[3] “Citizens, feeling myself under great obligations to you both for the zeal you showed in giving me your voluntary assistance in the war, and still more for the bravery you displayed in the various engagements, I was very desirous of making a return to you, not only in other ways, by particularly by not breaking the promises I kept giving you in the name of the senate, and, as an adviser and umpire between the senate and you, by changing at last the discord that now exists between you into harmony. But I am prevented from accomplishing these things by those who prefer, not what is most advantageous to the commonwealth, but what is pleasing to themselves at the present moment, and who, being superior to all the rest both in number and in the power they derive from their youth rather than from the present situation, have prevailed. [4] Whereas I, as you see, an old man, and so are all my associates, whose strength consists in counsel which they are incapable of carrying out in action; and what was regarded as our concern for the commonwealth has turned out to have the appearance of a private grudge against both sides. For I am censured by the senate for courting your faction and misrepresented to you as showing greater goodwill to them.
[44] “If, now, the people, after being treated well, had failed to keep the promises made by me to the senate in their name, my defence to that body must have been that you had violated your word, but that there was no deceit on my part. But since it is the promises made to you by the senate that have not been fulfilled, I am now under the necessity of stating to the people that the treatment you have met with does not have my approval, but that both of us alike have been cheated and misled, and I more than you, inasmuch as I am wronged, not alone in being deceived in common with you all, but am also hurt in my own reputation. For I am accused of having turned over to the poor among you, without the consent of the senate, the spoils taken from the enemy, in the desire to gain a private advantage for myself, and of demanding that the property of the citizens be confiscated, though the senate forbade me to act in violation of the laws, and of having disbanded the armies in spite of the opposition of the senators, when I ought to have kept you in the enemy’s country occupied in sleeping in the open and in endless marching. [2] I am also reproached in the matter of sending the colonists into the territory of the Volscians, on the ground that I did not bestow a large and fertile country upon the patricians or even upon the knights, but allotted it to the poor among you. But the thing in particular which has occasioned the greatest indignation against me is that, in raising the army, more than four hundred well-to-do plebeians were added to the knights. [3] If, now, I had been thus treated when I was in the vigour of my youth, I should have made it clear to my enemies by my deeds what kind of man they had abused; but as I am now above seventy years old and no longer capable of defending myself, and since I perceive that your discord can no longer be allayed by me, I am laying down my office and putting myself in the hands of any who may desire it in the belief that they have been deceived by me in any respect, to be treated in such manner as they shall think fit.”
[45.1] With these words Valerius aroused the sympathy of all the plebeians, who accompanied him when he left the Forum; but he increased the resentment of the senate against him. And immediately afterwards the following events happened: The poor, no longer meeting secretly and by night, as before, but openly now, were planning a secession from the patricians; and the senate, with the purpose of preventing this, ordered the consuls not to disband the armies as yet. For each consul still had command of his three legions, which were restrained by their military oaths, and none of the soldiers cared to desert their standards, so far did the fear of violating their oaths prevail with all of them. The pretext contrived for leading out the forces was that the Aequians and Sabines had joined together to make war upon the Romans. [2] After the consuls had marched out of the city with their forces and pitched their camps near one another, the soldiers all assembled together, having in their possession both the arms and the standards, and at the instigation of one Sicinius Bellutus they seized the standards and revolted from the consuls (these standards are held in the greatest honour by the Romans on a campaign and like statues of the gods are accounted holy); and having appointed different centurions and made Sicinius their leader in all matters, they occupied a certain mount situated near the river Anio, not far from Rome, which from that circumstance is still called the Sacred Mount. [3] And when the consuls and the centurions called upon them to return, mingling entreaties and lamentations, and making many promises, Sicinius replied: “With what purpose, patricians, do you now recall those whom you have driven from their country and transformed from free men into slaves? What assurances will you give us for the performance of those promises which you are convicted of having often broken already? But since you desire to have sole possession of the city, return thither undisturbed by the poor and humble. As for us, we shall be content to regard as our country any land, whatever it be, in which we may enjoy our liberty.”
[46.1] When these things were reported to those in the city, there was great tumult and lamentation and running through the streets, as the populace prepared to leave the city and the patricians endeavoured to dissuade them and offered violence to those who refused to obey. And there was great clamour and wailing at the gates, and hostile words were exchanged and hostile acts committed, as no one paid heed any longer to either age, comradeship, or the respect due to virtue. [2] When those appointed by the senate to guard the exits, being few in number and unable any longer to resist them, were forced by the people to desert their post, then at last the populace rushed out in great multitudes and the commotion resembled the capture of a city; there were the lamentations of those who remained behind and their mutual recriminations as they saw the city being deserted. After this there were frequent meetings of the senate and accusations against those who were responsible for the secession. At the same time the enemy nations also attacked them, plundering their territory up to the very city. However, the seceders, taking the necessary provisions from the fields that lay near them, without doing any other mischief to the country, remained in the open and received such as resorted to them from city and the fortresses round about, who were already coming to them in great numbers. [3] Not only those who were desirous of escaping their debts and the sentences and punishments they expected, flocked to them, but many others also who led lazy or dissolute lives, or whose fortunes were not sufficient to gratify their desires, or who were devoted to vicious practices, or were envious of the prosperity of others, or because of some other misfortune or reason were hostile to the established government.
[47.1] At first great confusion and consternation fell upon the patricians, who feared that the seceders would at once come against the city together with the foreign enemies. Then, as if at a single signal, snatching up arms and attended each by his own clients, some went to defend the roads by which they expected the enemy would approach, others marched out to the fortresses in order to secure them, while still others encamped on the plains before the city; and those who by reason of age were unable to anything of the kind took their places upon the walls. [2] But when they heard that the seceders were neither joining the enemy, laying waste the country, nor doing any other mischief worth speaking of, they gave up their fear, and changing their minds, proceeded to consider upon what terms they might come to an agreement with them. And speeches of every kind, directly opposed to one another, were made by the leading men of these; but the most moderate speeches and those most suitable to the existing situation were delivered by the oldest senators, who showed that the people had not made this secession from them with any malicious intent, but partly compelled by irresistible calamities and partly deluded by their advises, and judging of their interest by passion rather than reason, as is wont to happen with an ignorant populace; and furthermore, that the greater part of them were conscious of having been ill advised and were seeking an opportunity of redeeming their offences if they could find plausible excuses for doing so. At any rate their act
ions were those of men who had already repented, and if they should be given good hope for the future by a vote of the senate granting them impunity and offering an honourable accommodation, they would cheerfully take back what was their own. [3] In urging this course they demanded that men of superior worth should not be more implacable than their inferiors, nor defer an accommodation till the senseless crowd should be either brought to their senses by necessity or induced by it to cure a smaller evil by a greater, in depriving themselves of liberty as the result of delivering up their arms and surrendering their persons at discretion; for these things were next to impossible. But by treating the people with moderation they ought to set the example of salutary counsels, and to anticipate the others in proposing an accommodation, bearing in mind that while governing and administering the state was the duty of the patricians, the promoting of friendship and peace was the part of good men. [4] They declared that the prestige of the senate would be most diminished, not by a policy of administering the government safely while bearing nobly the calamities that were unavoidable, but by a policy whereby, in showing resentment toward the vicissitudes of fortune, they would overthrow the commonwealth. It was the part of folly, while aiming at appearances, to neglect security; it was desirable of course, to obtain both, but if one must do without either, safety ought to be regarded as more necessary than appearances. The final proposal of those who gave these advice was that ambassadors should be sent to the seceders to treat of peace, since they had been guilty of no irreparable mischief.
[48.1] This met with the approval of the senate. Thereupon they chose the most suitable persons and sent them to the people in the camp with orders to inquire of them what they desired and upon what terms they would consent to return to the city; for if any of their demands were moderate and possible to be complied with, the senate would not oppose them. If, therefore, they would now lay down their arms and return to the city they would be granted impunity for their past offences and amnesty for the future; and if they showed the best will for the commonwealth and cheerfully exposed themselves to danger in the service of their country, they would receive honourable and advantageous returns. [2] The ambassadors, having received these instructions, communicated them to the people in the camp and spoke in conformity to them. But the seceders, rejecting these invitations, reproached the patricians with haughtiness, severity, and great dissimulation in pretending, on the one hand, to be ignorant of the demands of the people and of the reasons which had compelled them to secede from them, and, again, in granting them impunity from all prosecution for their secession, just as if they were still masters of the situation, though themselves standing in need of the assistance of their fellow-citizens against their foreign enemies, who would soon come with all their forces — enemies who could not be withstood by men who looked upon their preservation as not so much their own advantage as the good fortune of those who should assist them. They ended with the statement that when the patricians themselves understood better the difficulties that beset the commonwealth, they would know what kind of adversaries they had to deal with; and they added many violent threats. [3] To all of which the ambassadors made no further answer, but departed and informed the patricians of the representations made by the seceders. When those in the city received this answer, they were in much more serious confusion and fear than before; and neither the senate was able to find a solution of the difficulties or any means of postponing them, but, after listening to the taunts and accusations which the leading men directed at one another, adjourned day after day; nor were the plebeians who still remained in the city, constrained by their goodwill toward the patricians or their affection for their country, of the same mind as before, but a large part even of these were trickling away both openly and secretly, and it seemed that no reliance could be placed upon those who were left. In this state of affairs the consuls — for the period that still remained of their magistracy was short — appointed a day for the election of magistrates.
[49.1] When the time came for them to assemble in the field to elect their magistrates, and no one either sought the consulship or would consent to accept it if offered, the people themselves chose two consuls from among those who had already held this magistracy and who were acceptable to both the people and the aristocracy, namely Postumus Cominius and Spurius Cassius, Cassius being the one through whose efforts the Sabines had been conquered and had resigned their claims to the leadership. This was in the seventy-second Olympiad, the year in which Tisicrates of Croton won the short-distance foot-race, Diognetus being then archon at Athens. [2] Upon assuming office on the calends of September, earlier than had been customary with the former consuls, they convened the senate before attending to any other business and asked for an expression of its opinion concerning the return of the plebeians. The first senator they called upon to declare his views was a man, then in the maturity of his age, who was looked upon as a person of superior wisdom and was particularly commended for his political principles, since he pursued a middle course, being inclined and to increase the arrogance of the aristocratic party nor to permit the people to have their own way in everything — namely Agrippa Menenius. It was he who now urged the senate to an accommodation, speaking as follows:
[3] “If all who are present, senators, chanced to be of the same opinion, and no one were going to oppose the accommodation with the people, but only the terms of it, be these just or unjust, on which we are to be reconciled with them were before you for consideration, I could have expressed my thoughts to you in few words. [4] But since some consider that even this very point should be a matter for further consultation, whether it is better for us to come to an agreement with the seceders or go to war with them, I do not think it easy for me in a brief exposition of my views to advise you what ought to be done. On the contrary, a speech of some length is necessary, in order to show those among you who are opposed to the accommodation that they contradict themselves if, while intending to frighten you by playing on your far of those difficulties that are the most trivial and easily corrected, they at the same time neglect to consider the evils that are greatest and incurable. And they have fallen into this predicament for no other reason than that in judging what is expedient they do not use reason but rather passion and frenzy. [5] For how can these men be said to foresee in their minds any course that is profitable or possible, when they imagine that a state so powerful and mistress of so extensive a dominion, a state that is calendar becoming an object of hatred, and a cause of offence to her neighbours, will easily be able either without the plebeians to hold and preserve the subject nations or else to bring some other people into the commonwealth, a better people in place of one most knavish, who will fight to preserve their supremacy for them and will live with them under the same government in profound quiet, behaving themselves with self-restraint in both peace and war? For there is no other possibility they could name that would justify their asking you not to accept the accommodation.
[50.1] “How utterly silly either of those two expedients is, I would have you consider from the facts themselves, bearing in mind that since the humbler citizens grew disaffected toward you because of those who treated their misfortunes as neither fellow-citizens nor men of self-restraint should, and withdrew, indeed, from the city, yet neither are doing to you, nor have any thought of doing, any other mischief, but are considering only by what means they may be reconciled to you without dishonour, many of those who are not well disposed toward you, joyfully seizing upon this incident presented to them by Fortune, have become elated in their minds and look upon this as the long-desired opportunity for breaking up your empire. [2] Thus, the Aequians and Volscians, the Sabines and Hernicans, who in any case have missed no opportunity to make war against us, being now exasperated also at their late defeats, are plundering our fields. As to the parts of Campania and Tyrrhenia which have continued to be doubtful in their allegiance to us, some of them are openly revolting and others are secretly preparing to do the same. Not even
the kindred race of Latins, as it seems, longer remains steadfastly loyal to us, though it entered into relations of confidence with us, but a large part even of this people is reported to be disaffected, succumbing to the passion for change which all men crave. [3] And we who used to besiege the cities of others now ourselves sit at home, pent within our walls, having left our lands unsown and seeing our farm-houses plundered, our cattle driven off as booty, and our slaves deserting, without knowing how to deal with these misfortunes. While we suffer all this, do we still hope that the plebeians will become reconciled to us, even though we know that it is in our own power to put an end to the sedition by a single decree?
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 55
