[13.1] “These were their plans, senators, and during the time you saw them holding sessions this plot was being spun by them against the best of your members and this net was being woven against the noblest of the knights. To prove that this is true requires very few words on my part. [2] For come, tell me, Verginius and you others who are to suffer these dreadful evils, who are the foreign friends from whom you received the letters? Where do they live? How did they become acquainted with you? Or by what means do they know what is being discussed here? Who do you defer naming these man and keep promising to do it later on, instead of having named them long since? And who is the man who brought the letters to you? Why do you not bring him before us, that we may begin first of all with him to pursue the inquiry whether these reports are true or, as I maintain, your own fictions? [3] And the informations that come from persons here, which you say agree with the foreign letters, what are they and by whom given? Why do you conceal the proofs and not ring them to light? But I suspect it is impossible to find proof of such things as neither have happened nor will happen. [4] These are indications, senators, not of a conspiracy against the tribunes here, but of treachery and an evil purpose against you which these men have been secretly cherishing. For the facts themselves cry aloud. But you senators are to blame for this, since you made the first concessions to them and armed their senseless magistracy with great power when you permitted Caeso Quintius to be tried by them last year on false charges and permitted so great a defender of the aristocracy to be destroyed by them. [5] For this reason they no longer show any moderation nor do they lop off the men of birth one by one, but are already rounding up the good men en masse and expelling them from the city. And, in addition to all the other evils, they demand that no one of you even speak in opposition to them, but by exposing him to suspicions and accusations as an accomplice in those secret plots they try to terrify him and promptly call him an enemy of the populace and cite him to appear before their assembly to stand trial for what he has said here. [6] But another occasion will be more suitable for discussing this matter. For the present I will curtail my remarks and will cease running on at greater length, merely advising you to guard against these men as disturbers of the commonwealth and as publishing the germs of great evils. And not here alone do I say these things, while intending to conceal them from the populace; on the contrary, I shall there also employ a frankness that is merited, showing them that no mischief hangs over their heads unless it be wicked and deceitful leaders who under the guise of friendship are doing the deeds of enemies.”
[7] When the consul had thus spoken, there was shouting and much applause by all present; and without even permitting the tribunes to reply, they dismissed the session. Then Verginius, calling an assembly of the populace, inveighed against both the senate and the consuls, and Claudius defended them, repeating the same things he had said in the senate. The more fair-minded among the plebeians suspected that their fear was unwarranted, while the more simple-minded, giving credence to the reports, thought it real; but all among them who were ill-disposed and were forever craving a change did not have the foresight to examine into the truth or falsehood of the reports, but sought an occasion for sedition and tumult.
[14.1] While the city was in such turmoil, a man of the Sabine race, of no obscure birth and powerful because of his wealth, Appius Herdonius by name, attempted to overthrow the supremacy of the Romans, with a view either of making himself tyrant or of winning dominion and power for the Sabine nation or else of gaining against name for himself. Having revealed his purpose to many of his friends and explained to them his plan for executing it, and having received their approval, he assembled his clients and the most daring of his servants and in a short time got together a force of about four thousand men. Then, after supplying them with arms, provisions and everything else that is needed for war, he embarked them on river-boats and, [2] sailing down the river Tiber, landed at that part of Rome where the Capitol stands, not a full stade distant from the river. It was then midnight and there was profound quiet throughout the entire city; with this to help him he disembarked his men in haste, and passing through the gate which was open (for there is a certain sacred gate of the Capitol, called the porta Carmentalis, which by the direction of some oracle is always left open), he ascended the hill with his troops and captured the fortress. [3] From there he pushed on to the citadel, which adjoins the Capitol, and took possession of that also. It was his intention, after seizing the most advantageous positions, to receive the exiles, to summon the slaves to liberty, to promise the needy an abolition of debts, and to share the spoils with any other citizens who, being themselves of low condition, envied and hated those of lofty station and would have welcomed a change. The hope that both inspired him with confidence and deceived him, by leading him to believe that he should fail of none of his expectations, was based on the civil dissension, because of which he imagined that neither any friendship nor any intercourse would any longer exist between the populace and the patricians. [4] And if none of these expectations should turn out according to his wish, he had resolved in that event to call in not only the Sabines with all their forces, but also the volscians and as many from the other neighbouring peoples as desired to be delivered from the hated domination of the Romans.
[15.1] It so happened, however, that all his hopes were disappointed; for neither the slaves deserted to him nor did the exiles return nor did the unfranchised and the debtors seek their private advantage at the expense of the public good, and the reinforcements from outside did not have time enough to prepare for war, since within three or four days all told the affair was at an end, after causing the Romans great fear and turmoil. [2] For upon the capture of the fortresses, followed by a sudden outcry and flight of all those living near those places — save those who were slain at once — the mass of the citizens, not knowing what the peril was, seized their arms and rushed together, some hastening to the heights of the city, others to the open places, which were very numerous, and still others to the plains near by. Those who were past the prime of life and were incapacitated in bodily strength occupied the roofs of the houses together with the women, thinking to fight from there against the invaders; for they imagined that every part of the city was full of fighting. [3] But when it was day and it came to be known what fortresses of the city were taken and who the person was who had possession of them, the consuls, going into the Forum, called the citizens to arms. The tribunes, however, summoned the populace to an assembly and declared that, while they did not care to do anything opposed to the advantage of the commonwealth, they thought it just, when the populace were going to undertake so great a struggle, that they should go and meet the danger upon fixed and definite terms. [4] “If, therefore,” they went on to say, “the patricians will promise you, and are willing to give pledges, confirmed by oaths, that as soon as this war is over they will allow you to appoint lawgivers and for the future to enjoy equal rights in the government, let us assist them in freeing the fatherland. But if they consent to no reasonable conditions, why do we incur danger and give up our lives for them, when we are to reap no advantage?” [5] While they were speaking thus and the people were persuaded and would not listen to even a word from those who offered any other advice, Claudius declared that he had no use for such allies, who were not willing to come to the aid of the fatherland voluntarily, but only for a reward, and that no moderate one; but the patricians by themselves, he said, taking up arms in their own persons and in the persons of the clients who adhered to them, joined also by any of the plebeians who would voluntarily assist them in the war, must with these besiege the fortresses. And if even so their force should seem to them inadequate, they must call on the Latins and the Hernicans, and, if necessary, must promise liberty to the slaves and invite all sorts of people rather than those who harboured a grudge against them in times like these. [6] But the other consul, Valerius, opposed this, believing that they ought not to render the plebeians, who were already exaspera
ted, absolutely implacable against the patricians; and he advised them to yield to the situation, and while arraying against their foreign foes the demands of strict justice, to combat the long-winded discourses of their fellow citizens with terms of moderation and reasonableness. [7] When the majority of the senators decided that this advice was the best, he appeared before the popular assembly and made a decorous speech, at the end of which he swore that if the people would assist in this war with alacrity and conditions in the city should become settled, he would permit the tribunes to lay before the populace for decision the law which they were trying to introduce concerning an equality of laws, and would use his utmost endeavours that their vote should be carried into effect during his consulship. But it was fated, it seems, that he should perform none of these promises, the doom of death being near at hand for him.
[16.1] After the assembly had been dismissed in the late afternoon, they all flocked to their appointed places, giving in their names to the generals and taking the military oath. During that day, then, and all the following night they were thus employed. The next day the centurions were assigned by the consuls to their commands and to the sacred standards; and the crowd which lived in the country also in great numbers flocked in. [2] Everything being soon made ready, the consuls divided the forces and drew lots for their commands. It fell to the lot of Claudius to keep guard before the walls, lest some army from outside should come to the relief of the enemy in the city; for everybody suspected that there would be very serious turmoil, and they feared that all their foes would fall upon them at the same time with united forces. To Valerius Fortune assigned the siege of the fortresses. [3] Commanders were appointed to occupy the other strong places also that lay within the city, and others were posted in the streets leading to the Capitol, to prevent the slaves and the poor from going over to the enemy — the thing of which they were most afraid. No assistance reached them in time from any of their allies save only from the Tusculans, who, the same night they heard of the invasion, had made ready to march, their commander being Lucius Mamilius, a man of action, who held the chief magistracy in their city at that time. These alone shared the danger with Valerius and aided him in capturing the fortresses, displaying all goodwill and alacrity. [4] The fortresses were attacked from all sides; some of the attackers, fitting vessels of bitumen and burning pitch to their slings, hurled them over the hills from the roofs of neighbouring houses, and others, gathering bundles of dry faggots, raised lofty heaps of them against the steep parts of the cliff and set them on fire when they could commit the flames to a favourable wind. All the bravest of the troops, closing their ranks, went up by the roads that had been built to the summits. [5] But neither their numbers, in which they were greatly superior to the enemy, were of any service to them when they were ascending by a narrow road, full of broken fragments of rock the came crashing down upon them from above, where a small body of men would be a match for a large one; nor was their constancy in dangers, which they had acquired by their training in many wars, of any advantage to them when forcing their way up steep heights. For it was not a situation that called for the display of the daring and perseverance of hand-to-hand fighting, but rather for the tactics of fighting with missiles. [6] Moreover, the blows made by missiles shot from below up to lofty targets were slow on arrival and ineffective, naturally, even if they hit their mark, while the blows of missiles hurled down from above came with high speed and violence, the very weight of the weapons contributing to the force with which they were thrown. Nevertheless, the men attacking the ramparts were not easily discouraged, but bravely endured the hard rations of unavoidable dangers, ceasing not from their toils either by day or by night. At last, when the missiles of the besieged gave out and their strength failed them, the Romans reduced the fortresses on the third day. [7] In this action they lost many brave men, among them the consul, who was universally acknowledged to have been the best of them all; he, even after he had received many wounds, did not retire from danger until a huge rock, crashing down upon him as he was mounting the other wall, snatched from him at once the victory and himself life. As the fortresses were being taken, Herdonius, who was remarkable for his physical strength and brave in action, after piling up an incredible heap of dead bodies about him, perished under a multitude of missiles. Of those who had aided him in seizing the fortresses some few were taken alive, but the greater part either killed themselves with their swords or hurled themselves down the cliffs.
[17.1] The war with the brigands being thus ended, the tribunes rekindled the civil strife once more by demanding of the surviving consul the fulfilment of the promises made to them by Valerius, who perished in the fighting, with regard to the introduction of the law. But Claudius for a time kept procrastinating, now by performing lustrations for the city, now by offering sacrifices of thanksgiving to the gods, and again by entertaining the multitude with games and shows. [2] When all his excuses had been exhausted, he finally declared that another consul must be chosen in place of the deceased; for he said that the acts performed by him all would be neither legal nor lasting, whereas those performed by two of them would be legitimate and valid. Having put them off with this pretence, he appointed a day for the election, when he would nominate his colleague. In the meantime the leading men of the senate, consulting together in private, agreed among themselves upon the person to whom they would entrust the magistracy. [3] And when the day appointed for the election had come and the herald had called the first class, the eighteen centuries of knights together with the eighty centuries of foot, consisting of the wealthiest citizens, entering the appointed place, chose as consul Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, whose son Caeso Quintius the tribunes had brought to trial for his life and compelled to leave the city. And no other class being called to vote — for the centuries which had voted were three more in be than the remaining centuries — the populace departed, regarding it as a grievous misfortune that a man who hated them was to be possessed of the consular power. Meanwhile the senate sent men to invite the consul and to conduct him to the city to assume his magistracy. [4] It chanced that Quintius was just then ploughing a piece of land for sowing, he himself following the gaunt oxen that were breaking up the fallow; he had no tunic on, wore a small loin-cloth and had a cap upon his head. Upon seeing a crowd of people come into the field he stopped his plough and for a long time was at a loss to know who they were or what they wanted of him; then, when some one ran up to him and bade him make himself more presentable, he went into the cottage and after putting on his clothes came out to them. [5] Thereupon the men who were sent to escort him all greeted him, not by his name, but as consul; and clothing him with the purple-bordered robe and placing before him the axes and the other insignia of his magistracy, they asked him to follow them to the city. And he, pausing for a moment and shedding tears, said only this: “So my field will go unsown this year, and we shall be in danger of having not enough to live on.” Then he kissed his wife, and charging her to take care of things at home, went to the city. [6] I am led to related these particulars for no other reason than to let all the world see what kind of men the leaders of Rome were at that time, that they worked with their own hands, led frugal lives, did not chafe under honourable poverty, and, far from aiming at positions of royal power, actually refused them when offered. For it will be seen that the Romans of to-day do not bear the least resemblance to them, but follow the very opposite practices in everything — with the exception of a very few by whom the dignity of the commonwealth is still maintained and a resemblance to those men preserved. But enough on this subject.
[18.1] Quintius, having succeeded to the consulship, caused the tribunes to desist from their new measures and from their insistence upon the proposed law by announcing that if they did not cease disturbing the commonwealth he would give notice of an expedition against the Volscians and would lead all the Romans out of the city. [2] When the tribunes said they would not permit him to enrol an army, he called an assembly of the populace an
d declared that since they had all taken the military oath, swearing that they would follow the consuls in any wars to which they should be called and would neither desert the standards nor do anything else contrary to law, and since he had assumed the consular power, he held them all bound to him by their oaths. [3] Having said this and sworn that he would invoke the law against those who disobeyed, he ordered the standards to be brought out of the temples. “And to the end,” he added, “that you may renounce all agitation by demagogues during my consulship, I will not withdraw the army from the enemy’s country until my whole term of office has expired. Expect therefore, to pass the winter in the field and prepare everything necessary against that time.” [4] Having terrified them with these threats, when he saw that they had become more orderly and begged to be let off from the campaign, he said he would grant them a respite from war upon these conditions, that they create no more disturbances but allow him to administer his office as he wished to the end, and that in their dealings with one another they give as well as receive strict justice.
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 94
