, leading men of the state, followed him around. Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, who had been consul three times, repeated the many honors that he and his family had held, declaring that never in the Quinctian family, nor in the state, had there been such inborn qualities that had matured into such excellence. Caeso had been his foremost soldier; he personally had often watched him fighting an enemy. Spurius Furius declared that Caeso had been sent to him by Quinctius Capitolinus and had come to his aid when he was in danger. There was no one person, he thought, whose efforts had contributed more to saving the situation.

Resplendent in his recent glory, Lucius Lucretius, consul in the previous year, shared his praise with Caeso, recalling the battles and recounting Caeso’s outstanding deeds on raids and on the field of battle. He persuaded and advised the people to prefer that this outstanding young man should be a citizen of no state except their own, raised as he had been with every advantage of nature and good fortune, a man who would be of the greatest importance to whatever state he might go. As for his offensive qualities, impetuosity and recklessness, these were diminishing daily as he grew older, whereas the prudence that he lacked was increasing day by day. As his faults faded, so his good qualities matured. They should allow such a great man to grow old as a citizen of Rome. His father, Lucius Quinctius, whose last name was Cincinnatus, spoke on his behalf. He did not reiterate his son’s praises, lest he add to his unpopularity, but asked them to pardon his youthful errors, begging them to acquit Caeso as a favor to his father, who had offended no one in word or in deed. But some rejected his prayers, either through embarrassment or fear. Others, complaining of the injuries they and their friends had received, revealed how they intended to vote by their harsh response.

13. A former tribune, Marcus Volscius Fictor, alleges that Caeso was responsible for his brother’s death. Caeso is allowed to give bail but goes into exile.

In addition to his general unpopularity, there was one charge that was damaging to the accused. Marcus Volscius Fictor, who had been a tribune of the plebs a few years earlier, came forward as a witness, saying that not long after the plague in the city, he had run into a band of young men who were having a riotous time in the Subura.³² A brawl had arisen, and his older brother, who had not yet sufficiently recovered his strength after the plague, had collapsed after being struck by Caeso’s fist. Half alive, he was picked up and carried home. Volscius thought that his brother’s subsequent death had resulted from this. Under the consuls of the previous years, however, he had not been permitted to avenge that savage assault.

As Fictor shouted this story, men were so excited that Caeso was almost killed by the onrush of the people. Verginius ordered him to be arrested and led off to prison. The patricians resisted force with force. Titus Quinctius shouted out that a man who had been charged with a capital crime and whose trial was pending ought not to be subject to physical violence before his case had been heard or sentence passed. The tribune said that he was not going to punish a man who had not been condemned; he should, however, be kept in prison until the day of the trial so that the people would have the opportunity to punish a man who had committed homicide. The other tribunes, when appealed to, exercised their right of protection by offering a compromise:³³ they forbade his imprisonment but announced their decision that the defendant should appear in court and that money be pledged to the people in case he should fail to appear. The amount of money that was reasonable was a matter of doubt. It was referred to the senate, and the defendant was retained in state custody while the senators were consulted. They decreed that sureties should be given and fixed one surety at 3,000 asses. How many sureties should be given was left to the tribunes to decide. They fixed it at ten. With this number of sureties, the accuser granted bail to the accused. This was the first instance of a man giving public bail.

After being allowed to leave the forum, Caeso went into exile among the Etruscans that night. On the day of the trial, the excuse was made that he had changed his residence and become an exile, but nonetheless Verginius summoned the people to assemble in court. An appeal, however, was made to his colleagues, who dismissed the assembly. The money was mercilessly exacted from his father, who had to sell up all his property and live for some time in a remote hovel on the other side of the Tiber, as if banished.

14. The younger patricians manage to control the plebs and block Terentilius’ law. The tribunes are reelected.

This trial and the promulgation of the law agitated the citizens, but there was a respite from foreign wars. Now that the patricians were defeated by Caeso’s exile, the tribunes behaved like victors, believing that the law had all but passed. As far as the older senators were concerned, they had relinquished their hold on government, but the younger senators, especially Caeso’s associates, were even angrier at the plebs; they did not lessen their resolve but furthered their cause by tempering their impulses with a certain moderation. At the first attempt to pass the law after Caeso’s exile, they were organized and ready. As soon as the tribunes gave them an excuse by trying to remove them from the assembly, they attacked the tribunes with a large army of clients. No individual went home distinguished either for his glory or unpopularity, and the plebeians complained that a thousand Caesos had arisen in place of one.

In the intervening days when the tribunes took no action on the law, nothing was more peaceful or quiet than these same young nobles. They would give the plebeians a courteous greeting, converse with them, invite them to their homes, support them in their business in the forum, and allow the tribunes themselves to hold the rest of their assemblies without interruption. Neither publicly nor privately were the young men harsh toward anyone, except when discussion of the law began; in every other way they were like the popular faction. The tribunes carried through their other measures without opposition and were even reelected for the following year, without any objection being raised, not to mention violence. The young nobles had tamed the plebs, soothing and controlling them little by little.³⁴ By such devices, the law was avoided for the whole year.

15. 460 BCE. The struggle over Terentilius’ law continues. In a surprise attack, a Sabine, Appius Herdonius, seizes the Capitol, aiming to restore exiles and free slaves.

The consuls Gaius Claudius, son of Appius, and Publius Valerius Publicola took over quite a peaceful state. The new year brought no new problem: the state was gripped with anxiety either about passing the law or having to accept it. The more the younger patricians tried to ingratiate themselves with the plebs, the more keenly the tribunes fought back. By bringing charges against the young nobles, the tribunes aimed to make the plebs suspicious of them. They alleged that a conspiracy had been made; Caeso was in Rome; plans had been hatched to kill the tribunes and butcher the plebs. The older patricians had charged the younger ones with the business of eliminating tribunician power from the state, so that the citizenry might be the same as it had been before the occupation of the Sacred Mount. There was also fear of war from the Volsci and Aequi, a situation that was now a regular and almost annual ritual.

Unexpectedly a new problem arose nearer to home. Exiles and slaves, some 4,500 of them, occupied the Capitol and citadel by night, under the leadership of the Sabine Appius Herdonius.³⁵ Immediately all those in the citadel who refused to join the conspiracy and take up arms were slaughtered. Amid the confusion some rushed headlong to the forum, panic-stricken. Alternating cries were heard, “To arms” and “The enemy is in the city.” The consuls were afraid both of arming the plebs and of leaving them unarmed, since they were uncertain what kind of trouble had suddenly befallen the city: whether it was from within or without; whether it was the result of plebeian hatred or the treachery of slaves. They tried to calm the uproar, but sometimes efforts at calming only increased it. Nor could the terrified and panic-stricken mob be controlled by their authority. Nevertheless they gave arms not to everyone but only to a number that would ensure a sufficiently loyal garrison in the face of an unknown enemy. Anxious and uncertain who the enemy was or what their numbers were, they spent the rest of the night posting guards at suitable points throughout the city.

Dawn revealed the war and its leader. From the Capitol, Appius Herdonius was summoning the slaves to freedom, declaring that he had taken up the cause of all the unfortunate so that he might restore to their native land the exiles who had been unjustly driven out and release the slaves from their heavy yoke.³⁶ He preferred that this be done with the authority of the Roman people. But if there were no hope of this, he would go to the utmost extreme and stir up the Volsci and Aequi.

16. The tribunes of the plebs take advantage of the senators’ fear of a slave revolt and try to pass Terentilius’ bill.

The situation became clearer to the senators and consuls. Nevertheless, in addition to the threats that had been declared, they were afraid that this was a plan on the part of the Veientines or Sabines. Since so many enemies were in the city, Sabine and Etruscan legions might soon make a prearranged attack. Then their perpetual foes, the Volsci and Aequi, might come, not to plunder their territory as before, but to the city itself now that it was partly captured. Many and various were their fears, but above all the rest their fear of the slaves was preeminent. Each man was afraid that he had an enemy in his own household whom it was neither quite safe to trust nor, from lack of confidence, to distrust, lest he become more hostile.³⁷ Establishing harmony scarcely seemed possible.

With other mounting and overwhelming problems, no one feared the tribunes or the plebs. That problem had been tamed.³⁸ It was something that always happened when there was a respite from other problems, but now it seemed to have quieted down, lulled to sleep as a result of this foreign terror. But in fact it almost proved to be the one thing that weighed most heavily upon their sinking fortunes. Such madness gripped the tribunes that they maintained that it was not war but the empty image of war that had taken possession of the Capitol, devised in order to divert the minds of the plebs from their concern about the law. Once they realized that the law had been passed and their insurrection had been in vain, the friends and clients of the patricians would depart more silently than they had come. Summoning the people to lay down their arms, the tribunes held an assembly to pass the measure. Meanwhile the consuls were holding a meeting of the senate, where fear of the tribunes was greater than that caused by the enemy’s night attack.

17. The plebs respond to the tribunes’ summons to vote on the law, but the consul Valerius tries to rally the people to take up arms and rescue the gods who are under siege. The senators attempt to break the impasse.

On hearing that the men were laying down their arms and abandoning their posts, Publius Valerius left his colleague to keep the senate in session and rushed from the senate house into the area where the tribunes were holding their meeting. “Tribunes, what’s going on?” he cried. “Are you going to overthrow the state under the leadership and auspices of Appius Herdonius? Has the man who could not start a slave revolt succeeded in corrupting you? When the enemy are upon us, are you choosing to abandon your arms and go off to vote?”

Then he turned to address the crowd: “If you are touched by no concern for your city, Quirites, or for yourselves, then at least show respect for your gods who have been captured by the enemy. Jupiter the Best and Greatest, Queen Juno, Minerva, and the other gods and goddesses are under siege. A slave camp has possession of the guardian deities (penates) of your country.³⁹ Does this seem to you to be a healthy state? A large number of enemy forces are not only inside the walls but on the citadel, overlooking the forum and the senate house. Meanwhile, in the forum there is an assembly, and the senate is in the senate house. As if peace prevails, a senator is voicing his opinion and other citizens are casting their vote! Shouldn’t every patrician and plebeian, the consuls, tribunes, gods, and men have taken up arms and helped, rushing to the Capitol and bringing freedom and peace to that most revered house of Jupiter the Best and Greatest? Father Romulus, grant to your descendants the spirit that you showed when you regained the Capitol from these same Sabines who had captured it with gold. Order them to advance along the same path that you and your army took. Behold! I, the consul, will follow you and your footsteps, insofar as I, a mortal, can follow a god.”

He ended his speech by proclaiming that he was taking up arms and summoning all the Quirites to arms. If anyone resisted, he would forget consular authority, tribunician power, and the laws of sacrosanctity; whoever the man, wherever he might be, on the Capitol or in the forum, he, Valerius, would regard him as a public enemy. Since the tribunes forbade an attack on Appius Herdonius, let them order that arms be taken up against the consul Publius Valerius. He would deal with the tribunes as boldly as the head of his family had dealt with the kings.⁴⁰

It was apparent that extreme violence would ensue, affording the enemy the spectacle of sedition among the Romans. Yet the law could not be passed, nor could the consul proceed to the Capitol. Night put an end to the struggle. The tribunes yielded as night fell, fearing the armed might of the consuls. Once the leaders of the sedition were out of the way, the senators circulated among the plebs, mingling with them in groups and planting words that were appropriate to the situation. They advised them to consider the crisis they had brought upon the state: it was not a struggle between patricians and plebeians. Rather, the patricians and plebeians alike, the city’s citadel, the gods’ temples, and the guardian deities of the state and of each household were being surrendered to the enemy. While this was going on in the forum to calm the discord, the consuls had set out to make their rounds of the walls and gates in case Sabine or Veientine foes were on the move.

18. Unasked, Tusculum sends forces to Rome. With their help, the consul Valerius Publicola retakes the Capitol but is killed in the fighting.

That same night, news of the capture of the citadel, the occupation of the Capitol, and the general state of disorder in the city reached Tusculum. Lucius Mamilius was then dictator at Tusculum.⁴¹ He immediately summoned the senate and, after introducing the messengers, strongly recommended that they should not wait for envoys to arrive from Rome seeking help. The danger itself, the crisis, the gods of their alliance, and their loyalty to the treaty demanded this course of action. The gods would never give them such a good opportunity to put so powerful a neighboring state under an obligation by doing it a service. The senate decided to help; young men were enrolled and arms issued. As they approached Rome at dawn, from afar they looked like enemies. It seemed that the Volsci or Aequi were coming.

When the terror turned out to be unfounded, they were received into the city and marched in a line down into the forum. Publius Valerius had left his colleague to protect the gates and was already there drawing up the battle line. His personal influence had prevailed, and he had given the following assurance: when the Capitol was recovered and peace restored to the city, if they would allow him to explain what hidden trickery of the tribunes lay in the proposed law, he would be mindful of his ancestors and his cognomen, the People’s Friend, which his forebears had handed down to him like a legacy.⁴² Furthermore, he would not interfere with the Council of the Plebs.

Following him as their leader, despite the vain cries of the tribunes, the battle line advanced up the Capitoline slope, accompanied by the contingent from Tusculum. Allies and citizens vied with each other for the honor of recovering the citadel, as each leader urged his own men on. Then the enemy began to tremble, having no confidence in anything but their position. As they trembled, the Romans and their allies advanced their standards against them. They had already broken through to the vestibule of the temple, when Publius Valerius was killed as he spurred on the fighting in the front line. Publius Volumnius, a former consul, saw him fall and ordered his men to cover the body.⁴³ Volumnius flew into the consul’s place and took over his role. In the heat of the attack, the realization of this important happening did not reach the soldiers. They were victorious before they realized that they were fighting without their commander. Many of the exiles defiled the temples with their own blood; many were taken alive; Herdonius was killed. And so the Capitol was recovered. The captives were punished each according to their status, whether they were free or slaves.⁴⁴ The people of Tusculum were thanked, the Capitolium cleansed and ceremonially purified. It is said that the plebeians tossed small coins into the consul’s house so that he might have a more distinguished funeral.

19. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, elected as consul in place of Publicola, reprimands all the citizens—patricians, plebs, and tribunes—for their behavior in the recent crisis.

When peace had been established, the tribunes then began to press the patricians to fulfill Valerius’ promise and to urge Gaius Claudius to absolve his colleague’s shade from deceit and allow the law to be discussed.⁴⁵ The consul replied that he would not allow discussion of the law until he had completed the election of a colleague. These disputes continued right up to the time when the assembly met to fill the vacant consulship. In December, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the father of Caeso, was elected as consul with the huge support of the senators, to assume office immediately. The plebs were dismayed that they were going to have an irate consul whose power came from the support of the patricians, his own worth, and his three sons, none of whom was inferior to Caeso in greatness of spirit, but who, when occasion demanded, surpassed him in wisdom and restraint.

On entering office, Cincinnatus gave a series of harangues from the tribunal and was just as vehement in restraining the plebs as in castigating the senate.⁴⁶ It was because of the senate’s apathy, he said, that the tribunes of the plebs were now exercising continuous rule with their speeches and accusations, as if they were in a disorderly household rather than the commonwealth of the Roman people. Valor, steadfastness, and all the honors that young men could win in war and civil life had been driven from Rome and put to flight, along with his son Caeso. Garrulous and seditious, sowing the seeds of discord, the tribunes were obtaining office a second and third time by employing the worst means and acting with a lawlessness that was typical of kings. “Did Aulus Verginius,” he cried, “deserve less punishment than Appius Herdonius, just because he was not on the Capitol? By Hercules, if one were willing to be fair, he deserved somewhat more.⁴⁷ If nothing else, by declaring himself your enemy, Herdonius proclaimed that you should take up arms. But Verginius, by denying the existence of a war, took away your weapons and left you exposed to your slaves and to exiles. But—with due respect to Gaius Claudius and the deceased Publius Valerius—did you advance the standards up the Capitoline slope without first removing these enemies from the forum?

“What happened is a disgrace to gods and men. When the enemy was in the citadel and Capitol, their leader—a commander of exiles and slaves—desecrated all the sacred places and even lived in the shrine of Jupiter the Best and Greatest. Arms were first taken up in Tusculum, not Rome. It was not clear whether Lucius Mamilius, the Tusculan commander, or Publius Valerius and Gaius Claudius, the consuls, would liberate the citadel of Rome. In the past we did not allow the Latins to arm themselves, even in their own defense, when they had an enemy within their borders.⁴⁸ And we would now have been captured and wiped out had the Latins not taken up arms spontaneously. Is this what you tribunes call ‘helping the plebs,’ when you expose them, unarmed, to be slaughtered by the enemy? If the humblest of your plebs—a part of the people that you have cut off, as it were, from the rest, making them a second state and a country that belongs entirely to you—if one of these men were to announce that his home had been put under siege by an armed band of his household slaves, you would surely think that help should be given. Didn’t Jupiter Best and Greatest deserve some human help when he was besieged by armed exiles and slaves? And do these tribunes demand that they be considered sacred and inviolate when, in their view, the gods themselves are neither? Yet, overwhelmed as you are by crimes against both gods and men, you nonetheless keep saying that you are going to pass the law this year. By Hercules, the state was badly served on the day that I was elected consul, far worse than when Publius Valerius perished, if indeed you do pass it.

“Now, first of all, fellow citizens, I and my colleague intend to lead the legions against the Volsci and Aequi. We are somehow fated to have the gods on our side to a greater extent when we are making war than when we are at peace. How great a danger these people would have presented had they known that the Capitol was besieged by exiles is better left for you to imagine from past events than to experience in reality.”

20. 460 BCE. The tribunes fail to stop a levy, but there are rumors that the assembly is going to meet at Lake Regillus to annul tribunician legislation and that Cincinnatus will appoint a dictator.

The consul’s speech impressed the plebs. The senators were encouraged, believing that the state had been restored to its old self. The other consul, more spirited as a supporter than as an initiator, readily allowed his colleague to take the lead in such important matters but claimed for himself a share in the duties of the consulship when it came to carrying them out. Then the tribunes, mocking what they deemed Quinctius’ empty words, persisted in asking how the consuls were going to lead an army when no one was going to allow them to hold a levy. “But we have no need of a levy,” said Quinctius. “When Publius Valerius gave arms to the plebs to recover the Capitol, everyone swore that they would assemble at the bidding of the consul and not depart without his orders. Therefore we command that all those who took the oath assemble in arms tomorrow near Lake Regillus.”

Then the tribunes began to quibble, wanting to release the people from their religious obligation. They pointed out that Quinctius had been a private citizen at the time they had been bound by the oath. But the disregard of the gods that now grips our times had not yet arrived.⁴⁹ Nor did everyone interpret oaths and laws to suit his own convenience but rather adapted his own behavior in accordance with them. And so, since there was no hope of preventing the levy, the tribunes acted to delay the army’s departure, especially because a rumor had gone around that the augurs had been ordered to be present at Lake Regillus. There they were to inaugurate a place where auspices could be taken and the people’s assembly could meet; the purpose of the assembly was to annul any measure that had been enacted as a result of tribunician violence. Everyone, according to the rumor, would vote as the consuls wanted, since the right of appeal did not extend more than a mile from the city; the tribunes, should they come there, would be subject to the consuls’ power along with the rest of the crowd of Roman citizens. This was what terrified them. But the greatest terror that bothered them was that Quinctius was repeatedly saying that he would not hold the consular elections. The sickness of the state was not one that could be stopped by the usual remedies. The state needed a dictator, so that anyone who tried to disturb the status quo of the polity would realize that the dictatorship carried no right of appeal.

21. The tribunes yield to the authority of the senate and a compromise is reached. Terentilius’ law is again shelved. Although the senate passes a decree against the reelection of serving officials, the tribunes are reelected. Cincinnatus argues against his own reelection.

The senate was in session on the Capitol. The tribunes came there with the plebs, who were in a state of agitation. With a huge outcry the crowd begged the trust, now of the consuls and now of the senators. They did not move the consul from his intent until the tribunes promised that they would submit to the authority of the senators. The consul then brought up the demands of the tribunes and the plebs, and the senate decreed that the tribunes should not proceed with the law in that year, nor should the consuls lead the army out of the city. As for the future, the senators gave their judgment that it was contrary to the interests of the state for magistrates to succeed themselves and for tribunes to be reelected. The consuls were influenced by the senators, but the tribunes were reelected despite the consuls’ protests. In retaliation, the senators also tried to get Lucius Quinctius reelected as consul.

During the entire year, no speech of the consul was more vehement than the following. “Am I to be surprised,” he said, “if your authority with the plebs is ineffectual? You are the ones who diminish it. Because the plebs have nullified the senate’s decree regarding successive terms, you also want to nullify it to avoid giving in to the rashness of the crowd, as if superior power in the state were the equivalent of irresponsibility and lawlessness. It is more irresponsible and ineffectual to nullify one’s own decrees and resolutions than those of others. Conscript Fathers, go and imitate the thoughtless crowd. You senators, who ought to be setting an example for others, go and make the mistake of following the example of others, rather than letting them do right by following your example. But I will not imitate the tribunes, nor will I allow myself to be proclaimed as consul contrary to the senatorial decree. And I urge you, Gaius Claudius, to restrain the Roman people from this lawlessness and, as far as I am concerned, to be assured that I will not feel that you prevented my reelection to office.⁵⁰ Rather I will think that the renown of this office will have been increased by my rejection of it, and that the unpopularity that would attend its continuation will have been diminished.” The senators united and issued an edict that no one should vote for Lucius Quinctius as consul. If anyone so voted, they would disregard his vote.

22. 459 BCE. The consul Fabius drives the Volsci from their camp outside Antium.

Elected as consuls were Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, for the third time, and Lucius Cornelius Maluginensis [459 BCE]. The census was taken in that year, but there was a religious problem with closing the lustrum on account of the capture of the Capitol and the slaying of the consul.⁵¹ The consulship of Quintus Fabius and Lucius Cornelius was turbulent right from the start. The tribunes were goading the plebeians. The Latins and Hernici were reporting that the Aequi and Volsci were preparing a great war: Volscian legions were already at Antium, and there was a great fear that the colony itself would revolt. With difficulty the tribunes were persuaded to allow the war to take precedence.

Then the consuls were allocated their provinces. Fabius was assigned to lead the legions to Antium, and Cornelius was to garrison Rome, in case some part of the enemy should come on a plundering raid, as was the custom of the Aequi. In accordance with the treaty, the Hernici and Latins were ordered to furnish soldiers. Two-thirds of the army were allies, one-third citizens. When the allies arrived on the prearranged date, the consul pitched camp outside the Capena Gate. Then, after purifying the army, he set out for Antium and took up a position not far from the town and the permanent camp of the enemy.⁵² Because an army had not yet arrived from the Aequi, the Volsci did not dare to fight but prepared to stay quiet and protect themselves within the rampart.

On the following day, instead of drawing up one battle line combining allies and citizens, Fabius drew up the three peoples in three separate battle lines around the enemy’s rampart. He himself was in the middle with the Roman legions. He ordered them all to watch for the signal so that he and the allies might coordinate the beginning of the engagement and the withdrawal, if he should sound the retreat. He placed the cavalry belonging to each detachment behind its first line. Then he advanced in three sections and surrounded the camp. Pressing from all sides, he dislodged the Volsci from their entrenchments, for they were unable to withstand his attack. He crossed the fortifications and drove the panic-stricken mob in a single direction, expelling them from their camp. As they fled in disarray, the cavalry, which had had difficulty in surmounting the rampart and had thus been spectators of the battle, now had a clear field and enjoyed their part of the victory as they cut down the terrified foe. Great was the slaughter of the fugitives, both in the camp and outside the fortifications, but the booty was even greater because the enemy had barely been able to carry away their weaponry. The army would have been destroyed had not the forests covered their flight.

23. The Aequi, in a surprise attack, occupy the citadel of Tusculum. The consul Fabius hastens from Antium and starves them into submission.

While this was happening at Antium, the Aequi had meanwhile sent their best troops and seized the citadel of Tusculum in a surprise night attack. With the rest of the army, they took up a position not far from the walls of Tusculum to stretch the enemies’ forces. This news speedily reached Rome, and from Rome to the camp at Antium, having the same effect on the Romans as if it were news of the capture of the Capitol. The service rendered by Tusculum was so recent and the danger so similar that repayment of the help they had given seemed imperative. Fabius dropped everything else and hastily took the booty from the camp to Antium. Leaving a moderate-sized garrison there, he hastened by forced marches to Tusculum. He allowed the soldiers to take nothing but their weapons and whatever prepared food was at hand. The consul Cornelius sent regular supplies from Rome.

The war at Tusculum went on for several months. The consul attacked the Aequian camp with part of his army, assigning another part to the Tusculans to recover the citadel. The place could not be approached by assault. Starvation finally drove the enemy out. When they had been reduced to this extremity, they were sent under the yoke by the Tusculans, stripped and without weapons. As they withdrew in shameful flight to their homes, the Roman consul caught up with them on Mount Algidus and killed them all to a man. Victorious, he led the army back to a place called Columen and pitched camp.⁵³ The other consul set out from Rome, now that the defeat of the enemy had removed the danger to the city’s defenses. Then the two consuls invaded the enemy’s borders at two points, competing with each other in devastating the Volsci on this side and the Aequi on that. I find in a good many sources that the people of Antium revolted in this year and that the consul Lucius Cornelius conducted that war and took the town. I would not dare to confirm this as a certainty because there is no mention of this event in the older sources.⁵⁴

24. The deceit of Marcus Volscius Fictor is revealed, but his prosecution is delayed. Despite the consuls’ opposition, the tribunes are reelected.

When this war was over, war against the tribunes at home alarmed the patricians. The tribunes exclaimed that the army was fraudulently being kept in the field—a trick intended to frustrate the passage of the law; nonetheless they would complete their undertaking. But the prefect of the city, Lucius Lucretius, obtained the postponement of any tribunician action until the consuls returned. There was also a new cause for unrest. The quaestors Aulus Cornelius and Quintus Servilius indicted Marcus Volscius because he had undoubtedly given false testimony against Caeso.⁵⁵ From many indications it was emerging that Volscius’ brother not only had never been seen in public from the time that he became ill, but he had not even left his sickbed and had died after a wasting disease that lasted many months. Nor had Caeso been seen in Rome during the time that Volscius charged he had committed the crime. Those who had served with him affirmed that he had regularly been with them in the field and had taken no furloughs. To refute this, many people proposed that Volscius bring the question before a private prosecutor. Since he did not dare to go to arbitration, everything pointed in one direction, putting Volscius’ condemnation in no more doubt than that of Caeso had been as a result of Volscius’ testimony.

The tribunes delayed the matter, saying that they would not allow the quaestors to hold an assembly for his trial until one had been held to discuss the law. And so, both matters dragged on until the consuls arrived. They entered the city in triumph with their victorious army, and, since nothing was said about the law, the majority believed that the tribunes had been defeated. But they were aiming at a fourth tribunate—it was now the end of the year—and they turned the issue from the law to a dispute about the elections. And although the consuls held out against their reelection to the tribunate just as if a law to diminish their own power were being promulgated, the tribunes were victors in the struggle.

In the same year, peace was granted to the Aequi in response to their request. The census that had been begun in the previous year was completed, and this, they say, was the tenth lustrum since the foundation of the city.⁵⁶ One hundred and seventeen thousand, three hundred and nineteen citizens were enrolled. The consuls won great glory in this year, both at home and in the field; they achieved peace abroad, and, though the state was not yet harmonious at home, it was less troubled than at other times.

25. 458 BCE. Titus Quinctius Capitolinus takes up the cause of his nephew Caeso. An invasion of the Aequi further delays the passage of Terentilius’ law. The tribunes try to prevent the levy.

Lucius Minucius and Gaius Nautius were the next consuls, taking up the two causes left over from the previous year [458 BCE]. As before, the consuls tried to block the law, and the tribunes Volscius’ trial. But the new quaestors had greater force and influence. Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, who had been consul three times, was quaestor along with Marcus Valerius, the son of Manius and grandson of Volesus. Since it was not possible to bring Caeso back to his family nor the finest of her young men to the state, Capitolinus waged war, as justice and family loyalty required, against the perjured witness who had deprived an innocent man of the ability to speak in his own defense. Among the tribunes, Verginius was especially active in advocating the law. An interval of two months was given to the consuls to examine the law so that they could instruct the people as to what hidden trickery it contained; then they would allow a vote. The granting of this interval calmed the situation in the city. But the Aequi did not give them a lasting respite. They broke the treaty that had been made with the Romans the year before and entrusted the command of their forces to Gracchus Cloelius, by far the most outstanding leader among the Aequi.

With Gracchus as their general, they invaded first the territory of Lanuvium and then that of Tusculum.⁵⁷ Loaded with booty, they pitched camp on Mount Algidus. Quintus Fabius, Publius Volumnius, and Aulus Postumius came from Rome to their camp to complain of the wrongs and to demand satisfaction in accordance with the treaty. The Aequian general ordered them to give their orders from the Roman senate to the oak tree, saying that meanwhile he would get on with other business. The oak, a huge tree, overhung the general’s headquarters, offering a resting place in its dense shade. Then one of the envoys, as he departed, said, “Let the sacred oak and whatever gods there are hear that the treaty has been broken by you. Let them support our complaints now and later our arms when we shall avenge the simultaneous violation of the rights of gods and of men.” When the envoys returned to Rome, the senate ordered one consul to lead the army to Algidus against Gracchus, charging the other to plunder the territory of the Aequi. The tribunes, as was their custom, tried to prevent the levy and might perhaps have held out to the end, but suddenly a new terror arose.

26. The Sabines again invade Roman territory, and the consul Minucius is besieged in his camp. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus is appointed dictator and returns to Rome from his farm.

A huge force of Sabines made a plundering raid and almost reached the walls of Rome; the fields were despoiled and the city stricken with terror. At this, the plebs willingly took up arms. The protests of the tribunes were in vain; two large armies were enrolled, one of which Nautius led against the Sabines, pitching camp near Eretum.⁵⁸ He made small raids, mostly night attacks, and created such devastation in the Sabine countryside that, in comparison, the Roman territory seemed almost untouched by war. Minucius had neither the same good fortune nor the forceful purpose in the execution of his assignment. He pitched camp not far from the enemy and, after sustaining a minor defeat, took fright and stayed inside the camp. When the enemy realized this, their boldness increased as a result of their opponents’ fear, as happens. They attacked by night and, when open force did not produce results, surrounded the camp with siegeworks the next day. But before these could be completed to close all the exits, five cavalrymen were sent to Rome through the enemy’s outposts with the news that the consul and army were under siege. Nothing more surprising or unexpected could have happened. The panic and fear were just as great as if the enemy were besieging the city, not a camp. They sent for the consul Nautius. But since he did not seem equal to the task, it was decided to appoint a dictator to restore their stricken fortunes. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was nominated by unanimous consent.

What followed deserves the attention of all those who reject all human qualities in preference for riches and think that there is no room for great honors or valor except amid an abundance of wealth.⁵⁹ The sole hope of the rule of the Roman people, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, cultivated a field of some four acres across the Tiber, an area known as the Quinctian Meadows, opposite the place where the dockyards are now.⁶⁰ There he was found by the delegation from the senate. Whether he was bending over his spade as he dug a ditch or plowing, he was certainly, as is generally agreed, intent on the job of working the land. After they had exchanged greetings, he was asked to put on his toga and listen to the senate’s mandate, which, they prayed, might turn out well for him and the state. Amazed, he asked, “Is everything all right?” as he ordered his wife Racilia to bring his toga quickly from the hut.⁶¹ Wiping off the dust and sweat, he put on his toga and stepped forward. The delegates saluted him as dictator, congratulated him, and summoned him to the city, explaining the terrifying situation in the army. The state had provided a boat for Quinctius, and, as he reached the other side, his three sons came to meet him, followed by his other relatives and friends and then most of the senators. Attended by this throng, with lictors leading the way, he was escorted to his home. There was also a large gathering of plebeians, who were not so pleased to see Quinctius because they thought that the power of the dictatorship was excessive and that this man would prove too extreme as a result of that power. Nothing more was done that night except to keep watch in the city.

27. 458 BCE. Cincinnatus immediately makes preparations to relieve the beleaguered consul, sets out from the city before nightfall, and reaches Algidus in the middle of the night.

On the following day, the dictator went into the forum before dawn and named as his master of the horse Lucius Tarquinius, a man of patrician birth who, because of his poverty, had served in the infantry but was nonetheless considered to be by far the best of the Roman warriors.⁶² With his master of the horse, Cincinnatus came before an assembly of the people and proclaimed a suspension of public business, ordered the shops throughout the city to be closed, and forbade anyone to engage in any private business. He then commanded all the men of military age to assemble in arms on the Campus Martius before sunset, bringing cooked rations for five days and twelve stakes.⁶³ Those who were too old to go on campaign he ordered to cook rations for their neighbors who were serving as soldiers, while the latter were preparing their weapons and in search of stakes. And so the young men ran off in different directions to look for stakes, taking whatever was nearest to hand. No one was stopped. They all presented themselves promptly, as the dictator had decreed. He then drew up the column to be ready as much for fighting, should the need arise, as for marching. The dictator himself led the legions, and the master of the horse the cavalry. In each line they voiced the words of encouragement that the situation demanded: they should speed up; they needed to hurry so that they could reach the enemy while it was still night. A consul and Roman army were under siege and had been cut off for three days. What each day and night might bring was uncertain. The turning points of great events often hinged on a single moment. The soldiers also pleased their commanders by shouting to each other, “Hurry up, standard-bearer!” “Men, follow his lead!” In the middle of the night they reached Algidus and halted when they realized that they were now close to the enemy.

28. Cincinnatus surrounds the besiegers with a palisade. After fierce fighting, the Aequi surrender and Cincinnatus humiliates them by making them pass under the yoke.

The dictator rode around and observed, as best he could in the darkness, the extent and shape of the camp; then he directed the military tribunes to order the men to throw their packs into one place and return to their ranks with their weapons and stakes. His orders were carried out. Then, keeping the order of their march, he surrounded the enemy camp with his entire army in an extended line. He ordered them to raise a shout when the signal was given; after shouting, each man was to dig a ditch and make a rampart in front of his own position. The signal followed close on the issuing of these commands. The men carried out his orders. The shouts resounded all around the enemy, went over their camp, and reached the camp of the consul Minucius. In the one place, it caused panic; in the other, great joy. The Romans were thankful that the shout came from their fellow citizens and that help was at hand. They even took the initiative, threatening the enemy with attacks from their outposts and guard stations. Minucius said that they must not delay: that shout signified not only the arrival of help but also the beginning of battle. It would also be surprising if the enemy camp were not already under attack from outside. And so he ordered his men to take up arms and follow him. The battle began in darkness. With a shout, they signaled to the dictator’s legions that for their part, too, they were in the fight.

The Aequi were already preparing to prevent the efforts to surround them when the fighting was begun by the enemy from within their camp. To prevent a sortie through the middle of their camp, they turned from fighting those who were entrenching themselves to face the forces attacking from within, thus giving the encircling forces the rest of the night to continue their work. The engagement with the consul lasted until dawn. At first light the Aequi were already enclosed by the dictator’s rampart and were having difficulty withstanding the battle against one army. Then their rampart was stormed by Quinctius’ army, which had taken up their weapons as soon as they had completed their siegework. Here a new battle threatened, and there had been no letup in the other. Then, under the pressure of this double danger, the Aequi turned from fighting to praying as they begged the dictator on the one side and the consul on the other not to make their victory end in a massacre, but to take their weapons and let them go.

The consul ordered them to go to the dictator, who, in his anger, added humiliating conditions to their surrender.⁶⁴ He ordered that Gracchus Cloelius, their chief, and other leading men be brought to him in chains and that the town of Corbio be evacuated.⁶⁵ He said that he did not need Aequian blood; they were permitted to go. But in order to exact a confession that their people had been defeated and subjugated, they were to pass under the yoke. A yoke was made from three spears; two of these were fixed in the ground and the third laid across them and bound. Under this yoke the dictator sent the Aequi.

29. Cincinnatus reprimands the consular army, awards booty only to his own men, and demotes Minucius. He celebrates a triumph and resigns from the dictatorship immediately after the condemnation of Volscius. The tribunes are reelected for the fifth time.

The captured enemy camp was full of all kinds of supplies—Cincinnatus had sent the Aequi away with nothing—and he gave all the booty exclusively to his own soldiers, reprimanding the consular army and the consul himself. “Soldiers,” he said, “you will not have a share of the booty from the enemy whose booty you almost became. And as for you, Lucius Minucius, until you have the spirit of a consul, you will command these legions as a lieutenant.” So, Minucius resigned from the consulship and, as ordered, remained with the army. But the spirit of this army was so obedient and submissive toward a superior commander that they remembered the good he had done rather than his reprimand and voted the dictator a golden crown weighing one pound, saluting him as their patron as he departed.⁶⁶

In Rome, the senate, convened by Quintus Fabius, who was in charge of the city, ordered Quinctius to enter the city in triumph with his troops in the same formation as that in which they had marched. The enemy leaders were led in front of his chariot, military standards were carried at the head of the procession, and the army followed, laden with booty. Feasts are said to have been set before all the houses; the soldiers followed the dictator’s chariot, feasting as they marched, singing the triumphal song, and shouting gibes like revelers.⁶⁷ On that day, with everyone’s approval, citizenship was given to Lucius Mamilius of Tusculum.

The dictator would immediately have resigned from office had not the trial of Marcus Volscius, the false witness, held him back. Fear of the dictator prevented the tribunes from blocking the trial. Volscius was condemned and went into exile at Lanuvium. On the sixteenth day, Quinctius resigned from the dictatorship, though his term was for six months.⁶⁸ During that time, the consul Nautius fought a successful battle near Eretum against the Sabines, who suffered this new defeat in addition to the devastation of their fields. Fabius was sent to Algidus to succeed Minucius. At the end of the year, there was agitation by the tribunes about the law. However, because two armies were abroad, the senators maintained that no proposal should be brought before the people. The plebs succeeded in electing the same tribunes for the fifth time. They say that wolves chased by dogs were seen on the Capitol. Because of this prodigy, the Capitol was purified.⁶⁹ Such were the events of this year.

30. 457 BCE. The Aequi kill the garrison at Corbio and take Ortona. Fear of the Aequi and Sabines enables the plebeians to get the senators to allow the number of tribunes to be increased to ten. The Roman consul recovers Corbio and Ortona.

Quintus Minucius and Marcus Horatius Pulvillus were the next consuls. At the beginning of this year, although there was peace abroad, the same tribunes and the same law caused strife at home. The situation would have developed further—so inflamed were men’s minds—had not the news arrived, as if by design, that the garrison at Corbio had been wiped out by a night attack of the Aequi.⁷⁰ The consuls summoned the senate and were ordered to enlist an emergency army and lead it to Algidus. Then the struggle over the law was laid aside and a fresh dispute arose over the levy. The consuls’ authority was being defeated by the tribunes’ intervention, when there was an additional alarm. Intent on plunder, a Sabine army had descended on the Roman fields and was coming toward the city. This fear had such a striking effect that the tribunes permitted the enrollment of troops, but only after making an agreement that, since they themselves had been frustrated for five years and had consequently given the plebs little protection, ten tribunes should henceforth be elected. Necessity forced this upon the senators, but they accepted it on the condition that they did not see the same tribunes in office thereafter. Tribunician elections were held immediately, lest this measure, like all the others, should be annulled once the war was over. In the thirty-sixth year after the first election of tribunes of the plebs, ten were elected to office, two from each class, and it was stipulated that they should be elected in this way thereafter.⁷¹

The levy was then held and Minucius set out against the Sabines, but he did not find the enemy. Since the Aequi had killed the garrison at Corbio and also captured Ortona, Horatius fought on Algidus. He killed many men, driving the enemy in flight, not only from Algidus, but from Corbio and Ortona. He destroyed Corbio because of the betrayal of the garrison.

31. 456–454 BCE. The Aventine is opened for settlement, and there is another battle on Algidus. Again frustrated in their attempts to pass Terentilius’ law, the tribunes abandon it on the condition that new legislation is proposed. A commission is sent to investigate the constitutions of Greek states.

Then Marcus Valerius and Spurius Verginius became consuls [456 BCE]. The situation was quiet both at home and abroad, but there was a grain shortage because of excessive rains. A law was passed that opened the Aventine for settlement.⁷² The same tribunes were reelected, and, in the following year when Titus Romilius and Gaius Veturius were consuls [455 BCE], they kept bringing up Terentilius’ law in their meetings. They were ashamed, they said, of the increase in their numbers, which was futile if this matter were to lie in abeyance during their two years of office, as it had in the five preceding years. When this agitation was at its greatest, disquieting news came from Tusculum that the Aequi were in Tusculan territory. That city’s recent service made the Romans ashamed to delay sending help. Both consuls were sent with an army and found the Aequi in their usual place, Mount Algidus. There a battle was fought. More than 7,000 of the enemy were slain and others were put to flight. Much booty was obtained, which the consuls sold because the treasury was depleted. This made them unpopular with the army, while also giving the tribunes grounds for impeaching the consuls before the plebs. Consequently, when they went out of office and were succeeded by Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius [454 BCE], they were indicted: Romilius by Gaius Calvius Cicero, a tribune of the plebs, and Veturius by Lucius Alienus, a plebeian aedile. To the great indignation of the senators, both were convicted, and Romilius was fined 10,000 asses, Veturius 15,000. But the misfortune of their predecessors did not make the new consuls less energetic. It was possible, they said, that they too would be convicted, but it was not possible for the plebs and the tribunes to pass the law.

Then the tribunes abandoned the law that had grown old in the time since its promulgation. They began to hold more moderate discussions with the senators, proposing that their disputes should at last be ended. If they disliked plebeian laws, they should allow lawmakers to be appointed jointly from plebeians and patricians who would pass measures that were advantageous to both sides and would ensure equality before the law. The patricians did not reject the general idea but said that no one except a patrician should propose laws. Since they were in agreement about the legislation and only differed about the legislators, Spurius Postumius Albus, Aulus Manlius, and Publius Sulpicius Camerinus were sent on a mission to Athens, with orders to write down the famous laws of Solon and acquaint themselves with the institutions, laws, and customs of other Greek states.⁷³

32. 453–452 BCE. All is quiet at home and abroad, but plague causes many deaths. On the return of the commissioners from Greece, a decision is made to appoint a board of ten senators to codify the laws.

That year was quiet as far as foreign wars were concerned, but the following year, the consulship of Publius Curiatius and Sextus Quinctilius [453 BCE] was even quieter thanks to the tribunes’ continued silence. At first everyone was waiting for the envoys who had gone to Athens and for the foreign laws; then two enormous problems arose at the same time, starvation and plague, destructive to man and beast alike. The countryside was devastated and the city emptied by incessant funerals. Many famous families were in mourning. Servius Cornelius, the flamen of Quirinus, died, and also the augur Gaius Horatius Pulvillus. In place of the latter, the augurs chose Gaius Veturius all the more eagerly because he had been condemned by the plebs. The consul Quinctilius died, and four tribunes of the plebs. The year was marred by multiple disasters, but Rome’s enemies were peaceful.

The next consuls were Gaius Menenius and Publius Sestius Capitolinus [452 BCE]. There was no foreign war in this year, but disturbances arose at home. The envoys had now returned with the Athenian laws. The tribunes consequently pressed harder that a start should at last be made to write down the laws. It was decided to appoint a board of ten men, decemvirs, whose decisions should be subject to no right of appeal, and to have no other magistrates appointed for that year. Whether plebeians should be involved was disputed for a while. Finally the plebs yielded to the patricians, but only on the condition that the Icilian law and other sacred laws not be annulled.⁷⁴

33. 451 BCE. The constitution is changed and power passes to a board of ten, the First Decemvirate.

Three hundred and two years after the foundation of Rome, the form of her government was again changed: power was transferred from the consuls to the decemvirs, just as before it had passed from kings to consuls. The change was less remarkable because it did not last long. The propitious beginnings of this magistracy grew to excessive proportions and consequently collapsed quite soon. Then the practice of entrusting two men with the name and power of consuls was resumed.

Chosen as decemvirs were Appius Claudius, Titus Genucius, Publius Sestius, Titus Veturius, Gaius Julius, Aulus Manlius, Publius Sulpicius, Publius Curiatius, Titus Romilius, and Spurius Postumius. Claudius and Genucius were given the office in place of the consulship to which they had been elected.⁷⁵ Sestius, one of the consuls of the previous year, was appointed because he had referred the constitutional measure to the senators despite his colleague’s opposition. The next to be appointed were the three envoys who had gone to Athens, not only so that the office might be a reward for so distant a mission but also in the belief that their knowledge of foreign laws would be useful in establishing the new laws. The rest made up the number. It is said that old men were chosen for the last places because they would offer less vigorous opposition to the measures of others.

The guidance of the whole board of magistrates was in the hands of Appius Claudius, who had the support of the plebs. He had assumed a new temperament, and, instead of being the fierce and savage persecutor of the plebs, he suddenly emerged as their supporter as he seized on every breath of popularity.⁷⁶ Each decemvir dispensed justice to the people in rotation, one day in ten. On that day, the twelve fasces were in the hands of the man who was administering justice, and his nine colleagues were each assigned one attendant. Among themselves they maintained a singular harmony, a consensus that sometimes might not be helpful to private citizens, but in this case they treated others with the utmost fairness.⁷⁷ As proof of their moderation, it will be sufficient to note a single example. Although they were appointed to an office from which there was no appeal, yet when a corpse was found buried in the house of Lucius Sestius, a patrician by birth, it was produced at a public assembly.⁷⁸ Clearly this was an atrocious case of murder. Gaius Julius, the decemvir, indicted Sestius and acted as prosecutor in a trial before the people. Julius had the legal right to act as judge; but he gave up this right so that he might add to the liberty of the people what he had removed from his power as a magistrate.

34. The decemvirs consult the people, and the amended Laws of the Ten Tables are passed in the Comitia Centuriata. The people want to elect decemvirs again in order to add two more tables.

While the decemvirs were dispensing to high and low alike this ready justice that was as uncorrupted as if it came from an oracle, they were also busy framing laws. Great were men’s expectations when they set up ten tables and summoned the people to an assembly. With a prayer that it might be good, propitious, and fortunate for the state, themselves, and their children, they ordered the people to come and read the laws they were proposing.⁷⁹ Insofar as the talents of ten men could make such provisions, they had framed laws that gave equal rights to all, both high and low. But since the talent and advice of many was of greater avail, they should consider each point in their own minds, discuss it in conversation, and then say in public what excess or shortcoming there was in each item. The Roman people would have the kind of laws that their unanimity might seem not only to have passed but also to have proposed.

When the laws seemed to have been sufficiently amended in accordance with the comments made about each section, the Laws of the Ten Tables were passed in the Comitia Centuriata. Even now, amid the great pile of statutes heaped one on top of another, they are the fountainhead of all public and private law.

Then the word spread that two tables were lacking, the addition of which would complete the body, as it were, of all Roman law. As election day approached, this expectation made the Roman people want to elect decemvirs again. The plebs, in addition to the fact that they hated the name of “consul” just as much as that of “king,” did not even seek the return of tribunician help (auxilium), since the decemvirs recognized the right of appeal from one to another.

35. Appius Claudius courts the plebs, and his colleagues appoint him to conduct the elections in the hope of disqualifying him as a candidate. He secures the defeat of three prominent aristocrats and declares himself and several nonentities elected as decemvirs.

But when the election of decemvirs had been announced to take place in twenty-four days’ time, the canvassing became extremely heated. Even the leaders of the state—through fear, I suppose, that the possession of such great power would be open to less worthy men if they should leave their office vacant—seized on the voters, humbly begging the plebeians with whom they had struggled for an office that they had opposed with all their might. The risk of losing dignity at his time of life, after holding all the offices he had held, was a spur to Appius Claudius.⁸⁰ You would not have known whether to count him among the decemvirs or the candidates. At times he was more like one seeking office than exercising it. He attacked the aristocrats, while praising all the most fickle and low-born candidates.⁸¹ In the midst of former tribunes like Duilius and Icilius, he flew around the forum, using them to sell himself to the plebs. Finally even his colleagues, who had been singularly devoted to him up to that time, looked askance at him, wondering what he wanted. Clearly there was nothing genuine about it. Such affability in an arrogant man was not for nothing, that much was certain. To force himself excessively upon the rank and file and mingle with private citizens was not so much the sign of a man hastening to get out of office as of one seeking the path to continuation in office.

Not daring to oppose his desire openly, they attempted to soften his intensity by indulging him. They unanimously appointed him to conduct the elections, as he was their youngest colleague. This was a device so that he could not declare himself elected, a thing that no one had ever done, except for the tribunes (and that in itself was a very bad precedent). But he indeed, with a prayer that it would turn out well, promised that he would hold the elections and then seized the obstacle as an opportunity. By collusion, he defeated two Quinctii, Capitolinus and Cincinnatus, as well as his uncle Gaius Claudius, a most consistent supporter of the aristocrats, and other citizens of the same high rank, declaring as elected men who were by no means their equals in excellence and announcing his own name among the first.⁸² Good men’s disapproval was as great as their earlier belief that he would not dare to do such a thing. Elected with him were Marcus Cornelius Maluginesis, Marcus Sergius, Lucius Minucius, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, Quintus Poetilius, Titus Antonius Merenda, Caeso Duilius, Spurius Oppius Cornicen, and Manius Rabuleius.⁸³

36. 450 BCE. The new decemvirs behave like tyrants, terrifying the people by exhibiting the symbols of power and by harsh and arbitrary judgments of the lower classes.

That was the end of Appius’ wearing an alien mask. From then on he began to live according to his own nature and mold his new colleagues after his own character, even before they entered office. Daily they met without witnesses. There they were instructed in tyrannical plans that they cooked up in secret. Because they no longer concealed their arrogance, they were rarely approachable and difficult to address. Such was their conduct through May 15, which, at that time, was the date for beginning a term of office.⁸⁴

On entering office, they marked the first day of their administration with a demonstration of terror. For whereas the earlier decemvirs had observed the rule that only one man should have the fasces and that this emblem of royalty should circulate and pass from one to another, these decemvirs all suddenly appeared, each with twelve fasces. One hundred and twenty lictors filled the forum, carrying before them the axes bound up with the rods. They explained that there was no point in removing the axes, since they had been elected without the right of appeal.⁸⁵ They looked like ten kings, increasing the terror of not only the low-born but also the leaders of the senate, who thought that the decemvirs were seeking a pretext to begin a bloodbath. If anyone should utter a word that was reminiscent of liberty, either in the senate or before the people, the rods and axes were immediately at the ready, if only to frighten the rest. In addition to the fact that the people had no protection now that the right of appeal had been taken away, the new decemvirs had agreed to remove the right of vetoing each other, whereas their predecessors had allowed their judgments to be amended on appeal to one of their colleagues, and they had referred to the people certain matters that might seem to be within their own competence.⁸⁶

For a while the terror affected everyone equally, but gradually it began to focus entirely on the plebs. The patricians were left untouched, but the lower orders were dealt with in an arbitrary and cruel way. It was entirely a matter of who a person was, not the merit of his case, since political influence had the force of justice. They made up their judgments in private and announced them in the forum. If anyone appealed to a colleague, he came away regretting that he had not stood by the earlier decision. An unsubstantiated report had come out that they had conspired to commit these outrages not just for the present; they had made a secret agreement and sworn not to hold elections but, by means of a perpetual decemvirate, to continue to exercise power now that they had acquired it.

37. The patricians are unwilling to oppose the decemvirs’ treatment of the plebs, and some younger nobles even profit from the injustices. There is no sign of an election.

Then the plebeians began to look at the expressions on the faces of the patricians, catching a breath of freedom from the very people that they had feared would subject them to slavery—a fear that had resulted in the state being reduced to its present plight. The leading senators hated the decemvirs and hated the plebs. They did not approve of what was happening, but they thought that the plebs had gotten what they deserved. They were pleased that they had fallen into slavery as a result of their greedy rush for liberty, but at the same time they were reluctant to pile on maltreatment as well. Their aim was that the plebeians would tire of the present situation and yearn for a return to consular government and the former constitution.

Already the greater part of the year had passed and two tables of laws had been added to the ten of the previous year; no reason remained for the republic to need the decemvirate, once the new statutes had also been passed by the Comitia Centuriata. People were waiting to see how soon the assembly for the election of consuls would be announced. Only one thing bothered the plebs: how would they restore tribunician power, the bulwark of their liberty, which had been suspended? Meanwhile there was no mention of an election. And the decemvirs, who at first had made a show to the plebs of being surrounded by former tribunes as a way of courting popularity, now had a retinue of young patricians protecting them. Their squads besieged the tribunals, bullying and robbing the plebs of their possessions and property, as if the stronger had the right to take whatever he coveted. And now they did not even refrain from physical abuse; there were beatings and some were beheaded. And so that this cruelty might not be unrewarded, execution was followed by the award of the victim’s property to his executioner. Corrupted by these rewards, the young nobles not only did not resist such injustice but openly preferred license for themselves, rather than liberty for everyone.⁸⁷

38. 449 BCE. There is no election, and the decemvirs continue in power but find themselves increasingly hated and isolated. War on two fronts causes them to summon the senate, but at first the senators do not respond. The plebs resent the senators’ eventual compliance.

May 15 arrived. No magistrates had been elected. Now private citizens, not decemvirs, they appeared in public, their intention undiminished—to hold on to power and the insignia that was their claim to office. This indeed was blatant tyranny. Liberty was mourned as gone forever. There was no avenger, nor did it seem likely that one would appear. Not only were the people despondent, but they began to be held in contempt by the neighboring peoples, who were resentful of being ruled by men who had lost their liberty.⁸⁸ The Sabines invaded Roman territory with a large band, causing widespread devastation. With impunity they drove off booty, both men and beasts, and withdrew their army to Eretum after ranging far and wide.⁸⁹ There they pitched camp, putting their hopes in the discord at Rome, which, they thought, would prevent the levying of troops. Not only the news but also the flight of the countryfolk who threw the Romans into trepidation throughout the city. The decemvirs discussed what they needed to do; they felt abandoned amid the hatred of both senators and plebeians. Then fortune sent an additional terror: on another front the Aequi pitched camp on Algidus, from which they made plundering raids into Tusculan territory. Envoys from Tusculum arrived with the news, begging for help.

This panic drove the decemvirs to consult the senate, since the city was surrounded by two wars at the same time. They ordered the senators to be summoned to the senate house, although they were not unaware of the great storm of unpopularity that threatened them. They realized that everyone would heap on them the blame for the devastation of their territory and the imminent dangers. There would be an attempt to abolish their office unless they united and suppressed the efforts of the rest by ruthlessly exercising their power against a few overly bold critics. When the herald’s voice was heard in the forum summoning the senators to meet the decemvirs in the senate house, it was like a novelty because for so long they had suspended the custom of consulting the senate. The plebs wondered what had happened and why they were reviving an obsolete custom after so long an interval. They felt they ought to thank the enemy and the war, because at least something that was usual in a free state was happening. They looked everywhere in the forum for a senator but hardly recognized one anywhere. Then they saw the senate house with the decemvirs sitting there, alone. The decemvirs explained the senators’ failure to convene as being due to the universal hatred of their power, but the plebeians thought it was because private citizens did not have the right to summon the senate. A head start was already being made toward the recovery of their freedom, if only the plebs allied with the senate and refused the levy, just as the senators, when summoned, had not convened. Such were the murmurs among the plebs.

Of senators, there was hardly a single one in the forum and but few in the city. In anger at the situation, they had withdrawn to their farms and were concerning themselves with their private affairs and neglecting those of the state. For they felt that the farther they removed themselves from contact and association with their despotic masters, the safer they would be from being harmed. When they did not convene after their summons, officers were sent around their houses, both to exact fines and to find out whether their refusal was deliberate. They reported that the senate was in the countryside. This news was more pleasing to the decemvirs than if the senators had rejected their authority while still in town. The decemvirs ordered them all to be summoned and proclaimed a meeting of the senate for the following day. This session was considerably better attended than they had expected. When this happened, the plebeians thought that freedom had been betrayed by the senators, since the senate had obeyed men who had already gone out of office and were thus private citizens who, except for their use of force, employed compulsion as if it were theirs by right.

39. The senators convene and Marcus Horatius Barbatus makes a vehement speech against the decemvirs and their abuse of power.

But we hear that the senators’ obedience in coming to the senate house was greater than their submissiveness in expressing their views. Tradition has it that, after Appius Claudius had proposed a motion but before opinions were called for in order of precedence, Lucius Valerius Potitus demanded leave to speak about the state of the nation.⁹⁰ When the decemvirs tried to block him with threats, he created an uproar by announcing that he would go before the plebs. No less fiercely, Marcus Horatius Barbatus then entered the fray, calling them “ten Tarquins” and warning that the Valerii and Horatii had led the expulsion of the kings. It was not the name of “king” that had nauseated men—after all, it was right to call Jupiter by this name; also Romulus, the founder of the city, and the subsequent kings; and it had also been kept for religious rites as a solemn title.⁹¹ No, what they had hated was the arrogance and violent behavior of a king. And if these characteristics were intolerable in a single king and the king’s son, who was going to tolerate them in the case of so many private citizens?⁹²

Let them beware, lest their ban on free speech in the senate house stir up talk outside that house as well. He could not see, Horatius continued, how it was less permissible for him as a private citizen to summon the people to an assembly than for them to convene the senate. Let them find out, by experience, whenever they wanted, how much stronger a man’s anger was in defending his freedom than was their eagerness to defend unjust despotism. The decemvirs were talking about war against the Sabines as if it were a greater war for the Roman people than was their war against men who, though elected to propose laws, had left no law in the state—men who had done away with elections, annual magistracies, changes of command from one to another—the one means of equalizing liberty. And yet here were these men, though private citizens, holding the rods of office and kingly power! After the expulsion of the kings, patrician magistrates had been elected; then, after the secession of the plebs, plebeian magistrates. To what party, he repeatedly asked, did they belong? The people’s? What had they done through the people? Did they belong to the aristocrats?⁹³ For almost a year they had not held a meeting of the senate, but now that they had, were they preventing discussion of the state of the nation? Let them not put too much trust in other men’s fears. What men were now enduring seemed more oppressive than any fear they might have.

40. Gaius Claudius speaks, indicating his opinion that the decemvirs were no longer magistrates. The brother of another decemvir recommends shelving the question until they have dealt with the wars.

While Horatius was holding forth, the decemvirs did not know what measure of anger or forbearance to show, nor could they see how the situation would turn out. Then Gaius Claudius, the uncle of Appius the decemvir, gave a speech that was more of an entreaty than a reproach, as he begged him by the shade of his own brother, Appius’ father, to remember the citizen society into which he had been born, rather than the pact that he had impiously made with his colleagues.⁹⁴ He begged this more for Appius’ own sake than for that of the state. Indeed, the state would seek justice from them whether the decemvirs were willing to grant it or not. Great passions, he said, were almost always aroused as a result of a great struggle, and he shuddered at what might come out of this. Although the decemvirs were trying to prevent discussion of any proposal other than theirs, a sense of shame stopped them from interrupting Claudius. He concluded by proposing that no decree of the senate should be issued. Everyone took this to mean that Claudius judged the decemvirs to be private citizens. Many of the ex-consuls simply gave their assent. Another proposal, which was ostensibly harsher but actually somewhat less forceful, directed the senators to assemble to proclaim an interrex.⁹⁵ For, by passing any sort of decree, they were judging those who convened the senate to be magistrates, whereas the man who had proposed that there be no senatorial decree had deemed them private citizens.

As the decemvirs’ cause began to collapse, Lucius Cornelius Maluginensis, brother of the decemvir Marcus Cornelius, who had deliberately been reserved as the last speaker of the ex-consuls, protected his brother and his brother’s colleagues by pretending to be concerned about the war. He wondered, he said, by what destiny it had come about that the decemvirs were being attacked by those who, either solely or especially, had themselves sought the office of decemvir. Why, he asked, was it that, during the many months that the state was at peace, no one had brought up the question of whether proper magistrates were in charge of the state; whereas now, with the enemy almost at their gates, they were sowing civil discord? They evidently thought that in turbulent times it would not be as easy to see what was going on. Furthermore, it was not right to prejudge such an important matter at a time when men’s minds were preoccupied with a greater concern.⁹⁶

Regarding the charge by Valerius and Horatius that the decemvirs’ office had expired on May 15, he proposed that this question be brought before the senate for settlement once the impending wars were over and the state had been restored to tranquility. As for Appius Claudius, he should be prepared to realize that he had to give an explanation of the assembly that he, as decemvir, had held for the election of decemvirs: whether these men had been elected for one year or until the laws that were still missing should be passed. For the present, he thought that everything except the war should be disregarded. If they thought that the rumor of war had been spread falsely and that not only the messengers but also the envoys from Tusculum had brought empty rumors, he suggested that they ought to send out scouts to bring back more definite information. But if they trusted both messengers and envoys, a levy should be held as early as possible and the decemvirs should lead the armies wherever it seemed best to them, giving precedence to no other business.

41. Despite further efforts by Valerius and Horatius, the decemvirs prevail. A levy is held, and Appius Claudius is left in charge of the city.

The younger senators were on the point of forcing a division on this proposal when Valerius and Horatius again arose, more impassioned than before, shouting that they be permitted to speak about the state of the nation. They would speak before the people if a factional group did not permit them to do so in the senate. Private citizens could not prevent them, whether in the senate house or in an assembly, nor would they yield to phony fasces. Then Appius thought that it was close to the point at which his power would be defeated unless he resisted their vehemence with equal boldness. “The better course,” he exclaimed, “is not to utter a word that does not pertain to the subject under debate.” But Valerius said that he would not be silenced by a private citizen, and so Appius ordered a lictor to seize him. Valerius, from the threshold of the senate house, was imploring his fellow citizens outside for their support, when Lucius Cornelius threw his arms around Appius and stopped the quarrel, thus helping the latter and not, as he pretended, Valerius.⁹⁷ Thanks to Cornelius, Valerius was granted the favor of saying what he wanted. But freedom went no further than his words. The decemvirs held to their purpose. The ex-consuls and older senators still hated tribunician power, thinking that the plebeians missed it more keenly than they missed the power of the consuls. And so they almost preferred that the decemvirs should voluntarily resign from their office at some later date, rather than that hatred for the decemvirs should cause another uprising of the plebs. They thought that if they handled the situation more gently and restored consular power without a popular outcry, the intervention of wars or the consuls’ moderation in the exercise of their power could induce the plebs to forget the tribunes.

The senators were silent as the levy was announced. The younger men answered to their names, since there was no right of appeal. After the legions were enrolled, the decemvirs arranged among themselves who should go to war and who should command the armies. The leaders among the ten were Appius Claudius and Quintus Fabius. The war at home was clearly greater than the one abroad. Appius’ violent nature, it was thought, was more suited to suppressing city disturbances, whereas Fabius’ character was not so much actively bad as lacking in steadfastness. The decemvirate and his colleagues had so changed Fabius, a man once distinguished in civic and military affairs, that he preferred to be more like Appius than his former self. He was assigned the war with the Sabines and given Manius Rabuleius and Quintus Poetelius as colleagues. Marcus Cornelius was sent to Algidus with Lucius Minucius, Titus Antonius, Caeso Duilius, and Marcus Sergius. They decided that Spurius Oppius should assist Appius Claudius in protecting the city and that these two should have the same powers as the entire decemvirate.

42. In their hatred of the decemvirs, the Roman armies allow themselves to be defeated.

The state was served no better in the field than at home. The fault of the generals was merely that they had made themselves detested by the citizens. The rest of the blame lay with the soldiers, who resolved that nothing should succeed under the command and auspices of the decemvirs; and so they allowed themselves to be defeated, to their own disgrace and that of their commanders. Their armies were routed, both by the Sabines near Eretum and on Algidus by the Aequi. From Eretum they fled in the silence of the night and built a camp nearer the city, on an elevation between Fidenae and Crustumeria. When the enemy followed up on them, they nowhere entrusted themselves to fight in open battle but protected themselves by their position and rampart, not by the valor of their arms. The disgrace on Algidus was greater, and an even greater disaster was sustained. The camp was lost and the soldiers, stripped of all their supplies, fled to Tusculum to live off the loyalty and pity of the inhabitants, who did not fail them.

Such great horror stories were brought to Rome that the senators now laid aside their hatred of the decemvirs and voted to establish watches in the city. They ordered that all those who were of an age to bear arms should guard the walls and do sentry duty in front of the gates. They also decreed that arms and reinforcements be sent to Tusculum, and that the decemvirs come down from the citadel of Tusculum and keep the soldiers in camp. The other camp should be moved from Fidenae into Sabine territory; they should then take the offensive and deter the enemy from attacking the city.

43. 449 BCE. The decemvirs have a disgruntled soldier assassinated, causing their reputation to plummet.

To the disaster sustained at the hands of the enemy, the decemvirs added two unspeakable crimes: one in the field, the other at home. Lucius Siccius was serving on the Sabine campaign. Because of the hatred of the decemvirs, he was scattering hints in secret conversations among the common soldiers about an election of tribunes and a secession. So, the decemvirs sent him to scout out a place for a camp. The soldiers whom they sent to accompany him were charged with the business of attacking and killing him once they reached a suitable place. But the murder was not unavenged. Several assassins fell around him as he fought back, for he was very strong and, though surrounded, defended himself with a spirit that matched his strength. The survivors returned to the camp and reported that they had fallen into an ambush: Siccius had put up an outstanding fight, and several soldiers had been lost with him. At first the messengers were believed; but then, with the decemvirs’ permission, a cohort was sent out to bury those who had fallen. They saw that none of the bodies had been stripped of their arms and that Siccius lay in their midst with all the bodies facing toward him, with no corpse of an enemy or signs of a withdrawal. And so they brought back his body and reported that he had undoubtedly been slain by his own men. The camp was filled with indignation: there was a resolution to take Siccius to Rome immediately, but the decemvirs hurried to give him a military funeral at public expense. Great was the soldiers’ grief at his burial, and the decemvirs’ reputation among the rank and file was at its lowest.

44. Appius Claudius lusts after a plebeian virgin and has one of his clients claim her as his slave.

Another unspeakable happening occurred in the city as a result of lust; this was as abominable in its outcome as was the rape and death of Lucretia that had driven the Tarquins from the city and kingship. And so, not only did the same end befall the decemvirs as befell the kings, but the same cause also deprived them of power.⁹⁸ A lust to violate a plebeian virgin seized hold of Appius. The maiden’s father, Lucius Verginius, was a high-ranking soldier on Algidus, an exemplary character both at home and in the field. His wife had been brought up in the same principles, and his children were being trained in the same way. He had promised his daughter to Lucius Icilius, a former tribune, who was energetic and of proven courage in the plebeian cause.⁹⁹ Crazed with passion, Appius tried to entice this beautiful and nubile maiden with presents and promises, but when he realized that her modesty was proof against all advances, he turned his mind to cruel and tyrannical force. He charged his client, Marcus Claudius, to claim the maiden as his slave and not to yield to those who would lay legal claim to her until the question of her free status was decided. He thought that the absence of the girl’s father gave him an opportunity to wrong her.¹⁰⁰

As Verginia was coming into the forum (there were schools in the market area nearby), the servant of the decemvir’s lust laid his hand upon her, called her the daughter of his own slave woman and a slave herself, and ordered her to follow him.¹⁰¹ If she hesitated, he said, he would drag her off by force. The panic-stricken girl was dumbfounded, but a crowd rushed up as her nurse cried out, imploring the help of her fellow citizens. Since the name of her father Verginius and fiancé Icilius were well known among the people, their political reputation won their supporters over to the girl’s side, and the crowd was won over by the outrage of her situation. She had already been protected from violence, and so the claimant said that there was no need for the crowd to become excited: he was acting lawfully, not by force. He then summoned the girl to court, and the bystanders advised her to follow.¹⁰²

And so, they came before Appius’ tribunal. The prosecutor Marcus Claudius acted out the play that was familiar to the judge, since he was the author of the plot.¹⁰³ The girl had been born in his house and had been secretly taken from there to Verginius’ house and passed off to him as his child. He had good proof of this and would prove it even to Verginius, were the latter the judge. For Verginius was the one who had suffered the greater part of the wrong. Meanwhile it was just that the slave girl follow her master. The girl’s supporters said that Verginius was absent and was in the service of his country, but would come in two days if he were given notice. It was unjust to fight over a man’s children in his absence. They therefore requested Appius to leave the matter alone until the father arrived, since the law that he himself had passed gave interim possession of the girl to those who defended her freedom. He should not allow a grown maiden to endanger her reputation before her free status had been decided.

45. Icilius makes a vehement protest when Appius refuses to release Verginia from the custody of his client, Marcus Claudius.

Before making a decision, Appius said that the law that Verginius’ friends offered in support of their claim made it clear how much he favored freedom. But, he said, it would only offer firm support for freedom if there were no variation in its application to cases or persons. In the case of those who were claimed to be free, the request was legal, since anyone could bring an action. But in the case of a woman who was under the legal control of her father, there was no other person to whom the master could yield the custody. He therefore resolved that the father be summoned and that meanwhile the claimant should not lose his right of taking the girl and producing her when her alleged father arrived.

Against the injustice of the decree, though many were seething, there was no one individual who dared protest until the girl’s grandfather Publius Numitorius and her fiancé Icilius intervened. A path was made through the throng, since the crowd believed that Icilius’ intervention would be particularly effective in resisting Appius. But then the lictor cried that the decision had been made and pushed Icilius aside as he began to protest. Such a savage wrong would have inflamed even a placid disposition. “Appius,” cried Icilius, “you will have to use a sword to remove me if you want to avoid an outcry as you carry out what you wish to conceal. I am going to marry this maiden, and I intend that my bride be chaste. Go ahead and summon all your colleagues’ lictors as well. Order the rods and axes to be made ready. Icilius’ future bride will not remain outside her father’s house. No! Even if you have deprived the Roman plebs of the help of the tribunes and the right of appeal, the two bastions that protect liberty, you have not been granted the power of a king to satisfy your lust and force yourself on our wives and children. Vent your rage on our backs and necks. But at least let their chastity be safe. If that be violated, I will invoke the loyalty of the citizens here present to protect my bride; Verginius will call upon the soldiers to protect his only daughter; and we will all invoke the protection of gods and men. You will never carry out that decree without shedding my blood. I bid you, Appius, consider over again and again where you are heading. Let Verginius see what he will do about his daughter when he comes. But he should just know this: if he gives in to this man’s claim, he will need to seek another marriage for his daughter. As for me, I shall sooner die in defense of my bride’s free status than prove disloyal.”

46. Appius backs down for the moment, and Verginia is sent back to Verginius’ house after bail is given by the people. Appius fails to prevent Verginius’ return from camp.

The crowd was aroused and conflict seemed imminent. The lictors had surrounded Icilius, but they had not yet gone beyond threats. Appius kept on saying that Icilius was not acting in defense of Verginia but rather behaving like the tribune he once had been, making trouble and looking for an opportunity to stir up strife. He would give him no excuse for strife at present; he would neither pronounce judgment that day nor enforce his decree. Icilius, however, should realize that he was not yielding to his impudence, but rather in deference to the absent Verginius, a father’s name, and the claim of liberty. He would not pronounce judgment on that day nor give a decision. He would ask Marcus Claudius to withdraw his right and allow his claim on the girl to be decided the next day. But if the father were not present then, he gave notice to Icilius and the likes of Icilius that the proposer of his law would not fail to support it, nor would the decemvir be lacking in firmness. He would not, in any event, summon his colleagues’ lictors to restrain the leaders of sedition but would be content with his own.

When the time of the injustice had been postponed, the girl’s supporters went off by themselves and decided first that Icilius’ brother and Numitorius’ son, energetic young men, should go straight to the city gate and summon Verginius from the camp as quickly as possible: the girl’s safety turned on his presence the next day in time to defend her from injustice. Once ordered, they set out, galloping their horses, and brought the message to her father. Meanwhile, when the girl’s claimant pressed him to give securities to guarantee her appearance, Icilius said that he was doing just that (he was carefully spinning out the time until the messengers who had been sent to the camp should get a head start on their journey). On all sides the crowd raised their hands, each person showing Icilius his readiness to guarantee the money. In tears, Icilius said, “Thank you. Tomorrow I shall use your help; I have enough securities for now.” On the security of her relatives, Verginia was released. Appius delayed a short time so that he did not appear to have sat just for this case. But nobody came up to him, since all other matters had been forgotten in their concern for this one thing. So, he went home and wrote to his colleagues in the camp, telling them not to grant leave to Verginius and also to detain him under guard. His wicked plan was too late, as it should have been. Verginius already had his leave and had set out in the first night watch. The letter to detain him was delivered in the morning of the following day, to no effect.

47. Despite Verginius’ pleas, Appius rules against him.

In the city at dawn, as the citizens were standing in the forum in eager anticipation, Verginius came down into the forum, wearing the ragged garb of mourning and escorting his daughter, who was dressed in a shabby garment and attended by a number of matrons.¹⁰⁴ Accompanied by a large group of supporters, he began to circulate and canvass people, not only begging for their help as a favor, but also seeking it as his due. Daily, he said, he stood in the battle line in defense of their children and their wives. No other man was on record for performing so bravely and energetically in war. But what good was it if, though the city was unharmed, their children had to endure the frightful things that followed a city’s capture? So he went around, speaking as if he were addressing a public assembly. Similar remarks were addressed to them by Icilius. But the silent weeping of the women attendants was more moving than any words.

Confronted by all this but with his purpose stubbornly fixed—so great was the force of the madness (a more truthful definition than passion) that had disturbed his mind—Appius mounted the tribunal. The plaintiff Marcus Claudius was actually making a few complaints that his rights had not been granted the day before because of the wrangling when, before he could finish his demand or Verginius was given the opportunity to reply, Appius interrupted him. The ancient sources have perhaps preserved something of the true speech with which Appius prefaced his decision. However, since I have nowhere found one that is plausible in view of the enormity of his decision, it seems necessary to set forth the bare fact that he decided in favor of the plaintiff: the girl was his slave.

At first everyone was stunned with amazement at such an outrage. For a while, silence gripped them. Then, as Marcus Claudius was going to seize the maiden from the group of matrons surrounding her, the women received him with wailing and lamentation. Verginius shook his fist at Appius, exclaiming, “It was to Icilius, not you, Appius, that I promised my daughter. I raised her to be married, not debauched. Animals and wild beasts fornicate indiscriminately. Is this what you want? I do not know whether these people here will tolerate this. But I don’t expect that those who have arms will do so.”

As the claimant to the girl was being driven back by the ring of women and supporters surrounding her, silence was commanded by a herald.

48. Appius is preparing to use armed men to enforce his decision when Verginius kills his daughter and flees, protected by the crowd. Icilius expresses his outrage.

The decemvir, out of his mind with lust, declared that he knew, not only from Icilius’ abuse the day before and Verginius’ violent behavior that the Roman people had witnessed, but also from definite information, that meetings had been held throughout the night to promote sedition. Aware of the impending fight, he had come to the forum with armed men, not to do violence to any peaceable citizen, but to exercise the dignity of his office and restrain those who were disturbing the peace. “It will be better,” he said, “if you are peaceable. Go, lictor, remove the mob and make a path for the master to seize his slave.” Filled with rage, he thundered these words and the crowd parted of its own accord, leaving the girl standing there, a prey to injustice.

Then Verginius, seeing no help anywhere, cried, “I ask you, Appius, first to pardon a father’s grief, if I spoke too harshly against you. Allow me, in the presence of my daughter, to ask the nurse what this is all about. If I have falsely been named as the girl’s father, then I will go away with more equanimity.” Permission was granted. He led his daughter and her nurse aside, near the shrine of Cloacina by the shops that are now called the New Shops.¹⁰⁵ Seizing a knife from a butcher, he cried, “Daughter, I am claiming your freedom in the only way that I can.” He then stabbed the girl to the heart and looked back at the tribunal, saying, “With this blood, Appius, I declare you and your life accursed.”

An uproar broke out at this terrible deed. Appius jumped up and ordered Verginius to be arrested. But with his weapon Verginius made a path for himself wherever he went until, under the protection of a crowd of followers, he reached the gate. Icilius and Numitorius lifted the lifeless body and showed it to the people, lamenting Appius’ crime, the girl’s unfortunate beauty, and the necessity that had driven her father to such a deed. Following them, the matrons cried out, “Is this what it means to have children? Are these the rewards of chastity?”—and the rest of the pitiful complaints that women’s grief drives them to utter in such a situation, a grief that is all the more sad because of their emotional nature, and the more pitiable as they readily give way to lamentation. The men’s talk, especially that of Icilius, was entirely about tribunician power, the right of appeal to the people that had been wrested from them, and the state’s sense of outrage.

49. With the support of the crowd, Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius challenge Appius, who is trying to arrest Icilius. Appius flees. Realizing defeat, a colleague, Spurius Oppius, summons the senate.

The crowd was stirred up partly because of the atrocity of the crime, and partly in the hope of using the opportunity to regain their freedom. Appius first ordered that Icilius be summoned; then, on his refusal, that he be arrested. Finally, since the attendants could not get near him, Appius himself marched through the crowd with a band of patrician youths and ordered Icilius to be put in chains. By this time, there was not only a crowd around Icilius but also the crowd’s leaders, Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius. They drove the lictor back, saying that if he were acting according to the law, they were protecting Icilius from prosecution by a private citizen.¹⁰⁶ But if he was resorting to violence, they were a match for that, too.

A fierce brawl broke out. The decemvir’s lictor made a rush at Valerius and Horatius, and the fasces were broken by the crowd. Appius mounted the platform to address the people, followed by Horatius and Valerius. The assembled crowd listened to them but shouted the decemvir down. Already acting as if he were a magistrate, Valerius ordered the lictors to stop serving a man who was a private citizen; whereupon Appius, his spirit broken and fearing for his life, covered his head and fled to a house near the forum, unnoticed by his adversaries. Spurius Oppius burst into the forum from another direction to help his colleague. He saw that force had prevailed over his authority as a magistrate. An agitated discussion followed. In trepidation, Oppius agreed now with one and then with another of his many advisers on every side. Finally he ordered the senate to be summoned. This move calmed the crowd, because the majority of the patricians seemed to disapprove of the decemvirs’ actions. The hope was that the senate would put an end to their power. The senate decided that the plebs should not be provoked, realizing that it was much more important to see to it that Verginius’ arrival did not cause a disturbance in the army.

50. After hearing Verginius’ story, the soldiers leave their camp and seize the Aventine, telling the senate that they will talk with Valerius and Horatius.

And so, some younger senators were sent to the camp, which was then on Mount Vecilius; they announced to the decemvirs that they should make every effort to restrain their soldiers from mutiny.¹⁰⁷ There Verginius stirred up greater commotion than he had left in the city. As he approached, not only was he seen to be accompanied by almost 400 men from the city, who had joined him in their anger at the outrage he had suffered, but his unsheathed weapon and the blood with which he was spattered drew the attention of the whole camp. The sight of togas all over the camp had produced the appearance of a considerably larger crowd of civilians than it actually was.¹⁰⁸ When asked what the problem was, Verginius wept and for a long time did not utter a word. At last, when the bustle and confusion of the gathering had settled and there was silence, he explained everything in the order that it had happened.

Then with palms upraised, he called on them as fellow soldiers, praying that they would not consider him responsible for Appius Claudius’ crime nor regard him as one who had murdered his child. His daughter’s life would have been dearer to him than his own if she had been allowed to live in freedom and chastity. But when he saw her being hurried off like a slave to be debauched, he had thought it better to lose a child to death than to outrage. The pity he felt had occasioned him to commit an act of apparent cruelty. Nor would he have outlived his daughter had he not hoped to avenge her death by getting the help of his fellow soldiers. For they too had daughters, sisters, and wives. Appius Claudius’ lust had not died with Verginia, but the longer it went unpunished, the more unbridled it would become. The calamity that had befallen another gave them a warning to guard against a similar outrage. As far as he, Verginius, was concerned, fate had robbed him of his wife; now his daughter had died a pitiful but honorable death, since she would have no longer lived in chastity. Now there was no opportunity in his house for Appius’ lust. He would defend his own body from Appius’ further violence with the same spirit that he had defended his daughter. The rest should look out for their own interests and those of their children.

As Verginius shouted these words, the crowd cried out in support that they would not fail to avenge his grief and vindicate their own freedom. The civilians mingled with the crowd of soldiers, making the same laments and telling them how much more outrageous the events would have appeared if they had seen them rather than simply heard about them. At the same time they announced that the government in Rome was already overthrown. Others arrived, saying that Appius had almost been killed and had gone into exile. All this drove the soldiers to proclaim the call to arms, tear up the standards, and set out for Rome. The decemvirs, thrown into confusion by what they were seeing and by what they heard had happened in Rome, rushed in different directions throughout the camp, trying to quell the mutiny. Mild talk got no response from the soldiers. If one of them tried to impose his authority, he got the reply that they were men and were armed. They marched to the city in a column and took possession of the Aventine, urging the plebeians they encountered to regain their freedom and elect tribunes of the plebs. No other violent proposals were heard.

Spurius Oppius convened the senate, and it was decided to take no harsh measures, since they themselves had provided the opportunity for sedition. Three ex-consuls were sent as envoys to ask, in the name of the senators, who had ordered them to abandon the camp, what their aim was in seizing the Aventine with arms and capturing their native land after abandoning a war with the enemy. The men did not lack a response, but they did lack someone to give that response since they had no definite leader, nor as individuals were they sufficiently daring to risk such an invidious position. The crowd simply cried out in unison that the senators should send Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius; to them they would give a reply.

51. The army on the Aventine elects its own officials, tribunes of the soldiers; Icilius has the other army do the same. Valerius and Horatius refuse to go and negotiate with the armies until the decemvirs resign. The decemvirs, however, refuse to resign until their laws are passed.

When the envoys were dismissed, Verginius warned the soldiers that they had been thrown into confusion a few moments before over an unimportant matter because, as a group, they lacked a leader. Their answer, though a good one, was the result of a fortuitous consensus rather than a concerted plan. He recommended that ten men be appointed as leaders and that they be given a military title, “tribunes of the soldiers.” When this honor was offered to him as the first appointee, he said, “Keep your judgment about me until the situation has improved both for you and for me. No official honor can be pleasing to me as long as my daughter is unavenged. Nor, while the state is in such confusion, is it helpful for you to have in office men who are exposed to political hatred. If I am of service to you, that service will be no less if it comes from a private citizen.” And so they chose ten tribunes of the soldiers.

Nor was the army on the Sabine front quiet. There too, at the instigation of Icilius and Numitorius, there was a mutiny against the decemvirs. Men’s feelings were stirred anew by the memory of Siccius’ murder no less than they were kindled by the news of the girl who had been so shamefully sought to gratify a man’s lust. Icilius, when he heard that tribunes of the soldiers had been appointed on the Aventine, was afraid that the assembly in the city might follow the precedent of the military assembly by making these same men tribunes of the plebs. Since he was experienced in popular politics and had designs on the office for himself, he had his soldiers elect the same number with equal power before they went to the city. Under their standards, they entered the city by the Colline Gate, proceeding in a column right through the middle of the city to the Aventine. There they joined the other army and charged the twenty tribunes of the soldiers to appoint two of their number to the supreme command. The tribunes appointed Marcus Oppius and Sextus Manilius.

The senators were alarmed about the state of the nation. But, although they were meeting every day, they were spending more time in recriminations than in deliberation. They blamed the decemvirs for the murder of Siccius, Appius’ lust, and the disgraces in the military sphere. It was resolved that Valerius and Horatius should go to the Aventine. But they said that they would only go if the decemvirs would lay down the symbols of office that had expired a year ago. The decemvirs, complaining that they were being forced to return to the ranks, said that they would not lay down their power until the laws for which they had been appointed were passed.

52. Given the stalemate, the plebs move to the Sacred Mount, and cries for the senate to take action increase.

The plebs were told by Marcus Duilius, a former tribune of the plebs, that nothing was being achieved by the senate’s continual bickering. So, they moved from the Aventine to the Sacred Mount, since Duilius assured them that the senate would not feel any concern until they saw the city deserted. The Sacred Mount would warn them of the plebs’ steadfastness; the patricians would find out whether it was possible to restore the harmony of the state without reinstating tribunician power. They set out by the Via Nomentana, which was then called Ficolensis, and pitched camp on the Sacred Mount, copying the restraint of their fathers who had done no pillaging. The plebs followed the army, with no one who was physically able refusing to go. They were attended for some distance by wives and children who asked pitifully who was going to protect them, abandoned in a city where neither chastity nor liberty was sacred.¹⁰⁹

An unaccustomed emptiness had made all of Rome desolate. There was no one in the forum except a few older men; when the senators were in the senate house, the forum seemed deserted. Then more than just Horatius and Valerius began to make their voices heard. “What will you wait for, senators?” they asked. “If the decemvirs won’t put an end to their obstinacy, are you going to allow everything to be ruined and go up in flames? What is this power, decemvirs, that you are clinging to so tenaciously? Are you going to give laws to roofs and walls? Aren’t you ashamed that an almost greater number of your lictors are to be seen in the forum than the rest of the citizens? What are you going to do if the enemy should come to the city? What if the plebs were to come soon and in arms, while we are unmoved by their secession? Do you want your power to end with the downfall of the city? And yet, either we must have no plebeians or we must have plebeian tribunes. We will be deprived of patrician magistracies more quickly than they will lack plebeian offices. They wrested from our fathers a new and untested power. But now that they are captivated by its charm, they would not bear its loss, especially since we are not so moderate in the exercise of our power that they need no help.” Assailed by these taunts from all sides and defeated by the consensus, the decemvirs agreed that they would submit, since it seemed best, to the power of the senators. They only asked, giving a warning, that they be protected from hatred and that their blood not be the means of accustoming the plebs to punishing senators.

53. Valerius and Horatius negotiate with the plebs on the senate’s behalf. Icilius acts as spokesman for the plebs.

Then Valerius and Horatius were sent to the plebs to negotiate conditions for their return and make a settlement. They were also ordered to safeguard the decemvirs from the anger and violence of the people. They set out and were received into the camp to the plebeians’ great joy, as the undisputed champions of freedom both at the beginning of the disturbance and in its outcome. On their arrival they were thanked, and Icilius made a speech on behalf of the crowd. And, when the conditions were being discussed and the envoys were asking what the plebs demanded, Icilius presented their demands in accordance with a plan that had been made before the envoys’ arrival. He made it clear that their hopes lay in an equitable settlement rather than the use of arms; the recovery of tribunician power and the right of appeal were what they sought—those things that had been the plebs’ safeguards before the election of the decemvirs. The plebeians also wanted a guarantee that it would not be held against anyone that he had roused either soldiers or plebs to regain their freedom by seceding. Their only harsh demand was for the punishment of the decemvirs. They thought it just that the decemvirs be handed over to them and threatened to burn them alive.

In response to these proposals, the envoys said, “The demands are the product of deliberation and are so fair that they should have been granted to you voluntarily. You are seeking them as guarantees of liberty, not as license to make attacks on others. But your anger is to be excused rather than indulged. Your hatred of cruelty is driving you headlong into cruelty, and, almost before you are free yourselves, you are wanting to lord it over your foes. Will our state never have a rest from senators punishing plebeians, or plebeians punishing senators? You need a shield rather than a sword. It is enough and more than enough for a low-born citizen to enjoy equal rights in the state and neither inflict nor suffer injustice. Even if, at some future date, you show that you are to be feared, it will be after you have recovered your magistrates and laws when you have jurisdiction over our lives and fortunes;¹¹⁰ then you will make a decision as each case comes before you. Meanwhile it is enough to regain your freedom.”

54. 449 BCE. The settlement of Valerius and Horatius is accepted and the decemvirs resign. The plebs return, elect tribunes, and pass a bill restoring the consulship, subject to the right of appeal.

When the people all agreed that Valerius and Horatius should do as they saw fit, the envoys assured them that they would return when they had completed the settlement. They set out, and, when they had explained the plebs’ demands to the senators, the other decemvirs made no objection since, contrary to their expectation, there was no mention of punishment for them. But Appius, because of his savage temperament and his extraordinary unpopularity, measured other men’s hatred of him by his own hatred of them, exclaiming, “I am not unaware of the fortune that threatens me. I see that the struggle against us is being postponed until weapons are handed to our adversaries. Their antagonism demands the offering of blood. I have no hesitation in resigning from the decemvirate.” The senate decreed that the decemvirs should abdicate their office as soon as possible; that Quintus Furius, the pontifex maximus; should conduct an election for tribunes of the plebs; and that the secession of the soldiers and the plebs should not be held against anyone.¹¹¹

When the senatorial decrees had been passed and the senate dismissed, the decemvirs went before the people and abdicated their office, to everyone’s great joy. These happenings were announced to the plebs. Whatever people were left in the city followed the envoys. This throng was met by another joyful crowd running out from the camp. They congratulated each other on the restoration of freedom and harmony to the state. The envoys addressed the people: “May this be favorable, fortunate, and happy for you and for the republic. Return to your native city, to your household gods, to your wives and children. But as you go, take into the city that same restraint that you have shown here, where no man’s land was violated, though so many things were useful and necessary for so great a throng. Go to the Aventine, from where you set out. There, in the auspicious place where you made the first beginnings of liberty, you will elect tribunes of the plebs. The pontifex maximus will be there to hold the election.”

These words quickly drew huge applause, as the crowds gave their approval to everything. They tore up the standards and set out for Rome, their joy vying with that of those who came to meet them. Armed, they went in silence through the city to the Aventine. There Quintus Furius, the pontifex maximus, immediately held an assembly, and they elected tribunes of the plebs: first of all Lucius Verginius; then Lucius Icilius and Publius Numitorius (Verginia’s maternal uncle), the instigators of the secession;¹¹² then Gaius Sicinius, the son of the man who is said to have been the first tribune elected on the Sacred Mount; and Marcus Duilius, who had distinguished himself in the tribunate before the election of the decemvirs and who had not failed the plebs in their struggle with the decemvirs. Elected more for their promise than their service were Marcus Titinius, Marcus Pomponius, Gaius Apronius, Appius Villius, and Gaius Oppius. As soon as they had taken office, Lucius Icilius proposed to the plebs, and they approved, that secession from the decemvirs should not be held against anyone. Immediately Marcus Duilius carried a resolution to elect consuls with the right of appeal. All this was enacted by the Council of the Plebs in the Flaminian Meadows, which they now call the Circus Flaminius.¹¹³

55. After the rapprochement between senators and plebeians, the new consuls, Valerius and Horatius, pass laws regarding plebiscites, the right of appeal, and sacrosanctity.

Then, through an interrex, Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius were elected to the consulship and took up office immediately [449 BCE]. Their term of office favored the people without wronging the patricians, but not without offending them; for they believed that whatever was done to protect the plebs diminished their own power. First of all, since it was virtually an undecided point of law whether patricians were legally bound by decisions of the plebs, they carried a law in the Comitia Centuriata that what the plebs should pass when voting by tribes should be binding on the people, a bill that gave tribunician proposals a very sharp weapon.¹¹⁴ Then the consuls not only restored another consular law about the right of appeal, the sole defense of liberty, that had been overturned by the power of the decemvirs, but they also strengthened it for the future by the solemn enactment of a new law that no one should declare the election of a magistrate without right of appeal.¹¹⁵ Anyone who did so could be killed according to both human and divine law, and such a homicide would not be considered a capital offense.

When they had given sufficient safeguards to the plebs, through the right of appeal on the one hand and tribunician help on the other, in the interests of the tribunes they restored the principle of sacrosanctity, a thing that had almost been forgotten.¹¹⁶ They revived long-neglected ceremonies and renewed them. They made tribunes inviolate, not only on the principle of religion but also by a statute that stipulated that anyone who harmed tribunes of the plebs, aediles, or the ten-man panel of judges should forfeit his life to Jupiter, and his possessions should be sold at the temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera.¹¹⁷ Legal experts say that this statute does not make someone sacrosanct but marks anyone who has harmed one of these officials as accursed.¹¹⁸ Thus an aedile may be arrested and imprisoned by the higher magistrates—an act that, though it may be illegal (since harm is being done to a man who, under this statute, should not be harmed), is nevertheless proof that an aedile is not considered to be sacrosanct. The tribunes, on the other hand, are sacrosanct by virtue of an ancient oath taken by the plebs when their power was first established. There were those who interpreted this Horatian law as also applying to consuls and likewise to praetors, because they were elected under the same auspices as the consuls: the consul, they said, was called “judge.” But this interpretation is refuted by the fact that, in those days, it was not yet the custom to call the consul “judge,” but rather “praetor.” These were the laws enacted by the consuls.

Also instituted by these consuls was the practice of taking senatorial decrees down to the aediles at the temple of Ceres. Previously these decrees were suppressed or falsified at the discretion of the consuls. Marcus Duilius, a tribune of the plebs, then proposed a bill to the plebs, which the plebs passed, that whoever left the plebs without tribunes and whoever declared the election of a magistrate without appeal should be scourged and beheaded. All these measures were passed against the will of the patricians, though they did not oppose them because their harshness was not yet directed at any one person.

56. Verginius begins the prosecution of Appius Claudius, who demands the right to appeal as he is arrested and led off to prison.

Once the tribunician power and the freedom of the plebs had been firmly established, the tribunes thought it safe and timely to attack individuals.¹¹⁹ So, they chose Verginius to bring the first accusation and Appius to be the defendant. On being indicted by Verginius, Appius came down into the forum surrounded by a throng of young patricians. Immediately everyone recalled his appalling power as they saw the man himself and his satellites. Then Verginius said, “Oratory was invented for dubious matters. Therefore I shall not waste your time by making a formal accusation of a man from whose cruelty you have freed yourselves with arms, nor will I allow him to add to his other crimes the effrontery of making a defense.¹²⁰ Appius Claudius, I am overlooking all the impious and wicked deeds that you dared to commit, one after another, over the last two years. On one charge only will I give the order for your imprisonment—unless you agree to go before a judge and prove that you did not illegally award the ownership of a free person to a man who claimed her as his slave.”

Appius had no hope that the tribunes would help him, nor that the people would decide in his favor. Nevertheless he called on the tribunes and, when none of them would stay for the proceedings and he had been arrested by an attendant, he cried, “I appeal.” The sound of this cry, the sole safeguard of liberty, coming from the same lips that had recently denied a claim to freedom produced silence. The people muttered, each man to himself, that after all the gods did exist and were not indifferent to human affairs; punishment for arrogance and cruelty was coming, late but in no small measure. They realized that the man who had annulled the right of appeal was himself making an appeal; the one who had trampled on all the rights of the people was now imploring the people’s protection; the one who had consigned a free person to slavery was being dragged off to prison, in need of his own right to freedom!

The voice of Appius was heard amid the murmurs of the assembly as he begged for the protection of the Roman people. He reminded them of his ancestors’ services to the state both at home and in the field, and of his own unfortunate zeal for the Roman plebs that had caused him to give up his consulship and offend the senators in order to establish equality under the law.¹²¹ Finally he reminded them of the laws he had passed that still were in place, though their proponent was being led off to prison. But as for the good and bad points of his case, he would put these to the test when he had the opportunity to plead his defense. For the present, he asked that, as a Roman citizen under indictment, he be granted the right they all shared: the right to speak and to be judged by the Roman people. He was not so afraid of unpopularity that he had no hope of the fairness and pity of his fellow citizens. But if he were to be led off to prison without pleading his case, he appealed a second time to the tribunes of the plebs, warning them not to imitate the people they hated. But if the tribunes were to confess that they were bound by the same agreement to annul the right of appeal—a charge that they alleged the decemvirs had conspired to annul—he still appealed to the people, invoking the consular and tribunician laws on the right to appeal that had been passed in that very year. Who, he asked, would make an appeal if a man who had not been condemned, whose case had not been heard, were not allowed to appeal? What protection was there in the laws for a low-born plebeian if there was none for Appius Claudius? His case would be proof of whether tyranny or freedom had been established under the new laws and whether the appeal to tribunes and that to the people against mistreatment by magistrates were merely a display of meaningless written words or a reality.

57. Verginius prevails and Appius is imprisoned, pending trial. There is no problem in levying troops. The Twelve Tables are set up in bronze in a public place.

In response, Verginius asserted that Appius Claudius was the one man who had no claim on either the laws or the agreements that bind citizens and men. They should look at the tribunal, that fortress of all criminality, where Appius, as decemvir in perpetuity, had attacked the property, persons, and lives of the citizens, threatening everyone with the rods and axes; despising gods and men; surrounded by butchers, not lictors. His mind had turned from plunder and slaughter to lust, and, before the eyes of the Roman people, he had torn a free-born Roman girl from her father’s embrace as if she were a war captive, giving her as a gift to a client who was acting as his pimp. This tribunal was where Appius, by his cruel decree and unspeakable judgment, had put a weapon into a father’s hand to use against his daughter. Here, motivated more by his own frustrated lust than by her death, Appius had ordered the girl’s grandfather and fiancé to be taken to prison as they were lifting up her dying body. The prison that he used to call the “home of the Roman plebs” had been built to house him, too. Just as Appius would appeal to the people over and over again, so too would he, Verginius, over and over again challenge him to go before a judge and prove that he had not awarded the ownership of a free person to one who claimed her as his slave. If he did not go before a judge, Verginius ordered him to be imprisoned as one who had been condemned. Though no one objected, there were great misgivings as Appius was thrown into prison, since the plebs saw that in punishing such an important man, their liberty was already becoming excessive. The tribune announced a date for the trial.

In the midst of these events, envoys came to Rome from the Latins and Hernici to congratulate them on the harmony between patricians and plebeians. On this account, they brought a gift for Jupiter Best and Greatest; this was a golden crown of no great weight, since their states were not wealthy and their religious practices were dutiful rather than magnificent. From the same sources it was learned that the Aequi and Volsci were preparing war with all their might. The consuls were ordered to divide the provinces between them by lot. The Sabines fell to Horatius, and the Aequi to Valerius.¹²² When they had proclaimed a levy for these wars, their popularity with the plebs was such that not only the younger men but also a large number of volunteers who had served their time were there to hand in their names. And so the army was even stronger because of both the number and caliber of soldiers, thanks to the inclusion of veterans. Before leaving the city, the consuls had the decemviral laws, which are called the Twelve Tables, inscribed in bronze and set up in a public place.¹²³ Some sources say that the aediles performed this function on the orders of the tribunes.¹²⁴

58. Appius’ uncle attempts to intercede, but Verginius again prevails and Appius kills himself. Oppius also commits suicide, and the rest of the decemvirs go into exile.

Gaius Claudius, who loathed the decemvirs’ crimes and was more opposed than anyone to his nephew’s arrogance, had retreated to Regillum, the ancestral home of the Claudii.¹²⁵ He was now advanced in years, but returned to Rome to intercede for the man from whose wickedness he had fled. Wearing mourning garments he went about in the forum, accompanied by his kinsmen and clients, soliciting the support of individuals and begging them not to brand the Claudian family with infamy and not to think its members deserving of imprisonment and chains. A man whose funeral mask would be held in the highest esteem by posterity, the framer of statutes and the founder of Roman law, was lying shackled among night-prowling thieves and robbers.¹²⁶ They should turn their minds for a moment from anger to recognition and reflection; they should pardon one man in response to the entreaties of so many Claudii, rather than reject the prayers of many because of their hatred of one individual. He was doing this, Gaius said, for his family’s name and not because he had been reconciled with the man whom he wanted to help in his adversity. Liberty had been recovered by courage; the harmony of the orders could be made secure by clemency.

There were some whom he moved more by his family loyalty than by the cause of the man for whom he was pleading. But Verginius begged them rather to pity him and his daughter and listen to the prayers, not of the Claudian family whose lot it was to tyrannize over the plebs, but rather to those of Verginia’s relatives, three tribunes of the plebs, who had been elected to help the plebs and who now were imploring the plebs to protect and help them. Their tears seemed to present a more just claim. And so Appius, cut off from hope, took his own life before the day appointed for his trial.

Thereupon, Spurius Oppius, the next in unpopularity, was arrested by Publius Numitorius because he had been in the city when the unjust verdict was pronounced by his colleague. Yet an injustice committed by Oppius occasioned more unpopularity than the wrong he failed to prevent. A witness was produced who, after listing twenty-seven campaigns during which he received eight military decorations that he wore for all to see, tore open his garment and displayed his back, scarred by the rods, and challenged Oppius, if he could name a crime for which he was guilty, to vent his rage, albeit as a private citizen, by whipping him a second time. Oppius was also taken to prison and put an end to his own life before the day of his trial. The tribunes confiscated the property of Claudius and Oppius. The other decemvirs went into exile and their property was confiscated. Marcus Claudius, who had laid claim to Verginia, was indicted and condemned, but Verginius had the extreme penalty remitted. On being released, Claudius went into exile at Tibur. The ghost of Verginia, more fortunate in death than in life, was finally at peace after wandering from house to house in search of vengeance, now that no guilty person remained.

59. The tribune Duilius curbs tribunician power by instituting a year’s ban on indictments and imprisonment.

A great fear had come upon the senators because already the tribunes were looking just like the decemvirs, when Marcus Duilius, a tribune of the plebs, imposed a healthy restraint on their excessive power. “Our liberty and the punishment of the enemy have gone far enough,” he cried. “This year, therefore, I am not going to allow anyone to be indicted or put in prison. Now that recent wrongs have been expiated by the punishment of the decemvirs, it is not good to seek old wrongs that already have been forgotten. Moreover, the unceasing concern of both consuls to protect your liberty is a guarantee that no wrongdoing will be committed that might need the intervention of tribunes.”

The tribune’s moderation at first relieved the senators of their fear, but it also increased their dislike of the consuls, since the latter had been so completely on the side of the plebeians that it had been a plebeian rather than patrician magistrate who had been the first to be concerned for the senators’ safety and freedom. Their opponents, moreover, had become sated with punishing the senate before the consuls showed any intention of blocking the people’s license. There were many who said that the senators had been too soft in backing the measures proposed by the consuls. Nor was there any doubt that, in the turbulent state of the nation, the senators had bowed to the exigencies of the times.

60. The wars against Rome’s neighbors resume. Valerius is cautious in committing his troops to battle and only attacks the Volsci and Aequi when many of them are away from camp on plundering raids.

After settling affairs in the city and establishing the position of the plebs, the consuls set out for their respective commands. Valerius faced the armies of the Aequi and Volsci, who had already joined forces on Mount Algidus, but deliberately refrained from engaging them. If he had immediately tried his luck, I think it likely that the struggle would have caused him great losses, given the morale of the Romans and their foes under the unfortunate auspices of the decemvirs.¹²⁷ He kept his troops in the camp that he had pitched a mile from the enemy. The enemy repeatedly drew up their forces in battle order in the space between the two camps, challenging the Romans to fight. But no Roman responded. At length, tired of standing and waiting in vain for battle, the Aequi and Volsci thought that the Romans had virtually conceded victory. So, they withdrew to plunder, some against the Hernici and others against the Latins, leaving behind what was a garrison for a camp rather than a force that was sufficient for a pitched battle.

Realizing this, the consul repaid the fear that he had been made to feel. Drawing up the battle line, he took the initiative in provoking the enemy. Aware of their reduced strength, they refused battle. The Roman morale immediately increased, and the soldiers regarded the troops cowering within the rampart as beaten men. After standing the whole day intent on battle, the Romans withdrew at nightfall. Filled with hope, they took rest and refreshment. The enemy, however, were in a different frame of mind; in trepidation, they sent messengers in all directions to recall the plunderers. The nearest of these rushed back, but those at a farther distance were not found. When it was light, the Romans came out of their camp, intending to storm the rampart if there was no opportunity to fight. After much of the day had passed and there was no movement on the part of the enemy, the consul ordered an advance. As the battle line moved forward, the Aequi and Volsci were indignant that their victorious armies were protected by a rampart, rather than by their courage and arms. They received the signal for battle after demanding it from their leaders. Already part of the army had gone out of the gates, and the rest were keeping good order as each took his place in the line, when the Roman consul advanced the standards before the enemy line could position itself in full strength. The attack came before all the enemy had been led out and before those who had been led out could be fully deployed, as the Romans rushed upon little more than a mob of frightened men, who were surging this way and that, looking around to see where they and their fellow soldiers were. The shouting and force of the attack increased the confusion in their minds. At first they retreated. Then they recovered their wits, as their leaders on all sides demanded whether they were going to yield to men they had defeated. And so the fighting was renewed.

61. Valerius raises the morale of his men, reminding them that once again they are free, fighting for a free city. They storm the enemy camp, inspiring the army on the Sabine front to emulate them.

On the other side, the consul ordered the Romans to remember that on that day they were fighting as free men, on behalf of a free city. They were going to conquer for their own sakes; as victors, they would not become the spoil of decemvirs. It was not Appius who was their commander, but the consul Valerius, descendant of the liberators of the Roman people, and himself a liberator.¹²⁸ They should show that their defeat in earlier battles had been the fault of the commander, not the soldiers. It was shameful to have shown more spirit against fellow citizens than against the enemy, and to have been more fearful of slavery at home than abroad. No one’s chastity but Verginia’s had been endangered in time of peace; no citizen but Appius had been possessed of a dangerous lust. But if the fortune of war should incline against them, the children of all of them would be in danger from countless thousands of foes. Yet he did not want to predict the things that neither Jupiter nor Father Mars would allow to befall a city that had been founded with such auspices.¹²⁹ He reminded them of the Aventine and the Sacred Mount, urging them to bring Roman power back, undiminished, to the place where freedom had been won a few months earlier. They should show that the Roman soldiers’ nature was the same after the expulsion of the decemvirs as it had been before their election, and that the courage of the Roman people had not been lessened by equality before the law.

After giving this speech amid the infantry’s standards, he rushed up to the cavalry. “Come, young men,” he cried, “surpass the infantry in courage as you surpass them in rank and privilege. At the first onset, the infantry has dislodged the enemy. Now that they are driven back, give rein to your horses and chase them from the field. They will not withstand your attack; even now, they are hesitating rather than resisting.” Spurring their horses on, they charged against the enemy, who were already thrown into disarray by the infantry’s attack. Breaking through the enemy lines, the cavalry was carried through to the rear. Another division circled around on the unoccupied ground and, finding the enemy in flight on all sides, blocked most of them from their camp by riding ahead and frightening them off. The line of infantry, the consul himself, and the entire battle force swept into the enemy camp and, after much slaughter, took possession of the survivors and even greater booty.

The report of this battle reached not only the city but also the other army on the Sabine front, causing a joyful celebration in the city and inspiring the minds of the soldiers in the camp to emulate their comrades’ glorious exploit. By engaging his men in raids and skirmishes, Horatius had already accustomed them to have trust in him, rather than remember the disgrace they had incurred under the leadership of the decemvirs. These small engagements had brought them to the point of expecting complete success. But the Sabines did not stop their provocation and threats, emboldened as they were by their success in the previous year. Why, they asked, did the Romans waste their time skirmishing in small companies, like brigands, running back and forth, and so shredding the issue of a single war into numerous little fights? Why didn’t they confront them in a pitched battle and allow fortune to decide the matter once and for all?

62. Horatius gives his men the option of prolonging or ending the campaign. In the ensuing battle, the Roman cavalry comes to the rescue of the hard-pressed infantry.

In addition to recovering their self-confidence, the Romans were fired with indignation. The other army, they said, was already about to return to the city in victory, whereas they were being freely insulted and abused by the enemy. When would they be a match for the enemy if not then? After the consul realized that these mutterings were going on in the camp, he summoned an assembly. “Men,” he said, “I guess you’ve heard how things went on Algidus. The army conducted itself as the army of a free people should. Victory was obtained by the strategy of my colleague and the courage of his soldiers. As for me, whatever strategy and spirit I am going to use will be up to you soldiers. It is possible either to prolong the war advantageously or to speedily bring it to an end. If it is to be prolonged, I will apply the same discipline that I have instituted and see to it that your hopes and courage increase day by day. If you already have sufficient spirit and want the war to be decided, come then; raise the kind of shout that you are going to raise in the line of battle, as an indication of your courage and willingness.” The shout was raised with great eagerness; the consul prayed for success, promising that he would do as they wished and lead them into battle the next day. The rest of the day was spent preparing their arms.

The next day, as soon as they saw the Roman battle line being drawn up, the Sabines moved into position, for they had long been eager to fight. It was the kind of fight that takes place between two confident armies; the glory of one was ancient and uninterrupted; the other was elated by the recent, unaccustomed victory. The Sabines employed a stratagem to enhance their strength. When they had matched their line with that of the Romans, they kept 2,000 men in reserve to attack the Romans’ left wing once the fighting was under way. These troops, attacking on the flank, had almost surrounded that wing and were overpowering it, when about 600 cavalry from two Roman legions leaped down from their horses and rushed to the front, where their fellow soldiers were already giving ground. There they opposed the enemy and fired the spirits of the infantry, first by sharing equally in their danger and then putting them to shame. For it was disgraceful that the cavalry should be fighting both their own and someone else’s battle, too, and that the infantry should not be as good as horsemen fighting on foot.

63. Although Valerius and Horatius are successful in restoring the soldiers’ morale and defeating the enemy, the senate grants them only a one-day supplication and refuses a triumph. On the proposal of the tribune Icilius, the people vote a triumph.

And so, the infantry went into the fray that they had given up as lost and made for the position from which they had retreated. Instantly, not only was the battle restored, but the Sabine wing was even giving way. Protected by the infantry ranks, the cavalry went back to their horses and flew across to the other part of the army, announcing their victory to their men. At the same time, they also made a charge against the enemy, who were already panic-stricken, since the stronger wing of their force had been routed. In that battle the courage of no other troops outshone that of the cavalry. The consul provided for every contingency, praising the brave and reprimanding any who held back from fighting. Those who were reproved immediately performed like warriors, aroused by shame just as praise had roused the others. Renewing the battle cry on all sides, the Romans made a concerted effort and drove the enemy back. From then on the force of the Romans could not be withstood, and the Sabines fled in all directions throughout the countryside, leaving their camp for the enemy to plunder. There the Romans regained not the property of their allies as they had on Mount Algidus, but their own that they had lost because of the raids on their farms.

Though a double victory had been won in two separate battles, the senate spitefully decreed only a one-day supplication in the name of the consuls.¹³⁰ Unbidden, the people went in large numbers also on the second day, to make supplication. This unorganized supplication by the people was almost more enthusiastically attended than the first. The consuls, who had arranged to approach the city on the same two days, summoned the senate to the Campus Martius. When they were reporting their achievements, the leading senators complained that the senate was being deliberately held in the midst of the soldiers in order to intimidate the senators. And so the consuls, to allow no room for accusation, moved the meeting to the Flaminian Meadows, where the temple of Apollo now is (at that time, it was already known as Apollo’s precinct).¹³¹ When a huge consensus of the senators refused to grant a triumph, the plebeian tribune Lucius Icilius brought a motion for a triumph before the people. Many came forward to dissuade him—especially Gaius Claudius, who shouted out that the consuls were wanting to celebrate a triumph over the senators, not the enemy; they were seeking a favor in return for a personal service to the tribune, not recognition for their courage. Never before, he said, had a triumph been granted by the people. The evaluation and decision to grant that honor had been in the hands of the senate. Not even the kings had encroached upon the power of Rome’s highest order. The tribunes should not include everything under their control, to the extent of disallowing deliberation of public policy. The state would finally be free and the laws equal if each order kept its own rights and its own dignity. Although many speeches expressing the same opinion were made by the rest of the older senators, all the tribes voted for the motion. Then, for the first time, a triumph was celebrated at the bidding of the people, without the authorization of the senate.¹³²

64. The tribunes try to get themselves reelected but are thwarted by Duilius, who has the support of the outgoing consuls. The consuls refuse reelection; only five tribunes are elected.

This victory of the tribunes and plebs almost led to an unwholesome excess as a result of a conspiracy of the tribunes to get themselves reelected and also, in order to make their ambition less conspicuous, to return the consuls to office. They gave as their reason the unanimity of the senators who, by their insolent behavior toward the consuls, had weakened the rights of the plebeians. What would happen if, while the laws were not firmly established, the senators attacked the new tribunes through consuls who belonged to their own faction? There would not always be consuls like Valerius and Horatius, who would put the freedom of the plebs before their own interests. By a chance that proved useful in this emergency, the conduct of the elections fell by lot to Marcus Duilius, a man of foresight who discerned the imminent hatred that would result from continuation in office. When he said that he would not accept the candidacy of any of the old tribunes, his colleagues fought him, urging that he either allow the tribes to vote as they wished or yield the presidency of the elections to his colleagues, who would hold the elections in accordance with the law rather than with the will of the patricians. A dispute arose. Summoning the consuls to his bench, Duilius asked them what they intended to do about the consular election. They replied that they would elect new consuls. Finding that he had popular supporters of an unpopular policy, he went with them before the assembly. The consuls were brought before the people and asked what they would do if the Roman people, mindful of their help in recovering their freedom at home and mindful of their achievements in the field, should again elect them as consuls. The consuls did not change their opinion.

After praising the consuls for persisting to the end in differing from the decemvirs, Duilius held the election. Five plebeian tribunes were elected, but no other candidates obtained a majority of the tribal votes because of the eagerness with which nine incumbents were openly seeking reelection. So, he dismissed the assembly and did not subsequently convene it for an election. He said that the law had been satisfied, since it nowhere stipulated a specific number but only provided that the office not be left vacant; he ordered that colleagues be co-opted by those who had been elected. He read out the formula of the statute, in which there was the following: “If I shall call you to vote for ten tribunes and if, for any reason, you shall today elect fewer than ten tribunes, then let those whom the elected tribunes co-opt as their colleagues be lawful plebeian tribunes according to the same law as are those whom you shall have elected as plebeian tribunes today.” Duilius persisted to the end in saying that the state could not have fifteen tribunes of the plebs. Having defeated the selfish desires of his colleagues, he resigned from office, to the approval of patricians and plebeians alike.

65. 448 and 447 BCE. A tribunician bill is passed stating that voting should continue until ten tribunes are elected. Peace at home and abroad depends on preserving harmony (concordia) between senators and plebeians.

The new tribunes of the plebs favored the wishes of the senators in co-opting their colleagues. They even chose two who were patricians and exconsuls, Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius.¹³³ The new consuls, Spurius Herminius and Titus Verginius Caelimontanus [448 BCE], were not greatly inclined either to the cause of the patricians nor to that of the plebs; and so they had peace at home and abroad. Lucius Trebonius, a tribune of the plebs, was angry with the senators because he said that he had been cheated by them in the co-optation of the tribunes and had been betrayed by his colleagues. So, he proposed a bill stating that a man who called on the Roman plebs to elect tribunes should continue the voting until he has ten tribunes elected. He spent his tribunate pursuing the senators and so got the cognomen Asper, meaning “harsh.”

Then Marcus Geganius Macerinus and Gaius Julius became consuls [447 BCE] and calmed the disputes that had arisen between the tribunes and the young nobles, without attacking the tribunes’ power, yet maintaining the senators’ dignity. When a levy had been ordered for war with the Volsci and Aequi, the consuls restrained the plebs from sedition by putting the matter on hold, asserting that everything abroad was peaceful during a time of domestic peace; it was discord in Rome that raised the spirits of foreign foes. Their concern for peace also produced internal harmony. But the one order was always a problem for the moderation of the other. The plebs were quiet, but the younger patricians began to maltreat them. When the tribunes helped the low-born, at first they had little effect. Then they did not even escape violence themselves, especially in the last months, since not only were injustices perpetrated through cabals of the more powerful, but every magistrate’s power generally languishes somewhat in the latter part of his term. Already the plebeians were putting some hope in the tribunate, if they could have tribunes like Icilius: for the past two years, they had had mere names. On the other hand, the older senators, though thinking their young men too headstrong, preferred to have their excessive spirit on their own side rather than that of their adversaries, if moderation had to be disregarded.

So difficult it is to be moderate in the defense of freedom. By pretending to want equality, an individual raises himself up in order to put another down. By protecting themselves against fear, men actually make themselves the object of fear, and, when we have defended ourselves from injustice, we proceed to injure others, as if it were a necessity either to do or to suffer wrong.

66. 446 BCE. In Titus Quinctius Capitolinus’ fourth consulship, the Aequi and Volsci appear before Rome’s walls, flaunting their booty.

Titus Quinctius Capitolinus (for the fourth time) and Agrippa Furius were the next consuls [446 BCE]. They experienced neither sedition at home nor war abroad, though both possibilities threatened. Discord among the citizens could no longer be suppressed. Both tribunes and plebs were aroused in opposition to the patricians, and the indictment of one or another of the nobles was continually throwing the assemblies into confusion with new disputes. At the first uproar in these meetings, the Aequi and Volsci took up arms as if they had received a signal. Their leaders, eager for booty, had also persuaded them that for two years it had not been possible for the consuls to conduct the levy that had been proclaimed, since the plebs rejected their authority. This was why armies had not been dispatched against them. Roman military tradition was breaking down because of lawlessness. Rome was no longer a united homeland. All the anger and animosity the Romans had felt toward foreigners was now being turned against themselves. Now that the wolves were blinded with rage against each other, it was time to destroy them.¹³⁴

And so the Aequi and Volsci combined their armies and first ravaged Latin territory. Then, when no one appeared to oppose them, the advocates of war exulted as their forces came plundering right to the walls of Rome, in the area of the Esquiline Gate, insolently showing the inhabitants of the city the plunder from their lands. When no one retaliated, they went to Corbio, driving their booty before them. At this point, the consul Quinctius called the people to an assembly.

67. In a rousing speech to the people, Quinctius Capitolinus points out that discord between the orders only serves to encourage attacks from their foes.

The following, I hear, was the tenor of his speech:¹³⁵“Although I am aware of no wrongdoing, fellow citizens, nevertheless it is with great shame that I come before this assembly to confront you. To think that you know, to think that posterity will hear that the Aequi and Volsci, who recently were scarcely a match for the Hernici, have in the fourth consulship of Titus Quinctius approached the walls of the city of Rome—armed and unopposed! Although life has been like this for so long now, the state of affairs is such that my mind could foresee nothing good; yet had I known that a disgrace such as this was threatening this particular year, I would have avoided it either by exile or by death, if there were no other way of escaping office. If there had been real armed warriors at our gates, Rome could have been captured in my consulship. I had enjoyed enough of high office, enough and more than enough of life; I ought to have died in my third consulship! Who was it, I ask, that this most cowardly of enemies despised? Was it us, the consuls, or you, my fellow citizens? If the blame is ours, take away the power that we do not deserve; and if that is not enough, punish us as well. But if the blame is yours, my fellow citizens, may it be no god or man that punishes your mistakes; may you simply repent of them! It was not your cowardice that they despised, nor was it their own courage in which they put their trust. Indeed, so many times have they been routed and put to flight, stripped of their camps, deprived of their land, sent beneath the yoke, that they know both themselves and you. What raised their spirits was the discord between the orders and the poison of this city, the struggles between patricians and plebeians, as all the while we set no limit to our power, nor you to your freedom; and you became disgusted with the patrician magistrates, and we with the plebeian officials.

“In the name of the gods, what is it that you want? You yearned for tribunes of the plebs; we granted them for the sake of harmony. You desired decemvirs; we allowed them to be appointed. You became very tired of the decemvirs; we forced them to resign. When your anger against them persisted even after they had retired into private life, we allowed these distinguished men of the highest nobility to suffer death and exile. You wanted to elect plebeian tribunes again; you elected them. You wanted to appoint consuls who supported your cause; we watched as even the patrician magistracy became a gift to the plebs, though we saw that it was unfair to the patricians.¹³⁶ Protection by the tribunes, the right of appeal to the people, resolutions of the plebs binding on patricians, the suppression of our rights under the pretext of equality before the law—all this we have endured and are now enduring. What end will there be to this discord? When will we be allowed to have a unified city, a fatherland that we all share? We are more equable and peaceful in our defeat than you are in your victory. Isn’t it enough that we must fear you? It was in opposition to us that the Aventine was taken, in opposition to us that the Sacred Mount was occupied. We saw the Esquiline almost captured by the enemy, and the Volscians scaling the rampart. Yet no one drove off the enemy. It is against us that you show your valor; against us you have taken up arms!”

68. Quinctius rallies the people by detailing the results of their shameful and unpatriotic behavior.

“Come now, go outside the Esquiline Gate with the same bold spirit that you have shown here in besieging the senate house, in making the forum a place of hostility and filling the prison with our leading men. Or, if you do not even dare to do that, look from the walls at your fields devastated by fire and the sword, the livestock being driven off, and the smoke of the buildings burning far and wide. But, it might be said, it is the community that is the worse for all this: the land is burned, the city besieged; the glory of war belongs to the enemy. So think about it. In what condition are your private possessions? Soon every single one of you will be getting news of his personal losses. What resources, I ask, do you have to make up these losses? Will the tribunes restore and replace them for you? They will assail you with as many words and phrases as you want, accusations against the leading men, laws one after another, and assemblies. But from those assemblies, not one of you has ever come back home with your fortune or situation improved. Has any one of you brought back to his wife and children anything but animosities, complaints, and grudges, both public and private? It is not your own courage and innocence that always protects you from these sorts of things, but rather someone else’s help.

“But, by Hercules, when we consuls were your commanders, not the tribunes, you served in the camp, not in the forum. In the battle line your shout made the enemy shudder, not the senators in the assembly. Booty was won, land captured from the enemy; and you came back to your home and household gods in triumph, bringing an abundance of wealth and glory both for the state and for yourselves. But now you allow the enemy to go off laden with your possessions. Stay here fixated with your assemblies and live in the forum; the necessity to fight, which you are trying to escape, pursues you. It was a chore to march against the Aequi and Volsci; so now, the war is at your gates. If it is not driven back, it will soon be within the walls, climbing the citadel and Capitol and pursuing you into your homes. A year ago, the senate ordered a levy to be held and the army to be led to Mount Algidus. Now we are sitting idly at home, arguing among ourselves like women, enjoying the present peace without perceiving that after a brief respite the war will come back, greatly multiplied.

“I know that other things are more pleasant to say than this. But necessity compels me, even if my own instincts were not telling me to speak the truth rather than pleasantries. Indeed, I would like to please you, fellow citizens, but I much prefer that you be safe, no matter what your feeling toward me will be. Human nature is such that the man who addresses the people in his own selfish interests is more popular than the one whose mind sees nothing except what is advantageous to the state; unless, perhaps, you think that these flatterers of the people—I mean men who cultivate the plebs and won’t allow you to be either at peace or at war—have your interests in mind when they goad and incite you. By becoming aroused, you promote either their political careers or their enrichment. Moreover, because they see that they are nonentities as long as the state is harmonious, they are willing to be the leaders of a bad cause, rather than no cause at all—standard-bearers of seditious mobs. If disgust at this situation is finally able to take hold of you and you are willing to resume your fathers’ and your own old-style ways in place of these newfangled ones, you can punish me however you wish if, within a few days, I haven’t routed and put to flight these devastators of our land, stripped them of their camp, and shifted from our gates and walls to their cities this fear of war that now has you thunderstruck.”

69. Capitolinus’ speech is successful, and the levy is completed promptly.

Rarely has the speech of a popular tribune been better received by the plebs than this one, delivered as it was by the sternest of consuls. Even the young men, who habitually considered that refusal of military service amid such fears was their sharpest weapon against the senators, began to look forward to war and arms. The flight of the countryfolk, people robbed and wounded while on their farms who reported more appalling happenings than those visible to the citizens—all this filled the entire city with rage.

When the senate met, indeed all turned to Quinctius as the sole champion of Rome’s greatness. The leading senators said that his speech was worthy of his consular power, worthy of his many earlier consulships, and worthy of his entire life, filled as it had been with the offices he had so often held but more often deserved. Other consuls had either flattered the plebs by betraying the dignity of the patricians or made the masses more difficult to subdue by harshly protecting the rights of their order. But Titus Quinctius had made a speech that was mindful of the dignity of the patricians, the harmony of the orders, and, above all, the current crisis. They begged him and his colleague to take control of the state; they begged the tribunes willingly to join with the consuls in a single-minded effort to drive the war from the walls and to show to the patricians that the plebs were obedient in this alarming situation. The state they all shared appealed to the tribunes and begged for their help, now that the fields were devastated and the city virtually under siege.

With everyone’s agreement, a levy was proclaimed and held. The consuls announced in the assembly that there was no time to consider excuses; all men of military age should present themselves at dawn on the following day in the Campus Martius. They would, they said, take time when the war was over to consider the excuses of those who did not enlist; anyone whose excuse they did not approve would be considered a deserter. The next day, all the men of military age appeared. The cohorts each chose their centurions, and two senators were put in charge of each cohort. We hear that all this was completed so promptly that the standards were brought from the treasury by the quaestors on that very day, then taken to the Campus, and carried from the Campus by midmorning. The newly recruited army, with a few cohorts of veterans following voluntarily as an escort, camped overnight at the tenth milestone. The next day brought the enemy within sight, and the Romans pitched camp close to that of the enemy, near Corbio. On the third day, the Romans were exasperated with anger, and the enemy with despair and an awareness of their guilt at having revolted so often. And so there was no delay in beginning the fight.

70. Capitolinus assumes supreme command and defeats the Aequi and Volsci but does not demand a triumph.

Since there were two consuls of equal authority in the army, Agrippa yielded the supreme command to his colleague, a most salutary move in dealing with important matters. Quinctius, now the superior, responded courteously to his colleague’s readiness to subordinate himself by sharing his plans and his glory and by treating Agrippa as an equal, though he was not. In the battle line, Quinctius held the right wing, Agrippa the left. A lieutenant, Spurius Postumius Albus, was put in charge of the center; and they put another lieutenant, Publius Sulpicius, in command of the cavalry. The infantry on the right wing fought with distinction against vigorous resistance from the Volsci. Publius Sulpicius broke through the middle of the enemy’s line with his cavalry.

Although he could have returned to his men by the same path, it seemed better to attack the enemy from the rear before they had time to regroup their scattered troops. It would have taken only a moment to charge them from behind, terrifying and scattering them with the two attacks; but the Volscian and Aequian cavalry engaged Sulpicius with his own kind of fighting and kept him in check for some time. Then he cried out that this was not the time to hesitate—unless they made a forceful effort to finish the cavalry battle, they were surrounded and cut off from their fellow soldiers. It was not enough to rout the enemy and let them get away unscathed. The Romans should kill both horses and men to prevent anyone from riding back into the fray and renewing the fight. The enemy, whose massed line of infantry had given way, were now incapable of resistance. Sulpicius’ words did not fall on deaf ears. In a single charge, the Romans routed the entire enemy cavalry, hurling a great number from their horses and stabbing both men and horses with their javelins. This was the end of the cavalry battle. They then attacked the infantry and, when the enemy’s line began to give way, sent messengers to report their success to the consuls.

This news increased the resolve of the conquering Romans and struck consternation into the retreating Aequi. The latter’s defeat began first in the center, where the onset of the cavalry had thrown their ranks into disorder. Then the left wing began to be driven back by the consul Quinctius, but the greatest effort was on the right wing. There Agrippa—bold, strong, and in the prime of life—seeing that things were going better on every front but his own, seized the standards from the bearers and began to carry them forward himself, even hurling some into the close-packed ranks of the enemy. Aroused by fear of disgrace, his men rushed at the enemy. And so all parts of the line were equal in their victory. Then a message came from Quinctius, saying that he was victorious and was now threatening the enemy camp, but did not want to break into it until he knew that the fighting was also finished on the left wing. If Agrippa had already routed the enemy, he should bring up his standards so that the entire army might take possession of the spoils at the same time. Victorious, Agrippa joined his victorious colleague near the enemy camp, and they congratulated each other. The few defenders were quickly put to flight, and the Romans broke into the entrenchments without a struggle. The consuls led their army back, in possession of a huge amount of booty, as well as recovering the property that had been lost in the pillage of their fields.

I hear that the consuls did not ask for a triumph, nor did the senate offer them one. Nor is there any report of their reason for their rejecting or not requesting that honor. My guess, after so long an interval of time, is as follows.¹³⁷ Since the senate denied a triumph to the consuls Valerius and Horatius, who, in addition to beating the Volsci and Aequi, had won glory for finishing the Sabine war, Quinctius and Agrippa felt a sense of shame (verecundia) in asking for one when their own achievement was only half as great. Even if their request had been granted, it might seem that account had been taken of who they were, rather what they had achieved.

71. The military victory is marred by a judicial wrangle in Rome. A veteran intervenes in the mediation of a territorial dispute between Aricia and Ardea, claiming that the land in question belongs to Rome.

This glorious victory over the enemy was spoiled by the shameful judgment of the Roman populace concerning their allies’ boundaries.¹³⁸ The people of Aricia and Ardea had often gone to war over some disputed territory. Worn out by the many defeats they had inflicted on each other, they asked the Roman people to adjudicate the matter. When they came to plead their cause and the magistrates had granted them an assembly of the people, they argued their claims with great contention. After the testimony had been taken and it was time for the tribes to be summoned and the people to vote, Publius Scaptius, an aged plebeian, stood up and said, “Consuls, if I am permitted to speak in the interests of the state, I will not allow the people to make a mistake in this case.” When the consuls said that he was untrustworthy and should not be heard, he shouted out that the cause of the state was being betrayed. They then ordered him to be removed, and so he appealed to the tribunes. The tribunes, who are almost always ruled by the crowd rather than ruling it, gratified the plebs who were eager to hear and allowed Scaptius to say what he wanted.

He began by saying that he was eighty-two years old and had done military service in the disputed area, not as a youth, but in the twentieth year of his service, when they were fighting near Corioli. The matter had been forgotten with the passage of time, but it was fixed in his memory that the disputed area had been part of the territory of the people of Corioli, and that it had become the property of the Roman people by right of war when Corioli was captured.¹³⁹ He wondered how the people of Ardea and Aricia had the face to hope to steal from the Roman people territory that they had never claimed while Corioli was still unscathed, and then to appoint the real owners of the land to act as judges. Little of his life remained, he said. Yet he had not been able to convince himself that, even though he was old and had strength only in his voice, he should not defend the land that he had played his part as a soldier in capturing. He strongly urged the people not to condemn their own cause because of a useless sense of propriety.

72. The consuls oppose Scaptius, but the Roman people judge that the disputed territory belongs to them.

When the consuls perceived that Scaptius was being listened to, not only in silence, but even with approval, they invoked gods and men to witness that a great outrage was being done and sent for the leaders of the senate. Together they went round the tribes, begging them not to commit an act that, utterly wrong in itself, would set an even worse precedent: that of judges awarding disputed property to themselves.¹⁴⁰ Moreover, they pointed out, even if it were right for a judge to be concerned for his own advantage, they would not gain as much by snatching the land as they would lose by wronging and alienating their allies. The loss of reputation and trust was greater than could be estimated. Was this to be the report the envoys would take home? Would this be the general talk? Was this what allies and enemies would hear? What grief it would cause the one, and what joy the other! Or did they think that the neighboring peoples would attribute this to Scaptius, an aged babbler in the assembly? Scaptius would be famous with this on his memorial, whereas the Roman people would be playing the role of corrupt judges and appropriators of other people’s property. For what judge in a private suit would have awarded himself the object of litigation? Even Scaptius, whose sense of propriety had predeceased him, would not do this.

These arguments were loudly urged by both consuls and senators. But greed and Scaptius, the instigator of that greed, prevailed. The tribes were called and voted that the land belonged to the Roman people. It is undeniable that it would have been the same if the case had gone to another court. But in the circumstances, the disgrace of the judgment was in no way mitigated by the merits of the case. Moreover, it seemed just as appalling and harsh to the senators as to the people of Aricia and Ardea. The rest of the year remained peaceful, without any disturbances at home or abroad.

---

1. See 2.50.

2. Normally in areas close to Rome an army would move around, pitching camp in different locations.

3. extraordinary command: Fabius was given this command without the customary drawing of lots by the consuls.

4. Mount Algidus: the easternmost section of the edge of the Alban Mount, which was pierced by a narrow pass, dominating the route (the later Via Latina) to Hernican territory. The pass was seized by the Aequi in the 480s BCE and was the scene of much fighting in the ensuing decades, until the Romans finally prevailed in 431 BCE.

5. During a suspension of public business (iustitium), all state business ceased and the courts were closed.

6. lustrum: on the closing of the lustrum, see 1.44.

7. Ecetra: see 2.25 with n. 43.

8. province: originally a province (provincia) was a special function, often a military command, assigned by lot to an elected magistrate. Later it also came to mean the area to which a magistrate was sent as governor.

9. see to it … no harm: this formula was first used in a senatorial decree against Gaius Gracchus in 121 BCE and is here anachronistically attributed to the period of the early republic.

10. Titus Quinctius: Titus Quinctius Capitolinus had been consul in the previous year (465 BCE) and also in 471 and 468 BCE.

11. decuman gate: a gate lying farthest from the enemy; it was so called because the tenth cohort of each legion was usually stationed there.

12. Here I follow the OCT and Ogilvie 1965: 401–2.

13. This is Livy’s first mention of Valerius Antias, an annalist of the first century BCE, who wrote a history of Rome in at least seventy-five books, which is known only from quotations in other authors’ works. When Livy cites him by name in context of battle numbers, exaggeration is generally implied. Livy accuses him of lying (26.49), exaggeration (32.6), and inadequate research (39.43). The numbers cited in 3.8 may also derive from Antias. See also 4.23.

14. portents: unnatural phenomena or occurrences that were thought to have been sent by the gods as indications of future events; see also 1.20, n. 72. Strictly speaking, a portent could only become a prodigy if so decreed by the state authorities, but both ancient and modern writers often refer to more unfavorable or sinister portents as prodigies (prodigia). In this case, these portents were apparently interpreted as a prodigy and expiated by the three-day religious holiday; see Appendix 3, pp. 429–30.

15. favor of the gods: Latin pax deum or deorum. This is one of the few specific mentions by Livy of this concept. Portents and prodigies were thought to indicate that the gods had withdrawn their favor from Rome or were about to do so. Hence the need for the three-day period of public prayers. Apparently the attempt to restore the gods’ favor was not successful, since in the following year Rome was stricken by plague. There are two further mentions of the pax deum at 3.7 and 3.8.

16. beginning of the year: during the early republic, the date of the beginning of the civil year varied considerably. For example, in 450 BCE it began on May 15; see 3.36. In 462 BCE, the consuls entered office on August 11 after several interregna; see 3.8. In 423 and 402 BCE, it began on December 13, although in the latter case the new magistrates took office early, on October 1, because the previous magistrates had been forced to resign; see 4.37 and 5.9. In 391 BCE, the new consuls took office on July 1, again because the previous magistrates had resigned (5.32). In the late third century and until 153 BCE, the consular year began on March 15. Thereafter it began on January 1. The religious year, however, always began on March 1.

17. anger of the gods: the expiation of the portents had evidently not restored the gods’ favor; see 3.5 with nn. 14–5, and Appendix 3, pp. 429–30.

18. plebeian aediles: junior magistrates, but the term is used anachronistically, since originally the aedile was a religious official in charge of the temple of Ceres. Aediles later became responsible for the maintenance of the city, food supply, and certain religious celebrations.

19. curio: each of the thirty curiae, “wards” (see 1.13 with n. 47), had a priest called a curio, who presided over the ward’s religious ceremonies. The curio maximus, or chief curio, presided over the priests of the thirty wards.

20. their hair sweeping … : the women have let their hair fall loose, one of the rituals of mourning, as they pray to the gods in supplication, lying face down on the temple floor.

21. During the republic, an interregnum was instituted when both consuls had either died, resigned, or not yet been elected. It was a period of five days in which the state was in the hands of an interrex, who would propose two names for the assembly to ratify. If the names were rejected, the process was repeated by successive interreges until approval was achieved. On the first interregnum, see 1.17. On the alternative spelling “Vetusius,” compare the spelling of Fusius/Furius at 3.4.

22. Praeneste: see 2.19, n. 31.

23. Quintus Fabius: the consul of 467 and 465 BCE and the survivor of the disaster at the Cremera (see 3.1), who was acting as prefect of the city in the consuls’ absence.

24. These numbers probably derive from Valerius Antias; see 3.5 with n. 13.

25. This measure marks the first step in a movement to codify and publish the laws that ultimately resulted in the appointment in 451 BCE of a board of ten men, the decemvirate, and the publication of the Laws of the Twelve Tables (see 3.33ff.). The aim of having the laws written down and published was to limit the power of the senators, whose strength lay in their interpretation and administration of unwritten laws.

26. Note the change from indirect to direct speech at the end of Fabius’ speech.

27. ovation: a lesser distinction than a triumph. For a description of a triumph, see 3.29.

28. Sibylline books: this is Livy’s first reference to the Sibylline books of prophecies that were kept in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline and were said to have been purchased from the Sibyl of Cumae by Tarquinius Superbus, though Livy does not mention this story. These books could only be accessed by the board of two officials in charge of sacred rites (duumvirs), which was later increased to ten (decemvirs) and then to fifteen (quindecimvirs). Another member was added, but the name quindecimvir remained. These books were consulted for advice at a time of crisis or disaster, or when a particular prodigy was difficult to interpret; see also 4.25, 5.13, and Appendix 3, p. 430 with n. 13.

29. a concourse of foreigners … : this prophecy is fulfilled when the Capitol is seized by the Sabine Appius Herdonius; see 3.15–8.

30. Caeso Quinctius: a son of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus and nephew of Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, who had been consul in 471, 468, and 465 BCE; see Appendix 1, pp. 416–7 with stemma. There is no record that Caeso held a magistracy, and the whole story is probably fictitious.

31. capital charge: such a charge involved loss of caput; i.e., civic rights, the full legal status of a Roman citizen. In this case, the penalty envisaged was banishment, as is apparent in the next section.

32. Fictor: the name means “fashioner” or “molder” and is surely intentional. That Fictor’s story is indeed a fiction is not revealed by Livy until 3.24.

Subura: an undesirable, densely populated area lying in the hollow between the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline.

33. exercised their right of protection: the tribunes are protecting a patrician, although, strictly speaking, this right only extended to plebeians.

34. The verb mansuescere, “soften” or “tame,” suggests an allusion to the taming of animals; see also 3.16 with n. 38.

35. some 4,500: for discussion of this reading, see Ogilvie 1965: 424, and the OCT. The inclusion of slaves, particularly such a large number, is clearly anachronistic and would have reminded Livy’s readers of the revolt of Spartacus (73 BCE) and the conspiracy of Catiline (63 BCE), who recruited a large number of slaves into his army. Cornell (1995: 145) suggests that the story of Herdonius reflects “the dim memory of an unsuccessful coup.”

36. the cause of all the unfortunate: an echo of Sallust, Catiline 35.

37. A statement reflecting the fears that would have been prevalent during the revolt of Spartacus in 73 BCE and were to remain a constant concern, especially to the owners of large numbers of slaves.

38. tame: the same word (mansuescere) that was used in 3.14 regarding the young nobles “taming” the plebs.

39. guardian deities … : the guardian deities (penates) of the state were said to have been brought from Troy, first to Lavinium, then to Alba Longa, and finally to Rome; they were sometimes identified with Castor and Pollux. Each household had its own penates; see the end of this section for reference to the guardian deities of both the state and the individual household.

40. head of his family: Publius Valerius Publicola, one of the first consuls; see 1.58, 2.7–8, and Appendix 1, pp. 418–20.

41. dictator: the name of the chief magistrate in Tusculum and also in other Latin towns.

42. People’s Friend: Livy here plays on the name Publicola, “the People’s Friend.” See 2.8 with n. 14.

43. Volumnius: see 3.10.

44. free or slave: free men were beheaded; slaves, crucified.

45. deceit: an allusion to Publicola’s unfulfilled promise to explain the intricacies of the tribunician law; see 3.18.

46. On Livy’s portrayal of the Quinctii as role models of ideal aristocratic leaders who promote concord within the state, see Vasaly 1999: 513–30, especially 518–20.

47. by Hercules: see 2.28, n. 47.

48. we did not allow the Latins … : on this prohibition, see 2.30 with n. 51.

49. disregard of the gods … : compare this pessimistic authorial comment regarding his own times with his remarks in Pref. 4, 9, and 12.

50. It was customary for one of the outgoing consuls to conduct the election of the consuls for the following year; hence the appeal to Gaius Claudius.

51. closing the lustrum: this involved a religious ceremony of purification; see 1.44.

52. purifying the army: the last act in enrolling an army involved the sacrifice of a pig, sheep, and bull (suovetaurilia).

53. Algidus: see 3.2 with n. 4.

Columen: the modern town of La Colonna.

54. older sources: this included Pictor and Piso, who have already been mentioned, and probably also Cato; see Introduction, pp. xii–xv.

55. Marcus Volscius: Marcus Volscius Fictor, who alleged that Caeso, Cincinnatus’ son, was responsible for the death of Fictor’s brother; see 3.13 with n. 32.

56. The lustrum marks the end of the taking of the census, which, at this time, was performed at irregular intervals. Later it was taken every five years.

57. Lanuvium: a city in the Alban hills, some twenty miles south of Rome.

58. Eretum: a location some seventeen miles east of Rome on the Via Salaria.

59. deserves the attention: this is a somewhat free translation of the Latin operae pretium (a return for the effort), a phrase that is identical with the second and third words of the Preface, thus marking a bid for particular attention to the ensuing story of Cincinnatus’ dictatorship. In the first pentad, there are only two occurrences of this phrase, which is an introductory rhetorical formula, here and 5.21.

60. rule of the Roman people: the Latin imperium, translated by Foster in the Loeb as “empire,” is used both for a magistrate’s power to command and for the object or area of his command.

Quinctian Meadows: a toponym memorializing Cincinnatus’ stay in this area.

61. Is everything all right?: this greeting was also used by Tarquinius Collatinus to his wife Lucretia at 1.58.

62. Lucius Tarquinius: the first mention of a Tarquin in Rome since the expulsion of the kings and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (consul of 509 BCE).

63. stakes: three or four stakes of wood were the usual allocation per soldier. These stakes were some four and a half feet in length, for use in making a palisade or rampart. The additional number indicates the urgency of the situation: the Romans intended to make a rampart immediately on arrival and not take time to obtain wood on Algidus.

64. The referral to the dictator is because he was the supreme commander.

65. Corbio: a town near Algidus, some fifteen miles south of Rome near Labici.

66. patron: the implication is that they all became his clients.

67. shouting gibes: ribaldry and insults directed at the general were a customary part of a Roman triumph. Such ribaldry was thought to be a warning against excessive arrogance and to avert envy and the anger of the gods.

68. By resigning as soon as possible, Cincinnatus showed not only how quickly he had completed his mission but also that he was not aiming at kingship.

69. The prodigy apparently indicated that the gods had not been satisfied with the purification noted in 3.18. The wolves symbolized the Roman people, thus recalling the raid of Appius Herdonius and the slaughter on the Capitoline; see Appendix 3, p. 430.

70. Corbio: see 3.28 with n. 65.

71. two from each class: the five property classes of the Comitia Centuriata, described at 1.42–4.

72. Aventine: this area had become the place where most plebeians lived and emigrants from Latium and abroad settled. The law is known as the “Icilian law”; see 3.32, and Cornell 1995: 261–2.

73. Modern scholars are skeptical about the historicity of this mission to Athens, but, as Cornell points out (1995: 275), “The cultural life of archaic Rome was profoundly hellenised, [so] it would indeed be astonishing if the Twelve Tables did not show signs of Greek borrowings.” He suggests, however, that the source of this influence may well have been the Greek colonies of southern Italy and Sicily rather than Athens. Whatever the model, the Romans wanted to have an authoritative written version of their laws instead of relying on the oral interpretation of unwritten laws.

Solon: an Athenian who codified and published Athenian laws, exhibiting them in the marketplace. These reforms of the early sixth century BCE helped the underprivileged, weakened the aristocracy, and strengthened the assembly and judicial system.

74. Icilian law: the law to settle the Aventine, mentioned at 3.31 with n. 72.

sacred laws: the laws regarding the sacrosanctity, or inviolability, of the plebeian tribunes; see 2.33 with n. 57.

75. Appius Claudius: since Livy noted the death of the consul of 471 BCE at 2.61, the newly elected consul ought to be the son of that consul. The Fasti Capitolini, however, list the consul of 471 BCE as holding a second consulship in 451, followed by his appointment as decemvir (for sources, see Broughton 1986(1): 45–6). Most modern historians accept the evidence of the Fasti, thus implicitly rejecting the notice of Appius’ death at Livy 2.61; Ogilvie 1965: 376, 386–7. But, with two exceptions (3.33 with n. 76, and 3.35 with n. 80), Livy consistently treats the decemvir as a separate individual, emphasizing that he is the nephew of Gaius Claudius, the consul of 460 (3.35, 3.40, and 3.58); see Appendix 1, pp. 406–11 with stemmata.

76. assumed a new temperament, and, instead of … : these words could support the hypothesis that the decemvir is to be identified with the consul of 471 BCE, despite notice of his death at 2.61; see Appendix 1, pp. 407–11.

77. a consensus that sometimes might not be helpful to private citizens: this consensus was not continued in the Second Decemvirate because the new decemvirs “agreed to remove the right of vetoing each other”; see 3.36.

78. Lucius Sestius: not the decemvir. The case illustrates two provisions of the Twelve Tables: the right of appeal to the Comitia Centuriata in the case of a capital offense (Table 9) and the prohibition on burying or burning a corpse within the city (Table 10); see Ogilvie 1965: 458.

79. tables: tables or tablets on which the laws were written.

read the laws: very few of the population at this time would have been able to read. Nevertheless, having written laws available for interpretation was a stabilizing factor and a safeguard against unauthorized changes to the law. For publication of the Laws of the Twelve Tables, see 3.57; for discussion of the laws, see Cornell 1995: 278–92, and Forsythe 2005: 224–30.

80. all the offices he had held: a possible reflection of the tradition that the decemvir is the consul of 471 BCE; see n. 75. Later in this section, however, Appius is referred to as the “youngest colleague” of the decemvirs; see Appendix 1, p. 409.

81. aristocrats: Latin optimates. This is an anachronistic use of the political terminology of the late republic. This scene would have reminded Livy’s readers of the activities of the demagogues of the late republic—especially the notorious Publius Clodius Pulcher, plebeian tribune in 58 BCE, who was a descendant of this Appius Claudius.

82. his uncle Gaius Claudius: the consul of 460 BCE and brother of the consul of 471 BCE; see also 3.40, 3.58, and Appendix 1, p. 408.

83. This decemvirate is highly controversial. See Cornell 1995: 273: “The second Decemvirate may or may not be factual; for it to be damned as fictitious, something more convincing is needed than the observation that it contains plebeian names.”

84. On the variation of dates for the beginning of the civil year, see 3.6, n. 16.

85. no point in removing the axes: when a consul reentered the city after a military campaign, he removed the axe from the fasces, thus symbolizing that he no longer had the power of summary execution and that there was a right of appeal against his judicial decisions; see 2.18. The ensuing description (3.36–8) of these decemvirs and their behavior may well have reminded Livy’s readers of the excesses of Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian during the Second Triumvirate; see Introduction, pp. vii–viii.

86. See 3.33 with n. 77.

87. young nobles: this description would have reminded Livy’s readers of the horrors of the proscriptions under the Second Triumvirate, especially the actions of the young Octavian.

88. The implication that the Romans had hegemony over the Sabines and Aequi is anachronistic. The question is whether the anachronism is Livy’s or whether he was simply following the historical tradition.

89. Eretum: see 3.26, n. 58.

90. Lucius Valerius Potitus: this man is the grandson of Poplicola, suffect consul 509. On the Valerian family, see Appendix 1, pp. 418–20.

91. solemn title: the rex sacrorum or rex sacrificulus, “king of sacrifices”; see 2.2.

92. in a single king: the text at this point is corrupt. I follow the reading favored by Ogilvie (1965: 470), in rege uno tandem. The reference is to Tarquinius Superbus and his son Sextus.

93. aristocrats: see 3.35, n. 81.

94. uncle of Appius the decemvir … shade of his own brother: apparent assertions by Livy that the decemvir is not to be identified with the consul of 471 BCE; see Appendix 1, p. 408.

95. interrex: see 3.8 with n. 21.

96. The Latin text is again corrupt at this point; hence the translation is only approximate; see Ogilvie 1965: 472–3.

97. Although it appeared that Cornelius was helping Valerius, he was also acting in Appius Claudius’ interests by preventing Appius Claudius from making a public outburst.

98. Modern scholars differ on the question of the historical basis for the story of Verginia. For example, Ogilvie (1965: 477) considers that it is “entirely devoid of historical foundation,” whereas Cornell remarks (1995: 275), “it is perfectly conceivable that it has some basis in fact.” Several inconsistencies indicate that it is the result of elaboration over a considerable period of time. Although the story bears some resemblance to that of Lucretia (1.57–8), the emphasis is rather on the chastity of an unmarried girl, as opposed to that of the married Lucretia. For a detailed analysis of the thematic connections between the Lucretia story and that of Verginia, see Feldherr 1998: 203–12.

abominable in its outcome: a similar phrase occurs in Pref. 10, involving the adjective foedus, meaning “foul, loathsome, shocking.”

99. Icilius: the tribune who sponsored the law opening up the Aventine in 456 BCE; see 3.31 with n. 72.

100. free status … : from the legal point of view, Verginia would have still been under the control of her father (patria potestas), but she presumably would have had a guardian act on her behalf to confirm her free status. One of the laws established by the First Decemvirate stated that when a person’s freedom was in question, he should be presumed free until a court could decide. The danger was that the case would go by default, which is what Appius is depicted as wanting.

101. market area: an allusion to shops that were not built until the second century BCE. Also anachronistic is the mention of attending school, which was probably inserted to connect Verginia with that area of the forum; see 3.48, and Ogilvie 1965: 480–1.

102. Here my translation follows the punctuation of Ogilvie 1965: 482, and the OCT.

103. acted out the play: note the language of drama in this sentence. The Latin for “play” is fabula, which is also the word for “tale” or “story.” On the connection between drama and history, see Wiseman 1994: 17–8, and also Introduction, pp. xv–xvi.

104. ragged garb of mourning … shabby garment: such clothing was regularly worn by defendants and suppliants to attract attention and sympathy; see 2.54, n. 95.

105. Cloacina: the divinity of the cloaca (i.e., the Great Drain or Sewer), constructed by Tarquinius Superbus (1.56). In time, the divinity Cloacina came to be identified with Venus and was known as Venus Cloacina. The shrine was directly in front of the later Basilica Aemilia.

106. The argument is that, if Appius thought he had the legal right to arrest Icilius, they had the right to act as tribunes, although that office no longer existed.

107. Mount Vecilius: otherwise unknown, probably part of the Algidus range.

108. sight of togas: the presence in a military camp of a large number of unauthorized men wearing civilian dress would have posed a visible threat to the authority of the commanders, bringing the reality of the political struggle into the camp.

109. The historicity of this secession is disputed by some scholars; see Cornell 1995: 276–8; for example, see Forsythe 2005: 230–3.

110. when you have jurisdiction … : this statement anticipates the situation in the late republic when many of the patrician families had died out and the number of plebeians holding office far exceeded that of the patricians.

111. pontifex maximus: Cicero (In defense of Cornelius 25) notes that the pontifex maximus presided over this election “because there was no magistrate.”

112. maternal uncle: Latin avunculus. In 3.45 and 3.57, Numitorius is called Verginia’s grandfather (avus). The discrepancy may indicate the use of a different source.

113. The Circus Flaminius was built in 220 BCE in the southern part of the Campus Martius.

114. what the plebs should pass when voting by tribes … : two similar measures are recorded for 339 BCE (lex Publilia) and 287 BCE (lex Hortensia), causing many scholars to doubt the historicity of this measure in 449 BCE; see Cornell (1995: 277–8), who gives a hypothetical, but plausible, reconstruction of the evidence for such a measure in the context of 449 BCE and subsequent years. Whatever the date of this measure, Livy’s comment that the bill “gave tribunician proposals a very sharp weapon” is in keeping with his earlier observations on the institution of the Tribal Assembly for the election of tribunes; see 2.56, n. 99, and 2.60, n. 107.

115. On the Valerian law on the right of appeal (provocatio) of 509, see 2.8; on the allusions to such appeal, see 2.27 and 2.55. The sources record three laws concerning the right of appeal—for 509, 449, and 300 BCE—and attribute each to a member of the Valerian family. Cornell (1995: 277) notes, “As far as the 449 law is concerned, the sources themselves indicate that its specific purpose was not to grant the right of appeal per se, but to prohibit the creation of magistracies not subject to appeal.”

116. Cornell (1995: 276) remarks that the effect of this law (if authentic) would have been “to give statutory recognition to the plebeian organization, and as such it was a great victory for the plebs.”

117. aediles: the aediles at this time were religious officials, not civic magistrates; see 3.6 with n. 18.

ten-man panel: perhaps to be identified with a later board that adjudicated questions of freedom and slavery; see Ogilvie 1965: 501.

Ceres, Liber, and Libera: the cult was probably established in 493 BCE.

118. accursed: the Latin word is sacer, which underscores the distinction between the one who was protected from violation (sacrosanctus) and the violator, who was sacer—“accursed, outside the law,” and thus an outlaw; see 2.33 with n. 57.

119. Having dealt with the Valerio-Horatian laws, Livy returns to the dramatic story of Verginia as he relates the indictment of Appius by Verginius, which balances Appius’ “trial” of Verginia.

120. Verginius is not preventing Appius from defending himself but rather advising Appius to curtail the preliminary proceeding, as Verginius himself has just done.

121. give up his consulship: see 3.33 with n. 75, where Livy notes that Claudius had been elected to the consulship but had not yet taken up office.

122. The war against the Sabines is apparently that mentioned in 3.51 (cf. 3.61). The war against the Aequi and Volsci is described in 3.60.

123. For summary and discussion of the economic implications and social distinctions of the Twelve Tables, see Cornell 1995: 278–92.

124. aediles: the aediles probably did these tasks in their capacity as keepers of the archive of the senatorial decrees; see Ogilvie 1965: 507.

125. Regillum: a town in Sabine territory. The name is given as Inregillum at 2.16.

nephew: literally “brother’s son,” a further assertion that the decemvir is not to be identified with the consul of 471 BCE; see 3.35 and 3.40 with notes.

126. funeral mask: Roman nobles kept masks or likenesses (imagines) of their prominent ancestors in special cupboards in the atrium of their house and wore them at family funerals, thus impersonating the deceased.

127. unfortunate auspices of the decemvirs: a reminder of the importance of the auspices. The implication is that the gods had withdrawn their favor from the Romans during the Second Decemvirate.

128. descendant of the liberators … : on the Valerii as defenders of the people, see Appendix 1, pp. 418–20.

129. he did not want to predict: suggesting the possibility of defeat could be tempting fate, since it might be interpreted as asking for it to happen.

130. spitefully: the patricians finally express their dislike of the Valerio-Horatian laws. On the hostility of the patricians to the Valerio-Horatian laws, see 3.55: “Their term of office favored the people without wronging the patricians, but not without offending them. . . .”

supplication: a ritual of collective prayers offered by the state. Originally the ritual was performed in order to secure the favor of the gods after some dire omen, such as plague. The victory supplication was a later development.

131. Apollo: as a non-Roman god, Apollo was worshiped outside Rome’s sacred boundary (pomerium). A temple was built to him in the late 430s BCE; see 4.25 and 4.29. In order to grant a triumph, the senate had to come outside the city to meet with the consul who was requesting the triumph, because the consul would have to give up his military command before crossing the pomerium.

Flaminian Meadows: this venue was probably a compromise, since the location was outside the pomerium but nearer the city than the original Campus Martius. The senate had clearly decided not to grant a triumph to either man.

132. all the tribes voted: Icilius’ proposal was evidently in accordance with the Valerio-Horatian laws concerning plebiscites that were voted in the Tribal Assembly (Comitia Tributa).

without the authorization of the senate: such unauthorized triumphs took place outside Rome on the Alban Mount and were celebrated at the expense of the triumphing general, not the state.

133. Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius: the consuls of 454 BCE who had passed a law giving the plebs some legal protection for fines by establishing a monetary conversion rate; see Ogilvie 1965: 582 on Livy 4.30. Note the exception to the stipulation that no senator should be allowed to hold the office of plebeian tribune (2.33).

134. wolves: an allusion to the wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, and thus to the Romans themselves; compare the prodigy of 458 BCE related in 3.29 with n. 69.

135. For analysis of this speech, see Vasaly 1999: 521–5.

136. consuls who supported your cause: an allusion to the plebeian sympathies of Valerius and Horatius, both of whom were patricians; see 3.55.

137. I hear … Nor is there any report … My guess: Latin accipio, traditus, and conicio. The marked sequence of three authorial comments with two uses of the first-person singular underscores the subsequent reference to Quinctius’ sense of shame and to his respect for the old patrician values that he had expressed earlier in his speech. This respect contrasts with the precedent set by Valerius and Horatius, who owed their triumph to a plebeian tribune, not the senate (3.63 with nn. 130 and 132). See also 3.55 for the patricians’ dislike of the laws carried by Valerius and Horatius, two fellow patricians who had supported plebeian interests.

138. This episode provides a dramatic conclusion to the book, while also introducing the theme of Ardea and providing a bridge to the next book. The “human interest” story of Scaptius has its sequel in the story of the maid of Ardea, in which the Roman injustice to Ardea is resolved by Roman intervention in the civil strife of that city (4.7–10).

139. Corioli was captured in 493 BCE (see 2.33), and it was now 446 BCE.

140. tribes: on the power of the Tribal Assembly, see 3.63, n. 114; Livy’s comments at 2.56 with n. 99; and 3.55, n. 114.