* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the eBook (other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please contact a https://www.fadedpage.com administrator before proceeding. Thousands more FREE eBooks are available at https://www.fadedpage.com.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

This eBook was produced by: Marcia Brooks, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries.

H. Warren. Pinx.

Lucretia Spinning with her Maidens.
London, Arthur Hall, Virtue & C^o.

PREFACE.

——◆——

A History of Rome, upon a new plan, is now offered to the public, in a series of volumes expressly written for family use. This work will embrace ancient Rome in all its stages of conquest, civilisation, literature, and art, exhibiting its struggles for constitutionary liberty, its ages of national virtue—the gradual growth of luxury, its passage to absolute despotism, its revival with Christianity, and its decay and final fall.

The series, of which the first volume is now presented to the reader, will contain the early history of the Christian Church, and will faithfully delineate its trials, struggles, moral and civilising influence, charity, final triumphs, and unfortunate declension from its pristine purity of doctrine and simplicity of practice. In order to render the serial volumes more useful and interesting, the private biography of the most celebrated men of the successive periods, whether distinguished for their talents in war, legislature, patriotism, eloquence, literature, or piety, will be included therein. Thus the most eminent individuals in every age, whether they be heathen or Christian, will be exhibited just as they played their important part in the eventful drama of life.

The four eras being not only designed for the family library, but also for the mighty mass of the British people, to the unlearned portion of which the classic originals are utterly unknown, much care has been taken to render the study of Roman history a source of pure and profitable information, deprived of all those pernicious details that render heathen authors unfit for perusal.

In distinguishing between true liberty and its masked and false resemblance faction, some caution on the part of the reader is absolutely required; who, if he suffer eloquence to fix his standard in respect to public privileges will inevitably form erroneous views of civic rights. Facts are the only true criterion by which he can arrive at any just conclusion respecting the conduct of public men or measures, for no self-interested and ambitious person can ever deserve the name of a patriot. He will find that the rapacious idea of equalising property never was entertained by the ancient citizens of Rome at all; who, while contending, and that fiercely too, for their own rights, did not seek to violate the sacred ones of their own community.

Sensible that a History of Rome, including within it that of the Christian Church, was an actual want, the author has devoted a considerable portion of her life to supply it, and she trusts that the result of her labours will tend to fix this important fact upon the mind of the reader, that a minute research into the records of ancient Rome is but another method of investigating and elucidating scriptural truth, to which chain of evidence they afford many important links—links drawn from heathen writers themselves, who were not aware that their works would bear witness to the integrity of the sacred books of prophesy.

This volume, which forms the first of a series, will, if successful, be followed by others upon the same subject, and arranged upon the same plan.

Reydon Hall, Suffolk.

INTRODUCTION.

——◆——

The History of Rome comprises four remarkable eras, or epochs, essentially different from each other in political government, and indeed in all features of national resemblance. These may be classed into the heads which form the title of this work. First in the order we have Rome regal, an era involved it is true in mythic fable and heroic tradition, indistinct and shadowy, yet not more so than the early records of any other state, with the solitary exception of the ecclesiastical history of the Jews, whose origin as a people for wise purposes was left distinct and clear, while that of the world in general was obscure and unknown. But however interwoven with superstition and romance the early history of Rome regal may be, she possessed a free constitution from her very dawn, not indeed one without defects, but a constitution admirably suited for the times in which it was framed, since its faults did not affect the present but the far-off future alone. The election of a sovereign was common to that age, when the votes of the senate and people were supposed to be given to the worthiest individual of the state, when the poverty of all necessarily precluded the corrupting influence of gold. Such an order of things, however, never has lasted and never can last, for the experience of history teaches us that in a free state monarchy must be hereditary to be secure, or in the struggle for power that takes place upon the demise of each sovereign civil wars ensue, the right of the strongest prevails, and public liberty is annihilated by a military despotism. Poland in our own times affords an example in her fall of the consequences contingent on such elective sovereignty; though freedom being confined to the aristocracy alone while the people remained in feudal slavery, led to foreign not to civic conquest. Rome regal enjoyed a constitution which conferred certain privileges upon the different orders of which the state was composed, but while she possessed an hereditary nobility she also contained a number of free citizens incapable of rising beyond their own degree, yet invested with certain legislative rights, which Servius Tullius enlarged, but of which their last king, Tarquin the Proud, entirely deprived them.

Some struggles for hereditary power took place even in the short space of time during which Rome was ruled by kings. For the idea of hereditary right being a natural and patriarchal one was not easily eradicated from the bosoms of those whose fathers had worn the elective diadem, or even from the people they had governed. The fate of Tarquin Priscus, slain by the sons of Ancus Marcius, and the murder of Servius Tullius by Tarquin the Proud, prove this, and show that monarchies, in order to be free from such disorders, ought to be hereditary, not elective.

In the revolution that displaced Servius Tullius the Romans lost their liberty entirely, for, by means of the mercenary army he raised, Tarquin tyrannised over the aristocracy who had elevated, and oppressed the commons who had permitted his elevation, and he made himself completely independent of the senate and people of Rome, till the tragic fate of Lucretia combined against his dynasty the moral indignation of a virtuous nation, and it fell.

Few records of the regal era remained in those ages when the Romans became sufficiently civilised to collect documents for their own history. The foundation of Rome, the life and actions of Romulus, the tragic story of Lucretia, the expulsion of Tarquin, and the change of government which then took place were preserved in the national lays of a simple people, who inconsistently worshipped their first king as a god, but who hated regality for the sake of the only bad sovereign they had found among their seven royal rulers. Many oral traditions, a few obsolete laws, some treaties painted on wooden shields, and those noble architectural works which have survived to be the wonder of our own times, were all the evidences left in the time of Livy of the first Roman Era.

The second Roman Era, or epoch, commenced with the name of a republican form of government, which was less advantageous to the commons, or free citizens who composed the middle class of Rome, than the regal constitution it had displaced. The reason is obvious, it had not originated with them but with the aristocracy themselves, who, in revenging the insult done to their own order, had no intention of restoring to the people those privileges granted to them by Servius Tullius, in whose time little was wanting to perfect the monarchical form but a legal hereditary head bound by certain restrictions to observe and maintain the constitutionary laws, and a people rendered capable by those laws of attaining under him to those honours and privileges which are the essential rights of subjects in a free state. Montesquieu, in his “Spirit of the Laws,” a work full of profound research and close reasoning, considers the early monarchical government of Rome infinitely better than that which succeeded it, because under the first the power was divided between the king, the nobility, and the people.

Servius Tullius, by inclining the balance towards the popular side, prepared for a democracy, since what he took from the nobility he gave to the people—but under the consular government the commons certainly did not regain what Servius had given and Tarquin had taken away. In the natural order of things, the banishment of Tarquin ought to have been followed either by a democracy or an hereditary monarchy, under which the people would have been admitted to the same privileges now enjoyed by every British subject, in which case Rome would have been happier, freer, and more full of internal prosperity than with the consular government with which her second stage of political power commenced. The aristocracy, however, dreading to find another Tarquin, devised a constitution which afforded every member of it in turn an opportunity of exercising for a time the regal functions, this limitation apparently securing them from the people and from themselves. If the Romans had then conceived the idea of conquering the world they could not have chosen a better school for training up statesmen and generals, than the consular government, which naturally inspired each person while in office with a laudable ambition to surpass his predecessor. Several states of Italy were under this form, which seems to have been peculiar to that country. The Volscians and Samnites, both warlike races, were governed by consuls.

The Roman people ought to have secured their own liberty before they engaged in a long and arduous struggle with the exiled dynasty, but the patrician grant of seven jugers of land to the impoverished plebeians, from the royal demesnes, was so acceptable to them that they overlooked all other advantages for the sake of that benefit. The policy of the inter-reges had foreseen that this bribe would bind the commons fast to their party, since the restoration of Tarquin would, as a matter of course, involve that of the crown lands, a serious consequence to these poor citizens. The struggle with the banished family becoming, therefore, the individual interest of the whole mass, ensured its success, and it was gallantly maintained and gloriously won; but the commons had afterwards a far more difficult task to achieve, that of winning back their own liberty, of which the consular government had left them only the shadow. In order to understand the cause of the civic contests between the patrician and plebeian orders, we must consider the actual wants of the Roman people, and what means they possessed of satisfying them. Rome was even then a great city, with an increasing population and a territory too small to find her citizens with bread, the plebeians were all compelled to serve in war without pay and to find themselves in provisions during their period of service. Surrounded by warlike enemies at her very gates, Rome must win the lands of her neighbours, or her people must starve. She had no resources in commerce, her situation was disadvantageous for trade, and she had no convenient port, every craft or calling was engrossed by foreigners and libertini, who were the members of the nine Roman guilds, in whose privileges the plebeian citizens were not permitted to share. They were small landholders or agriculturists, either possessing allotments of their own or hiring others of the state, the cultivation of these lands and the care of their flocks occupying all their time not spent in war. The increase of their families decreased their means of support, and when they served in the army, if they received any share at all of the lands they won, it was a very inadequate one, by no means proportioned to the danger and toils they had incurred. To obtain a remedy for this increasing evil was the more difficult, because all the magistracies were engrossed by the patrician order, who enriched themselves at the expense of the middle class, which they were determined to keep down, but this important class never can be kept down, for it forms the life, the heart, the vital energy of every free state; it must eventually achieve its liberty, and the Roman middle class did achieve its emancipation and maintained it during many centuries. Some attempts had been made to redress the wrongs of the plebs by persons belonging to the privileged orders, but these disinterested persons had been accused of aspiring to the sovereignty of Rome, and this charge had made the people abandon them to a fate from which they could and ought to have delivered them. The tyranny of the decemviri was a tyranny the people had imposed upon themselves, a yoke which the immolation of Virginia broke, but it was not till after the dissensions of both orders and the banishment of Camillus, the sack of the city by the Gauls, its resuscitation from its ashes, and the destruction of one of its best champions in the person of Manlius Capitolinus, that the people made good their claim to a share in the consulate. The attempt made by them to destroy their second founder originated in his arbitrary measures, but it was the glory of Camillus to give a fine example in the closing days of his career by throwing his weight into the popular side, and redeeming the pride which had sullied his character by according to the commons their long-contested rights. He died in full possession of the affections of the Roman people, who had more than once forgotten in the arbitrary magistrate their great and patriotic deliverer.

Several ages of public virtue followed the admission of the plebeians into the participation of the high offices of the Roman state. In these ages pure examples of exalted patriotism were given by both orders, which have never been surpassed by any nation in the world. The isolated and necessitous condition of the republic first taught her to conquer, and Pyrrhus and Hannibal were her masters in that destructive science, in which she afterwards excelled every nation upon earth. Never, indeed, did Rome appear greater than in her contest with these distinguished warriors. When the Epirot prince found his dear-bought victories were scarcely less ruinous than defeats would have been, he tried the effect of crafty diplomacy, on which occasion one blind and aged senator ordered himself to be borne into the senate-house to protest against any treaty made with an invading power. That senator was Appius Claudius, whose middle life had been passed in the construction of those magnificent roads and public works which form his imperishable monument, and whose closing hours were spent in convincing his countrymen of their folly and short-sightedness. They looked upon the blind and bed-ridden censor as upon one risen from the grave, and listened to his powerful and patriotic eloquence as to the voice of inspiration and prophecy. The treaty was broken off, and Pyrrhus was not permitted to establish himself upon the Italian shore. Here we admire the Roman spirit of the censor, who had been formerly distinguished for unbending hatred to the people, and that arrogant pride which had ever been the characteristic of his tyrannical house; but he loved his country; his energies, his affections, his ambition were for Rome; he curbed the democracy, nay he would have crushed it beneath his feet, but only his last breath could divorce his soul from its patriotic devotion to his country. This feeling was not confined to the blind old censor who by his iron determination then laid the foundation of his country’s glory; it was the spirit of the middle ages of the republic implanted by virtuous Roman matrons in the sons they reared—it was a nobler species of idolatry of which Rome was the object. In the contest with Hannibal, at a later period, we find this grand principle continually developed—defeated in almost every battle, her colonies destroyed, her allies subdued or fallen from her, little was left to Rome but the invincible nationality of her indomitable people. The war had found the Romans at strife among themselves, and the plebeians had chosen Terentius Varro to head the army for no other reason than the meanness of his birth, unless that demagogue really had persuaded them that he possessed military talents equal to the emergency in which he was placed. This mistake or wilfulness of the commons lost the battle of Cannæ, and gave to the slaughtering Carthaginian host the flower of the republic, but it did not crush the spirit of resistance in the Roman people, who never for a single moment entertained the idea of submission. The women sacrificed their jewels, the men gave their substance, loans were negotiated, and in order to repel the foreign invader from her sacred soil, Rome burdened herself with a national debt; a debt, however, which her conquests enabled her afterwards to pay off. The maintenance of this war cost Rome some of her greatest and noblest sons, but it was not only a school for military tactics but a school for public virtue, in which Scipio grew up to be the avenger of his country.

The evacuation of Italy by Hannibal sealed the downfall of that ungrateful and avaricious senate, whose vices and intrigues had retarded her noblest son in his career of conquest, and had denounced his bold invasion of Italy—the very measure which, if followed up by their co-operation, would have saved them—as an act of foolish hardihood. Hannibal, compelled to defend his own country from the invasive war in which his youthful antagonist had only copied him, reluctantly consented to stake the fate of Carthage on a battle-field, and then not without a personal attempt at negotiation. The victory of Zama opened to Rome at once that vast extent of foreign conquest which identified her with the mighty fourth monarchy of Daniel and made her the mistress of the civilised world. It is a remarkable fact that Polybius, the historian, a man admirably skilled in the military tactics of that period, upon reviewing the dispositions of both armies, and the talents of the generals who led them, gives his opinion that Hannibal did not lose the battle through any error of his own, nor through any want of courage in his soldiers; nor, on the contrary, does he adjudge the victory to any superiority upon the part of Scipio. He ascribes it “to a Divine Power which had decreed that the Romans should rule over all the nations of the earth,” and indeed if Polybius had actually seen the scriptural prophecies respecting the future domination of Rome, he could not have arrived at a more certain conclusion. The Romans, from this precise point of their history, went onward conquering and to conquer, and the fall of Carthage and the subversion of the Macedonian dynasty proved the truth of the remark already cited from Polybius; but foreign conquests of any great extent always prove fatal to the freedom of that republic which has made them. Riches are not favourable to the growth and continuance of public virtue, and Rome, full of luxury and gold, underwent a corrupting change, and the fall of the democracy was only delayed by two remarkable men, who united in themselves the blood of the Semproniuses and Scipios. These were two distinguished brothers, whose bright names, though stolen by venal orators to adorn and gild the cause of faction, ought never to have been mixed up with the unholy ones of anarchy and rebellion. Tiberius Gracchus first, and Caius afterwards, stood forth as champions of their own order, and took the leading part in that political struggle between the rival parties by which each sought to gain the ascendancy in the state. We must not suppose that equality of degree, still less of property, was the object the democracy had in view; such a state of things was never contemplated for a single moment by the Romans. We find such principles advocated by the factious citizens of Florence, and fearfully exemplified in republican France of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the Romans were wiser because they were more virtuous; and that democracy of which the patriotic brothers were the advocates was recognised as the constitutional order of the government, which, however, was not its original one, but that which successive contests had won from the aristocracy. The Gracchi therefore only sought the restitution of certain privileges, and the administration of laws which, though passed in favour of the commons, had fallen into disuse. Nothing indeed could be worse than the situation of the poor citizens of Rome at this time, who were tied to one calling, that of agriculture, and forestalled in the free-labour market by foreign slaves. Can we wonder then that free men who could obtain no employment from the rich were urgent in claiming their share of those conquered lands which they had won by their valour, and were willing to cultivate by their individual industry.

In their patriotic and disinterested attempt to maintain the rights of the poor against the rich and noble, both Tiberius, and afterwards his greater brother Caius Gracchus, found themselves opposed by the wealthy and corrupt among their own order as well as by their own near relations, who were the leaders of the aristocracy. They were deserted too by the very people whose cause they had espoused, a result which might not have occurred if they had started into public life together. They fell within ten years of each other, and public virtue and public spirit perished with them. The inviduous praises of factious writers and the censures of the historians who flourished under the rule of imperial despotism have left a stain on their bright and glorious names which only a candid examination into facts can remove; but when the Gracchi are tried by this criterion we shall find them the champions of the laws and constitutionary freedom of their country. The results of the contest which both brothers had separately maintained were equally unfortunate, and almost for the first time we find Rome guilty of the blood of her citizens, of which till then she had been remarkably tender. In fact the conquests of Rome were gradually undermining her republican constitution, for foreign intercourse and the introduction of foreign luxury corrupted her manners, while the necessity of keeping regular standing armies to protect the frontiers of provinces torn by force from other states, was subversive of national freedom. The close of this era of the republic left Rome in her full career of military glory, but deprived of her boasted public liberty.

HISTORY  OF  ROME.

==========

From her very foundation, Rome, according to her mystical description in the Book of Daniel, “was diverse from all nations;”^[1] even the singularly romantic history of her founder being a part of that distinctive difference by which the mighty Fourth Monarchy was to be distinguished from every other people upon the face of the earth.

Rome was founded by Romulus, a chief of unknown parentage, to whom, in later times, tradition assigned a regal origin, superstition—a divine one^[2]—the supposed royal ancestry of the Latin foundling being as difficult to establish upon the solid basis of historic truth, as his mythic descent from a vestal priestess and the god Mars, or his nurture by a wolf.

The early history of Romulus appears to have been a national lay^[3]—the popular legend being perpetuated afterwards by sculpture; for art seized upon the poetical idea and transmitted it to posterity, though perhaps in ruder forms than the celebrated bronze group still in existence at Rome.^[4]

In the place of fact we are reduced to take the most probable part of the tradition, and presume, that for some services performed for Numitor, King of Alba, by Romulus and Remus, foundlings reared by Faustulus, a shepherd, that sovereign bestowed upon the brothers some waste lands lying about the Tiber for the site of a city and colony.^[5] Each brother being equally desirous of giving his name to the new settlement which both were to rule in concert, the dispute was referred to the King of Alba, who recommended them to decide it by augury. The augurs determining that he who should first discover a flight of vultures should become the founder of the new city, Remus watched from Mount Aventine, Romulus from Mount Palatine. The younger brother, however, soon despatched a messenger to inform the elder that he had seen six vultures, claiming, in consequence, the benefit of his good fortune. Romulus, who had not then discovered a single bird, sent word that he had seen twelve before his brother’s message had been received. At that moment he really saw that number,^[6] and confidently pronounced B.C. 753-717. the auspices to be in his favour,^[7] and instantly commenced the foundation of the city, by fixing a copper share on a plough, and yoking to it a bullock and a heifer, drawing a furrow round the Palatine Hill, which he enclosed a considerable way below, taking care, according to the custom on such occasions, that all the clods should fall inwards, being followed by others, who were to leave none turned the other way.^[8] The Comitium enclosed a vault built under ground, filled with the firstlings of all the natural productions of the earth, to which was added by each foreign settler a portion of his own native soil. To this spot was given the name of Mundus; it represented the door of the world below, and was opened thrice a year for the spirits of the departed.^[9] “A line drawn between one to two hundred paces to the south, and parallel with one running from Santa Maria Liberatrice to the Temple of Concord, now supposed to be the Basilica of the Cæsars, would pass through the Comitium.”^[10]

By the custom of the age, the violation of the consecrated bounds by any person would be followed by his instant death, as an atonement to the deities to whom it had been dedicated. A wall and a ditch enclosed the site of the city on the line of the Pomœrium, which had been thus consecrated by heathen superstition. Remus, who had watched with scorn the progress of his brother’s work, leaped the sacred boundary, upon which he was immediately slain by Romulus, or Celer, in revenge for the act of sacrilege he had rashly and impiously committed, Faustulus and his brother being killed in a vain attempt to part the rival brothers.^[11]

Romulus lamented the fratricidal act, rejecting food and consolation, till persuaded by his foster-mother to attempt the propitiation of the manes by the institution of a festival called the Lemuria, in commemoration of Remus. A vacant throne, adorned with the insignia of royalty, and placed by the side of Romulus, was supposed a sufficient atonement to the injured spirit.^[12]

The quarrel between the brothers presents no difficulty; it agrees but too well with the lawless customs and uncivilised manners of barbarous times, which rarely are influenced and softened by natural affection. Such is the outline of one of the old heroic lays which were proudly transmitted from sire to son from the mythic ages of Rome to the period of her meridian glory and splendour. It is difficult, and perhaps impossible, to reduce to anything resembling fact the legendary and mythic history of the founder of Rome.^[13]

Rome was not advantageously situated for trade, having no port and possessing no facilities for commerce. Nor indeed was it fitted for the habitation of an agricultural population; for the soil was poor and the water bad, but the locality was suited well to the predatory habits of a people at the period when they were about to pass from the pastoral to the warrior state. Such changes are natural to every nation in the world, and always precede civilisation; the shepherd becoming a hunter from necessity, and a warrior by choice. The gradation is easily traced—the mighty empires of Asia in ancient and the European kingdoms of modern times having passed through the same nomadic and pastoral stages.

The site of the city destined to become the future mistress of the world occupied the hollow of an extinct volcano—a conclusion at which the survey of the ground has enabled modern geologists to arrive;^[14] the appearance of the hills, and the immense deposit of pozzolana still underlying the foundations of ancient Rome, sufficiently establishing a fact which throws some light upon one of the picturesque traditions of the old Republic.^[15]

The foundation day of Rome was kept upon the 21st of April, at the same time as the festival of Pales, which was B.C. 753-717. held by the country people to propitiate the goddess, to whose care they confided the preservation and increase of their flocks.^[16]

The extent of Roma or Rome, the city destined in future ages to rule the civilised world, was confined to Mount Palatine at first, and consisted of a thousand huts, lying square, and being about a mile in compass;^[17] the whole extent of the infant colony not exceeding eight miles.

The colony was composed of a mixed multitude of Tuscans, Italians, Latins, Greeks, Trojans, slaves, criminals, besides the inhabitants of Pallantium and Saturnia, who united with Romulus in an enterprise, whose success in after ages not only became instrumental in civilising the world, but aided in bringing to pass events connected with its redemption.

Two peculiar features distinguished Rome from every other city or state. It possessed a temple before its foundations were laid, and it boasted a free constitution, not indeed without many imperfections, but as perfect as that age and the rude state of society would admit. The temple, however, reared to the Asylean Jupiter, owed its origin more to policy than piety. It was opened as an asylum to runaway slaves, criminals, and debtors, who might here be safe from the claims of their masters, judges, and creditors, and form a part of the new colony.^[18] “In regard to the constitution, it is absurd to impute that to Romulus, which must have been the work of those leading persons who joined him in his new settlement and formed his senate.”^[19] The Roman constitution, of which Romulus was the elected head, was the security of free persons against the possibility of tyranny or oppression, on the part of their prince or chief, who combined in his own person the offices of Sovereign and Prime-minister in times of peace, and of General in those of war. Some of its distinguishing features must have had a later origin than others, springing out of circumstances which afterwards occurred.

In its first infancy, the Roman state was most probably composed of two classes only—freemen, who afterwards represented the patrician order, and slaves; but of the first Romulus selected a hundred persons to form the Senate, called Patres Conscripti, or Conscript Fathers, whose privileges were inviolable. The proper business of the Senate was to debate and resolve upon any public affairs proposed by the King or chief, as well as to inspect all matters he referred to their examination. The people or freemen had the power of creating magistrates, making laws, and determining upon any war proposed by their regal head.

To the King was left the direction of all religious rites; the guardianship of the laws and customs, the decision of all private causes between man and man, as their judge. He possessed the privilege of summoning the Senate, and calling the assembly of the people to consider his propositions, and afterwards to ratify them by a majority of voices.^[20]

In the field, the King possessed absolute power, similar to that of the Dictator in a later age.^[21] The division of the people into tribes probably did not take place till the plebeian order was formed. To each of his followers he assigned two jugers of land^[22] as inheritable property. The privilege of feeding their cattle within the enclosure of the Pomœrium appears to have been common to them all.

The constitution, or code of legislative laws, for the government of the infant state having been settled, the B.C. 753-717. increase of the colony by marriage was the next thing that engaged the attention of Romulus. The founder himself and most of his followers being unmarried men, whose unsettled habits made the women of Italy unwilling to form alliances with them,^[23] the enterprising spirit of Romulus soon found a remedy for this evil by seizing upon the persons of the young Latin and Sabine virgins who came with their parents to the games given by him in honour of the Equestrian Neptune. Only one married woman was carried off by the Roman ravishers upon this occasion.^[24] This was Hersilia, whose maternal anxiety for her young daughter occasioned her own detention.^[25] Romulus married himself to this lady with the formula used afterwards in the Roman marriages, “Take thou of thy husband’s fire and water.” He officiated as priest to his robber-followers, whom he united to their stolen brides with the same sentence. In memory of their descent from these forced nuptials, newly-wedded Roman wives were lifted over the threshold of their husbands’ houses. Their hair was also parted with a spear to denote that their female ancestors were won by force of arms by their forefathers. No part of Roman history rests on stronger foundations than this incident, which is inseparably blended with the laws and institutions of Rome.

In the attempt to avenge the insult offered to them in the abduction of their young women, the Latins were foremost. Three cities, Antemnæ, Cænina, and Crustumerium took up arms singly against the Romans, while the Sabines lingered until all three had fallen singly before Romulus, and he had won the royal spoils of Acron, king of Cænina, whom he slew in single combat, instituting upon that occasion a sort of pageant or triumph, in which the armour and garments of the vanquished monarch formed the most interesting part of the show. The spolia opima of Acron were fastened to a trophy, fashioned in the shape of an armed man. This effigy was fixed to the trunk of a young oak and borne on the right shoulder of Romulus, who entered Rome on foot, having his head crowned with laurel, and being preceded and followed by his victorious army. He marched to the Hill Saturnius—the eminence afterwards called the Capitoline Mount, where, in pursuance of a vow made by him to Jupiter Feretrius, he dedicated the spoils of Acron, depositing them in a miniature temple erected for the occasion. This fane, we are told, was only ten feet in length and about five in width.^[26]

With humane and enlightened policy, the conqueror not only spared the inhabitants of the vanquished cities, but rendered them free colonists and citizens of Rome. “Thus he made those fellow-citizens at night,” remarks the Emperor Claudius, “whom in the morning he had encountered as enemies in the field.”^[27]

These captives, it is supposed, afterwards formed the plebeian order. The Sabines, after the fall of Acron, king of Cænina, advanced on Rome with an army of five-and-twenty thousand men, headed by their king, Tatius. Romulus, unable to maintain the field against such a body of men, retired into his city, whose capability of defence rested upon the maintenance of the citadel, which stood on Mount Saturnius, and commanded Rome.

Before commencing hostilities, the Sabines despatched a herald to the gates of Rome, demanding the restoration of their young women. This was peremptorily refused by Romulus, and the war commenced in form. At that remote period, the space between the hills—afterwards occupied by the Forum Romanum—was a swampy valley. Tatius encamped between the Saturnian and Quirinal Mounts, which he found too strongly guarded to carry by assault.

Romulus had entrusted the important fortress that crowned the Saturnian Hill^[28] to Tarpeius, a brave man, who, unfortunately for himself and the Romans, had a daughter named Tarpeia; who, dazzled by the sight of the B.C. 753-717. golden bracelets worn by the Sabines on their left arms, offered to admit these foes into the citadel, provided the ornaments she coveted were given to her.^[29] Tatius agreed to the propositions, whereupon Tarpeia opened a private door to the Sabines, who, with the bracelets she had purchased by her treason, flung down upon her the bucklers they likewise carried upon their left arms,^[30] and crushed the traitress to death.

The treason of the covetous Tarpeia and the possession of the citadel would have been followed soon after by the capture of Rome and the recovery of the Sabine daughters, if Hersilia and the captured females, now become Roman mothers as well as Roman matrons, had not interposed between their husbands and fathers. For Romulus and his followers, when on the point of being vanquished, were succoured by their Sabine wives, who, rushing forth with their infants in their arms, their hair hanging loose upon their shoulders, and their eyes filled with tears, interposed their persons between their incensed parents’ vengeance and their beloved consorts, whom they sought to defend in the unequal contest.

Moved by the grief of their daughters, and touched with the sight of their grandchildren, the Sabines relented, and peace was made upon certain conditions very advantageous to the Romans. The union of the two nations under the joint sway of Romulus and Tatius was proposed and accepted, the city retaining still the name of Rome from its founder, while the inhabitants took that of Quirites from Cures, the native town of Tatius, the Sabines becoming free citizens of Rome.^[31]

Romulus chose from their nobility a hundred senators, and added a thousand men to that select part of his army, to which he had given the name of Legionaries.

The union between Rome and Sabinia gave rise to the festivals of the Matronalia, Carmentalia, and many others, founded to commemorate the peace mediated by the Sabine women.^[32]

The Roman tribes at this time received the name of Ramnenses, Tatienses, and Luceres. The two first were called after the two sovereigns, or chiefs; the third was derived from Lucus, or grove, in which the temple of the Asylum stood.^[33] The subdivision of the tribes, or wards, into ten curiæ—an arrangement not unlike the modern English parishes—probably^[34] took place after this union with Sabinia. Each curia had its temple and officiating priest, though no image of the presiding deity occupied the fane. A high priest called Curio Maximus was the supreme director of these heathen ministers. Each curia was subdivided into ten decuriæ, governed by civil officers appointed for that purpose. The curiæ had votes in all important public matters. Their resolutions were carried by a majority of voices, each individual being entitled to a vote. Their assembly was called Comitia Curiata.^[35] Some analogy will be found between the early Roman constitution and our own, with this essential difference, that the Commons could not acquire the privileges of the patrician order, a defect afterwards productive of much mischief in the state.

The plebeians were either the inhabitants of towns, who surrendered upon certain conditions, by which they retained their freedom and civic rights, or were those fugitives who took refuge in the asylum opened by Romulus. They were agriculturists on a small scale; a body of landowners, or farmers, who were not permitted the exercise of any other calling or trade, the ancients considering that of agriculture to be the proper business of the free citizen, as well as the best school for soldiers. Besides the two jugers of land assigned to each Roman citizen by Romulus, these men hired certain proportions of the public lands, much in the same manner as persons now rent the corporation lands of towns or cities at this day in England. Many of the plebeians had patrons among the patricians appointed by Romulus to take care of their interests, and to defend them from aggression; to assist them on all occasions in which the poor and weak might need the help of the rich and strong.^[36] The plebeians receiving this patronage were called clients; but as the whole body did not either claim or receive this assistance, there is some reason for believing that it had been accorded to persons not always possessed B.C. 753-717. of the Roman franchise.^[37] The lands were divided into as many parts as there were curiæ, which were thirty in number, with a reservation of two allotments for public exigencies, and the maintenance and support of religion. The patrician order engrossed the whole of the magisterial, and, with one exception, all the sacerdotal offices; no share in the government of the country being permitted by the ancient constitution to the plebeians.

The celeres or body guard of Romulus were a band of young men furnished by the curiæ, ten from each curia, whose proper office was to defend the king’s person in battle with their spears. The celeres fought on horseback or on foot, and usually began the attack on the day of battle. They were three hundred in number, and obtained their name from the swiftness of their motions.^[38]

The equestrian order was not founded according to Livy till after the union of the two nations. The equites or knights were all men of noble birth, and formed the Roman cavalry. They were possessed of remarkable privileges, and wore a gold ring as a symbol of their rank. Besides the celeres who attended him in war, Romulus was always followed by twelve lictors or serjeants, bearing bundles of rods, with axes in the centre of the rods. These bundles were called fasces. These fasces represented the power of Romulus to punish offenders according to their degrees of guilt.^[39]

Romulus and Tatius took the city of Cameria, transferring the inhabitants to Rome, and replacing them with a Roman colony. Soon after this exploit, Tatius was slain by the Lavinians, in return for the protection he had afforded some persons who had plundered their territories, and his murder of the ambassadors they had sent to remonstrate with him on the subject. Romulus made no attempt to revenge his colleague, but he gave him a sumptuous funeral. The Camerians took the opportunity afforded them by a famine to assert their ancient freedom, but the revolt was soon put down by Romulus. He obtained a triumph for the conquest of Fidenæ, a city which had seized upon a convoy of corn on its way to Rome during the famine. The Crustumarians were severely punished for their slaughter of his colonists, and for this successful enterprise he claimed a third triumph. Upon the Veientines resenting his conduct to the Fidenatans, Romulus made war upon them, and after defeating them in two battles, granted them peace for the term of one hundred years.^[40] The Veientines purchased the pacification by the sacrifice of their salt-pits near the river, and the evacuation of the seventh part of their territories. They also gave Romulus fifty hostages of noble birth. The king of Rome did not incorporate the captives taken in these wars with his own people according to his usual custom, but sold them for slaves.^[41]

These wars terminate the records of Romulus, whose attempts to render his government despotic and independent of the senate ended with his unaccountable disappearance, which the superstition of after ages regarded as a translation to heaven. According to the general testimony afforded by the ancient Latin authorities, Romulus was holding a religious festival in the meadow called Capræ, when the sun became totally eclipsed, attended by a thunder storm, which dispersed the people, who left the king alone with the senate on the spot. From that day the founder of Rome was seen no more.^[42]

Valerius Maximus, though he has not given a more probable account of the disappearance of the first king of Rome, has afforded a clue for the elucidation of the mystery by stating, “that he had convoked the senate to the temple of Vulcan for the arrangement of the public business, when he suddenly vanished from among them.”^[43] He was no doubt murdered by the disaffected senators, and buried upon the spot. Nor is the fact more unlikely than the assassination of Julius Cæsar, whose body perhaps might have been disposed of secretly, if he had not had friends as well as enemies near his person.

The loss of Romulus was afflicting to the people at large, who charged the patricians with murder and falsehood.^[44] Julius Proculus, an old friend and companion of the missing sovereign, took upon himself the task of pacifying the plebeians, by assuring them in full comitia B.C. 753-717. “that Romulus had appeared to him, and accounted for his own disappearance by informing him that the gods from whom he originally came had recalled him to heaven, and that he was to assure the Romans, that by the exercise of temperance and fortitude the city he had founded should become the mightiest upon earth.”^[45] This mythic fable was doubtless the invention of later times, and it is not unlikely that a breach in the Roman annals has been filled up in this manner by some imaginative hand, and that Romulus died a natural death. If he founded Rome some centuries earlier than history assigns for that event, oral tradition may have heaped upon fact a mass of fable. It seems indeed almost incredible that at the end of his reign the city of Rome should possess a standing army of forty-five thousand men, and a thousand cavalry soldiers. Romulus is said to have reigned thirty-seven years. He was surnamed Quirinus, one of the appellations of the god Mars, either from his skill in war, or from his fabulous relation to that heathen deity. He afterwards received divine honours under that name, and a temple was erected to him, in which, in after ages, his statue was placed.

Although the history of Romulus, as related by Livy, is evidently a sort of rude poem, one too of which a fragment alone has been preserved, yet the supposition that an uncivilised people is capable of composing a tale in verse purely imaginative is quite as improbable as the fable itself. Truth has been the groundwork upon which the ideality of the poet has worked, just as we find in our own early chronicles real history mixed up with fiction, and recorded in rugged verse. Romulus left a daughter by Hersilia, but the city he founded has continued his name to posterity. He was addicted to magic, and many virtues were afterwards ascribed to his staff. The religious rites he instituted were of Tuscan origin, derived from Cœlius, a Tuscan chief, one of the early colonists of Rome, who built upon the Cœlian hill. To attempt to give the chronology of Rome during the regal period, beyond stating the extent of each reign, would be useless.^[46]

NUMA POMPILIUS.

It is uncertain how many months or years elapsed between the disappearance of Romulus and the accession of Numa. The senators ruled by turns under the titles of Inter-reges, till the people by whom their late sovereign had been beloved insisted upon having once more a regal head. Their choice fell upon Numa Pompilius.^[47] The new king was the son-in-law of Tatius, the Sabine, colleague of Romulus. This prince united in his own person the character of high-priest and legislator. To civilise the people and encourage the arts of peace appeared to him more worthy of a sovereign than the devastating art of war. To improve the morals of the Romans—to render them humane, industrious, and pious, was his chief aim. All his institutions were designed to make them wiser and better. He softened the severity of the paternal law, by which fathers could sell or otherwise dispose of their unmarried daughters. He divided the lands Romulus had acquired from the neighbouring states by right of conquest among the most indigent of the Roman people.^[48] To defend the weak from the robbery of the strong and covetous, he deified the stones which marked the boundaries under the name of the god Terminus. This consecration of the boundary stones^[49] he imagined would secure the land to its possessors, since the violation would add the crime of sacrilege to that of theft.^[50] As the lands thus divided had been left open before for general occupancy, the violation of the lines marking the divisions was very likely to B.C. 753-717. occur; but the wisdom of Numa should have prevented the aggression by inculcating a principle of honour and honesty, not by introducing the grossness of idolatry.

There is reason to believe that he possessed a juster notion of the Supreme Being than he thought proper to impart to the people he governed;^[51] he saw the advantage of religion as a great political agent in civilising and reforming men, but preferred enslaving them by superstition to enlightening their minds with the truth.

“If Romulus founded a city and colony, Numa became its supreme legislator.” His laws he ascribed to “divine agency,” in order to make them received and obeyed by the people. “They were dictated to him,” he said, “by the nymph Egeria, by whom he gave out he was beloved.”^[52] The cave and fountain of his imaginary love are still shown to travellers, who find the lovely spot well suited to the elegant poetical allegory under which Numa veiled his policy. The austerely virtuous life of the prince—his reputation for sanctity and frequent retirement to the place where he stated he held converse with Egeria—impressed his subjects with veneration for his person and reverence for his laws. The temple of Janus was built by Numa in the first year of his reign. Janus was supposed by some to personify Time. He was represented with two faces, one looking forward, the other backward, as if to observe the past and future. His temple had two brazen gates, which were shut in time of peace, but remained open during war.^[53] These gates were shut during the peaceful reign of Numa, but through the long centuries that succeeded it they were only closed thrice, so fiercely warlike grew the Roman people.

Numa was the founder of the nine guilds into which the corporations of the city were divided. Pipers, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, curriers, tanners, copper-smiths, potters, and a ninth, common to the other trades,^[54] completed the number of these guilds. The trades were chiefly exercised by the libertini, (slaves, who had been made free by their masters,) or fugitives from neighbouring states who had fled from slavery to exercise some craft or calling in Rome. Poor colonists, free but unable to maintain themselves at home, were glad to exercise their craft under the protection of these companies or guilds.^[55] The guilds or companies yet exist in our own civic corporations. Much of Rome may still be found in our regulations respecting the exercise of trades and crafts—in our jurisprudence and in our free and noble constitution. Rome, in fact, can hardly be said to be extinct while her language, laws, and many of her customs linger thus among us.

Numa instituted various orders of priesthood, as the Salii^[56] and Feciales: it is not very clear what was the proper office of the Salii, but their dances were of a warlike character, calculated to please a martial people. The Feciales were the arbitrators of peace or war, and the Roman state was not allowed to take up arms against another till they had decided upon the justice of the quarrel.^[57]

The augural and pontifical colleges were founded by him, and he regulated the time of mourning. He also revived the worship of Vesta, and consecrated Gegania and Verania, the first female priestesses of this order at Rome.^[58] The vestals were chosen from the patrician and plebeian orders, from the ages of six to ten years: their persons must be without blemish, and their birth derived from virtuous and honourable families. If a sufficient number were not voluntarily offered by their parents for this priesthood twenty young virgins were selected, and those upon whom the lot fell became vestals. To console the Roman maiden for the loss of the endearing conjugal and maternal ties she was almost deified by the people, who believed their glory and national existence depended upon B.C. 715-673. her personal chastity as much as on her vigilance in watching the sacred fire. The privileges of the vestals were exceedingly great. They had the fasces borne before them whenever they went abroad, and when they pleased rode in a chariot drawn by white horses, followed by their numerous attendants, clad like themselves in white. Whosoever pressed upon their chariot, chair, or litter was immediately punished by their attendant lictor with death. They might snatch from punishment the condemned criminal on his way to execution, provided they declared that the meeting was accidental, for the affirmation of a vestal was considered equivalent to an oath, and was equally binding in a court of justice.^[59] This unbounded privilege of mercy must have been very precious to females, whose tender feelings of compassion lead them naturally to be more merciful than just. The vestals were sedulously guarded from every insult painful to the modesty of women; the slightest infraction of which was punished with death. Their vow of chastity was binding upon them for thirty years, after which they might quit their college and marry. The vestals, however, seldom or never claimed their exemption from the vow of celibacy made in their childhood, since with it they must have also given up the honours accorded them by the Roman people.^[60] They were assigned at all games and festivals the chief place, they arbitrated the disputes respecting wills, and every man they met made way for them. Nor in the Republican age were they treated with less reverence, for the consuls observed the same rule, causing the lictors to lower the fasces reverently before them. In the latter days of the Commonwealth, and throughout the rule of the heathen emperors, they took charge of the wills of distinguished persons, and that of the Emperor Augustus was left in their keeping.^[61] The privileges of the vestals remained till the reign of Theodosius the Great, when their sacred fire was extinguished and their order suppressed. The dress of these sacerdotal females consisted of a white vest with purple borders, a white linen surplice, a large purple mantle, whose ample folds descended to the ground, and a close fitting head-dress, decorated with ribbons, hanging from it like the modern cap. They lived in a sumptuous style, being maintained at the public charge in a luxurious manner. If a vestal were sick she was given into the charge of two noble Roman matrons, who nursed her alternately in their own houses. Even death added to their privileges, for the vestal virgin was allowed the rare one of intramural interment.^[62] But if these honours were lavished upon the vestals the penalties to which she was exposed were equally proportioned to them. Her negligence in the case of the sacred fire exposed her to severe scourgings, and its extinction to death. “If she broke her vow by the law of Rome she was stoned; but in the reign of Tarquin this punishment was altered to living interment, attended with circumstances of peculiar horror.”^[63]

So many mythic stories are related of Numa, that his formation of the Roman Calendar alone separates his reign from the world of fable. The year of Numa was not a solar but a lunar one, and therefore his useful work was still imperfect.^[64]

In the eighth year of Numa a great plague devastated Italy. The legend of a sacred shield falling down from heaven, and of his intrusting it to the care of the Salian priesthood, is related in connexion with this pestilence,^[65] which was the only calamity that occurred in his long and peaceful reign.

Numa gave names to the months, some of which are still retained. He built temples and altars, instituted festivals, and turned all his attention to the civilisation of his people. He did not, however, provide for their education. Great resemblance was discovered by Plutarch B.C. 672-641. between the philosophy of Numa and that taught by Pythagoras.

Numa built himself a palace near the temple of Vesta, which was long called Regium, where he passed his time in giving the priests instruction and in regulating the services proper to religion.^[66]

Numa dismissed the guards of Romulus, trusting to the affection and veneration of the people more than to their swords, deeming their love the only safeguards of the prince.^[67]

This king lived eighty years, and died of natural decay after a long peaceful reign of nine-and-thirty years. He left one daughter, by his wife Julia, named Pompilia, who was the mother of Ancus Marcius, the fourth King of Rome.^[68] He was buried by his own desire under the hill Janiculum, in a stone coffin, and by his side was placed another containing his writings.

The records of this ancient king and legislator are so mystified by superstition that but for his code of laws and his calendar we might suppose the lover of Egeria to be, like the nymph who loved him, the creation of a vivid poetical fancy. His lunar year is, however, solid ground upon which we may safely rest our faith in Numa’s personal identity, though much of his history is involved in mythic gloom. An interregnum occurred between this and the succeeding one.

TULLUS HOSTILIUS.

The regal government of Rome still remained purely elective, a state of things frequently found when a people are just emerging from a savage state, whose choice naturally falls upon the man best calculated to govern them in peace and lead them in war. Tired of the wars and fatigued with the conquests of Romulus, the Romans selected a legislator and pontiff in Numa; “and if they had been destined to remain in obscurity such kings would have been best suited to their condition, but in order to become powerful they needed sovereigns like Tullus Hostilius.”^[69] Numa was distinguished for piety, and Tullus for arms, “religion and war being the characteristics of their reigns.”^[70] Both these attributes grew out of necessity. Numa could not control a number of uncivilised men without a code of sacred laws, and Tullus could not feed an increasing population without adding to the territorial possessions of Rome. He gave up the lands held by the late sovereigns^[71] to meet this exigency, remarking “that his own patrimony was sufficient for his personal expenses.” The promised gift of these lands most likely placed Hostilius on the vacant throne, for we are assured he owed his elevation to the Roman people.^[72] The grandfather of Tullus was a citizen of Medullia, who had fought against the Sabines under the command of Romulus.^[73] Tullus despised alike the superstition inculcated by Numa and his pacific temper. He commenced exercising the youth of Rome in arms in preparation for the wars he was meditating. These exercises provoked Cluilius, the dictator or governor of Alba, to make a predatory incursion on the Roman territory, which being revenged by Tullus Hostilius, led to a war between these neighbouring states,^[74] a fact that is alone sufficient to prove that the descent of Romulus from the royal line of Alba was a fable,^[75] Alba, after the death of Numitor, having changed from the regal to the popular form of government.

The war with Alba being determined upon, both armies took the field and encamped within five miles of Rome.^[76] The sudden death or murder of Cluilius in his tent, and B.C. 672-641. the intelligence that the Veientines and Fidenatans were about to fall upon the belligerent parties as soon as they had weakened themselves by a battle, compelled them to give over the contest.^[77] The Albans elected Metius Fuffetius for their dictator, and proposed a union between their rival states as the best means of defending themselves against their common enemies.^[78] The proposal appeared advantageous to the Romans, who spoke the same language and were closely allied by the ties of blood to the Alban people. Instead of arranging the union of the two states peaceably, the contracting parties mutually agreed to refer it to what would have been styled in the nomenclature of modern chivalry a passage of arms. A beautiful but romantic poetical episode narrates the contest between three Roman and three Alban champions, by whose valour the momentous question of national superiority was to be decided. To pass over the legend, which sufficiently boasts celebrated ancient authorities to justify its insertion here, would be unwise; but the reader must not attach too much importance to it, though we are assured by Livy that the form of the treaty was extant at the time he quoted it, and that he took it from an existing document which had been attested by Tullus Hostilius and Metius Fuffetius, and confirmed by sacrifices.^[79] The senate and people of Rome chose for their champions the three Horatii, who had been born by an Alban mother at one birth to Valerius Horatius. The Albans selected the three Curiatii, who boasted the same natal distinction, being also the offspring of a single birth, and the sons of the maternal aunt of the Horatii. We are told that Sequinius, an illustrious Alban, was the grandfather of the six champions.^[80] Till the war occurred between Rome and Alba the combatants had been as closely allied in friendship as by relationship, and Horatia, the daughter of Valerius Horatius, was actually betrothed to one of the sons of Curiatius.^[81] Before the commencement of the combat the champions embraced each other with tears and lively demonstrations of attachment, and the people, moved by their mutual affection, lamented that the choice of their rulers should change the tender ties of friendship into blows and hatred. The champions, nevertheless, fought valiantly and well, and two of the Horatii fell beneath the swords of the Curiatii.^[82] Publius Horatius, after the fall of his brothers, fled, to the horror and consternation of the Romans, but his flight was the result of a well-planned stratagem, for when pursued by the Curiatii, he successively killed them all. While hailed as the deliverer of his country on every side, and loaded with the praises of his Sovereign, his sister Horatia rushed forth to meet the slayer of her lover, and passionately reproached and upbraided him. The victorious brother, moved with indignation, plunged his sword into her bosom, and tarnished, by the death of an unfortunate and distracted female, the laurels he had won for his country.^[83] Valerius Horatius, far from blaming his son, refused his daughter the rites of burial in the family sepulchre, because she had valued her lover more than her country.^[84] The homicide remained unpunished, though by the laws of Rome he ought to have been hanged on a tree near the pomœrium; but his father and the people of Rome delivered their fratricidal champion, with the permission of the Sovereign, who allowed the murder to be expiated.^[85] That the victorious Roman champion slew his sister seems not unlikely, for the ties of natural affection are not usually held sacred in semi-barbarous states. Poetry has, however, adorned the tale with some romantic touches which have thrown discredit upon the whole. The tragic muse, in later ages, loved to paint the conflicting feelings of the unfortunate Roman daughter, and the stern patriotism of her father. Hostilius, for this victory over the Albans, demanded and obtained a triumph—a circumstance not very likely to promote the union between the Romans and the vanquished people.^[86] B.C. 672-641. Fuffetius, dissatisfied with the result of the national combat, privately invited the Veientines and Fidenatans against Rome, though Rome and Alba, by the terms of the treaty, were become nominally one people.^[87] In the battle fought between the Veientines, Fidenatans, and the Romans he took no part, remaining, with the Albans under his command, a mere spectator of the hostile scene. The Romans, discouraged and fearful of treachery, were unwilling to continue the engagement till assured by Tullus Hostilius that the separation of the Albans was a manœuvre of his own planning. This ruse saved the Roman army, nor were the allied troops better satisfied with the conduct of Fuffetius, whom they imagined to be laying a snare to entrap them.^[88] As soon as the Romans had gained the victory, Fuffetius joined them, when Tullus Hostilius, enraged at his treachery, obliged the Albans to give up their dictator to his vengeance. Fuffetius was torn to pieces by horses, while Alba was razed to the ground, and its inhabitants transplanted to Rome,^[89] where they were admitted to the Roman franchise. The Alban nobility were enrolled in the Senate. Particular mention is made of the Tullii, Servilii, Quintii, Geganii, Curiatii, and Clœlii in the list. Ten troops of horse were selected from the Alban cavalry,^[90] and the incorporation became complete. Mount Cœlius was the spot appointed to receive the Albans, and the desolation of Alba conduced greatly to the aggrandisement of Rome.^[91] Tullus Hostilius gained a second triumph for the success of his arms against the Veientines and Fidenatans,^[92] and also gained a victory over the Sabines, for which he obtained his third triumph.^[93] He maintained a war with the Latins, in the course of which he stormed and plundered Medullia, which had received formerly a Roman colony, and had revolted from its allegiance. The Sabine war, still carried on by the brave and ambitious Hostilius, was discontinued from the superstitious dread inspired by the fall of a shower of stones on the Alban Mount, for which the volcanic nature of the adjacent country sufficiently accounted without the necessity of seeking for a supernatural cause. This eruption of stones was succeeded by the plague—a calamity frequently following, and supposed to originate from, such subterranean agency. Both were referred to the decay of piety. “The King, whose failing health rendered him more open to this superstitious idea, sought to obtain from the offended deities themselves an answer respecting the manner in which the atonement of their displeasure was to be made. Tullus Hostilius, while invoking the offended powers at the altar of Jupiter Elicius, was slain by a thunderbolt through some mistake in the performance of the mysterious rites of Numa, the King and his whole house becoming the victims of the lightning. He is said to have reigned thirty-two years.”^[94]

The warlike character of this prince has gained him the admiration of the Roman historians and poets, for he gave the first impetus to that career of conquest which afterwards rendered the city he ruled the mistress of the world. His reign was not, however, free from the calamities of pestilence and famine. In fact, the territorial acquisitions of Rome did not increase in proportion to her population; and if the plague affected the cattle, want immediately ensued, for the lands under B.C. 672-641. cultivation were not sufficient to provide food for her citizens. The wars of Tullus Hostilius began to open with the sword a way into the harvest-fields of her neighbours—the only method by which the Romans could hope to obtain food for their increasing numbers.

ANCUS MARCIUS.

The successor, and perhaps murderer, of Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, was a Sabine by birth, and the grandson of Numa. He was elected by the Senate and people of Rome to fill the vacant throne. If the commencement of his reign was marked by treason and regicide, its general character was peaceful and prosperous. The warlike neighbours of the Romans, conceiving a mean idea of his military talents, gave him an opportunity for displaying them to advantage. He despatched an ambassador, wearing the woollen sash and peculiar costume proper to his office, to the Latins, complaining of their aggressions on the Roman territory. This functionary remained three-and-thirty days endeavouring to arrange the differences between the two nations. His negotiations failing to effect the object, the feciales, or sacred heralds, followed the embassy arrayed in their proper habits, carrying javelins headed with iron, but burnt and stained with blood at the ends; when in the presence of three young men, as the Roman custom required, they threw their javelins into the borders of the inimical country after making a solemn declaration of war against it in the name of the gods and the people of Rome.^[95]

Ancus Marcius commenced the Latin war by the storm of Politorium, sparing the inhabitants whom he carried off to Rome, not as slaves but colonists. The Aventine Mount was the place assigned by him to these men, to whom he immediately granted the Roman franchise.^[96] This town lay fifteen miles south-east of Rome. The expatriated Latins were, of course, only admitted into the plebeian order; but this traditional fact confirms the opinion “that that order originally rose out of a body of freemen thus incorporated with the state; the Aventine Mount being the peculiar focus of the plebeian city in a later age.”^[97] Each of the hills then included in the growing city was peopled by a distinct colony. The Romans occupied their first station on Mount Palatine; the Sabines remained in possession of the Capitoline, or Saturnian, as it was then called, which they had won in their war with the husbands of their daughters. The Tuscans and Albans dwelt on the Cœlian, and the Latin colony occupied the Aventine. Ancus captured Tellene, Ficania, and Medullia, transplanting the people to the other Latin colony on the Aventine, retaking and demolishing Politorium.^[98] The second campaign he made against the Latins was equally fortunate, for he forced them to sue for peace, obtaining a triumph for his successful conclusion of the war.^[99] He also subdued the Veientines, Fidenatans, and Volscians; for which victories and the advantages he gained over the Sabines, he was allowed a second triumph.^[100]

Ancus Marcius having established peace by the sword, maintained it by his wisdom; the internal improvement of the Roman state henceforth becoming his peculiar care. In the old historic lays he is styled “the good,” because he distributed the conquered lands in shares to the people.^[101] He had in the course of his wars extended the Roman frontier to Veii, won the forests upon the sea-coast and the salt-marshes, besides opening the mouth of the Tiber to the Romans. He founded the town of Ostia, which he peopled with a colony, depriving the revolted colonies of Fidenæ, Crustumerium, and Medullia of their privileges, as a punishment due to their rebellion.^[102] “Ostia became the harbour of Rome; indeed ships of considerable size could in those days run into the Tiber, which has since, partly from neglect, and partly from ill-judged erections, become more inaccessible than any other river discharging its waters into the Mediterranean.”^[103]

The oldest monument of Rome, the prison formed out B.C. 640-617. of a quarry opened in the Capitoline Hill, is the work of Ancus. He likewise built the first bridge over the Tiber, and a fort before it upon the Janiculum, as a bulwark against Etruria. On the other side, he protected the newly-settled district, the valley of the Temple of Murcia, by a ditch called Fossa Quiritium.^[104]

Ancus Marcius, mindful of the ritual taught by Numa, transcribed the ceremonial law upon tables, and fixed them up in the market-place; for at that time the whole mystery of the national religion was not engrossed by the Pontifical College.^[105] He rebuilt the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius, and enlarged the pomœrium of the city, whose frontiers he had considerably extended by his conquests. He gave great encouragement to foreigners, and particularly to the remarkable man who succeeded him on the throne, whose surprising works have survived by centuries the city they adorned. Lucius Tarquinius, so called from Tarquinii in Etruria, where his father Damaratus, a Corinthian exile, had settled,^[106] came to Rome with Tanaquil, his wife,^[107] bringing with him a considerable patrimony. This stranger was a person of taste and talent, combining with general knowledge much skill in architecture and the fine arts, in which Rome—a vast collection of wooden huts—was yet deficient. Tarquinius became a favourite with Ancus Marcius, who not only admitted him into the Senate but committed to him the guardianship of his sons; and it is to him that Rome was mainly indebted for her rise in civilisation and importance.^[108]

Ancus Marcius reigned twenty-four years,^[109] and the manner of his death is uncertain, some imputing it to the treachery of his friend and Prime Minister, Tarquinius. He is described by Livy as being “great alike in peace and war,” and is commended for his justice, wisdom, piety, and foresight. He was much beloved by his subjects, who regretted his death. He had added to the Roman state a considerable part of Etruria and Latium through his success in wars, not undertaken for the sake of conquest, but to ensure peace.

L. TARQUINIUS PRISCUS.

An interregnum again occurred in the government of Rome; during which Tarquin employed his influence with the Senate and people to procure his own election. A foolish story is related about his sending the young sons of Ancus Marcius to the chase while he assembled the people, and by an eloquent and insinuating oration, induced them to confer the regal dignity upon him, as the fittest person for the office.^[110] But in an elective monarchy, in which nothing like hereditary descent had been either claimed or accorded, such a mean subterfuge would neither have been required nor adopted, the descendants of Ancus Marcius having no legal right, even if their childish years had not formed a sufficient bar of exclusion. Tarquinius Priscus was a sovereign reigning by the joint concurrence of the Senate and people of Rome. He made an important concession to the Commons, by admitting a hundred persons from the plebeians into the Senate. Had the succeeding sovereigns and the patrician rulers of the Commonwealth adopted the same wise and enlightened policy, the fierce contests between the two orders would never have distracted and torn the state.

Tarquinius Priscus is supposed by modern authors to have been the conqueror of Rome, not her adopted citizen, as the ancient Roman historians have affirmed.^[111] His honourable reception at Rome has already been recorded, and it is worthy of remark, that Florus and other Latin writers give the same account of his origin.^[112] His title of Lucumo, or lord, was changed into the prenomen of Lucius, and he assumed the surname of Tarquinius, from the place of his nativity.^[113]

Tarquinius having gained the good will of the plebeians B.C. 616-579.by granting the senatorial dignity to many of them, proceeded to ingratiate himself with the people at large by his care for religion, which till his time retained its ancient simplicity. He added four to the number of the Vestal College. He was the first who offered victims to the gods, and placed their statues in the temples, where, under a human form, they received the worship of the Roman people.^[114] The reverence with which the Romans regarded the gods to whom they had erected temples had not yet become gross idolatry.^[115] Even this was rendering undue honour to deceased heroes rather than idol worship. Tarquinius, however, naturally adopted the faith of his father, Damaratus, and adored with him the deified forms of Greece, where false piety ennobled sculpture while it debased the man; for the superiority we still accord to Grecian art undoubtedly emanated from the ideal beauty with which the sculptor’s imagination had clothed his gods.

Tarquinius made war with the Latins, from whom he took Collatia, a town lying five miles north-east of Rome. He gave the government of the conquered place to his nephew, Egerius, who assumed the surname of Collatinus from that office.^[116] This war with the Latins was a territorial one; in which Tarquinius took several towns, and forced the Latins, notwithstanding the assistance they received from their Etruscan allies, to sue for peace.^[117] He next turned his arms against the Sabines, over whom, by means of a stratagem, he gained a complete victory. This he effected by throwing a quantity of brushwood into the Anio, and setting it on fire, which being driven against the bridge, ignited it. The Sabines, seeing themselves cut off by this ruse from all hope of retreat, could not maintain the contest. Many perished in attempting to cross the river, and more were slain. The floating corses of their foes being carried forward by the current to Rome, proclaimed the victory gained by the king before the tidings reached the citizens.^[118] A second victory concluded Tarquinius’ Sabine campaign, and obtained for him his first triumph.^[119] He built the Circus Maximus out of the spoils acquired in these successful wars.^[120]

The Etruscans, alarmed at his rapid conquests, combined their tribes against him. They took Fidenæ, and ravaged the Roman territories. As soon as Tarquinius could raise an army, he defeated them in several battles, forcing them to resign Fidenæ, and other conquests.^[121] After his victory at Eretum—a place about ten miles’ distance from Rome,—the Etruscan nations submitted to him, and sent him very costly regalia, consisting of an ivory chair, an embroidered tunic wrought with golden flowers and palm-leaves, royal purple robes, and a sceptre adorned with an eagle.^[122] For this wonderful people, who have left enduring monuments in architecture, sculpture, and painting in Italy, were far advanced in civilisation when the Romans were yet ignorant and barbarous, their works still surviving their states and the empire of their conquerors.^[123] Tarquinius consulted the senate respecting the propriety of his acceptance of the regalia. By the advice of the Conscript Fathers they were accepted; and we are told, “that the Etruscans became his tributaries and vassals.”^[124] We may, however, if we follow the old customs of Rome, suppose, that Tarquinius was not the lord but the vassal of Etruria, of whom he was content to hold the crown. The royal robes resembled those of the Lydian and Persian kings, the purple gown being pinked in a similar manner, though in shape it differed; these being cut four-square, while the outer one of B.C. 616-579. Tarquinius was of a semi-circular form. The Etruscan fashions were, after this period, copied for the robes and coats of the augurs and heralds.”^[125]

Rome, if she possessed little territorial advantages, had that within herself which always obtains them—men, courage, necessity. Her sovereigns hitherto had been furnished by semi-barbaric nations. In Tarquinius Priscus she had chosen a man comprising in his own person the civilisation proper to Greece and Etruria—a man of talent, capable of turning the martial temper of the Romans into a channel by which he could obtain gold to execute those works necessary for the improvement and ornament of his capital. The state that possesses steel will win gold, was the remark of a Grecian sage. Tarquinius was, of course, well acquainted with this aphorism: his wars gave him wealth; but he borrowed from Etruria her customs, her civilisation, and her worship, to enrich the state that had adopted him for her citizen, and chosen him for her king. Whenever Niebuhr traces the footsteps of the Roman kings through the misty shadows of the mighty past, he fixes the attention of the reader by bringing before his eyes the very antiquities he describes. He speaks thus of the fifth king of Rome:—“What has made the name of Tarquinius Priscus ever memorable is, that with him begins the greatness and the splendour of the city. Often the legend fluctuates in ascribing a work or an exploit to him or to his son; but the vaulted sewers by which the Velabrum, the forums, the country down to the lower Subura, and the valley of the Circus, till then swamps and lakes or bays in the bed of the river, were drained,—are most of them called the work of the elder king; and coupled with this undertaking must have been the embanking of the Tiber.”^[126] The Cloaca, the most useful and enduring of his works, is still in existence.^[127] Much of the interest with which we regard these mighty monuments of the past is diminished upon reflection. They rarely were the fruits of free-hired labour; but were constructed by a sacrifice of human happiness and human life. The captive mingled his bread with tears, and gave out his strength beneath the lash of the taskmaster. Even the Roman citizen might have found his portion of labour a heavy burden; though, in order to lighten its weight, Tarquin commenced those public amusements which formed the delight of the Roman people to the latest moment of their national existence.^[128] Niebuhr comments upon this fact in that lucid and animated manner which occasionally lightens the weight of his learned history. He says: “Works that rival the greatest of the Etruscan cannot have been accomplished without oppressive taskwork any more than those of the Pharaohs. The king cheered his people during their hard service with games, which from his time forward were celebrated annually in September, under the name of the Roman or great games. Among the contests which drew the Greeks to Olympia, only the chariot-race and boxing were practised by the Etruscans. The spectacle was a source of delight to the people of Italy; but the contests were the business of hirelings or slaves.” Indeed, no Roman citizen would ever have degraded himself so low as to exhibit his skill or talents for the public amusement; for, however admired the Roman games might be, the freeman who engaged in them, instead of being immortalised by sculpture or song, and becoming the pride of his family, forfeited his honour and his civic rights. The charioteer and the player were in no higher estimation than the gladiator. Not that the Romans clung to their spectacles of all kinds with less vehemence than the Greeks; but if, like the Greeks, they B.C. 616-579. could have honoured the object that excited their passions, they would not have lost themselves in that extravagant fury which, even in early times, maddened the factions of the Circus in behalf of their despicable favourites.^[129] “But the chariot-race was not the only enjoyment of the Circensia; there were also processions, the images of the gods borne along, robed in kingly garments, the armed boys, the war dances, and the ludicrous imitations of them.”^[130] In these national entertainments, in a delightful climate whose bright blue sky and brilliant sunshine afforded a cheering influence alike to the free citizen and the slave, the captive might, for a few brief hours, forget his chain, and the plebeian labourer his taskwork, while the body reposed from its fatigues and the mind was diverted from its cares. In providing rest and diversion for his people, Tarquinius proved himself an able governor, who knew how to ensure the loyalty and affection of those he governed. Not that the amusements he provided for a heathen people will bear the scrutiny of the Christian reader; for they were such as delighted pagan men in a dark, remote, and idolatrous age. The morality of Rome was never apparent in her holydays and recreations.^[131]

Tarquinius, in the heat of the Sabine war, had vowed a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, in pursuance of which he levelled the rugged crest of the Capitoline rock for the foundation of the building.^[132] The temple, however, was the work of Tarquinius Superbus, his son or grandson. This last design he did not live to complete, but he justly deserved the title, accorded him by his people, of the Second Founder of Rome.

We have now described those architectural works which made this king remark, “that he found Rome built of wood, but left it of marble.” War and works of architecture seemingly engrossed the attention of Tarquin; for we know nothing of his laws and revenues, and are ignorant in what manner he regulated his finance; but we are assured that, when Attius Navius, the chief augur, opposed the innovations of his sovereign, and would not allow him to make three new centuries of celeres, as contrary to the Constitution granted by Romulus, Tarquinius effected his object by doubling the old ones. In this incident we see the despotic innovation of the king frustrated by a man supposed to excel in divination.

The disappearance of the obnoxious augur soon after his sovereign had carried the point by an equivocation which despotism alone could have conceived, occasioned a quarrel between him and the Marcii, the sons of the last king, who accused him of having caused the death of Navius. From this charge Servius Tullius, the popular son-in-law of Tarquinius, cleared his character. But the hatred of the Marcii was not confined to calumny; they conspired against the life of this great prince. To effect his assassination, they sent a number of their fellow conspirators, disguised as shepherds, to his tribunal, as if to obtain his decision respecting some matter of dispute among themselves. This pretext affording them the opportunity they sought, they slew the king as soon as they were permitted to approach his person.^[133]

Thus perished Tarquinius Priscus, after a long and prosperous life of eighty, and a glorious reign of thirty-eight years. His stupendous works remain his best and most enduring monument. It is uncertain whether Tarquinius Superbus was his son or grandson; but his own advanced age makes the supposition more probable that he was his grandson.^[134]

SERVIUS TULLIUS.

The accession of Servius Tullius formed a remarkable B.C. 578-535.era in Roman history, for a new feature was given to the Constitution, by the admission of the plebeians to those privileges, which were lost in the following reign, and not recovered without many civic tumults and long-continued scenes of strife. Rome looked back for ages upon the king of the people with regretful affection as her best and wisest ruler; nor did the conquering ages of the Republic ever efface the memory of Servius Tullius the Good.^[135]

If we follow the Latin and Greek historians of Rome, it appears conclusive enough that the sixth king of Rome was the son of Ocrisia, a captive,^[136] whose husband had been slain in the storm of Corniculum, from which town Tarquinius brought and presented her to Tanaquil, his consort. The delicate situation of the newly-made widow interested Tanaquil; and though the son of Ocrisia was born in slavery, he was tenderly cherished and liberally educated by Tarquinius and his queen. Poetry adorned the cradle of Servius with a crown of flame, which played round his head without injuring him, at once attracting the attention of Tarquinius and Tanaquil to the infant captive, whom they imagined to be destined for great things.^[137] “The legend which assigned to Servius Tullius a captive mother has been quoted by Juvenal, and was then currently believed at Rome; but a different origin was assigned this sovereign by the Emperor Claudius, on the admission of two Lugdunese Gauls into the Senate, which has been preserved on two tables discovered at Lyons in the nineteenth century; which tables, since Lipsius, have been often printed with the works of Tacitus.”^[138] “In this document the Emperor Claudius, after recounting from the first origin of Rome how often the royal dignity had been bestowed upon strangers, makes this comment upon the early history of Servius Tullius: ‘According to our annals he was the son of the captive Ocrisia; but if we follow those of the Tuscans, he was the most faithful follower of Cæles Vibenna, and shared all his fortunes. At last, being overpowered by a variety of mischances, he quitted Etruria with the remains of the army which had served under Cæles, went to Rome, and occupied the Cælian hill, which he so named after his former commander. He exchanged his Tuscan name, Mastarna, for the Roman, obtained the kingly power, and wielded it to the great good of the state.’ ”^[139] It is curious that the opinion of the Emperor Claudius on this point of ancient history should have survived all his voluminous works. It proves at least that other annals beside those of Rome had treated of Servius Tullius, though they had assigned him a different origin. There is, however, no reason why we should adopt the Tuscan authority in preference to the Latin, since the learning of the Emperor Claudius, though considerable, never gave any weight to his opinions, he being regarded as a prince of no judgment. Servius Tullius, whether a Tuscan chief or captive, obtained the friendship of his sovereign, who promoted him to honour, and gave him the hand of his daughter in marriage as a reward for his faithful services.^[140]

Servius, in the declining years of his father-in-law, had assisted him in the government of Rome, and likewise aided him in carrying out the great designs of that prince. He had succeeded in gaining the good will of the people, but not without alienating those of the patrician order. It is said he was indebted for the regal dignity to Tanaquil, who carefully concealed the death of her husband till after Servius had secured his own election, assuring the citizens that the king was recovering from his wounds.^[141]

Servius, who had made himself inter-rex on the spot, appealed in person to the people, whom he persuaded to banish the Marcii, and choose him for their sovereign. He was elected in the Comitia Curiata, but the senate refused to ratify the choice of the people till compelled B.C. 578-535. by circumstances to do so. His promised division of the public lands among the poor plebeians overpowered all attempts to invalidate his election on the part of the aristocracy.^[142]

The peculiar situation of Servius Tullius had made him early acquainted with the different grades into which Rome was divided. Born, or at least brought up in slavery—at first an enfranchised slave, then admitted into a body which represented the middle class, and finally, exalted to the second place in the kingdom—his wise and enlightened mind had profited by an extensive experience not often known to sovereigns. He had discerned in the plebeians a counterbalance to an oligarchical aristocracy, and beheld in them a band of freemen full of vital energy and power, to whom the Roman franchise had only restored that freedom which had been their ancestral birthright. Distinguished from the populace by their education, perhaps haunted by the remembrance of their noble birth, yet shut out by a strong bar of constitutional exclusion from rising in the state, or even from defending themselves from the encroachments of the privileged order, and debarred from trade, this body of landholders really formed the vital heart of the state; it might fall into a miserable state of poverty, and still retain its freedom, but the hope of becoming rich by application to any business but agriculture was forbidden by the loss of freedom. Such a state of things could not continue; and Servius Tullius not only discovered this truth, but wisely turned it to his own advantage. He did therefore in Rome “what Henry VII. afterwards did in England—increased the power of the Commons in order to lower that of the aristocracy; for, in increasing the privileges of the people, he diminished that of the senate.”^[143] By the word “people,” we must not suppose the populace of Rome signified—a mistake wilfully made by inflaming popular orators, who speak of the Romans as if every class not absolutely servile, that is, in slavery, formed a part of it, while in reality the plebeians were a body of citizens possessed of the franchise, and certain privileges never extended to the more numerous class immediately beneath them. Rights shared with the populace would have been scorned by the free, impoverished plebeian, who held very different views respecting liberty and equality from those imputed to him by the leaders of the French revolutions in this and the last century.

The reader must bear this definition continually in mind, never confounding the mass of libertini, or even foreign tradesmen or craftsmen, with the plebeians or commons who formed what was styled the people. We may find in the freeholder of England a parallel to this order, if the practice of any calling but agriculture were held to disfranchise him, or if he were denied the power to rise in the state.^[144] The first change Servius Tullius effected was the assignment of seven jugers or hides per man of the conquered lands to the plebeians, thereby fulfilling his promise to the body of freemen who had placed him on the throne.^[145] Hitherto the poorer portion of this order had borne the chief burden of the levies, but the king resolved to give them relief by fixing a certain standard by which each tribe in the kingdom should contribute to the exigencies of the state according to its capabilities. To effect this, and to procure levies of troops in the same ratio, Servius established the census.^[146] The supplies for the exigencies of the government had previously been raised by a poll-tax, which exacted as much from the poor as the rich. It is pretty certain, however, that the patrician class paid no tax at all. The division relieved the poorer plebeian by assigning the sum to be paid by him according to his means. To effect this, the king caused a census to be made of all the tribes; including the descent, names, ages, and occupations of every family in Rome. These he divided into six classes, each of which was to furnish so many centuries or companies of foot in time of war, according to their estates or effects. Thus the first class, which was valued at one hundred and ten thousand asses, contained ninety-eight centuries, inclusive of the equites or knights; the second, valued at seventy-five thousand asses, containing twenty-two centuries, taking in artificers; the third, which also contained twenty-two centuries, was valued at fifty thousand; the fourth, of twenty centuries, B.C. 578-535. was valued at twenty-five thousand asses; the fifth, of thirty centuries, was rated at twenty-five thousand; the sixth, of the poorest citizens, was reckoned at one century.^[147]

The quotas of foot soldiers were furnished in due proportion to this assessment. The knights were provided with horses by a tax being levied upon the Roman widows for that purpose, who were exempted from all imposts but this.^[148] As there was a body of plebeian knights, this crown service was probably performed by them.

The first lustrum was celebrated by Servius Tullius immediately after the census or tax had been raised.^[149] According to his appointment, all the citizens, completely armed and ranked in their proper classes and centuries, met in the Campus Martius, when the city was expiated or lustrated by the sacrifice of a hog, a sheep, and an ox. This ceremony took place every five years, when the census was taken again, and a fresh valuation made of the property of the Roman rate-payers.

At this first lustrum, the free citizens of Rome amounted to eighty-four thousand seven hundred.^[150] Servius, in order to encourage good conduct, and increase the number of free men, bestowed the Roman franchise upon a number of slaves; some receiving this gift as the reward of virtue, while others were permitted to purchase their freedom. These he distributed among the four civic tribes. To some prisoners of war he gave the choice of settling at Rome, or returning to their own countries. Many availed themselves of his permission, but more remained with their wise and merciful master.^[151] But while Servius manumitted slaves, and conferred solid benefits upon the plebeians, he certainly deprived them of the power they possessed, by taking away from them the right of voting in the Comitia Curiata, where their numbers gave them the majorities in the election of magistrates, making or abrogating laws, or decreeing peace or war.^[152] He effected this change by assembling the whole Roman people by centuries, called Comitia Centuriata, and taking their votes in this manner—a measure that afterwards left them in a minority;^[153]—so difficult is it for even an excellent prince to set bounds to his own privileges, or to fence in those of other persons when he holds the supreme power in his hands, a power which he had certainly obtained from the Roman Commons. If the other regal heads of Rome had acted in concert with the senate without due regard to the people, this king deprived the senate of their privileges by reigning without that body altogether—an illegal method for which he afterwards paid very dear. In fact, he was not justified in sacrificing the interests of the aristocracy entirely; his safest and justest policy would have been to keep each order in exact equilibrium, himself holding the balance of power between them.

Servius Tullius did not limit his legislative care to the city alone; he divided the Roman territorial possessions into twenty-six parts, called by the name of tribes, semi-dividing them into pagi, or fortified villages. It is uncertain whether these pagi were defended by a castle, or were merely surrounded by a mound and a ditch. In either case the pagi were designed for safeguards to the country people upon any invasion of the Roman territory.^[154] He enlarged the bounds of Rome, taking within the city the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline Hills,^[155] which he united by raising a vast mound of earth, which served for their defence in war.^[156]

The Latin and Etruscan nations occupied Servius for twenty years in continual war. We find the triumphs of this prince enumerated on the Capitoline marbles—an ancient monument dug up in the sixteenth century, supposed to have been compiled by a Roman knight in the Augustan age.^[157] These triumphs are dated A.U.C. 182, 186. [The computation in these tables is different from the Varronian.] His treaty with the Latins was extant as a document in the time of the Empire,^[158] from which it appears he made peace with them upon the same terms as his predecessor, Tarquin. Three out of the twelve Latin nations were, however, excluded from its benefits. These were the Veientines, Cærites, and Tarquinians, who had B.C. 578-535. been the ringleaders in the revolt.^[159] At the conclusion of his wars, Servius built two temples, which he dedicated to Fortuna Bona and Fortuna Virilis. The Temple of the Moon, afterwards destroyed in the conflagration of the city in Nero’s reign, was the work of this prince.

The festival of the Saturnalia was founded by him as a holiday for the unfortunate servile class, to which he had once himself belonged—a touching proof that the monarch did not disdain his former origin; for though the Latin authorities assure us that the captive of Corniculum was of a noble family, that circumstance did not render slavery less bitter. Juvenal alone speaks of him as the son of a poor maid-servant.^[160] In after ages, indeed, every benevolent institution, every just law, was, by the gratitude or fond partiality of the Roman people, ascribed to this admirable prince.^[161] A coinage, bearing the image of a sheep, and called pecunia, was numbered among the useful works of Servius;^[162] but this is by no means certain. He fixed the weight of the as of brass at twelve ounces. It was long supposed that an as of this remote period was in existence till it was ascertained that the lump only weighed eight ounces, which, being below the fixed standard assigned by Servius Tullius, proved that the piece of money was either spurious, or of a later age.^[163] The commentaries of Servius Tullius are cited by Verrius Flaccus, which are supposed to contain the substance of his constitutional laws.^[164] “The Roman documentary records of the regal period of her history were scanty, nor was much care taken to secure them. The laws of Rome for a considerable period were either engraved on oaken tables, or painted on such tables after they had been plastered.”^[165] Tradition, however, transmitted the memorial of the regal heads of Rome, sometimes linking the true history with some heroic lay. The fate of the good Servius, it has been thought, may be thus mixed up in its transmission to us. We are told that he had only two daughters, who both were named Tullia; the elder, a mild and gentle princess, he married to Lucius Tarquinius, her cousin, the eldest grandson of the late king; while his youngest, who was fierce, implacable, and ambitious, he bestowed upon Aruns Tarquinius, whom she despised for his meek temper.^[166] Servius is said to have crossed the inclinations of the contracting parties, hoping to soften the dispositions of the fierce Lucius and younger Tullia by giving them amiable partners. The untimely deaths of the younger Tarquinius and elder Tullia, not without suspicious circumstances, was followed by the union of the widow and widower.^[167] The ambitious couple from this time aspired to the throne, of which Tullia considered her husband had been deprived. Lucius Tarquinius joined the aristocratic party, and took advantage of the increasing years and infirmities of his father-in-law to attempt his deposition.^[168] Beloved by the people,^[169] but not by the senate, it was to them that Servius Tullius made his appeal when charged with usurpation by his son-in-law in the Forum. He alleged that the monarchy was elective, and that even if it had been otherwise, the sons of Ancus Marcius had more right than the grandson of Tarquinius Priscus. The people answered his defence with loud cries—“Let Servius reign, but let Tarquinius die.” At these ominous sounds the rebel prince fled affrighted to his house, where he was met and reproached by his ambitious wife for his cowardice.^[170] Tarquinius assumed some appearance of contrition, and was forgiven by the parents of his wife. Soon after this, he tampered with the disaffected senate, and arraying himself in royal robes, repaired to the temple, where the national assembly was held, and placing himself upon the throne, asserted his claim to it in a long and violent oration. He chose the harvest-time for this attempt, when the commons, who loved the king, were employed in the fields.^[171] Servius Tullius arrived while he was in the act of declaiming, and indignantly attempted to pull the usurper from his seat. The struggle was momentary; for the youth and strength of Tarquinius prevailed against the age and feebleness of his opponent, whom he hurled B.C. 578-535. violently down the steps to the Forum, none of the assembly making the slightest attempt to defend the king, or put an end to the unnatural contest. Three only of the senators less cruel than the rest raised the wounded monarch, and were leading him slowly to his own palace, when they were overtaken by assassins despatched by Tarquinius, who immediately concluded the murderous and parricidal act of the usurper, by putting the aged monarch to death after a long and glorious reign of forty-four years.^[172] History and local tradition accuse the inhuman daughter of Servius Tullius as the instigator of her husband’s crime; she alleging to him that while her aged parent lived, he could not hope to reign. As soon as the parricide was accomplished and the revolution of the nobles, headed by Tarquinius, completed, Tullia, we are told, mounted her chariot, and paraded the streets with all the pomp and pride of a newly-made queen. In the street, which ever after this tragic occurrence was denominated Vicus Sceleratus, the charioteer attempted to prevent the chariot of the unnatural daughter from passing over the body of the murdered parent. She, however, would not permit him to turn back. The charioteer urged forward his frightened steeds, when the carriage wheels and even the garments of Tullia were dyed with the blood of her father and sovereign, while hurrying to welcome her husband^[173] as the seventh king of Rome; for the furies of her wickedness were upon her. The Latin annalists perhaps might have considered this horrid incident fabulous, if the scene of the tragedy had not been pointed out from age to age as an ill-omened place. A curious remark is made by the ancient historians, that Tullia was not ashamed of being seen by a multitude of men. As this is related of her before she saw the body of her father, it applies to her want of delicacy,^[174] and proves how closely retired women were kept in that age.

The mother of Tullia died that night, and the freedom of the commons perished with Servius Tullius. In the Republican era it was erroneously supposed that the sixth king of Rome was about to establish a Republic when he was cut off by Tarquinius—a very improbable and unfounded statement. Nor can we imagine why this king should substitute the popular for the regal government, which, even in the elective form, was infinitely superior to that which finally replaced it. The tragical fate of the fifth and sixth kings of Rome affords, however, a painful illustration of the personal insecurity of regal heads when unprotected by hereditary descent; nor is the liberty of the subject under such a monarchy more secure than the life of the sovereign. Both are continually menaced by the domination of party.

L. TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS.

Tarquinius Superbus, or the Proud, ascended the throne of the good and great Servius Tullius under a cloud, through which it is difficult, even at this day, to discover the eminent qualities he really possessed; for his wickedness and tyranny were too trying to the impartiality of the historians of the Republic for them to mention him without prejudice; and, indeed, to the despot and murderer none felt inclined to accord even the merit of the general and architect. As he owed his elevation to the patrician order, he resolved to bind the dominant faction to him by the sacrifice of the party which had supported the murdered king. He, therefore, abrogated the law which had given to the plebeian order allotments of land from the ager publicus, a part of the conquered lands which were the property of the state. No real claim, unless conferred by the law, could be made by either order on the public domain, which was usually let on lease, or sold to the highest bidder for the exigencies of the state.^[175] Occasional grants were made in the preceding reign to the plebeian order, therefore the munificence of Servius was not without precedent.

A large proportion of waste or unproductive lands, like the commons of England in former times, were left for the general occupation, or perhaps for the benefit of the poorer citizens, upon the payment of the tenth part of the fruit and corn to the crown—an easy rent, which being raised in B.C. 534-510. proportion to the produce, did not hurt the cultivator in the worst of seasons.^[176] Hitherto the grants from the conquered lands to the plebeians had been considered in the light of hereditary property, and could be willed, or sold, at the pleasure of the possessor. The resumption of the grant made by Servius Tullius was therefore an unprecedented wrong to the rising middle class of Rome. Injuries done to this class always find avengers. Tarquinius knew this, and therefore resorted to an expedient calculated to render him, as he thought, secure from its resentment. He raised a great mercenary army, which made him completely independent of the patrician order which had raised him, and the plebeian which he had given abundant cause to hate him. Henceforth he ruled by his own despotic power, without any regard to the senate or people of Rome.^[177] The memory of the good Servius Tullius became more endeared by the contrast afforded by his successor; and in the children of the parricidal Tarquinius and Tullia the Romans only saw a rising race of tyrants. A whole people cannot be kept down, even by a foreign military force, for any length of time, particularly in a state where every citizen is a soldier. A reaction must eventually take place, and, however slow the progress of the revolutionary movement may be, it is nevertheless sure and certain.

In his wars Tarquin displayed considerable military talents. He defeated the Sabines and the Volscians, and took Suessa Pometia, a city twenty-six miles south-east of Rome, in which he found great wealth. He obtained a triumph for these exploits.^[178] His treaty with the Sabines was long extant. The manner in which he is said to have made himself master of Gabii appears improbable:—

This city, which stood eleven miles from Rome, had taken part with Suessa Pometia, Tarquinius invested; but finding it capable of making a long resistance, employed his eldest son, Sextus, as an agent in his crafty plan to gain possession of the place. The prince deserted to the Gabians, assigning some alleged injuries received from his father as the cause of his revolt. He was warmly welcomed by the besieged, who made him the governor of the city.^[179] Having obtained the command, he sent a message to his father, asking his advice as to the disposal of the principal citizens, who immediately took the messenger into his garden where he cut off the heads of the tallest poppies, imitating in this mute method of conveying political counsel, Thrasybulus, the Milesian, and dismissed the messenger without a word.^[180] Sextus understood the apologue, and beheaded the principal citizens of Gabii, which he governed afterwards in the name of his father. Tarquinius, by granting to the people the franchise of Rome, and to the Romans the civic privileges of Gabii, left them no great cause of discontent.^[181] His treaty with the Gabians, painted upon a wooden shield, was one of the few existing documents of regal Rome in the latter days of the Republic.^[182]

From war Tarquinius turned his attention to architecture, for which, like his grandfather, Tarquinius Priscus, he possessed considerable talents. Taste in the fine arts is always a proof of civilisation and education in the prince; but the manner in which the great public works of the Tarquins were carried on could not but displease the people, for whose benefit nevertheless they were designed, for they were not remunerated for their labours; and while Tarquinius, with the pride of laudable ambition, was building for posterity, the poor Romans wanted means to purchase bread. It is to be feared that most of the magnificent works of antiquity were executed at the expense of unpaid workmen, much in the same manner as the great works of Mahomet Ali in our own day, at a vast expenditure of human life and suffering. Where mighty architectural designs are carried on by free states, through the agency of hired workmen, the benefit is not confined to futurity, but is a blessing to the present time, extending to the distant age. To the magnificent Capitoline Temple might be applied the Scriptural allegory, “Woe to him who ceileth his house with cedar and keepeth back the wages of the workmen, for the beam of the chamber shall cry out against him, B.C. 534-510. and the mortar in the wall shall answer him.” This denunciation proves how common the oppressive method of embellishing cities and palaces at the expense of the poor workman had become, even in a free country, possessing the finest code of moral laws in the universe. The Capitoline Temple,^[183] the work of Tarquinius, formed the pride and glory of Rome in those ages when the oppressive measures by which it was raised had sunk into oblivion. Ancient tradition derived the name of the Capitoline Temple from the following circumstance:—While digging the foundations, the head of a man named Tolus was found fresh and bleeding, though long buried; from whence the building was called Capitoline, or the head of Tolus—superstition inferring from the preservation of that ghastly relic, that Rome, crowned by this temple, would become the greatest city in the world, and the head of all other nations.^[184] Tarquinius and his architectural works are thus quaintly noticed:—“Tarquinius was a great and mighty king, but he grievously oppressed the poor, and he took away all the good laws of King Servius, and let the rich oppress the poor as they had done before the days of Servius. He made the people labour at his great works; he made them build his temple and dig and construct his drains; and he laid such burdens on them, that many slew themselves for very misery; for in the days of Tarquin, the tyrant, it was happier to die than live.”^[185] This is an affecting picture of the distress of the Roman people under their tyrannical and despotic sovereign; while the liberal manner in which he remunerated his foreign architects and labourers added to the intense hatred they bore their sovereign.^[186]

A curious incident made Tarquinius the possessor of that collection of ancient literature, afterwards known by the name of the Sibylline Books. Livy relates, “that an aged female brought twelve books of prophetic verses for sale to the palace gate, and, requesting to see the king, offered them to him at a very exorbitant price; which he refusing to give, she departed home, and burnt three, but soon afterwards returned, and offered the remaining nine at the same rate she had demanded for the complete set. This being declined, she went away, and again destroyed three; once more appearing at the palace gate with her merchandise, telling Tarquinius as before what she had done,”^[187] but still demanding of him the original price for the remaining volumes. The king, astonished at her conduct, bought them at the sum she had first named, and placed them in the Capitol, under the care of two officers, or duumvirs, of noble birth. This story may be easily reduced from its romantic mysteriousness to an every-day occurrence common to any age. A valuable collection of ancient literature falls into the hands of an ignorant woman, who has some traditional notion that the books are worth a large sum of money; she brings them to her sovereign, who refuses to purchase them, returns home, supposing herself mistaken as to their value, and kindles her fire with the leaves of which they were composed. Her sovereign, in the meantime, has consulted some learned person, who advises him to give the price she had demanded. He finally purchases the remnant of the volumes at the original sum she had named. But, in stripping the circumstance of its romance, we need not deprive the books of their value, which were undoubtedly a collection of all the wisdom the heathen world^[188] possessed in their oracles, interspersed with many of the sublime prophecies of Holy Writ. That such was the case, a quotation made by Josephus from the Sibylline volumes sufficiently proves,^[189] since the dark ignorance of heathenism could not have forged the passage. It is gratifying to think that the Divine Being B.C. 534-510. had permitted some rays of light to shine through the gloom of an idolatrous land. The mysterious contents of these books naturally excited public curiosity; but the punishment of one of the guardian duumvirs, who incautiously repeated them, effectually put an end to such indiscretion on the part of the duumviri for the future; the guilty duumvir having undergone, we are assured, the ignominious doom of the parricide.^[190]

Tarquinius, like most despots, was jealous of his own relations, and he put to death his brother-in-law, Marcus Brutus, the husband of his sister, Tarquinia;^[191] but he spared his nephew Lucius Junius Brutus, either from pity to his youth or contempt for his talents, not beholding anything in the young man that could excite his suspicions, or point him out as the future avenger of his murdered family.^[192] Brutus appears to have been brought up with his cousins, to whom his feigned or occasional fits of insanity afforded amusement and excited contempt. Fear lest Tarquinius should destroy him, as he had destroyed his father and elder brother, for the sake of his great inheritance, are the reasons assigned for his conduct in those ancient lays which formed the groundwork of the early Roman history.^[193] “He was not really dull, but very subtle,” is the remark of the historian; and of this subtilty he gives the following example:—A pestilence in Rome, and the evil omen of a serpent creeping forth from a crevice and devouring the offering laid upon the altar in the court of his palace, alarmed the king, who resolved to consult the Delphic oracle respecting the plague and the portent.^[194] He sent his sons, Titus and Aruns, to Delphi, and with them his nephew Junius Brutus. The princes carried costly gifts, according to the general custom on such occasions, but their kinsman a hollow cane, apparently of no value, as a votive offering to the shrine. This present amused his cousins, who were not aware that the interior was filled with gold.^[195] Beside the legitimate object upon which Tarquin had despatched them, the princes had a more private one in view; they wished to consult the oracle respecting the succession,^[196] from which both desired to exclude their elder brother, Sextus, who might be supposed to derive from his father and great grandfather a shadow of hereditary right. Junius Brutus presented his staff, apparently with the same wish of learning which of the company would be the future sovereign of Rome. To the question, the priestess gave this curious response—“He who shall first kiss his mother.” While the princes were making arrangements for deciding, by lot, who should first, upon their return to Rome, kiss Tullia, their kinsman descended the steps of the temple, and, pretending to stumble, threw himself on his face to the ground, which he kissed, saying to the priestess, “The earth is the real mother of us all.”^[197] A length of years must be supposed to intervene between this fact or fable before Brutus re-appears; for the next time we meet with him he is the parent of grown-up sons, and himself holds the important post of Tribune of the celeres, or body-guard, of his uncle, Tarquinius,^[198] whom he is assisting in the siege of Ardea, formerly a tributary city, acknowledging the paramount and dominant power of Rome, but which had revolted, as Medullia had frequently done. The defence of the Ardeans was obstinate, so that, to continue the siege, Tarquinius was compelled to load the commons with additional taxes, and even to lay his hand upon the wealth of the nobility. The citizens, to whom his government had long been odious, resented these new imposts, and began to meet in secret to discuss and find a remedy for these grievances; when an incident of a strange and tragical character occasioned that revolt which terminated in the change of the Roman government from the Regal to the Republican form, under which Rome became the warlike mistress of the civilised world. If we follow the ancient heroic legend B.C. 534-510. recorded by Livy, and attested by the Latin historians, we shall believe that a convivial entertainment, given by Sextus Tarquinius, in the camp before Ardea, to his brothers, Aruns and Titus, and his cousins, Brutus and Collatinus, ushered in that deep tragedy with which the royal dynasty of Tarquinius and the Regal state of Rome closed.^[199] At supper the kinsmen discoursed together respecting the comparative beauty and merit of their wives, when Collatinus was the loudest in praise of the fair Lucretia, to whom he had not long been married, and whose merit, he declared, surpassed that of all other women. It was at length agreed that the disputing parties should ride in company and visit their consorts, assigning the palm of superiority to her whom they should find the best employed.^[200] As the Roman supper answered in time to a three o’clock dinner, and Ardea was not more than twenty miles from Rome, the distance presented no obstacles to high-spirited men, well-mounted, and determined upon a harmless frolic. Arrived at Rome, the princes found their wives engaged in amusement, and apparently contented and happy in their absence. Collatinus repeated the praises of his wife to the disappointed husbands, whom he assured they would find very differently employed. It was night when they entered his house at Collatia, where they found the fair Lucretia spinning with her maidens, to whom she was speaking of her absent husband. The beauty and domestic virtues of the young matron, her cordial reception of her midnight guests, and her conjugal affection, compelled the royal kinsmen of Collatinus to assign the palm of superior merit to her without a dissenting voice.^[201]

Although Sextus Tarquinius must have often seen the fair Lucretia before, as Collatinus was his relation, he had never perhaps regarded her with admiration till he beheld her in her own home, adorned with those domestic virtues which form the peculiar charm of an amiable woman. He conceived a violent passion for his beautiful hostess, whose modest manners and conjugal affection deprived him of all hope of seducing her from her duty and allegiance to her husband. He therefore resolved to effect her dishonour by fraud and force. A few days after his first visit, he paid a second and more private one to Collatia, under the pretence of bringing a message to the fair Lucretia from her absent husband.^[202] He was received with the same frank hospitality by the wife of his kinsman, whose matronly carriage effectually deterred him from daring to avow the guilty passion with which she had inspired him. In the dead hour of night he violated the privacy of her apartment, threatening her with death, and, what was worse to a proud and pure woman, with a false accusation of adultery with a slave. The dread of posthumous shame prevailed with the unfortunate Lucretia, who nevertheless determined not to survive her dishonour. She sent messengers to her husband and father, requesting them to call a family council to consult with her upon matters of deep importance. This was doubtless done that they might sit in judgment upon her, and decide the question of her innocence or guilt. In after ages we shall find this custom of family trial, which was a very ancient one, often resorted to.^[203] That it was to the domestic tribunal Lucretia appealed, seems apparent by her pathetic declaration, after relating to her astonished auditors the history of the outrage she had suffered—“I am not guilty;” as if to claim from their justice a verdict favourable to her innocence. She then concluded her recital by these emphatic words: “If ye be men, revenge my wrong.”^[204] Her male relations solemnly swore to avenge her injuries. They pronounced her guiltless, and endeavoured to console and soothe her irritated feelings.^[205]

“I am not guilty,” she replied; “I am innocent, yet must I be punished for this deed, lest my example should be pleaded by some immodest woman as an excuse for surviving her dishonour.” With these words, she drew a B.C. 534-510. dagger from beneath the folds of her robe, and stabbed herself to the heart.^[206] For, acquitted by her jurors, the chaste Lucretia could not acquit herself; so lofty in that age was the standard of purity of the Roman matron. The cries of horror uttered by the husband and father of the heroine were not reiterated by Junius Brutus. While they lamented, he determined to avenge her.^[207] Drawing from the bleeding bosom of the dead Lucretia the fatal dagger, he called upon her kinsmen to revenge her,^[208] in a burst of eloquence that shook the hateful dynasty of Tarquinius from the throne of Rome. In that work of vengeance his position as tribune of the celeres, or body-guard, of Tarquinius^[209] would materially aid him; nothing was wanting but the co-operation of those thus cruelly wronged, to achieve a revolution upon which the public mind had been long brooding. For twenty years, Lucius Junius Brutus had concealed the stern energies of a mighty mind beneath the veil of assumed madness and imbecility, which he shook off that day for ever.^[210] His own family had been deceived, and the head of that family was Tarquinius; for the injury done by Sextus Tarquinius was to his own house, Collatinus being his near kinsman. The revolution was to be accomplished, therefore, by the kindred of the dynasty then occupying the throne. The agent of Divine Providence was Brutus, in that change of government to which the rise of the mighty Fourth Monarchy may be attributed. Brutus nerved the softer natures of the father and husband of Lucretia, who listened to him with amazement,^[211] and obeyed him with awe not untinctured with superstition; for, till this dreadful day, they too had considered him insane. By his advice Lucretius, who was governor of Rome during the absence of Tarquinius, closed the gates of the city, and denied egress to its inhabitants.

Publius Valerius, a young patrician who had formed a part of this family council, and who was also related to the victim, joined Brutus in denouncing vengeance against Sextus Tarquinius, and in taking measures for exciting the popular feeling by the exhibition of the corse of the fair Lucretia in the Forum.^[212] The absence of Tarquinius and his sons, who were then in the camp before Ardea, gave the insurgent Romans time to accomplish their mighty object, while the distance of their tyrants inspired the citizens with hope; so that, stirred alike by the eloquence of Junius Brutus, and the sight of Lucretia’s bleeding body,^[213] they demanded to be led against Tarquinius, that they might revenge her injuries upon him and his iniquitous family. The Senate was then appealed to in the same manner, and with the like success, and united with the people in a decree for the perpetual banishment of Tarquinius and his posterity.^[214] This revolution at Rome took place 510 years before the Christian era.^[215] Tullia, apprised of the revolt, fled precipitately from her house, followed by the curses of the people, who wished “the furies of her father’s blood” (to use the singular expression of Livy) “might visit her with vengeance.”^[216]

It was fortunate at this crisis that Spurius Lucretius and Junius Brutus held the civil and military government of Rome, which was, in fact, legally vested in their hands; so that without even the concurrence of the people they could have barred Tarquinius out of his capital. To effect a permanent change in the state, it was requisite to gain the army without and the people within. The first object had been accomplished by the sight of the dead body of Lucretia, and the story of her wrongs. “Such an outrage made the people feel their slavery—to feel a yoke is virtually to shake it off. They had been individually wronged, and had borne taxation, oppressive taskwork, and infringement B.C. 534-510. on their civic rights; but the injury done to Lucretia was a public insult which these Roman husbands, fathers, and brothers could not forgive; so high was the moral standard in regard to the purity of women.”^[217] Lucretius as inter-rex called the people together in their comitia, where the crier summoned them to the tribune of the celeres, Lucius Junius Brutus, whose eloquent and affecting appeal to their feelings, and indignant recapitulation of the tyranny of Tarquin and his house, procured a decree of banishment against the despot, whose yoke they had sworn to shake off.^[218] The men of Collatia had been previously excited by Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, whom they had followed to Rome, after setting a watch about the closed gates of their city, in order to prevent any traitor from carrying tidings of the insurrectionary movement to Tarquinius.^[219] The escape of the wicked Tullia, however, soon made the events of that day known to the king, who was on his way to Rome, while Brutus was taking a bye-path to his camp before Ardea. His nephew was equally successful in his appeal to the army, whom he won by the same arguments as he had employed in rousing the disaffected citizens of Rome.^[220] Tarquinius heard his sentence of banishment pronounced from the walls of Rome, while he found her gates barred and manned against him. The news of the revolt of the army made him yield to a storm against which he found himself unable to contend. He withdrew with his wife and sons to Cære,^[221] not to remain there in exile and inactivity, but to turn all the energies of his mind towards one point—the recovery of his kingdom and capital city. The deposed monarch had carried despotism to an extreme height, rarely exhibited by the sovereign of a free state. “He chose to reign by his own power, in virtue of what he considered hereditary right, and treated Servius Tullius, from whom he took the crown, as an usurper.” He was not chosen by the people, and if he was aided by the Senate, he reigned without that body. In fact, “he destroyed many senators, and consulted none. The three powers of the state were united in his own person; but the people at a critical minute remembered that they were legislators, and the reign of Tarquinius came to an end.”^[222]

Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus were chosen as inter-reges, to exercise the regal functions till the Senate and people had decided upon the form of government under which the Roman state was to exist.

There is no reason to believe that the exiled sovereign had any knowledge of the event that had awakened the resentment, the inexpiable wrath of the Roman people. Lucretia had become by her marriage a part of his own family, her father at the time held the highest office in the state, and the man who accomplished the revolution was his own nephew, yet he was considered responsible for his son’s crime. “Behold the deeds of the wicked family of Tarquinius!” had been the general cry of the Roman people when they saw the pale victim of Sextus’ unbridled passion; and Brutus, forgetting that he shared their blood, had solemnly sworn to visit that deed upon Tarquinius and all his accursed race, declaring that “Rome should be kingless, lest any other man should do the like wickedness.”^[223]

The mainspring that sometimes upholds despotic power is the good feeling that exists between the absolute monarch and the people; but Tarquinius treated the commons as arrogantly as if he had conquered them, relying upon his mercenary troops for the maintenance of his authority. His own family or their connections held every post of trust in the state, and his hand was against all the rest; hence it came that, hated and detested as he was and deserved to be by the people at large, the revolution originated in members of his own family, and really emanated from the aristocracy themselves. Tarquinius, with great talents, courage, and energy, sank under a weight of popular hatred which clave to his memory even when men like Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero filled the throne. These emperors, however, took care to leave the great mass untouched; their tyranny victimised the great and rich, and never burdened the poor citizens; B.C. 534-510. for the history of the expulsion of the seventh king of Rome had given them an important and useful lesson, which they did not forget.

The first era of Roman power closed with Tarquinius the Proud; regality became odious to the people, who overlooked the virtues of their former regal rulers while indulging their intense hatred towards one despotic and wicked prince. When we consider the elective form of the early Roman government, we must feel surprised that Rome had not been harassed with continual civil wars. Montesquieu attributes the freedom from internal strife “to the equal distribution of power among the three orders of the state, which was broken when Servius Tullius, who owed his throne to the commons, elevated the class that raised him, and thus prepared the way for a democracy, which ought naturally to have followed the expulsion of the Tarquins and Monarchy.”^[224] The revolution, however, was not the work of the people, but of the aristocracy; therefore the new government was not democratical. Far from diminishing the privileges of the patrician order, it added to them.^[225] This class had more cause to dread regal despotism than the plebeians; thus it was their interest to destroy the Monarchy and found a Republic, which they intended to rule in turn. In order to reconcile the people to the change, they restored many of the laws and institutions of Servius Tullius, and spread abroad “that the new form of government was the same as that he had planned himself for their benefit.” In no other way can we account for such an assertion, unless we suppose it originated in that motive. For to imagine that King Servius really designed the republican constitution of Rome, seems very far-fetched and improbable. The gift of seven jugers of land to each poor citizen, and their late experience of kingly oppression, made them consent to the proposed change, although they did not regain by it that liberty they had possessed under Servius Tullius, or even that which they had enjoyed under their earlier kings. They lost the favourable moment for claiming their old and demanding new privileges; and all those struggles between the patrician and plebeian orders which afterwards convulsed the state, were the result of the rash precipitancy with which the Roman people acceded to the constitution, without securing themselves from the tyranny of the great, or increasing their civic rights. In fact, they had followed the impulse of their feelings, not the dictates of their reason; for an excited populace have no other guide, and seldom, if left to that, commit a moral error, but very commonly fall into a political one, when directed by the self-interests of others: and thus it happened here. In their indignation against Sextus Tarquinius they resolved to expel his dynasty, and consented to abolish regality without considering whether they themselves would be eventually benefited by becoming republicans.

Few records of the regal state existed in Rome at the time when Livy wrote the history of the greatest power that ever swayed the destinies of mankind, the only original documents cited as belonging to that period being the treaty of Servius Tullius with the Latins,^[226] that of Tarquinius Superbus with the Gabians, and another with the Sabines.

The jurist Papirius, by the direction of Tarquinius the Proud, made a collection of the laws of the kings, “the antiquity of which,” remarks Niebuhr,^[227] “is unquestionable.” Some part of this code, which long bore the name of the Papirian, is very barbarous, but throws some light upon the manners of those early times. “Men were permitted by Romulus to expose their younger daughters; but no child of either sex could be abandoned in this manner after it had attained the age of three years, however poor or overburdened with offspring the father might be.” In these cases the female parent appears to have possessed no power, for the strong feeling of maternity would always have made her the protector of her infant.

“To Romulus is also referred the domestic tribunal, by which the wife was tried by her husband’s relations and her own for three faults, for any one of which she could be divorced, upon her conviction before these jurors—adultery, counterfeiting his keys in order to drink wine, or poisoning.”^[228] The male parent had the right of putting his children to death, or selling them; he could B.C. 534-510. also take his daughter from the husband he had given her, and marry her to another man. But though this law, so barbarous, immoral and unjust, was ancient, there is no example of the kind cited till towards the close of the Commonwealth, when the practice became dreadfully frequent, and occasioned that general corruption of female morals which disgraced the last age of the Republic and the first of the Empire. The domestic tribunal, which dated from the earliest regal period, was conducive to that purity of manners which for centuries was the glory of Roman matrons. The father could put his daughter to death for any breach of the family code of honour, nor would he suffer himself, perhaps, to be disgraced by her divorce, when he could prevent the public trial which would have permitted the injured husband to repudiate her, by putting her to death himself.^[229] Over the person of his son the Roman father possessed the same absolute rights; he might sell or slay him, and could also make him over to his own creditors as part payment of his debts;^[230] yet notwithstanding this severe parental yoke, no country in the world ever produced more splendid examples of filial piety than heathen Rome.

Such was the state of Rome when her regal era closed, two hundred and forty-five years after its foundation by Romulus. Such are the evidences of her political existence, drawn from the sources already carefully collated and enumerated. The truth of her whole regal history, from first to last, has been doubted, but to receive it, with some modifications, appears to involve less difficulties than its entire rejection, since we cannot replace the contested points with anything more veracious. If we strip the old Roman traditions of their mythic colouring, and divest them of some poetical allegory, we shall find them authentic pictures of those remote heroic times.

The Roman Republic rushed into political existence without any safeguard for its internal freedom. The people, in expelling one tyrannical dynasty from the throne, had left themselves at the mercy of an aristocracy more powerful than the hated house of Tarquinius. An aristocracy, which is the natural support of a free monarchical government, is an anomaly in a popular one; but the Roman Commons, who had acted from the impulse of feeling, did not discern the chains with which their rash precipitation had left them still burdened. The second era of Rome dawned therefore with less political advantages than those her citizens had enjoyed during the continuance of her regal state. B.C. 509. Instead of a king, Rome had now at its head two Consuls^[1] or chief magistrates, annually chosen. The restoration of some of the laws of Servius satisfied the people, who were again allowed the privilege of choosing their own judges for the decision of all private causes unconnected with the state. They also enjoyed the right of convoking meetings in the town or country, and of offering their sacrifices in their own tribes and districts.^[2] Some show of regard to the public liberty was displayed in the limitation annexed to the exercise of the consular authority, which was not to be in the hands of both the consuls at the same time, lest the Romans should see themselves governed by two sovereigns at once. These elective magistrates were to rule alternately from month to month, the lictors with their rods and axes being attendant alone upon the person of that consul who then held the supreme power.^[3] This regulation, however, was rather the offspring of patrician jealousy than the emanation of a purely patriotic principle. It concerned the plebeians very little, since the nobles had engrossed to themselves all power, sacred, political, civil, and military.^[4] They might fear each other, but had no reason then to dread the people, whom they had deceived. A reaction would come indeed, but that reaction they neither foresaw nor feared. Livy has given the outlines of a counter-revolution; but that abortive attempt, closed by a tragedy, did not originate from the people, but with the families of the consuls themselves. The account transmitted by the Roman historian has been doubted, because it has come down to our times in a poetical form; but if the Romans were sufficiently civilised to write heroic ballads, it is by no means certain they were capable of inventing the subjects to which they gave a metrical arrangement. The conspiracy now about to be related has always been considered a part of Roman history, and the only question that seems to demand discussion relates to the guilt or innocence of the accused parties, not to their accusation or execution. It appears that Tarquinius made some attempt to conciliate his former subjects by means of an Etruscan embassy, his envoys making use of great promises of amendment on his part if the people would permit him to resume his regal functions.^[5] This proposal meeting with no encouragement, he limited his next demand to the restitution of his family possessions.^[6] The consul Collatinus was inclined to grant the request of his former sovereign;^[7] he even opposed his colleague, Junius Brutus, and obtained a decree for their restoration in the senate, and also by one vote in the Comitia of the people.^[8] This promised restitution was probably designed to conciliate the Etruscan states, whose protection of the exiled king naturally alarmed the new-born republic; but the prolonged stay of the ambassadors gave some cause of suspicion, that the recovery of his goods was not the particular object of Tarquinius in sending the embassy to Rome.^[9] While the regal effects were packing, for their removal from Rome, a slave named Vindicius, belonging to the household of the Aquillii, a powerful family of Rome, related to both consuls and also to the exiled sovereign himself, gave notice of a conspiracy among the young nobility to restore Tarquinius. In making known this plot, Vindicius denounced to Publius Valerius the sons of his master Aquillius, and those of the consul Junius Brutus.^[10] This accusation, whether true or false, caused a domestic tragedy in the houses of the two consular magistrates who governed Rome; for the Aquillii were the children of the sister of Collatinus, while the Vitellii, who were likewise implicated in the conspiracy, stood in the same degree of relationship to Brutus, their mother Vitellia being his own sister.^[11]

According to the statement of Vindicius, the young conspirators had bound themselves by fearful oaths to kill the consuls and restore Tarquinius, having touched the entrails and drunk the blood of a murdered man to ratify their unlawful compact. The meetings held for this treasonable object, he said, took place at the house of the Aquillii, adding “that, happening to be in the room where B.C. 509. the last was held, he had concealed himself upon hearing the approaching footsteps of the traitors, and had thus become accidentally privy to their design.”^[12] Valerius immediately shut up the slave Vindicius in his own house, a necessary precaution, since the vengeance of his master would have occasioned his instant destruction should he fall into his hands.^[13] He then invested the house of the Aquillii, from whence he took all the conspirators, and with them the treasonable correspondence with Tarquinius and the ambassadors, upon which he rested the proof of their guilt. Some tumult was made in the Forum before the arrival of the consuls, who, ascending their tribunals in haste, proceeded to examine a matter that so intimately concerned the dignity of their station and the honour of their families.^[14] The young sons of Brutus were then arraigned before their own father’s tribunal, and the slave Vindicius was brought as a witness against them. The letters they had written to Tarquin were also produced, and they were ordered to make their defence. They only answered the accusation by their tears.^[15] “Titus and Tiberius,” demanded the stern consul, “what have you to offer in your defence?” The tears and agitation of the accused, the natural results alike of conscious guilt, or of the terrible circumstances in which they were placed, were still, as before, their only reply. Thrice were they called upon to plead, and thrice their silence left them without defence.^[16] Collatinus wept—even the people were touched with pity, and a distinct murmur reached the tribunal of the unhappy father, as if to soften the dreaded sentence. “Banish them, banish them,”^[17] was the suggestion of all. The people, awed and trembling, awaited the decision of the consul. Valerius, too, was silent, and made no attempt to steel the public mind against the compassion they felt for the young criminals. The judge—the father, then rose up, and with a firm voice pronounced the sentence of death upon his sons in these words: “Lictors, I deliver them over to you, the rest is your part.”^[18] A cry of horror burst from the lips of the assembled multitude, but neither this public demonstration of feeling nor the passionate entreaties of the youthful criminals, who called upon their father to save them, could change the iron determination of the inflexible judge. From his lofty station he beheld his sons’ bodies torn by the torturing and dishonouring scourge; he saw their heads stricken off, and exposed by the lictors to the gaze of the people, without a tear or even the least change of countenance;^[19] and only descended from the tribunal when his severe trial was over, and his sons were no more. The people, nevertheless, discovered beneath that stern exterior the suppressed grief of the parent, and regarded with wonder and admiration the consul who had loved justice more than his children, not sparing his own blood when it had rebelled against his country.^[20]

Collatinus, less rigid in principle, or less credulous than his colleague, would not pronounce sentence upon his own nephews and those of Brutus. He gave the accused a day to prepare for their defence, and he ordered the slave to be restored to his master.^[21] Whether this determination arose from any doubt of the sole witness of the young men’s guilt, or from a desire to save them, does not appear, but it was opposed by Publius Valerius, who refused to deliver him up. The ambassadors, on account of their office, were dismissed unpunished. The slave Vindicius was given his liberty, and was rewarded^[22] for his patriotism, or, possibly, his treachery. For a question may arise in these remoter times whether the accused were actually guilty of the crime for which they suffered. During the period of great popular excitement that preceded their execution, doubts did not arise in the public mind that may naturally suggest themselves to the impartial reader now. Did the slave invent the story of the conspiracy—were the letters forgeries, and Publius Valerius the instigator of a plot against the lives of these young patricians? Had any person been missing in Rome whose blood had sealed the vows of the conspirators? What interest had a slave in B.C. 509. the freedom or subjection of Rome—a slave who has no free-will, no people, no country? Nor should the tears and silence of the sons of Brutus be taken as a direct acknowledgment of guilt. The nature of the evidence against them, and the fact of their standing before the tribunal of their own father, might affect their feelings and deny them utterance. If they were of a timid temperament, the dreadful circumstances in which they were placed might have this effect. While we admire the impartial justice of the magistrate, we must condemn the pride that led the father to be present at the execution of the sentence upon his sons, to behold the agonies of those to whom he had given life. Even patriotism did not demand such a violation of the tender feelings of paternity. To weep over his children in prison, and mourn over them when dead, could not violate the ties that bound the Roman consul to his country.

If his sons were guiltless, the stern sacrifice of Brutus was made in vain, and Collatinus was wiser in his merciful intentions than the Roman father in his tremendous judgment. The example itself is without a parallel—it stands alone in its fearful grandeur. The delay of Collatinus displeased Brutus and the Roman people. The stern consul who had expected from his colleague the same inflexibility of purpose as he had displayed himself, deposed him from his office. Valerius Poplicola succeeded him in the consulate, and sentenced the Aquillii and Vitellii to death. The condemnation of his nephews was followed by the exile of Collatinus to Lavinium, where he ended his days in privacy and retirement.^[23]

The possessions of Tarquinius were divided among the people, and the Campus Martius was restored to them. This celebrated field formed no part of the royal demesnes; it was the gift of the Vestal Tarratia to her fellow-citizens. The Horatian law conferred honours upon the lady for her generous grant of this plain to the public.^[24] In this field the citizens found green corn growing, which they flung into the Tiber, which is said to have given rise to the island afterwards called Insula Sacra.^[25]

Among much that is incredible, or at least improbable, relating to the first years of the republic, we find one authentic document copied by the historian Polybius from the brazen tablets then in existence among the archives of the Ædiles. This Greek author saw it in the obsolete language of the period, and translated a muniment that had become almost unintelligible to the Romans themselves. This document was the first treaty concluded between the republics of Rome and Carthage, and is dated the year following the expulsion of the Tarquins. From this record we are able to determine the extent of the Roman territory in the second year of the consular government.^[26] “The new Roman republic actually contained the undivided possessions and acquisitions of the monarchy; Ardea, Antium, Aricia, Circeii, and Terracina, are in this treaty enumerated as subject cities included therein. The whole coast is styled Latin, the land Latium, and the range is even more extensive than from Ostia to Terracina. Even in the part not dependent upon the Romans, the Carthaginians were prohibited from making conquests or erecting forts. The Romans and their allies were inhibited from sailing into any of the harbours south of the beautiful or Hermecan Cape, which bounds on the east the Gulf of Carthage. The Carthaginians secured to the Roman merchants the same privileges as to their own. At Carthage and the Libyan coast west of the Gulf, or in Sardinia, the Romans might land for the purposes of traffic, but the sale of their goods must be made by public auction, in which case the state made itself responsible to the Roman merchant for his payment. The table contained the names of Brutus and Horatius, as the consuls by whom the treaty was concluded.”^[27] Although the name of one of the consuls does not coincide with that given by Livy, who assigns Valerius as the colleague of Horatius Pulvillus, there appears to be better reason for trusting the evidence of the treaty than the traditionary tables of the ancient Roman annalists.

To the first consulship of Brutus we must ascribe the assignment of farms to the plebeians, in lots containing B.C. 508. seven jugers of arable land. This is conjectured to have been the royal demesnes, which alone could have been sufficiently extensive for such a distribution, whereby “all who received an allotment were united against the old order of things.”^[28] Nothing was more likely to secure the fidelity of the commons of Rome to the republican government than this grant, which made the restoration of Tarquinius a measure opposed to the individual interest of every plebeian.

Tarquinius, finding all attempts to recover Rome by negotiation or treachery useless, persuaded the cities of Veii and Tarquinii to espouse his quarrel.^[29] The battle between the Romans and their former king and his allies took place within the frontiers of the new republic. During the contest the consul Brutus and Aruns Tarquinius fought hand to hand, and were mutually slain. It appears that the Romans beat the Veientines, but were themselves defeated by the Tarquinians. This battle was a drawn one, the loss being nearly equal, but the Romans, having slain one man more than their enemies, claimed the victory, which they declared had been ascribed to them by a supernatural voice^[30]—a political ruse, no doubt, of their leaders, to deceive the soldiers, who might have considered this sanguinary engagement a bad beginning of the war. Brutus was buried with suitable honours, Valerius himself speaking his funeral oration, this being the first occasion of the kind known in Rome.^[31] The Roman matrons did honour to the avenger of Lucretia, by the long period of their mourning, which they wore for a whole year.^[32] The Romans did not adopt black for this purpose, but a very dark blue.^[33] Lucius Junius Brutus is generally supposed to have left no descendants; for though the celebrated Marcus Brutus, who conspired against Cæsar, claimed his descent from this hero, it was believed that he derived his family name from Brutus, a plebeian demagogue who had thought proper to conceal his mean origin under that illustrious appellation.^[34]

Publius Valerius reigned like a king after he had buried his colleague, whose vacant place he made no attempt to fill up.^[35] He built a house which united the strength of a fortress to the appearance of a palace upon the Velian Hill, for so the rising ground under the Palatine Hill was then called. The situation of this mansion, which completely overlooked the Forum, displeased the Roman people, who said to one another, “Publius wishes to become a king, and is building a citadel in which he may dwell with his guards, and oppress us.”^[36] These words being duly reported to Valerius occasioned him to pull down his house—a measure which satisfied the citizens, who gave him permission to build one on the same scale, but at the bottom of the Velia, in which the doors opened back into the street. The sacrifice of private property made by Publius Valerius to public opinion gained him the surname of Poplicola, by which he was ever after distinguished.

Poplicola chose for his colleague in the consulship Lucretius, the father of the unfortunate wife of Collatinus, and at his death, which happened soon after his elevation, procured the election of Horatius Pulvillus. The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was dedicated this year, for though finished by Tarquinius, it had not yet been consecrated. Poplicola was desirous of this honour. Some jealousy on the part of the senate made them nominate his colleague, Horatius Pulvillus;^[37] upon which Marcus Valerius, the brother of Poplicola, disturbed the ceremony, by crying in a loud voice, “O consul, thy son lies dead in the camp.” With an unmoved countenance, Horatius replied, “Then cast the body where you please, I admit not of mourning,” and concluded his religious rite without noticing the evil tidings.^[38] The assertion was false, and probably Horatius was assured in his own mind that it was so. Marcus Valerius, though a brave man, at least wanted the soul of honour—truth. It was during the second consulship of Poplicola that the quæstorship was instituted; two officers, called quæstors, being appointed by his advice to take care of the public money, which was laid up in the temple of B.C. 508. Saturn. P. Veturius and M. Minucius were the first persons upon whom this important office devolved. Like all other posts of trust, the quæstorship was engrossed by the senatorial body.^[39] Poplicola is said to have filled up the vacancies in the senate.^[40] He made it unlawful to take any office in the state without the consent of the people, and granted to them the right of appeal from the consular power—a concession, however, rendered nugatory by several heavy fines imposed upon those who should disobey the commands of the consul.^[41] Another law, which in the course of this history we shall find frequently in force, gave to any man the power of slaying, unheard and untried, that individual who should presume to arrogate to himself the supreme sovereignty of the state.^[42]

The alliance between the exiled king and Porsenna, the sovereign of the Clusians, a people of Etruria, obliged Poplicola to take measures for the defence of Rome, against which that monarch immediately led a powerful and well-appointed army.^[43] Poplicola was still in office, Titus Lucretius, the brother of Lucretia, being his colleague at the time of the Clusian invasion. We again meet with a commemorative series of interesting historical ballads in Livy, derived from Fabius and other early annalists, which they took from old traditions, transmitted from the nænia sung at funerals, or the poems recited at the suppers of great men.^[44] There is some reason to question the truth of many incidents recorded as fact by the Romans, but we must be careful how we reject the whole mass of evidence contained in these poetical chronicles; for though the reader must be familiar with them, it seems better to give them their usual place in history, than entirely to exclude them. According to the narrative of Livy, Clusium was one of the Etruscan states, and its king or chief, Lars Porsenna, having espoused the cause of Tarquinius, drove from Mount Janiculum the inhabitants of the Roman villages to whom that fortress had been assigned by the consuls as a place of refuge.^[45] The fugitives being hotly pursued to the wooden bridge over the Tiber, the Etruscans endeavoured to win the city at that point, but were opposed by the consuls, who, in defending that important post, were both dangerously wounded and carried into the city. Horatius Cocles, Lartius, and Herminius then singly maintained this entrance to Rome by their own efforts,^[46] and when two of these gallant men were disabled, Horatius faced the enemy alone, calling to his countrymen “to cut the bridge down.” Nor did he quit his post till the last prop was sundered, and the bridge fell. His prayer to the river Tiber has been preserved by Livy, though, doubtless, a poetical interpolation. He is said to have gained the shore after his leap from the bridge, though not without losing an arm and an eye, besides receiving many other dangerous wounds, from the mangling swords of the disappointed Clusians.^[47] The Roman champion was received with much honour by the people, who granted him a sufficient maintenance from the public demesnes to place him above want, and erected a statue of brass, in commemoration of his valour, in the Forum. Polybius declares Horatius Cocles was killed, in which he differs from the Latin legend.^[48] The enraged and disappointed Etruscans changed the siege of Rome into a blockade, and Porsenna, aware that famine was wasting the beleaguered citizens,^[49] offered them bread and their old sovereign, but they replied with indignation, “that starvation was less dreadful than slavery.” The multitude, who suffered more than their rulers, began to waver, when, at a critical moment for the liberty of Rome, a young patrician named Caius Mucius offered to enter the hostile camp and slay Porsenna.^[50] The consuls joyfully accepted a proposal deemed heroic in those unscrupulous times; and Mucius, assuming the habit of a Tuscan slave, departed on an enterprise requiring courage, presence of mind, and address.^[51] The disguise adopted by the adventurer made the approach to the camp and tribunal of Porsenna no difficult matter, but the person then occupying the seat was not the king himself but his secretary, who wearing, like the master he represented, a purple robe, received in B.C. 507. his bosom the dagger designed by the Roman assassin for Porsenna. He was made prisoner at the same moment in which he discovered his mistake, and was brought before the king to answer for his crime.^[52] “Execrable villain, who art thou, whence hast thou come, where are thy accomplices?” demanded the monarch.

“Caius Mucius, and a Roman,” was the proud reply. “One whom Roman bravery has made capable of daring all that man can dare, and of suffering all that man can endure.” So saying, with fortitude worthy of a better cause, Mucius thrust his right hand into a pan of burning coals, and held it in the flame with unshrinking firmness.

Porsenna hastily asked the reason of this strange action of the singular assassin.

“It is because I have slain another instead of thee,” replied Mucius.

Porsenna was moved; he pronounced the pardon of the criminal, and extending to him the dagger with which Mucius had designed his death, “bade him depart in peace.”^[53]

Mucius received the weapon with his left hand (from which circumstance, it is related, he was afterwards called Scævola), and said, “I can overcome the terror of Porsenna, but not his generosity. Gratitude, O king! compels me to declare a secret that no tortures should have forced me to betray—more than three hundred valiant young men have bound themselves by oath to kill a monarch who deserves rather to be the friend of the Roman people than their foe.”^[54]

The great soul of Porsenna was touched; he declared himself willing to treat with the Roman senate. He sent ambassadors, confining his demands in Tarquinius’s favour to the restitution of the family property of his ally, and seven small towns which had been taken by him from the Veientines.^[55] The senate were inclined to accept these terms, but the commons would not listen to them. We must remember that the estates of Tarquinius had been confiscated to the public use, which accounts for their determination. At length it was agreed to refer to the decision of Porsenna, the dispute between Tarquinius and the Roman people.^[56] A truce was concluded, and ten virgins of patrician families, with a like number of youths of the same rank and age, were given by the Romans as hostages to the king of Clusium.^[57]

The well-known story which has found a place in the Roman annals respecting the bold achievement of Clœlia and her female companions, who, we are assured, asked permission to bathe in the Tiber, and actually swam the stream and returned to their homes, but were brought back by the consuls to the king of Clusium’s camp, who laughed at the adventure, and rewarded Clœlia for her intrepidity,^[58] not only involves a question respecting the possibility of the enterprise, which the strongest swimmer in our own degenerate days cannot now accomplish, but also contradicts the statement of Pliny, from whose account it appears that the Tarquins, determining to break the truce between the Romans and Clusians, set upon the hostages the moment they entered the king of Clusium’s camp, and murdered them all with the exception of Valeria, who, being well mounted, fled from the general massacre to Rome.^[59] If Clœlia really swam the Tiber, and regained the city, the feat was never performed before nor since. We are compelled to give up the pretty incident, and conclude that she perished in the attempt, and that Valeria remained the sole survivor of the Roman hostages. Porsenna soothed the irritated feelings of the consul by causing a statue of Valeria to be erected to her honour, which he presented to the Roman people. This effigy, we are told, stood for many years in the Via Sacra, a monument of the courage of the consul’s daughter, and the generosity of the king.

According to the account given by the Roman and Greek historians,^[60] Porsenna renounced his alliance with the exiled king of Rome, and granted peace to the Romans upon honourable terms. We find, however, from Tacitus, that Rome opened her gates to him, preferring to receive B.C. 507. him as her lord paramount to admitting Tarquin as her king.^[61]

Porsenna, when he broke up his camp, generously left his stores for the relief of the famishing city he had reduced to such extremity, in return for which the Romans placed his statue in the Comitium. The costly regalia he sent the republic denoted his having taken it under his protection. The gift of an ivory curule chair, a golden sceptre, a jewelled crown, and a triumphal robe, was the symbol of his power; and by the reception of them Rome virtually acknowledged his sovereignty.^[62] In the after-days of the king-making republic, her tributary princes delivered up and received again at her hands the insignia of regality, as a mark of their holding their power from her.^[63]

The defeat of Porsenna by the Latins and Cumæans at Aricia,^[64] enabled the Romans to recover from a state of foreign subjection so humiliating to their national pride—a degradation they did not choose to perpetuate in their annals, otherwise than in a cursory manner.^[65] The Romans had lost all their dominions formerly won from the Etruscans and Latins, and the number of their tribes was reduced from thirty to twenty, though the census had given the amount of men capable of bearing arms at one hundred and thirty thousand, comprehending the male population between sixty and sixteen.^[66] If a false return was made, and the same expedient once more resorted to, showing a farther increase of many thousands, we may suppose that the deception was a political expedient to increase the confidence of the Roman people in their own strength. The defeated Etruscans found an asylum with the Romans, who healed the wounded and succoured the weary; which conduct pleased King Porsenna so well, that he sent back the hostages he had taken with him to Clusium.

Tarquinius finding himself at a discount at his court, retired to Tusculum, to his son-in-law, Mamilius Octavius, who ruled that small city. His sojourn at this place was followed by a combination of the thirty Latin towns in his favour. The Sabines, too, revolted, but were defeated with great loss near the Anio by the consuls, who were both honoured with a triumph. This was the first victory ever gained by the republic—the herald of the future conquest of the world.^[67] Poplicola was made consul for the fourth time, Titus Lucretius being associated with him again in that office. The Sabines, caballing with Tarquinius, and conceiving a dislike to Appius or Attus Clausus, a person of high rank and great wealth, on account of his aversion to the league against Rome, resolved upon his banishment.^[68] To this noble, who brought with him to Rome so many followers as to form a distinct tribe, called from him the Claudian, was granted the honours of the Roman franchise, and lands beyond the Anio, between Fidenæ and Ficulea, were given to him, he receiving twenty-five acres for his own estate.^[69] The defeat of the revolted Sabines was the last public action of Poplicola’s life, who expired soon B.C. 505. after his triumph. His remains were honoured with intramural interment, and his funeral expenses were paid by a grateful people.^[70]

Emboldened by the death of Poplicola, the Sabines marched to Rome, and defeated the consul Postumius.^[71] The consular army soon after gained a victory over the Sabines at Eretum, on which occasion the lesser triumph of an ovation^[72] was only granted to Postumius, on account of his late defeat.^[73] The consuls Spurius Cassius and Opiter Virginius concluded the Sabine war. Camerium, in Latium, was razed to the ground. This instance of severity did not prevent the Latin nations from combining to restore Tarquinius. A conspiracy among the slaves to seize the Capitol and burn the city, was discovered, and the conspirators were crucified. Yet who can blame the slaves, whose state was at once a blot and an anomaly in a free republic? This was a mine of mischief in Rome always ready to explode.

Tarquinius, aided by the Latins, who had reduced Fidenæ to extremity, endeavoured to effect a counter-revolution in his favour, by his promises to the slaves, debtors, and poor citizens.^[74] Publius and Marcus Tarquinius, though active conspirators, were men of weak minds. They had bad dreams, and resolved to ask a soothsayer, “if the affair they had in hand would prosper.” He probably suspected the reason of the inquiry, by giving them this startling reply—“Your project will end in your ruin. Disburden yourselves of a heavy load.” Upon which they ran to the house of the consul, Sulpicius, and confessed the plot.^[75] The consul prudently shut up his informers, and placing a guard over them, made the Senate acquainted with the conspiracy. The senate quietly dismissed the Latin ambassadors, assuring them that the Romans would neither receive back the Tarquins, nor recall their army from Fidenæ. As for the necessary steps to be taken with the foe within their gates, the senate left all to the vigilant and active Sulpicius. The consul, thus invested with full discretionary powers, sent a trusty messenger to his colleague, Mænius, to desire him to leave Fidenæ for Rome with a chosen body of soldiers, whom he was to post near the ramparts. Then he ordered the informers to gather the conspirators together in the Forum at midnight, having taken care to garrison the houses near it with the Roman knights, while the patricians and their clients secured the posts of danger. The consul Mænius arrived from Fidenæ that same night, and took up a position in the Campus Martius. When the conspirators intended to disperse at dawn, they found themselves blockaded on every side. In this hopeless situation they were tried and condemned to death by the comitia and the senate. After the sentence was given the people withdrew, and the conspirators were put to death by the soldiers. These executions were followed by expiations for having shed Roman blood, thanksgivings, and festivities. The consul Mænius was killed by a fall from his chariot, in the midst of these public rejoicings. Sulpicius quitted the consulate with a brilliant reputation. Titus Lartius took Fidenæ two years after the conspiracy.

It was during his consulship with Q. Clœlius that the contests between the patricians and plebeians first commenced;^[76] contests often to be renewed, till the rival names were finally lost in the despotic sovereignty. The condition of the plebeian was extremely hard, particularly when called upon to serve as a soldier, for at that time the Roman military had no pay. In order to provide for his wants when on duty in the army, the impoverished plebeian must sell his little patrimony, or raise money, for which he paid usurious interest. Then the debtor could be sold by the creditor for several years,^[77] and if several creditors claimed him, he could be disposed of for their general benefit, or even be cut in pieces, and his body divided among them. Each soldier must find his own arms, and thus the poorest were only armed with slings. No wonder Tarquinius worked upon a class who might be bettered by any change, B.C. 500. since nothing could be worse than their present condition. To have allowed them pay when on duty would have remedied the evil partly; but the senate only forbade any creditor to enforce his claim upon a debtor during the war. The people resolved upon creating a new magistrate called a Dictator, whose power, for a limited time, was to be superior to that of the consuls, who nominated him.^[78] Clœlius named his colleague for this new office, and then descending from the tribunal, resigned the fasces.^[79] The dictator named Cassius his general of horse. He caused a census to be taken, when it was found that Rome contained 150,700 men capable of bearing arms, out of which number he formed four armies. Titus Lartius gave a beautiful instance of generosity, when, having intercepted a body of Latin troops who were on their way to ravage the Roman lands, he succoured the sick and wounded, and dismissed the prisoners, unransomed, to their own country. A truce between Rome and the Latins followed this noble action, and Lartius, when he laid down his office at the close of the year, had the singular merit of having fulfilled its important duties without abusing its great power.

In the next consulship an agreement was made between Latium and Rome to permit the married women of either nation to return to their own countries, with their girls, before the beginning of the war.^[80] All the daughters of Rome availed themselves of the privilege, and left their sons with their husbands, but only two Latin females quitted Rome for Latium. For the Roman ladies loved their country more than their husbands, and the Latins their husbands more than their country. When the truce expired, the Latins, in conjunction with the Tarquins, made preparations for war; when a second dictatorship was resolved upon, and Postumius the consul was elevated to that dignity. He named Æbutius Elva for his general of horse. The battle of Regillus silenced the claims of the Tarquins for ever.^[81] In the ardour of a contest for the liberty of Rome on the one hand, and for its sovereignty on the other, the generals fought hand to hand as if in an individual quarrel. Victory, a dear and hard-bought victory, at length crowned the army of the republic,^[82] and the sons of Tarquinius were slain. Sextus, the cause of the revolution, when he found the day was lost, threw himself in the midst of a squadron of Roman knights, and, fighting like a lion to the last, perished there. The claims of his family expired with Sextus Tarquinius. The Romans numbered among their dead the brave Marcus Valerius, the brother of Poplicola, and the two young sons of that illustrious Roman. The Valerii had died in their attempt to recover their uncle’s body, and their fate excited great sympathy as well as admiration. Titus Herminius also fell in the defence of the republic. The dictator, Postumius, and his valiant general of horse, Æbutius, greatly distinguished themselves upon this day. Postumius took the surname of Regillensis, from the scene of his victory.^[83] The Volscians and Hernicians, two turbulent nations who were upon their way to join the Latins, offered their services to the victors. The dictator, aware of their intentions, displayed their own despatches by way of reply, upon which they broke up their camp in the night, and hastily departed. Tarquinius, throneless and sonless, wandered from city to city, till Aristodemus, tyrant of Cumæ, gave shelter to his restless head. He died at the court of this prince, after having lived upwards of ninety years.^[84] Thus gloriously closed the struggle of Rome with the exiled house of Tarquinius.^[85]

After the contest had been decided in the favour of the Roman republic, her patrician rulers no longer conciliated the plebeian order. They even resumed their grant of the public lands, of which they took exclusive possession.^[86] The ager publicus, as we have before stated, really belonged to neither party, being in fact the property of the state, a reserve according to the constitutional laws of Rome, not to be appropriated, but let on lease, or in B.C. 496. some cases sold, for the public benefit; actual occupation in any other way being illegal, for this portion was not that from which the allotments were taken. The distress occasioned by the resumption of the grant, and the prohibition which forbade the poor plebeian to better his fortunes by trade, occasioned those intestine divisions, of which, in the consulship of Appius Claudius and P. Servilius, the Volscians took advantage to march to the gates of Rome before its divided inhabitants were aware of their approach. Both the consuls armed themselves in haste, but found, upon their mustering their troops, the call disregarded by the plebeians, who declared they might as well become slaves to a foreign enemy, as to their creditors at home. In this emergency Servilius engaged in the name of the senate that their debts should be paid. Upon the faith of this promise the plebeians joined him, the Volscians were defeated, and the insult they had offered to Rome was avenged by the capture of their own capital.^[87] As the senate refused to ratify the engagement Servilius had made, he fell into disgrace with that body, who were also displeased with his having bestowed the plunder of the Volscian capital upon his soldiers without reserving any part to recruit the public treasury. For this cause he was refused the triumph his valour had merited, his own colleague, Appius Claudius, moving for his exclusion from that honour. In the comitia of the people full justice was done to Servilius, who enjoyed through their favour the triumphal entry denied him by the jealous patrician assembly. He however lost his popularity after his return from Latium, from which country he had, in conjunction with Postumius Regillensis, driven the Aruncians with great slaughter; for upon coming home he found that Appius Claudius had caused those poor debtors to be imprisoned to whom he had granted liberty upon the occasion of the Volscian invasion. Servilius, unable to redress their grievances, joined the patricians, losing thereby the esteem of one party and gaining the contempt of the other.^[88]

A remarkable revolution was effected, attended by a train of singular circumstances which led to the appointment of officers whose proper business was to protect the rights of the people against the all powerful aristocracy. This struggle commenced with the sixteenth consulship; the office being then held by A. Virginius and T. Veturius—men by no means fitted for that important position at such a crisis. For the Sabines were then in open revolt, and had engaged a Roman colony at Medullia in a league with them and the Æquians; and the Volscians had sent an embassy to Rome to demand the restitution of their lands. As the danger to the State seemed pressing, the consuls were ordered to make the usual enrolments, but the people would not enlist without their debts were first paid, so the Forum was filled with noise and confusion. The senate in this emergency created a dictatorship, and though the law had provided that one of the consuls should always fill this office, the exigency of the times, in the present instance, seemed to warrant a deviation^[89]—and they named Manius Valerius, a brother of the great Poplicola, a measure likely to please the people, as he was friendly to the popular party. Before his departure he induced the senate to promise some relief to the poor debtors; and upon the credit of the public faith, led his army against the Sabines, displaying in this campaign, at seventy years old, all the fire and vivacity of youth. His victory over the Sabines, and those gained by the consuls over the Æquians and Volscians, made the senate resolve to break their word to the plebeians now that the threatened danger had been removed by their efforts, and they wrote to the dictator to that effect. Scorning their double-dealing, Manius immediately created four hundred knights from those plebeians who had best deserved the honour. After which he disbanded his army and returned to Rome to induce the senate to keep their word with the people. That body treated his remonstrances with derision, upon which Manius Valerius threw up the dictatorship in disgust, and informed the soldiers why he did so.^[90] The victorious soldiery immediately quitted the two consuls, and marching in good order towards Rome, took up their quarters upon Mount Sacer, a hill about three miles distance from Rome. A military revolt was a new feature B.C. 495. in the records of the Republic, and it filled the citizens with fear and apprehension. The senate sent a deputation from their own body to treat with them, but the soldiers would not receive them. This conduct was the natural consequence arising from the frequent breaches of the national faith—a faith that should never falter, that should be as fixed as the laws of Heaven itself. As the plebeians were foot soldiers they were the most important part of the Roman army; for as a military author of transcendant talent has justly observed, “whenever the world has been won—it has been won by infantry.”^[91] Properly speaking the Roman soldier of this period resembled the militia of modern times—his business being to defend the frontier not to attempt conquests, but he found his own provision and received no pay; his little allotment of land being the price of his services in the field. This small grant was not increased when his family became numerous; therefore we need not wonder at his debts and difficulties multiplying with his campaigns. No persons appeared as candidates at the approaching election, so serious were the apprehensions entertained by the patricians of a civil war. The senate, therefore, named Postumus Cominius and Spurius Cassius for the consulate—two men esteemed by the Roman people, and likely to conciliate them at this crisis. It will be impossible to enter into the particulars of the revolt, or relate those debates in the senate where the unbending pride of Appius Claudius was opposed by a good and great man, Titus Lartius, who strove to give redress to the poor debtors without ruining their creditors,—because the limits of this History will not admit of it, though well worthy the attention of the reader. The deliberations ended in a new deputation from the senate, composed of Valerius (the late dictator), Menenius Agrippa, and Titus Lartius, to the camp.

They found Licinius, the leader of the revolt, ably supported by a plebeian orator, called Lucius Junius, who had assumed the name of Brutus to give his harangues more weight with the people. He was averse to any compromise, but his bold speech was answered very wisely by Menenius Agrippa in the following apologue which, though well known, must find its natural place here.^[92]

“The members of the body once mutinied,” said he, “against the belly, and accused it of lying idle and useless while they were all labouring and toiling to satisfy its appetites, but the belly only laughed at their simplicity, who knew not that though it received all the nourishment into itself, it prepared and distributed it again to all parts of the body. Just so, my fellow-citizens, stands the case between the senate and you. For necessary counsels and acts of government are productive of advantage to you all, and distribute their salutary influence amongst the whole people.” The wisdom of Menenius Agrippa made a deeper impression upon the mutinous soldiery than the fiery oration of Brutus. It has since had the honour of being quoted by St. Paul in the 12th chapter of 1st of Corinthians, who has enlarged upon it for the benefit of his early converts to Christianity.

The senate agreed to make some concessions to the distressed plebeians, who, if insolvent, were neither to be enslaved nor imprisoned. The prudent and virtuous among them were to have their debts paid by the State, if they had been incurred in the service of the country. This privilege was not to be extended to the idle and improvident. Two magistrates, called tribunes of the people, were to be chosen from among the plebeians, to examine their affairs and redress their wrongs.^[93] These magistrates were to be considered sacred both in their persons and goods; and no person was to strike or wound them under penalty of loss of life and confiscation of goods. They were to be assisted by two officers, also taken from the plebeians, called ædiles of the people. The soldiers were satisfied with these concessions: they laid down their arms, and erected a temple upon the spot, which they dedicated to Jupiter the Terrible; and, having offered their sacrifices to this divinity, entered Rome in peace. This was the first concession wrung from the aristocracy by the rising democracy of Rome, and there is reason to believe that any refusal on the part of the senate would have led to the abandonment of the city by the oppressed class. The demand of payment of debts may seem startling to modern ears, but the reader must consider that the private debts of the plebeians B.C. 493. originated in their public service for the State, and that the wars constantly maintained by the Republic made the impoverished citizen a ruined man; therefore such a precedent cannot be quoted in modern times with any propriety, unless the same state of things that led to it exists. The proper business of the tribunes was to protect the tribes from the aggression of the dominant aristocracy, and to annul any unjust sentence against the people though pronounced by the consuls themselves.^[94] Niebuhr declares “that their office, upon its first institution, principally related to the regulation of landed property.”^[95] They were called tribuni or tribe-masters, and were chosen annually by the centuries; their power extended over the whole commonwealth,^[96] and was as vast as the necessity in which it had originated. If the tribunitial office had never been used by factious and ambitious men for evil purposes, it would have been a noble and efficacious remedy for the defects existing in the Roman Constitution. Menenius Agrippa died this year very poor, and was buried at the expense of the senate. The plebeians, who had collected a sum for his funeral, gave it to the children of the impoverished patrician, that they might learn to be virtuous.^[97]

The Roman histories place the taking of Corioli in the next year.^[98] In the war maintained by the Romans against the Volscians and Antiatans, the consul Cominius was materially assisted by a young patrician named Caius Marcius. This war is said to have immediately followed the revolt of the Roman army, which led to the institution of the tribunitial magistracy.^[99] The storming of Corioli, which gained Marcius the name of Coriolanus, was succeeded by a second exploit which secured to his commander the victory over the Antiatans. The grateful consul gave his lieutenant a fine horse and offered him the tenth part of the spoil. The booty was declined by the hero, who asked for the freedom of a captive Volscian, in whom he recognised an old friend of his family.^[100] Corioli was probably ceded to the Latins, from whom, perhaps, the Volscians had taken it. In the league made in this year, it is numbered among the Latin towns that made peace with Rome, the record of which was still extant on a brazen pillar in the time of Cicero, with the name of Spurius Cassius the consul.^[101]

In the next year a famine in Rome happened, and that memorable quarrel between Coriolanus and the people which led to his exile, is said to have taken place by the ancient historians; but Rome was often visited with the calamity of death, and we may readily imagine, that in the course of thirty years a city which, at the census this year, displayed on its list one hundred and ten thousand men, might often experience a repetition of that misfortune. Indeed, the amount of the population had decreased since the last estimate, by disease and want—unless we suppose that a false return was formerly made. Rome, environed by hostile nations, without commerce or lands sufficient to feed her population, often endured great privation. The unpopularity of Coriolanus might here commence, but the events themselves that led to his exile will be given in their proper place.

In his third consulship, Spurius Cassius concluded a league with the cities of the Hernicans, upon the same plan as his celebrated treaty with the Latins.^[102] His proposal of the agrarian law,^[103] and the fatal consequences to which that act of pure and disinterested patriotism conduced, have immortalised the memory of a great man who better deserved to be held in reverence by his countrymen than the assassin of Julius Cæsar, who bore the same family name. It seems that the encroachments of the patricians upon the public land, from which they chiefly derived their estates, increased so much that Cassius, in order to put a stop to the evil, proposed the division of a part among the poor, letting the remainder at the easy rate of paying the tenth of the produce into the public treasury, the sums to be applied to the B.C. 486. payment of the plebeians while serving in the field as soldiers. His colleague Proculus Virginius, who furiously opposed these measures, though founded on justice and humanity, placed himself at the head of a party, who saw limits put to their robbery by a noble-minded individual of their own order. His character stood too high for any charge founded on truth to reach, but no man can be above false accusation and envy. His treaties with cities once subject to Rome were styled disgraceful by the patricians who, unaccustomed to peace, considered no advantage valuable that was not won by the sword. His enemies did not make any attempt against the life of the obnoxious consul till he was out of office, and they could hunt him down without danger to themselves, upon an accusation which subjected any Roman convicted of aspiring to the throne of Rome to the punishment awarded to the parricide. The consuls Quintus Fabius and Servius Cornelius scarcely entered upon their office before articles of impeachment were exhibited against their predecessor by the quæstors Cæso Fabius and Lucius Valerius. The charge alienated from Cassius the affections of the popular party: that it had such an effect must be referred to some vague idea of the resumption by the sovereign of the seven jugers of land per man, formerly distributed among the commons by Brutus, for they had been long enough under the consular government to have discovered that the aristocracy were worse masters than Tarquinius. The prosecutors of Cassius dared not mention to the commons the agrarian law—the true cause of their hatred to the idol of the people. In accusing him of taking bribes from the Latin and Hernican nations to raise them to the privileges of Roman citizens, they offended the pride of the commons, while in charging him with aspiring to the sovereignty, they enlisted their self-interest against him. So cruel and unnatural is party-spirit, that the aged father of Spurius Cassius is said to have been the man who fixed the charge of treason upon his son.^[104] The accounts respecting his death vary. According to some authors, he was hurled from the Tarpeian rock by the plebeians by whom he had been once adored, while others say he was, like the sons of Brutus, scourged and beheaded, after which his house was razed to the ground.^[105] This illustrious patriot had been three times consul, but neither his dignity of station, former estimation, nor the tears and entreaties of his sons, could soften the severity of a sentence that rendered the popular idol a popular victim. Livy, who wrote in a period when liberty was no more, speaks of him as of a criminal justly condemned,^[106] but posterity has done him justice, and ranked his bright name among the purest patriots of antiquity.^[107] Cæso Fabius, stained with the murder of Cassius, succeeded to the fasces; his colleague, Lucius Æmilius, was defeated in battle by the Volscians; but his ill-success being imputed to the misconduct of Opimia, a vestal, that unfortunate priestess was buried alive.^[108] The plebeian party soon regretted their champion Spurius Cassius. They refused to serve in the wars of the republic, whereupon the consuls caused their cottages to be destroyed, and their fruit-trees to be cut down.^[109] These oppressive measures led to a reaction. The following year Caius Mænius interposed his power as tribune of the people, to protect the estates and persons of those who refused to enlist. He was baffled, by the consuls forming their musters without the gates, beyond which the tribunitial power did not extend. Condemned to struggle for their actual existence, the commons insisted upon choosing in their centuries one of the consular magistrates—a privilege granted them, though their choice was limited, of course, to a man of the patrician order. This adjustment between the two parties did not take place without fierce contentions, and an inter-rex was called in to quiet the dissensions. A. Sempronius Atratinus was the person who held that dignity till the consular dispute was decided. The commons chose C. Julius Julus, but a Fabius was elected by the aristocracy, for one or other of that powerful family was always in office at this peculiar period of Roman history. The plebeian party were greatly elated with the small advantage they had gained; they wished to put in force the agrarian law which Cassius had carried, to his own destruction, and they determined to elect no patrician who was unfavourable B.C. 479. to a measure of such vital importance to them. The following year Spurius Furius was the choice of the people: Cæso Fabius again of the patrician party. The plebeians cheerfully followed the general they had elected, and their co-operation enabled him to make a successful campaign against the Æquians, while Fabius, being detested by his own soldiers, effected nothing against the Veientines. Marcus Fabius, the brother of the last patrician consul, was chosen by the same party, but his high spirit preserved him from the like disgrace. He, jointly with his colleague Cneius Manlius, addressed the army when about to engage the Etruscans. “You have deceived my brother,” said the indignant consul, “but you cannot deceive the gods. I will not therefore give the signal for battle unless you swear to conquer or to die on the field.” In reply, a valiant plebeian, raising his sword, swore by his faith that he and his fellow-soldiers would engage to do so.^[110] In the hard-fought day Quintus Fabius and Manlius were killed, upon which the consul Marcus, being grieved for his brother’s death, refused the triumph decreed him by the senate. Cæso Fabius who had displayed great courage in the last battle, took care also of the wounded, he and the consul Marcus receiving more invalided soldiers than any other persons in Rome. This distinguished race suddenly became extremely popular with the plebeian order, who, forgetting the murder of Cassius, united to choose Cæso for their consul. His first public act was an endeavour to put the agrarian law in operation—a measure that disgusted the party he had virtually deserted.^[111] The remembrance of the dreary tragedy, in which nine patricians had perished was then recent, and might perhaps have its influence upon Cæso’s mind, when he took the resolution of quitting Rome with his whole family, amounting to three hundred persons, all bearing the same patronymic and boasting the like illustrious descent. A large band of clients attended the consul, who determined to found a colony on the Cremera, a station very suitable for the defence of the frontier. On the ides of February, after sacrificing on the Quirinal Hill, the consul Cæso Fabius led forth his kindred, and, preceded by the fasces being still in office, departed through the Carmental Gate never to return.^[112] “This gate is described as having two arches, one for persons quitting the city, the other for those returning to it, each party keeping to that on his right hand. For five centuries after the departure of the Fabian family no Roman would leave the city by the Carmental Gate; the day on which they quitted Rome, as well as that on which they fell at Cremera, being marked in the Roman Calendar as for ever accursed.”^[113] A solitary Fabius alone remained behind to perpetuate one of the noblest families of the Republic; this was the progenitor of the great Rullianus, so celebrated afterwards in the annals of Rome. Why the consul was permitted to depart we are not informed, but as he certainly built the fortress on the Cremera, the new colony might be considered beneficial by securing the border. On the eighteenth of Quinctilis (July) the fall of the Fabii took place, of which two different accounts are given. One states that the whole family were on their way to Rome unarmed, to offer up their sacrifices in the chapel of their house, when they were suddenly set upon by an Etruscan army, and treacherously slain by the darts of men who dared not encounter them hand to hand. That of Livy charges the Fabii with following some herds of cattle belonging to the Etruscans too far, and falling into the snare laid for them by a wily enemy. The catastrophe was the same in effect, though the cause might be different, and whether as guardians of the frontier, or the founders of a new military colony, the whole race with the exception of one person perished near Cremera. Suspicion was busy with the name of T. Menenius the consul, who, being encamped within four miles of the place, it was thought might have prevented or at least avenged this calamity. Niebuhr supposes that the Fabii fell by the hands of Romans.^[114] We must remember, however, that Menenius lost his camp and a battle, and that being routed, he and his army fled to Rome in great disorder, followed by the Veientines, who pursued him to the very gates, taking possession of Mount Janiculum to the consternation of the citizens. This defeat seems to justify him from a charge so dark and B.C. 476. treasonable, since the same want of military skill that led to such a disaster might also prevent him from succouring the Fabii. The consul Horatius returned from his Volscian campaign in time to defeat the enemy at the gate Collina; but the honour of giving these intruders on their native soil a complete overthrow was reserved for the new consuls, A. Virginius and Spurius Servilius, who assured the people who were threatened with famine that they must fight or perish by dearth. A glorious victory was the result of this necessity; but the Romans had bought it with such a loss of human life, that the senate refused to grant the consuls a triumph. During this consulship Menenius was fined for his imputed desertion of the Fabian family: the sum, though little more than six pounds of British money, involved him in difficulties, and he died of grief some days after the fine had been inflicted.^[115] “He had inherited,” it was said, “nothing but his father’s poverty.”

Spurius Servilius was cited by two of the tribunes in the consulship of P. Valerius and C. Nautius, for having gained the late victory over the Etruscans at a great sacrifice of life. He had also been guilty of storming the intrenchments of the enemy’s camp with a rash temerity that had led to the slaughter of many soldiers.^[116] The reader will remember that Rome was exposed to the double peril of war and famine from the Etruscan army, from which this brave consul, in conjunction with Virginius, had delivered them.

To this accusation Spurius Servilius nobly replied, “If I am summoned, Romans, to give an account of the late war, I am ready to do so; but if I am already sentenced and condemned, here is my body; do with it what you please.” The people, won by the fearless courage of the accused, bade him speak boldly, and certainly Servilius fully availed himself of this permission, for he not only justified his rash bravery in the defence of his country (his colleague Virginius bearing witness to its necessity, as well as imputing the victory to it,) but accused the tribunes of having hunted Menenius to death, although the very office they held was the fruit of the patriotism of Menenius Agrippa his father. He was triumphantly cleared, and the part he took in the great victory won by the consul Valerius added fresh laurels to his military renown.^[117]

We find Rome visited by a grievous and devastating famine,^[118] which at that time the indigent classes considered a conspiracy of the rich to starve them—a mistake common to the uneducated in every country and age during such visitations, as it seldom occurs to the mind of the populace that an affluent man does not actually consume more bread than a poor one. The tribunes of the people inflamed them by following up the erroneous idea by their seditious orations. The senate therefore called an assembly of the Commons to convince them that it was a scarcity of corn, not the machinations of the patrician order, that caused their miserable distress.

The senate also sent commissioners to Sicily to furnish the discontented and starving population with food.^[119] These agents soon returned with a seasonable supply, half of which had been purchased on commission, the rest being the generous gift of the king of Syracuse, who, compassionating the state of the Roman people, sent them a quantity of wheat from his own granaries.^[120] Livy does not mention the name or city of this merciful monarch; he calls him “the king of the Greeks,” without any other designation.^[121] The debates respecting this corn led to that breach between Coriolanus and the commons which occasioned his exile, and afterwards threatened the destruction of Rome. If we suppose this hero was above twenty when he took Corioli from the Volscians,^[122] we shall find him to be about the requisite age for legally holding the fasces when he experienced that slight from the commons which, at a time of life when the judgment is generally mature, he endeavoured to revenge, on this occasion. Coriolanus who had offered himself as a candidate for the last consulship, for which he canvassed B.C. 475. before the vacancy occurred, had obtained the promises of the plebeian votes, his fine person and the exhibition of his scars, which it was then the fashion to display on such occasions, having favourably impressed the popular mind. He had just before this made an expedition against Antium with great success, and had bestowed the corn and plunder upon those who had volunteered with him, keeping nothing for himself. This probably had induced the plebeians to promise him their votes, though when the time came, they had changed their views, and he found himself deserted by all his fickle friends. This insult was fresh in his memory when the supplies of corn were brought into the city, and when it was proposed in the senate to sell the purchased grain at a low price, but to distribute the King of Syracuse’s generous gift gratuitously, he made in the very hearing of the tribunes of the people an intemperate and unfeeling speech, in which he demanded great concessions from the poor citizens in return for the corn, and among other things, insisted that the tribuneship should be given up, concluding with the emphatic remark to the senate “that the seditious being now in their power, they might make their own conditions with them.”^[123] Before Coriolanus quitted the senate he received a summons from the tribunes to answer before the people for his insulting speech. He returned a haughty refusal. Then the tribunes and a strong body of plebeians, attended by the ædiles, made an attempt to seize upon the person of the obnoxious patrician. They were driven back by those young senators who admired the valour of Coriolanus, and copied his faults. The Tribunes immediately sentenced the rash speaker to be hurled from the Tarpeian rock. The consul vainly endeavouring to mitigate the penalty by calling the offensive oration “a few hasty words rashly and inconsiderately spoken.” Coriolanus did not choose to avail himself of the friendly offices of the consular magistrate: far from softening in his defence the meaning of his speech, he stood to his words with the daring integrity and firmness which marked his unbending character,—avowing them openly in the hearing of an offended and infuriated people.^[124] An attempt was then made to carry the sentence into immediate execution, upon which the young patricians gathered round their leader and successfully defended his person, and Coriolanus with his friends withdrew in safety.

Brutus, a more politic, but not less vindictive, enemy than Licinius to Coriolanus, assured that tribune “that he had gone too far, for he had seen many among that crowd start at the idea of putting a brave man to such a disgraceful death.” He therefore advised Licinius to cite Coriolanus to take his trial before the people, “but to collect their votes by tribes and not by centuries—a measure which would defeat any attempt on the part of the patricians to pervert justice.” By the advice of the consul, Valerius, Coriolanus agreed to submit to this course, and a decree was obtained from the senate for that purpose.^[125] When the day came the charges at first exhibited against him only included tyranny and hatred to the people.^[126] Coriolanus rose with dignity to repel this sweeping charge. He recited his services at large, and opening his bosom displayed his scars, “many of which,” he said, “had been gained by his endeavours to save his fellow-citizens from the swords of their foes.” He called upon some of these by name to attest the truth of his assertions. The men thus cited came eagerly forward, and besought the people not to destroy their preserver, since they would rather die in his stead than aid his condemnation. These were plebeians, and the fickle crowd were moved even to tears by their appeal in Coriolanus’ favour.^[127] The accused took advantage of this revulsion of feeling, and once more drawing aside the folds of his robe, remarked that it was to save those worthy citizens he had risked his life; adding, “Can you, my countrymen, believe or be persuaded that an enemy of the people in a period of peace, would expose his own life to save them in a time of war.” Many of the plebeians cried out in answer to this defence, “That they ought to acquit such a good citizen;” and the tribunes, fearful of this reaction, instantly exhibited another charge. Decius, one of them, undertaking to change once more the popular feeling against the accused.^[128] B.C. 475. He spoke of the affair of Antium—of Coriolanus having reserved no part of the money and spoil for the public use, and of having given to the friends, who followed him, the people’s due. He, Decius, called this tyranny, “People of Rome you know that by our laws this booty ought to have been sold and the money put into the hands of a quæstor, and paid into the public treasury. I call this a proof of tyranny. What was his dividing the spoil among his friends, but making himself creatures and providing himself guards at the public expense? In disposing of this booty he violated the laws: let him answer to this charge alone.” To this unexpected accusation Coriolanus could not reply. His silence turned once more the current of popular feeling against him; and twelve of the twenty-one tribes, voted for his perpetual banishment. He withdrew to his house, a legally expatriated man.^[129] Like many other men of stern character, the unpopular Roman, disliked and traduced abroad, was tenderly beloved at home. He had been brought up solely by his mother, Volumnia, a noble Roman matron, who had devoted her youth to the careful education of her orphan child, whose heroic qualities had excited her maternal pride as well as her affection—she lived but for her son. His filial piety for her rose to veneration. His wife, Veturia, regarded him with feelings that almost amounted to idolatry. To these domestic ties—to that beloved hearth the reported fiat of the people had carried the deepest affliction. Even the powerful mind of Volumnia sank beneath the astounding intelligence; and when Coriolanus returned to his house, he found his mother and his wife bathed in tears; he took a brief leave of his family, exhorting them to moderate their affliction, and to bear their reverses with constancy. The patricians and many of the senators attended him to the gates of the city, but he took no leave of them, considering himself deserted by his own order. Without breaking his ominous silence, he passed through the gates of Rome. It was the stillness preceding the storm.^[130]

The following night the servants of Attius Tullius, while preparing the evening meal, were startled by the entrance of a man of noble presence, who, approaching the hearth, veiled his face with his mantle and seated himself upon that sacred place, silently, claiming the protection of the household-gods.^[131] Tullius, summoned by his slaves, entered his house and requested his mysterious guest to unveil his face and declare the cause of his coming. The suppliant instantly displayed his features to the Volscian enemy whom he had often defeated in battle. “I am Caius Marcius,” he replied, “a Roman driven into exile by my ungrateful countrymen, and I come to thy household-gods not as a suppliant for life, but for vengeance. If thy republic needs my service, it lies in their power to accept my sword and employ it against our common enemy the Romans. If not, it is at least in thine, to slay an old enemy of thy people.” “Rise up, Marcius,” replied Tullius, extending his right hand to the Roman exile; “you have made an inestimable gift to the republic in your person.”^[132] Livy adds to this reply, that Attius Tullius said to himself, “Caius who used to fight against us, is now on our side; we will make war again with the Romans;” but the Volscians were afraid. This dread on the part of the warlike people with whom the banished Coriolanus had taken refuge was the cause of the long interval that really occurred between his exile from Rome and his revengeful infraction of the frontier, which did not occur till B.C. 459, seventeen years after this period.^[133]

The blockade of Veii by the consuls Manlius and Furius the following year occasioned a truce with that people for forty years. They were impeached^[134] as soon as they gave up the fasces to L. Æmilius and Vopiscus Julius, for not dividing the conquered lands, such being the method adopted by the tribunes of the people, in order to carry into effect the agrarian law of Spurius Cassius. The consuls advised the aspirants to the consulship to decline an B.C. 478. honour always followed by a vexatious prosecution, and cited the banishment of Coriolanus, and the broken heart of Menenius as a warning to all ambitious patricians. Their counsel made a profound impression upon the young men of that order. Upon the day of trial Genucius, the accusing tribune, did not appear against the accused, and upon being cited, it was discovered that he had himself been summoned to a higher tribunal.^[135] His sudden death—for Genucius had been found dead in his bed—alarmed his fellow tribunes, for, however sacred the privileges might be which secured their persons from public outrage, the fact showed that they might yet become victims to private revenge.^[136] The warning example was not lost upon them; they became more guarded in their attacks upon the patrician body,^[137] and the prosecution of Manlius and Furius was entirely dropped. Although the tribunes abandoned for a time the agrarian law, a great disturbance happened upon making the new enrolments, when a young centurion named Publilius Volero refusing to serve as a common soldier, was rescued by the people from the scourging the consuls had ordered him. A tumult followed Volero’s appeal to the people, in which the consuls took refuge in the senate-house from the popular fury. As the attempt of the magistrates to flog a free citizen of Rome was an infringement of the Lex Valeria, they were unable legally to justify their attack upon Volero. He, from that moment, became a great favourite with the plebeians.^[138] He did not prosecute his persecutors when he became a popular tribune and they were out of office, for he aimed at their power, not at their persons, and struck a decisive blow to that, by proposing that at the election of tribunes, the votes should be taken by tribes and not by curiæ (but in the comitia tributa, not in the comitia curiata). This occasioned great divisions in the following consulship, the people resolving to continue Volero in the tribuneship another year, to carry a measure likely to promote their interest. The senate immediately resolved to counteract Volero’s measures, by nominating Appius Claudius to the new consulship, in conjunction with T. Quinctius.^[139] Rome then became the theatre of a contest that threatened to end in a civil war. Volero proposed his new law respecting tribunitial election, with the amendment, that the ædiles should also be chosen by the votes of the tribes. To stop the violent opposition made by Appius Claudius, Laetorius, another tribune, ordered his viator to turn out some young patricians who supported the obnoxious consul. Claudius declared that the plebeian magistrate had no legal right to do this; that the formula “Depart, Romans, if you please,” was the customary way of dismissing an assembly, and gave no power to any magistracy to expel a free Roman citizen.^[140] The tribune Laetorius made no other reply than sending his viator to arrest Claudius. The proud consul ordered his lictor to arrest him, and the scene that followed would have ended in bloodshed if Quinctius, the other consul, had not pacified the people, while the friends of Claudius appeased him. The law was passed in the senate,^[141] but not till the plebeians had taken possession of the Capitol, and were in open revolt. Volero, who was no match in eloquence or learning to his patrician adversary, had said the day before this contest took place, “Romans, I am not so ready at speaking as doing; come to-morrow, and I will get the law passed, or die upon the spot before you.”^[142] This speech was in the very best style of oratory.

The invasion of the Æquians and the Volscians called the consuls into the field. To Appius Claudius was entrusted the charge of defeating the warlike Volscians, but he was deserted in the field by his own men, and had the mortification of being forced by the pressure of the fugitives to join in the general flight. He took a fearful vengeance upon the instigators of this act of national disgrace, by scourging and beheading the guilty officers, and decimating the private soldiers; but his mind was deeply wounded; for when he was compelled to appear before his citizens as a defeated general, the defection of his troops had given him a severer punishment than that he had inflicted. Quinctius, dearly beloved by his soldiers, had driven out the Æquians without striking a blow. He brought home with him more B.C. 475. spoil than had ever before been won, and had the satisfaction of hearing his soldiers say, “That the senate had given them a father in Quinctius, but a despot to the troops of Appius.”

The agrarian law and its train of disputes was again brought forward in the consulate of L. Valerius and Tib. Æmilius. It must have passed, as both the consuls favoured it, but for the vehement opposition of Appius Claudius—“Æmilius, declaring for it from revenge, because the senate had formerly refused him a triumph, and Valerius, to atone for having caused the death of Cassius, who first proposed the law.”^[143] Appius Claudius had braved the storm, and the popular tempest now fell upon him. He was accused of injuring the interests of the people in the senate, which was true, and of having been defeated with great slaughter in the field, which was not his own fault; his offering violence to the sacred person of a tribune forming also a part of his indictment. “At the bar of the people he maintained the same undaunted and courageous demeanour that had ever distinguished his character.”^[144] The plebeians astonished, and even dismayed by his intrepidity, deferred his trial to another day. Appius Claudius destroyed himself before the morning, either because he anticipated his sentence, or in reality wanted moral courage to face the people once more. His son, instead of attending his father on his trial, brought his remains into the forum, and commenced speaking his funeral oration. The tribunes interrupted him, but the people interfered, and, strange to say, heard his praises with pleasure. Perhaps the filial piety of the son found its way to the hearts of a class always more influenced by appeals addressed to its feelings than to its judgment. Appius Claudius had been premature in his act of self-destruction; it is probable that some admiration was mingled by the people even in the hatred they bore him. They attended his obsequies in crowds, but his suicidal act was concealed by his relations, because the Roman law condemned suicide, and forbade the rites of sepulture to those who committed it.

The consulate of Tiberius Æmilius and Q. Fabius threatened to revive the agrarian law dispute. However, Fabius proposed placing a Roman colony in Antium, which had been depopulated by war. The poorest Romans were unwilling to gain lands at a distance from Rome, and the commissioners were obliged to call in foreigners to carry out the measure. The former inhabitants made a vain attempt to recover their lands. A calamity more awful than war devastated the city during the consulate of P. Servilius Priscus and L. Æbutius, when the plague raged with a degree of violence hitherto unknown at Rome. Both the consuls became its victims, and the living were unable to bury the dead.^[145] At this time of national distress, the Æquians and Volscians combined to besiege Rome. The ædiles, the only public magistrates left to care for the republic, took the proper steps for defending the death-stricken metropolis.^[146] All that were capable of bearing arms assumed them, and even the senators stood as sentinels upon the thinly-guarded walls. The enemy, alarmed at the pestilence, broke up the siege in haste, and retreated to Tusculum, for the conquest of Rome seemed to threaten them with certain death. Rome having lost her consuls, was governed by inter-reges till the year was out. The new consular magistrates gave the Æquians and Volscians a dreadful overthrow, and delivered the republic from their continual encroachments upon her territories.

During the absence of the consuls, Terentius Arsa endeavoured to bring about the establishment of fixed laws for the better administration of justice, from which no magistrate could deviate.^[147] This wise proposition was opposed very violently in the senate by Q. Fabius. We must remember that he was nephew to those brothers who had borne the consular purple for several years in succession, and who enjoyed an absolute power from the closeness of their family union. They had all perished in war, but their love of unrestricted government had survived in this last scion of their ambitious house, who set himself against a wise and beneficial regulation that would have tended to quiet the minds of the people.

P. Volumnius and S. Sulpicius came into office when Terentius’ law was again to be proposed, which he had withdrawn, through fear of ill consequences, soon after he B.C. 475. had brought it before the senate. Many portents alarmed the superstitious Romans at this period of public discord. A cow made an oration,^[148] though nobody attended to it sufficiently to record whether she spoke for the new law, but as the patricians were the persons who heard her, her eloquence probably was exerted against it. The law proposed in the comitia was to this effect: “That the people should, in lawful comitia, depute ten individuals, venerable for age and prudence, whose sole ambition was true glory, to form a body of laws for the regulation of public and private affairs. That these laws, when compiled, should be proposed in an assembly of the people, and when approved and enacted by them, should be fixed up in the forum, that every man might know what were his own rights, and what the rights of the annual magistrates.”^[149] There is certainly only one fault in the wording of this celebrated bill, if it be proper to call it so, the omission of the senate to whose final fiat it ought to have been referred, for all men are equally interested in the administration of justice; therefore the national council was most improperly left out. S. Quinctius Cæso, one of the bravest young patrician senators, the son of that Quinctius Cincinnatus afterwards so renowned in the annals of the republic, opposed the bill with such violence, that he was marked out for a victim by the plebeian party. At their instigation, one Volscius stood forth and accused the patrician with having murdered a brother of his in a drunken frolic. He justified himself for not having brought this charge before, because it was in the time of the plague, when both the consuls lay dead. Although no witnesses were produced to speak to the fact, the populace would have slain Cæso upon the spot if the consuls had not interfered. By the intercession of Cincinnatus, the father, and Titus Quinctius, the uncle of the accused, bail was taken for the appearance of the young man at his trial on a future day.^[150]

Cæso, however, considering himself prejudged, fled into Etruria, and thus forfeited his recognisances. Unfortunately for his honour, this was the first instance in which bail was offered and accepted in the annals of the republic. Quinctius Cincinnatus would not permit the sureties who had aided his son to suffer loss for him. He sold his patrimony to redeem the family honour, and retired to a poor cottage on the other side of the Tiber, cultivating for his subsistence, with his own hands, the only farm his son’s breach of faith had left him.^[151]

The young nobility during the consulate of C. Claudius and P. Valerius behaved very condescendingly to the plebeians, who were greatly conciliated by their obliging behaviour. The tribunes beheld this friendly feeling between the commons and nobles with great displeasure. They took some unwarrantable steps to break the amicable terms existing between them by pretending to discover a plot against the liberty of the people, of which they made Quinctius Cæso the hero; forging a letter as a proof that their assertions were based on truth. The consul Claudius by the plain questions of “Who wrote it? Where did it come from?” refuted the story, which was then treated with the contempt it deserved. But though no conspiracy at this time existed within the walls of the city, a daring plan to surprise Rome was laid by a Sabine chief named Appius Herdonius,^[152] who, arming his clients and dependents, and being joined by a body of outlaws and slaves came down the Tiber in a fleet of boats and seized upon the Capitol, putting to death all within its walls, with the exception of two or three who escaped into the Forum, where they cried out “Arm! arm! the enemy are within our gates.” The fact that four thousand men were in Rome, was not discovered till the day dawned, for the patricians believed that the slaves were the authors of all the confusion, tumult, and bloodshed of the night. From the height of the Capitol, Herdonius uttered these words, “Liberty to the slaves; I come to help the miserable and the oppressed, and to restore the exiles to their country. If the people of Rome will not aid me, I will call in the Æquians and Volscians to my aid.”^[153] The tribunes treated the threatened danger as some device to prevent the celebrated Terentilian bill from passing; they assembled the people, not for the defence of the city, but B.C. 475. for legislation. The authority of the consul, Valerius, had no weight with them, nor did the gallantry of his behaviour inspire them with any ardour. His threats of punishing them as traitors to their country if they were disobedient to his commands, and refused to arm and follow him, alone preventing them from taking advantage of the present crisis. Night found Herdonius still master of the Capitol, and at dawn the sentinels announced that a large body of men were approaching the city. The prospect of war without and within the walls increased the alarm of the patricians; a nearer approach showed the army to be friends come to aid the Romans.^[154] Mamilius, the chief magistrate, and the citizens of Tusculum, hearing of the distressed situation of the Romans, had resolved to aid their ally without being summoned. They marched into the Forum, and joined Valerius, who having at length prevailed upon the plebeians to enlist, was marshalling them in order of battle when the auxiliaries arrived. He led them up to the very portico in gallant style, when he received a mortal wound and fell. His nephews died in defending him, covering with their own bodies the fallen consul, and receiving their death wounds in endeavouring to rescue him.^[155] Upon Volumnius devolved the honourable task of commanding the army and recovering the remains of the consul. The Capitol was not regained till night, when the deaths of the Roman consul and that of Herdonius became known. The invaders were slaughtered without mercy, and the temple-fortress was solemnly purified. A public funeral was voted to Publius Valerius, the fund being increased by private contributions. The poor plebeians threw farthings into his house to augment the sum—a touching proof of their poverty and respect for the memory of a hero who had fallen in defending his country.^[156] The generous Tusculans received the thanks of the senate and people of Rome for their valuable assistance. The late consul, Valerius, had promised the plebeians that the Terentilian bill should be passed before his consulate was over. Death had prevented him from performing his promise or breaking his word. The people called upon Claudius to clear the memory of his colleague from reproach by fulfilling the vow he had made. This the consul would not do, but he nominated L. Quinctius Cincinnatus to the vacant office, well knowing that the tribunes would scarcely gain their point with the father of the exiled Cæso. The new magistrate carried matters with a high hand, both with the senate and people. He alarmed the tribunes and commons by talking of a winter campaign; a measure that effectually kept them quiet till the end of his consulship. The senate wished to nominate him again for the office, a measure he sternly forbade as being unlawful, remarking, “That if the senate did not respect their own decrees, they need not be surprised at the disregard of the plebeians.”^[157] The Romans did not forget the assistance so generously afforded them by the Tusculans, for they compelled the Æquians to break up the siege of their city, who had invested it some months after the deliverance of the Capitol. The Æquians who had won the citadel were compelled to pass under the yoke, and were annihilated on their march home by the consul Fabius. The Æquians and Volscians after the invasion of their territories by two consular armies were glad to obtain from their victorious enemies a truce of ten years. We have now arrived at that part of the Roman history when the long-delayed revenge of Coriolanus visited the people who had exiled him.^[158] B.C. 475. It appears that after the former expedition of Coriolanus against the Antiatans, which was of a private nature, Antium itself fell into the hands of the Romans, who carried off the inhabitants and proposed to replace them by a colony from Rome; but the poor citizens refusing to profit by the occasion, a Latin one was formed there. This year the Volscians dispersed the colony and won Antium, and hence we may date the employment of Coriolanus by that active and warlike nation, and the capture of some of those thirty Latin towns which, in B.C. 493, had made a league with the Romans. The reverses suffered by the Volscians in the following year compelled them to sue for peace, and if the accounts of the re-celebration of the great games be true, they must have occurred immediately after this new league between the Romans and the Volscians, and not in the year after the consulate of Sulpicius and Lartius, when the incident occurred which occasioned them to take place again; this was the scourging of a slave during the solemnity, which was supposed to have been displeasing to Jupiter.^[159]

The great games were celebrated with much pomp, and it was during this second celebration that the machinations of Attius Tullius occasioned the new league to be broken between the Romans and his countrymen. This chief and his followers were present at the games; but before their commencement, he privately recommended the consul to dismiss his Volscian retinue before sunset, alleging, as his reason for the request, some fear on his part lest his people should fall out with the Romans as the Sabines had formerly done. The consul sent the crier round to give due notice of this unusual regulation; but the measure gave great displeasure to the Volscians, who considered it as a personal affront. Their departure in a rage was anticipated by their wily leader, who met them, on their way home over the Alban Hills, by the well-head of the water of Ferentina, a place in which the Latins had been anciently accustomed to assemble for council. He asked the reason of their sudden departure from Rome, and upon being informed, led them from the road to the grassy margin of the stream, where he inflamed their minds by an artful oration, in which he pronounced their exclusion from the city at that early hour to be equivalent to a declaration of hostility. “They have made war upon us; see to it if ye be men that they may rue their deed.” The Volscians eagerly listened to his words, and all their tribes combined together to raise an army, and to choose Attius Tullius and Caius Marcius the Roman, for their leaders.^[160] Such is in substance the account given by Livy of the campaign, in which Coriolanus was about to lead a hostile host against his country, no longer confining his arms to attacking her allies, from whom he had already taken Circeum, Satricum, Longulum, Polusca, and Corioli.^[161] The present campaign was opened by the conquest of Lavinium; then followed the capture of Corbio, Vitellium, Trebia, Lavici, and Pedum, which last-named place closed the career of conquest ascribed to the united chiefs, and brought them in the vicinity of Rome.^[162] The spot selected for their encampment was the Cluilian dyke, about four miles from the city, which having expelled one of her bravest sons many years before, beheld him return with his victorious arms and a heart filled with the burning hatred which those years of exile had only served to embitter and aggravate. While he wreaked his vengeance upon the plebeian order, to whom he ascribed his wrongs, Attius Tullius ravaged in his turn the lands of the patricians;^[163] thus the whole Roman people felt the dreadful effect of the combination between the ambition of the Volscian leader and the revenge of Coriolanus. They had been visited with repeated famines and plagues; but these direful evils, and others induced by continual strife among themselves, were aggravated by the presence of an army in their territory led by a man whose courage and talents for war were employed against his native land. If he had been wronged by the Commons, we must acknowledge that his sins against them had been of a more cruel and aggravated nature; for he had tried to impose hard and illegal conditions upon them with the corn, which was a free and generous gift to the Romans from a foreign B.C. 475. power. The terror of the poor citizens, however, induced them to clamour for peace, and their cries compelled the senate to send five eminent men of their own order to propose terms to Coriolanus.

Two personal friends of Coriolanus, Minucius and Cominius, formed a part of the deputation despatched to the Volscian general.^[164] They entreated him to return to Rome, where the arms of the republic should be opened to receive him as her son and citizen once more. This he haughtily declined, reciting his wrongs with terrible minuteness. On the part of the Volscians, he proposed confining Rome entirely to her ancient limits, and demanded for his adopted country the same rights and privileges the Romans had granted to the Latins: they were also required to withdraw their colonies. He gave them thirty days to consider these proposals. To his former friends his tone was less haughty. They had afforded protection to his family, and he thanked them with warmth and emotion for that proof of generous regard. It was for their sakes alone he granted a truce. The answer of the senate was dignified and concise: “Rome was not accustomed to receive laws from an enemy sword in hand. When the Volscian army was withdrawn from the vicinity of Rome, they would treat with its leader.”^[165] Coriolanus sternly gave them three days longer for consideration. It is probable that in granting this time, he entertained some fears for his family, or perhaps he still hesitated respecting the performance of his threatened vengeance.

No consular army ventured to meet him in the field—for his terrible renown had left him without an opponent—the consuls made active preparations for the defence of the city; the men were engaged on the ramparts; the women were at prayer in the temples. A deputation of priests was sent by the senate to Coriolanus: he received its members with respect, but gave the same reply he had already returned the senate. At this momentous crisis, while a number of noble Roman ladies were engaged in a solemn act of devotion in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the idea of softening the anger of Coriolanus through the influence of his own family occurred to Valeria, a descendant of the great Poplicola. Inspired with the hope of inducing Volumnia, the mother, and Veturia, the wife of Coriolanus, to become suppliants to their son and husband, Valeria imparted her design to her companions, and proceeded with them to Volumnia’s house, which was emphatically styled by its aged mistress “a house of sorrow.”^[166] “It is not by the sword or strength of arm that we are to prevail, for these do not belong to our sex,” was the remark with which Valeria had silenced the objections raised by her friends; “let us rather engage the venerable mother of Coriolanus to intercede for our country; stern as he is, he will relent when he sees her who gave him birth a weeping suppliant at his feet.” Nothing can be more beautifully and touchingly feminine than this speech, though the courage of a Roman—the lofty moral courage that marked the female character of that period was fully displayed in the noble resolution of Valeria.^[167] Volumnia received the female deputation courteously, but she did not give Valeria much hope of success. No intercourse, she said, had taken place between the exile and his family since their separation. The parting words of Coriolanus seemed to have renounced them with Rome. “Mother, you have no longer a son. Your country has deprived you of the prop which should have supported your old age. Nor to you, Veturia, can Caius Marcius henceforth be a husband. Mayst thou be more fortunate with another man. My children, you have lost your father.”^[168] It seems strange that the wife and mother of the expatriated hero did not share his exile, but the tie which bound the Roman matron to her country was stronger than those affecting relations—a fact often attested in the annals of Rome. Volumnia, after reciting the last words of her son, assured Valeria “that he seemed to include his own family in the same vindictive hatred he felt for Rome,” but she finally consented to intercede with him for her country. The Consuls accepted the offered mediation of the ladies with joy, and Volumnia and Veturia, attended by the B.C. 475. children of Coriolanus, were accompanied to his camp by the vestal virgins, and the noblest women of Rome, headed by the high-spirited Valeria, the author of the female mission.^[169]

Coriolanus, from his lofty tribunal, discerned the long procession of his country-women, and rightly conjectured that his wife and mother were included in it. He armed himself to meet this unexpected trial, by concealing his emotion under the appearance of inflexibility of purpose, and resolved to receive them with indifference. He knew not his own heart; Valeria had fathomed the depth of its undying tenderness when she once more surrounded him with these holy domestic ties, and brought his noble but erring mind within their sacred influence.^[170] Before his family could reach his tribunal, the stern Roman, forgetful of his iron resolution, had descended from his seat to press them in his arms with the affection due to his mother, wife, and children.^[171] Volumnia repulsed his offered embrace, by asking him “whether she beheld in him an enemy or a son, and if he regarded her as his captive or his mother?” His silence emboldened her to plead for his country, she reminding him “that if she had never given him birth, Rome would have remained free from the disgrace and danger he had brought upon his native city. She was too old to bear his shame and her misery, but besought him to look upon his wife and children, whom he was dooming to death or bondage by his rash enterprise.” He listened silently to these reproaches, but related what had befallen him since they parted, and the generous reception he had received from the Volscians, finally “entreating his family to remain with him.” Volumnia indignantly rejected the proposition, and, falling at his feet, “bade him march forward to Rome over her prostrate form, and to consummate his fierce, ungenerous revenge by the destruction of his mother as well as his native city.”^[172] The tears and cries of the noble ladies, upon hearing the intrepid address of Volumnia, the caresses of his wife and children, and the suppliant posture of his revered parent, softened the soul of the apostate Roman, who suddenly uttered these pathetic words: “O mother! what hast thou done to me?” but vehemently wringing her hand as he raised her up, he said, “Mother, thine is the victory, a happy victory for Rome and thee, but shame and ruin for thy son.”^[173] Then falling on her neck and once more embracing her and his family, he sent them back to Rome with certain conditions, upon the performance of which he engaged to grant a truce.^[174] The peace made on the part of the Volscians by Coriolanus with his own countrymen, probably confirmed them in the possession of the Latin towns, and if the Volscian chiefs stood round the tribunal and were witnesses of the affecting scene between the expatriated Roman and his family, we may suppose this truce of a year must have offered advantageous terms for them, or they would not have consented to the measure.^[175] His distribution among the Volscians of the plunder gained in the expedition, was followed by his disbanding the army and returning to Antium. It appears that Attius Tullius, and the soldiers under his command, made a second inroad into Latium, but that it proved unfortunate, for the Æquians, who were in alliance with the Volscians, did not choose to obey him. A battle was the result of the dispute, in which these two predatory nations turned their arms upon each other, to the great joy of the Romans.^[176] The death of Coriolanus has been variously related. Livy relates, “that he lived and died among the Volscians, and that when very old, and deprived by his banishment of the society of his wife and children, he was accustomed to say, ‘that in old age, he knew the full bitterness of exile.’ ”^[177] This account may be perfectly true, if we suppose with Niebuhr, that his murder, as described by Plutarch and Dionysius,^[178] did not take place till some years after his celebrated expedition B.C. 475. against Rome.^[179] His trial for an act in which filial affection had influenced him more than the interests of his adopted country, might not be instituted against the strong warrior but the feeble and aged man. The jealousy of Attius Tullius, or Tullius Aufidius, for Plutarch calls him by the latter name, might not have been able to effect the destruction of his rival at so early a period, nor is the assertion of Cicero,^[180] that he killed himself, at all incompatible with that generally received, since men of rank in heathen nations considered death from their own hand, as less disgraceful than the axe of the executioner. The poetical character of this interesting portion of early Roman history has caused it to be doubted. But there is no better reason for excluding the touching history of Coriolanus than its forming a most beautiful episode in an epic poem: “The state of Latin literature does not warrant such a conclusion, for the wars of the republic, upon which their existence as a people actually depended, fixed the popular idea upon one subject—the maintenance of the state by arms—an idea not favourable to flights of imagination. If a rude epic of the kind existed at all, it was founded upon a fact. The composition of a tale at such a period involves far more difficulties than belief in a portion of history quoted by the Roman historians, the chronology of which has been misplaced.”^[181] The grateful senate and people of Rome commemorated the deliverance of Rome from the Volscian army by the dedication of a temple “to the Fortune of Women,” of which Valeria became the priestess.^[182] Tullius, according to some historians, perished in a battle fought the following year, between the Volscians, Æquians, and the Romans.^[183] If this is mis-dated, either the death of Coriolanus happened in the order in which Plutarch and Dionysius placed it, immediately after his return from his expedition against Rome,^[184] or some other person bearing the same name was guilty of his murder. Plutarch ascribes the death of Coriolanus to a tumult raised in the Volscian senate by Tullius Aufidius, to whom, perhaps, he ascribed, in the early part of the biography, the acts of a person whose surname resembled his prenomen.^[185] National pride may, however, have given a victory to the Romans, which they did not win, that they might appear to posterity as the avenger of a man “whose worst fault had left him Roman still.”

Internal dissensions always followed peace in the divided commonwealth. An invasive war seldom failed to rouse the intense nationality of the Roman people, but when the danger was past, the struggle was once more renewed between the patrician and plebeian orders, never to subside till the rising middle class had wrung its civic freedom from the aristocratic oligarchy.

The tribune Virginius again brought forward the Terentilian law, which he made a vigorous attempt to put in operation, giving, however, some weeks to the magistrates to reconsider the question.^[1] While this measure was in deliberation, the Æquians and Sabines invaded the lands of the people of Lavici and Tusculum, which they plundered, finally encamping on Mount Algidus, to the great annoyance of the Romans, with whom the Lavicans and Tusculans were in alliance.^[2] Here again we meet with one of the beautiful poetic lays in which ancient Rome was wont to commemorate wise counsels and heroic deeds. Of this episode of Fabius or Ennius, Livy availed himself, and the virtuous poverty of Cincinnatus has become “familiar to us as household words.” The Roman deputation to the Æquians found their leader, Gracchus Clœlius,^[3] encamped under the shade of an evergreen oak. To the remonstrances of the complainants he returned this insulting answer: “I am engaged with important business, and cannot hear you. Tell your message to yonder oak.” To this rude speech one of the deputies made a reply full of dignified rebuke: “Yea, let this sacred tree hearken, and let the gods also incline their ears, and listen to your treacherous infraction of the peace. They will hear, and also avenge the wrong, for ye have defied alike the laws of gods and men.”^[4] The report of the deputies made the senate resolve upon sending a consular army into the field against the Æquians, under the command of Lucius Minucius, while Caius Nautius marched against the Sabines. Gracchus was an accomplished warrior,^[5] full of stratagem and courage, quite an overmatch for his consular opponent, upon whose approach he broke up his camp on Mount Algidus, and retreated before them, followed by the Romans in pursuit, till they reached a nameless valley between lofty and precipitous hills, whose heights were immediately occupied by the Æquian army. The gorge was bare and barren, affording no grass for the support of the horses, nor corn nor edible roots for the soldiers. Five horsemen succeeded in extricating themselves from this gloomy prison, who hastened home with the disastrous tidings of the blockade of the army.^[6] The report of its dangerous situation occasioned Quintus Fabius, the governor of Rome, to send for Nautius from Sabinia, and when that consul was come, the matter was laid before the senate, who with one voice declared, “We must make Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus master of the people.” Caius Nautius immediately named him dictator, hastening back to his own army before sunrise.^[7] B.C. 457. A curious fact regarding costume has been transmitted to us respecting the dictator chosen by the senate upon this occasion, who “wore his hair long and curled, and bestowed so much care upon his ringlets, that he had acquired the appellation of Cincinnatus, or the Crisp-haired.”^[8] This description does not assimilate with the stern plainness of manner and frugality of Cincinnatus in mature years, he probably acquired, in early youth, that foppish soubriquet which he retained and rendered illustrious in age. The deputation from the senate, upon crossing the Tiber to acquaint the impoverished patrician with the dignity imposed upon him, found him employed in tilling his field of four jugers, the only patrimony his redemption of his son’s sureties had left him.^[9] This grant was no doubt unalienable, or “all but honour” would have been lost to the noble-minded man to whom his country looked for her deliverance. His visitors bade him resume his cloak that he might pay fitting respect to the senatorial message, whereupon Cincinnatus quitted the plough, and calling to his wife Racilia, bade her bring the garment. Upon his inquiring “whether any evil had befallen the state,” he received notice of his dignity, and the danger of the consular army, and, entering the boat, prepared to exchange his rustic employment for the highest office his country could bestow.^[10] At Rome the dictator was met by his three sons, and a numerous body of kinsmen and senators, being conducted to his former residence by four-and-twenty lictors—a state exceeding that anciently accorded by the people to their kings. He chose Lucius Tarquitius, an impoverished patrician, who had not even a steed, for his master of horse,^[11] after which he ordered all the shops and booths to be closed, considering the danger of the consular army as more important than any matter of private interest. Every man who was of age to defend his country was summoned to the Campus Martius, before the sun went down, for the energetic citizen to whom Rome had committed the dictatorial power, had said, “Let us come up to the enemy this night.”^[12] Twelve stakes and five days’ provisions were furnished by each soldier, and the hastily raised army only halted before midnight from their forced march upon perceiving the camp of the Æquians. Cincinnatus rode forward to examine the manner in which the foe was posted,^[13] and upon his return issued his orders for surrounding the encampment of the invaders, whereupon each soldier commenced digging the trench and setting in the stakes he had brought with him. Upon the completion of their work the dictatorial army raised a loud shout, which alarmed their slumbering enemies, but gave courage to their blockaded countrymen, who rushed forth to assault the Æquian camp, calling to each other, “Rescue is at hand, for that is the shout of the Romans,” and they defended the line drawn by their countrymen which the Æquians vainly endeavoured to force. Morning found the invaders encamped between two armies, and wholly at the mercy of the Romans—a mercy which they only obtained by giving up their leaders, and passing under the yoke. The Æquian army unarmed and despoiled of their upper garments marched home, having purchased their lives at the expense of their national honour. The chiefs were put to death after the triumph of Cincinnatus, who refused, in the division of the spoil, a share to the consular army he had delivered.^[14] No offence was taken by the consul or his soldiers, who gave a golden crown to their deliverer as a mark of their gratitude and esteem.^[15] In the treaty Cincinnatus made with the Æquians Corbio was ceded to the Romans. Upon his return to Rome the old man gave up the dictatorship, which he had held with great glory for sixteen days.^[16] This expedition was commemorated by the national lays, and was thus orally transmitted from generation to generation. The advantages gained were of a temporary nature, for the Æquians kept advancing, no treaty ever binding that brave, restless, and predatory people. Corbio was soon lost, and the measures taken by the consuls Q. Minucius and C. Horatius, to recover the place were delayed by the struggle between the two orders respecting the agrarian and Terentilian laws, the tribunes not suffering the people to enlist unless they came into B.C. 457. operation.^[17] The approach of the Sabines to the very walls occasioned a compromise between the disputing parties, when the addition of five tribunes to the college, by doubling the number of the popular magistrates, seemed to ensure to the people the privileges for which they were contending.^[18] But however just the demands of the commons might be, they ought not to have taken advantage of a crisis which called upon every man to stand forth as the defender of his native land—a duty paramount to all others in a citizen. The tribune Icilius during the public distress carried the claims of the plebeian order to the Aventine Mount.^[19] The commons, in receiving back their rights, acted with moderation; they compensated those who had built upon the ground, fairly attained by purchase or permission, while they ejected those who had become its unlawful possessors.^[20] The first received the value of the edifices raised, which was fixed by arbitration; the others were treated like interlopers and robbers. The patrician body hoped that the restoration of the Aventine Mount would content the commons, while the measure showed the middle class its power by demonstrating that its energies and talents only required time and union to wring from the dominant party those privileges to which it was really entitled. “The increase of the plebeian order did not allow each individual head of a family sufficient ground plot whereon to build his house; therefore several united in the work, occupying the different stories thus raised.^[21] This labour conduced to the maintenance of the public tranquillity though the rainy season proved inimical to the harvest.”^[22] In the two following consulates the question of the agrarian and Terentilian laws was revived with the utmost fury, the tribunes even citing the consuls before the people to give an account of their conduct, threatening at the same time to inflict a fine upon those supreme magistrates. In the midst of these scenes of civic discord, the tribune Icilius once more proposed the agrarian law, on which occasion Sicinius Dentatus, a valiant plebeian, related his exploits, and displayed the military rewards he had received for those public services which had failed to obtain for him a single juger of the conquered lands. Dentatus, then fifty-six years of age, had borne a part in one hundred and twenty engagements, and was now past the period when his services could legally be demanded for the defence of his country. He had received forty-five wounds during the wars in which Rome had been striving for her political existence, and the approach of age made him naturally press for a law that promised to provide for his future wants.^[23] The veteran, though past the years at which he could be required to serve, volunteered against the Æquians, being joined by eight hundred veterans as patriotic as himself. The consuls, hoping to rid themselves of the man, ordered him to ascend the hill on which the enemy were entrenched, and storm their camp. Dentatus achieved the difficult enterprise, afterwards joining the consuls who were engaged on the plain with surprising celerity.^[24] The night after the victory he deprived the consuls of their triumph by burning the spoil, and killing the prisoners which, in concert with his band, he effected without discovery. In the consulship of A. Aternius and Spurius Tarpeius, the long-contested Terentilian bill passed, and the senate sent deputies to Athens and the states of Greece, to collect the laws of those countries, which were destined to form a code for the Roman republic.

To Spurius Postumius, A. Manlius, and S. Sulpitius, were given this honourable office.^[25] It is to be lamented that they did not carry their researches to Judea, where the only perfect code of moral laws was to be found. The Jews, though returned from their captivity, had not yet recovered their distinctness as a people. The Romans would not have looked among the emancipated slaves of the Persian monarch for a jurisprudence as faultless as the nature of the times would allow. Let any impartial reader compare the moral law of Moses with that of the Twelve Tables, and convince himself of the truth of this assertion. The Romans, in discovering their need of laws, gave a proof of their advance in civilisation, and it is remarkable that this want was generally felt by every B.C. 454. order of men in the state. It was the cry of a great people seeking for national wisdom.^[26] They had not yet arrived at that period when the human intellect is sufficiently educated to produce good laws; but they resolved to avail themselves of the wisdom of the Greeks, from whom they obtained that celebrated but defective code which bears the name of the Twelve Tables.^[27] Christianity alone in after ages presented a system of laws capable of restraining by moral engagements men from injuring each other; and if barbarous penal codes and the cruel question by torture continued to exist in states that had embraced Christianity, those codes and that mode of examination had their origin in the retention of heathenish laws and customs by Christian countries. This practice did not belong to Christianity, but originated in the deviation of half-converted men from the true and perfect standard presented to them in the gospel code. Yet how often are the crimes of men professedly Christian charged upon Christianity itself, which always remains pure, perfect, and unchangeable as when its precepts first issued from the lips of its Divine Founder, and were sealed with his blood. In the consulship of T. Menenius and P. Sestius, the three deputies returned with the code of which only a fragment now remains.^[28] The Roman people, becoming impatient for its appearance, nominated Appius Claudius and T. Genucius to the consulship, under the impression that they would expedite the digest which was not then begun. Appius Claudius, a bold, artful, and ambitious man, considered this time a fitting opportunity to possess himself of the supreme authority; and under the specious pretext of governing by the law, to place himself and his colleagues above all law. He therefore proposed a decemvirate, or government of ten persons, each decemvir ruling the state in turn, for one year only, while the new code was preparing, the consular and tribunitial magistracies being wholly suppressed during the period of their office.^[29] It is surprising that the senate and people consented to such a measure, or that a Roman citizen could dare to propose an oligarchy to a free state. The willingness of the new consuls to resign their power seemed to give a pledge of disinterestedness and patriotism which not only ensured the proposed change, but occasioned their being placed at the head of the decemviral list, which contained the names of Appius Claudius, T. Genucius, P. Sestius, Spurius Postumius, S. Sulpitius, A. Manlius, T. Romilius, C. Julius, Sp. Veturius, and P. Curatius. Each of these new magistrates exercised the supreme authority for a day in regular rotation, sitting on a tribunal in the forum to dispense justice. The pride that had marked the proud Claudian family, and for which Appius Claudius was formerly remarkable, seemed to have died away. He courteously saluted every citizen by name—a condescension which made him the idol of the populace—till from the man of the people he became an absolute sovereign, to whom the name of king alone was wanting. Appius was content to reign without the name. How many sovereigns of the people have lost their lives and empires in aiming at a legal title to the authority they actually possessed! Not so the bold head of the decemvirs, the artful popular favourite, who knew that courteous words and smiles, were more likely to deprive a people of their liberty than the stern bearing and unbending oppression hitherto exercised by his family. In making the digest of the new laws, the decemvirs were aided by the Ionian sophist, Hermodorus, whom they brought with them from Athens for that purpose.^[30] The year of the decemvirate expired, and a portion of the laws were read, approved, and fixed up in the forum.^[31] The people had been so quietly governed that they did not wish for change; indeed, as Appius Claudius had only completed ten tables, the digest of the other two being still in preparation, he required another year for the conclusion of the important code. A second decemvirate was decreed, and Appius not only named himself as the chief of the oligarchs, but carefully excluded all persons whom he thought likely to oppose his designs. The nine introduced in the list by his influence were Fabius Vibulanus, M. Cornelius, L. Sergius, L. Minucius, T. Antonius, M. Rabuleius. He also nominated three B.C. 451. plebeians—Q. Pœtilius, Cæso Duilius, and Spurius Oppius; men devoted to his interest. The whole body of decemvirs cemented in private their union by solemn oaths, each agreeing to support his colleagues in office with his whole influence and authority.^[32] The decemvirs having secured the government, suddenly shook off the gentle winning manners they had hitherto assumed. They surrounded their tribunals with one hundred and twenty lictors, and were attended by a body of dependants ready to arm in their defence.^[33] The laws were now completed, and the last upon the twelfth table contained a clause forbidding intermarriages between plebeians and patricians, in order to destroy any chance of the two bodies gradually blending into one. To divide that he might rule the Roman people, was the motive imputed to Appius Claudius for this new law, though perhaps it originated in pride rather than policy. The second year of the decemvirate was out, but the decemvirs chose to reign by their own authority, and kept possession of their power without any reference to the people. The approach of the Æquians and Sabines to Rome obliged the decemvirs to appear in new characters, as military commanders. There being no precedent for any officers but consuls and dictators raising the levies, they were obliged to convene the senate to consider the manner in which this should be done. The people, greatly disgusted by the absolute and tyrannical government of the decemvirs, saw the senate resume its functions with pleasure.^[34] Valerius and Horatius, though interrupted by the oligarchy, dared to reproach them with having subverted the liberty of their country, and their orations made a deep impression upon the people. It was finally determined, after a stormy debate, that the decemvirs should raise the levies, and lead the Roman armies, Appius Claudius and Spurius Oppius being left at Rome to protect the city, and defend it, if necessary, from assault without or tumult within.^[35] The decemvirs soon gave proof of their inability to command. Those sent against the Sabines met with a reverse at a place called Eretrum, yet by no means sufficient to justify them for a hasty and disgraceful retreat.^[36]

The other army was defeated, leaving both camp and baggage in the hands of the invaders.^[37] These disasters filled the people with sullen resentment; and they spoke with contempt of their cowardly tyrants. Sicinius Dentatus indignantly pointed out to the multitude the military faults committed by the decemvirs, and loudly lamented the national dishonour.^[38] His complaints reached the ears of Appius Claudius, who resolved to destroy the brave old veteran. He sent for him, asked his advice, and despatched him to Crustumerium, in the sacred character of a legate, to assist, as he pretended, the generals at a period so critical and momentous. The colleagues of the decemvir followed his secret instructions, and Dentatus was murdered while choosing the ground for the camp. The decemvirs ordered the remains of the murdered veteran to be conveyed to Rome, and honoured with a public funeral.^[39] The Roman people, groaning under the heavy yoke of the decemvirate, regarded their rulers with contempt and horror, and they were ripe for revolt when an event more tragical than the fate of Lucretia roused them to break their chains. The charms of an innocent young maiden, whom the decemvir, Appius Claudius, beheld reading in one of the public schools in the forum, kindled the unlawful passions of a man possessed of unbounded power, whose principles opposed no obstacle between his passion and its pure object.^[40] The virgin, whose ill-fortune had made her so attractive in the eyes of Appius, was the motherless daughter of a brave plebeian centurion, named Virginius, from whom she took the patronymic of Virginia.^[41] Appius would gladly have made Virginia his wife, but he was himself a married man, and though the Roman law permitted divorce in case of the barrenness, infidelity, or drunkenness of the wife, no distinct precedent existed, at that time, for intermarriage with another woman during the life of even a misconducted consort. The plebeian birth of Virginia, or at least the poverty which had caused her family to lose its patrician privilege, it having formerly been noble,^[42] would also have B.C. 450. formed a bar to his union with her, even if he had been free to choose, since he had lately placed that law on the Twelve Tables, prohibiting the intermarriages of patricians with plebeians.^[43] Virginia, moreover, was betrothed to Icilius, the very man who had secured to the commons the possession or restitution of the Aventine Mount. To extricate himself or her from their marital ties must involve him in difficulty and danger; therefore the seduction of the fair maiden appeared to him the easiest expedient. The wicked decemvir commenced his evil designs by attempting to corrupt the fidelity of her nurse, but the woman proving faithful to her trust, he resolved to conspire against her honour under the cover of law and justice; a client of his own, named Marcus Claudius, consenting to become his agent.^[44] This man was to seize upon the person of Virginia by force, as the child of one of his female slaves, whom he was to pretend had been sold by her mother, and imposed upon Virginius by Numitoria his wife, as his own daughter.^[45] Marcus Claudius asserted his false claim by entering the playground where the fair Virginia was sporting with her young companions, when seizing her rudely by the arm, he bade her follow him to his own house. The cries and tears of a terrified girl, hardly out of childhood, while dragged through the forum, naturally attracted public attention, and gathered a concourse of people together, who, taking pity upon her distress, obliged the ruffian to release her, but the villain, by immediately citing her to appear before the decemviral tribunal, compelled Virginia to follow him. He there began to open his claim, but this the populace opposed by loud clamours, insisting that the young virgin had a right to be supported by her own relations before her accuser was heard. Appius Claudius was obliged to consent to the demand of the people, and Numitorius, the uncle of Virginia, and some of her paternal relations, soon appeared to afford the trembling girl that protection her tender age and timidity required.^[46] Claudius related the preconcerted story respecting the barrenness of Numitoria, the wife of Virginius, and the birth of the child in slavery, her pretended death and sale to her reputed mother, whom, he said, imposed the infant upon her husband, as his own free-born and legitimate offspring. He concluded his iniquitous narrative by offering to produce witnesses who could attest to the fact that Virginia had been born in his house, pledging himself to call before the decemviral tribunal the slave herself, whom he styled her lawful mother. He therefore demanded the custody of Virginia’s person till the return of her father to Rome.^[47] Numitorius easily discerned the motive that had induced the client of Appius Claudius to make this false claim to his free-born niece, and was certain that it originated with the powerful patron himself. He proceeded, however, with great caution, pleading that the absence of the young maiden’s father from Rome, in the service of his country, made it expedient that she should remain with her own friends till her trial, which need not be delayed beyond two or three days after the return of Virginius. In the mean time, he entreated the decemvir not to imperil the fair fame of a Roman virgin, by leaving her in the hands of a stranger, in defiance of a law expressly stating, “that every person shall be considered free until his servile condition be proved.” Appius declared the statute to be good, and one of his own enacting, but in regard to the maiden pronounced it wholly inapplicable; “for she cannot,” he said, “in any case be free; she must belong either to her father or her master. Now, her father being absent, who but her master can have any right to her? wherefore let Marcus Claudius keep her, after giving sureties for her re-appearance before my judgment-seat, when the cause shall be tried between them.”^[48] The extreme state of subjection in which the Roman female was kept all her life proves that in this decision Appius Claudius acted with more law than justice. But the angry remonstrances of Numitorius and Icilius were answered by a sympathising and indignant multitude, and the cries of Virginia drew about her person a number of women, who, comprehending better than the unfortunate young girl the nature of the danger that threatened her, came to give her their matronly counsel and countenance B.C. 450. in her hour of peril. The populace too, openly took part with the affianced lover, whom they aided in his attack upon the base client of the crafty decemvir.^[49] Appius reluctantly gave way to this popular commotion in Virginia’s favour. He cited her, however, to appear with her father before his tribunal upon the following day, concluding with the menace, “that in case of Virginius’s non-appearance, he should award her to his client, and that neither he nor his colleague wanted the means of enforcing justice or putting down sedition.”^[50] Claudius, the claimant of Virginia, insisted that Icilius should find security for her appearance upon the morrow; upon which every man present but the creatures of the decemvir held up his hand in token of his willingness to become his bondsman. Icilius, touched with this proof of affection and respect, shed tears, as he returned thanks to his generous sureties. “To-morrow,” said he, “I may require your help; to-day Numitorius, myself, and the other relations of Virginia, are sufficient security for her appearance.” Virginia was then conducted to her uncle’s house.^[51] Appius Claudius immediately sent letters to his colleagues, who were with the army about eleven miles from Rome, requesting them to imprison Virginius for three days, till the trial and the excitement attending it should be over. He also desired them to prevent the prisoner from receiving any intelligence of what was passing at Rome.^[52] But prompt as he had been in his iniquitous machinations against the liberty of Virginius, the friends of Virginia had been more so, for the son of Numitorius and the brother of Icilius had already reached the camp, and informed the astonished father of the danger that threatened the liberty and honour of his innocent child. Virginius asked leave of the generals to attend the funeral of a near relation at Rome, and his stratagem was so successful, that he passed upon the road the messengers of Appius, and even eluded the vigilance of the soldiers sent by the other decemviri to apprehend him. The following morning he entered the forum^[53] leading his young daughter, who, like himself, was attired in the deepest mourning. They were attended by their own relations and friends, and Virginia was not only surrounded by the generous females who had protected her the preceding day, but also by a train of patrician matrons, whose compassionate feelings led them to afford her their support upon this trying occasion.^[54] Appius Claudius, though surprised at the appearance of Virginius, did not yield up his ill designs upon the daughter to whom her father’s presence seemed to give sufficient protection from his dishonourable attempts. His tribunal was strongly guarded by his own lictors and those of his colleagues, and he had a numerous band of clients at his command.^[55] He was a crafty man, and was aware of the fact that mobs rarely prevent unjust public actions; he, however, had yet to learn that if multitudes are too timid to oppose the perpetration of crimes, they are always brave enough to revenge them.

Claudius boldly produced his false witnesses, including among them the pretended servile mother of Virginia; but he opened his case by beseeching the judge not to permit a false compassion to overweigh the evidence of truth.^[56] Virginius called upon his own relations to disprove the base system of imposture contrived by Claudius—persons who could speak to his early marriage to Numitoria, her frequent pregnancies, the deaths of the children she had borne, and the birth of her daughter, which several matrons who had been present upon that occasion could attest. He added that Numitoria had nourished her infant at her own bosom—a fact known to many of her friends. He reasoned upon the improbability of the story, since, if his wife had been disposed to impose the spurious offspring of a slave upon him, she would naturally have preferred a male to a female infant. “For fifteen years,” he said, “the pretended claim had slept, and was only made when Virginia was marriageable, and adorned with that great beauty which all behold in her this day.”^[57]

Beauty, however, in her case, was an unfortunate gift, and in later ages Juvenal considered “that the fair Virginia might have envied even Rutilia her hump-back;”^[58] for she stood at that time before the tribunal of her unjust B.C. 450. judge, doomed by that very beauty to the worst evils of slavery, or only fated to escape them by an unheard-of sacrifice.

Appius Claudius assured the agitated centurion that his client had often urged his rights to Virginia to him, but that public business had hitherto compelled him to withhold his attention from his cause; yet justice now obliged him to award the custody of Virginia to Claudius till she could be proved to be free-born.^[59] This open violation of a law enacted by himself excited the feelings of the multitude, who saw a free-born person treated like a slave, although not proved to belong to that servile condition, and given into the hands of a man known to be the creature of the decemvir,^[60] there to remain exposed to his seductive arts or open violence till some distant day of trial. But what were their feelings to those that agitated the bosom of the Roman father, who, raising his hand to the tribunal, menaced the vile magistrate in words that pointed him out as the secret conspirator against the honour of a pure Roman maiden. “Appius, I reared my daughter for Icilius in honourable marriage, and not for shame and thee. I know not how the citizens may bear these wrongs, but I at least will not endure them.”^[61] To this burst of paternal indignation, and to the loud imprecations of the crowd, Appius Claudius opposed the instruments of his absolute power, bidding his lictors drive back the multitude, that Claudius might take possession of Virginia—a declaration which, while it consigned the innocent Virginia to the keeping of his base pander, affected her honour more than her future liberty; for that question had still to be determined by a legal trial, which might award the dishonoured daughter of the centurion to his parental guardianship again; this decision not really settling the claim, but merely, though unjustly, that of the wardship, which against all right was thus assigned by the decemvir to his client.^[62] The crowd gave way, as in almost every case the populace always does give way, unless taught by bolder spirits the secret hidden in concentrated strength to redress or perpetrate wrong. That neither Icilius, the affianced husband of the injured Virginia, nor her indignant and stern father, made this attempt, must always be a matter of regret and wonder. The people retreated, and the unfortunate maiden was left alone before the judgment-seat. Some authors declare that a band of armed patricians surrounded the tribunal; but this would have been such an open violation of the Roman law, that their assertions seem improbable. Virginius, who had formed in his own mind a terrible resolution, suddenly changed his angry tone to one of supplication, and humbly besought permission of the decemvir to speak one word to the nurse in his daughter’s hearing, that he might be satisfied whether Virginia were his child or that of an alien. “If I am not indeed her father, I shall better bear the loss of her society,”^[63] were his concluding words. The decemvir did not refuse the petition of the centurion, who drew his daughter to a place afterwards called the new booths, but rendered memorable and interesting by the tradition that marked it as the scene of the tragedy. The unhappy father then for one moment embraced his daughter, who clung to his bosom in feminine helplessness and sorrow. Snatching a knife from the butchers’ shambles, Virginius addressed her thus: “My child, there is but one way to keep thee in freedom and honour,” and with these words plunged the weapon in the unresisting Virginia’s heart; but quickly withdrawing it from the wound, held it up to the guilty and horror-stricken decemvir, whom he addressed by name. “Appius Claudius, by this innocent blood I devote thy head to the infernal gods—on thee be the curse,”^[64] his voice alone breaking the deep silence into which that deed had hushed the mighty Roman people. Recovering from his astonishment and horror, Appius called upon his lictors to seize Virginius, but in vain, for he had forced his way among the throng, still holding the knife wet with his daughter’s blood, and, passing through the forum, hastened out of the city, mounted a horse, and gained the camp by Tusculum.^[65]

It was to no timid, unarmed multitude that the outraged centurion addressed himself, but to bold men, fellow-citizens, and warriors of his own order; to fathers, B.C. 450. husbands, and brothers, who beheld in Virginia another victim immolated by Roman honour at the shrine of chastity. His blood-stained garments and intense agitation drew at once a martial throng about him, and Virginius told his dreadful story to auditors who swore to revenge him. They plucked their standards from the ground, calling upon their officers to lead them to Rome. Their demand was granted, and the decemvirate was virtually no more. The army then elected ten military tribunes, and took their way to the Aventine Mount.^[66] In the mean while, the sight of Virginia’s bleeding remains had inflamed the people, to whom the dead maiden was held up by her uncle Numitorius, and affianced husband Icilius.^[67] The eloquence, the passionate appeals that might have saved the Roman virgin from her dreadful fate, were then exerted to revenge her. The multitude elected leaders, and discovered their own power. Appius Claudius found it impossible to resist the popular storm, to quell which defied the force of his lictors and numerous clients. Nor were the male relatives of the victim, or the commons of Rome her only revengers. L. Valerius and M. Horatius, men of noble birth, engaged in the defence of her remains, of which the decemviral party vainly endeavoured to obtain possession.^[68] From a strife, become as dangerous as useless, the decemvir, Appius Claudius, fled, covering his head with his robe, either to show his friends that his life was in peril, or to defend it from the missiles flung at him by the crowd; for the Romans of that period, and indeed for several centuries later, wore no covering upon the head but the lappet of the mantle, unless in time of battle. Oppius, the plebeian colleague of the fugitive decemvir, came into the forum to support him; but finding that he had taken shelter in a neighbouring house, dared not interpose between the people and their victory.^[69] He called the senate together, but that body were too timid to support the decemvirs, and too cautious to trust the plebeian party, whose ascendancy they saw when once attained would diminish their own power. Icilius and Numitorius hastened to Fidenæ to induce the army there encamped to co-operate with them in their work of vengeance, and to strike for the restoration of the Roman constitution. Their appeal was successful; this army also elected ten military tribunes, and marched for the Aventine Mount, answering all remonstrances on the part of the decemvir with these brief words, “We are men, and have swords in our hands.”^[70]

The remains of the martyr of Roman honour were placed upon a litter, and paraded through the Forum, and principal streets of Rome, exposed to the eager gaze of the curious or sympathising. The women who had dared to support her cause while living with their generous championship, bewailed her dead. They flung garlands and fillets of ribbon upon the lifeless form of the youthful victim, and even cut from their own hair long ringlets, scattering them upon the bier.^[71] Never did the Roman citizens follow their eagle standards with such stern determination in battle as while gathering round the funeral procession of the Roman daughter. The demands of the army and commons of Rome were not immediately answered by the senate. Nothing less than the deposition of the decemvirs and the re-establishment of the tribunitial magistracy would content the insurgents—measures to which the senate refused consent. Upon which, the patriotic party, acting upon the advice of M. Duilius, quitted the Aventine Mount, and marching through the city with their families, passed through the Colline gate, and encamped on the Sacred Mount,^[72] apparently bent on abandoning Rome rather than their just rights. In this mighty movement the senate recognised the stern resolution of a free people. They consented to the deposition of the decemvirs, and the abolition of the decemvirate.^[73] In the whole struggle, Oppius, the plebeian colleague of the guilty Appius Claudius, alone had striven against the people: remorse, fear, and horror, appear to have paralysed the man whose crimes had brought the impending revolution to a climax.

The senate despatched Valerius and Horatius to the Sacred Mount to hear the demands made by the Roman people. The restoration of the tribunitial magistracies, B.C. 450. they expected as the necessary consequence of the deposition of the decemvirs and the abolition of the oligarchy; they also demanded a general amnesty for the insurgents, and the execution of the decemvirs. The outraged feelings of Icilius prompted this condemnation of the tyrants to a cruel death, who were proclaimed in the name of the commons to be public enemies, and therefore worthy to die. “Give them up to us,” said the betrothed husband of the dead Virginia, “that we may burn them with fire.”^[74] But this dreadful sentence was not carried into effect. Valerius and Horatius induced the commons to be contented with the agreement of the senate to the terms proposed, and to withdraw that clause from the treaty. Valerius then announced the accomplishment of the revolution in these words, “Return, soldiers, to your country, to your household gods, to your wives and children, and may this return prove fortunate to you and the commonwealth.” The soldiers answered this animating charge with exulting plaudits, and taking up their ensigns re-entered Rome, where they were received with joyful congratulations.^[75] They posted themselves upon the Aventine, and invested the Capitol^[76] till such time as the arrival of the Pontifex Maximus should allow them to hold the comitia for the election of the tribunes of the people. This assembly was held on the Aventine Mount, where ten tribunitial magistrates were elected. Among the list we find the names of Virginius, Numitorius, Icilius, and Duilius. It is remarkable that the consent of the commons was necessary in order to render their own amnesty and indemnification from the senate legal. A parallel to this curious circumstance may be found in English history, upon the accession of Henry VII., whose first parliament was chiefly composed of members formerly attainted by one or other of the rival sovereigns who had occupied the throne; the king himself, being of the number, occasioned an objection to its meeting, which the prerogative of the Crown was afterwards deemed sufficient to cover, though the judges to whom the question respecting the attainted members of both houses was referred, advised their being withdrawn, till they were cleared by the reversal of the attainder. This not being complied with,^[77] placed them when they took their seats, much in the same circumstances as the Roman commons in the comitia summoned for the indemnification of the insurgents. As far as regarded the fate of Virginia, the law gave her father the absolute power of life and death over the person of his child, but until this amnesty was passed he, his friends and partizans, were legally deemed the enemies of the country they had redeemed from slavery, for the insurrection of which that dreadful act had been the cause. They cleared themselves by consenting to the ratification of this instrument.^[78] Icilius proposed the indemnity to the Roman people in the Flaminian Meadows outside the Carmental Gate, just below the Capitol, which was still occupied by the commons.^[79] Duilius recommended the restoration of the consular magistrates. For the first time in Roman history the name of consul is used, that of prætor, or captain-general, being till then the one in use.^[80] The commons, even in electing Valerius and Horatius, took care to secure the right of appeal from the judgment of their disinterested champions, for they were jealous of their newly-acquired liberty, and resolved to guard it with sedulous care. The laws with which they fenced their recovered freedom will be mentioned after the punishment of the decemvirs has been discussed.

Virginius, clothed with the sacred authority of a tribune of the plebs, cited Appius Claudius before the people, impeaching the fallen decemvir, but still powerful patrician, for his unjust judgment respecting the wardship of Virginia.^[81] How strange it appears that so foul a conspiracy could only be legally punished as an infraction of the law which held Virginia to be free, till proved otherwise by a sentence to that effect on her trial. By this statute the father of the maiden, while in Rome, was still deemed B.C. 447. her natural guardian, which though violated by Appius, could not involve the penalty of death. The haughty patrician knew this, and appeared in the Forum surrounded by his clients and young patrician friends. His sons probably swelled the number, for Appius had children who had attained their majority. Whether his crime were bailable or not, Virginius would not receive bail for his person,^[82] and the criminal dared not have the question of his judgment submitted to a judge to be appointed for that purpose. He appealed to the tribunes to prevent his imprisonment. They would not interfere: he then made his protest to the people to prevent his being imprisoned, being aware that that prison would prove his grave.

Virginius, as Appius declined his trial before a judge, could legally treat him as a criminal; he was therefore thrown into prison^[83] previously to pleading his cause before the people. The entreaties and tears of Caius Claudius, the uncle of the accused, moved the assembly so much, that but for the recapitulation of his wrongs by Virginius, the family of the Claudii would have been saved that indignity. He reminded the people “that Appius had shown no contrition for the terrible necessity which had made him the executioner of an only and beloved daughter to save her honour, but that the decemvir had disturbed the dying agonies of his child by endeavouring to tear her from the arms of her affianced husband.” He concluded his sad narrative by the words, “Remember Virginia,” and those words consigned Appius Claudius to a prison and a tomb.

Eight of the decemvirs went into banishment as a voluntary expiation of their public offences, but the pretended master of Virginia was suffered to escape. Appius Claudius either destroyed himself in prison,^[84] or perished by the hands of the father and lover of Virginia.^[85] His plebeian colleague Oppius shared his fate, whatever that fate may have been. The law considered Appius as a suicide, and made no minute inquiries respecting him; but he has been confounded with the consul of the same name, who had destroyed himself in prison more than twenty years before, and that too, by the framer of the celebrated Fasti Capitolini.^[86] This is the second instance of a revolution in Rome, occasioned by dishonourable attempts upon feminine chastity^[87]—a proof how highly female honour was prized, which cost Lucretia and Virginia their lives, and Tarquinius and Appius Claudius their power; so pure in morals, so lofty in reputation were the women of the ancient Roman republic. These women were the mothers of the men by whom the world was subdued and ruled. The tragic history of Virginia has been doubted by the scepticism of modern times; but what is such incredulity when weighed against the testimonies of the Greek and Latin historians who attest its truth? Cicero quotes it,^[88] and tradition pointed out from age to age the scene of the parental sacrifice.

The constitution was not only restored but improved. The old Valerian law of Poplicola was revived, which gave the right of appeal from the sentence of the consul to the people when that sentence endangered the life of a citizen. “A plebiscitum^[89] or decree of the commons, was to be binding upon the whole people.” In what manner this privilege was restrained is not known.^[90] The commons of Rome were acknowledged to be the Roman people, being allowed to elect their own magistrates. In our own corporations something resembling the Roman constitution is still to be found. It is certain that various concessions to the people were included in the laws of the Twelve Tables, but they probably had not been put in force. The tribune, Duilius, in order to compel the yearly magistrates to resign their several offices, enacted a very barbarous law enforcing their vacation, under the penalty of the offending parties being burned alive.^[91] This was doubtless the revival of that under which several illustrious men had been put to that horrid death in the preceding century. The last laws of this eventful consulship related to the national decrees of the senate, which Valerius and his B.C. 448-47-46. colleague caused to be preserved in the Temple of Ceres on the Aventine Mount, thus calling in the aid of religion to guard the records of the Roman state.^[92] The part taken by the consuls in remodelling the constitution displeased their own order, who refused them, in the August of that year, the reward due to their exploits against the Æquians and Sabines. They appealed to the Roman people, and obtained their triumph, notwithstanding the denial of the senate. Icilius was the tribune through whose influence the consuls carried their point.^[93] Some dispute occurred respecting the tribunitial magistracies, which the commons wished to fill with the same persons the ensuing year. This measure was opposed by Duilius, one of the re-elected tribunes, who disinterestedly opposed his own advancement,^[94] nor would he permit his colleagues to take office. This led to only five persons being elected. He finally dissolved the assembly, declaring the election complete, but decided that each tribune should choose his own colleague, thus making up their number of ten. Two patricians were included in the number^[95]—a measure that of necessity must neutralise the politics of the whole body, since the unity of the entire college was absolutely required in order to legalise its decrees. Patrician consuls, as usual, were chosen, and in fact there is no evidence of any concession on the part of the senate in regard to preferring a plebeian to this office. Trebonius, one of the popular tribunes, abolished the innovation in the tribuneship by proposing a law that obliged the canvass to be continued till the legal number of ten were duly elected.^[96] The law that forbade the intermarriages of the rival orders had been virtually expunged from the code of the Twelve Tables by the blood of the innocent Virginia, but it was not formally repealed till some years after that tragic event,^[97] when its abolition began to prepare the way for that era of public virtue which adorned the middle ages of the republic.

A year of profound tranquillity followed that eventful one which had restored liberty to the commonwealth, Lartius Herminius and T. Virginius being men of no party, their consulship conduced to the internal repose of the state. The succeeding one was also marked by the same pacific character, and was memorable for its absence from civic and foreign broils. But the old dissensions revived when the fasces were transferred to T. Quinctius Capitolinus and Agrippa Furius, for neither party would forbear from offering provocations to the other.^[98] Of these internal divisions the restless nations of the Æquians and Volscians took advantage, as they always did when Rome was convulsed with civic discord. The slaves within the walls were probably the channel through which their countrymen derived their information, and those domestic spies knowing that their only chance of liberty depended upon the predatory incursions of their friends, doubtless took care to give them notice of these feuds. The cattle feeding before the Esquiline Gate became the prey of the invaders. The herd most likely belonged to the patricians, for the plebeians, encouraged by their tribunes, refused to arm in the defence of the city, and made no attempt to recover the booty. The passionate appeal of the consul Quinctius, however, overcame the selfish determination of the people, whom he reminded of “his three former consulships, in which he had served his country with glory, though for his fourth was reserved a period of infamy which must stand on record to all posterity, that an enemy was at the gates of Rome, and her citizens refused to arm in her defence.” “What, Rome taken and I her consul! Of honours I have had sufficient—of life enough—three consulships. I should have died then.” The veteran concluded, by telling them that their own factious spirit was the cause of their beholding an enemy at their gate.^[99] His reproaches awoke in them the old Roman spirit, and they never listened to the speeches of their tribunes with more attention than to this reproof. The people armed, and the consuls gained a glorious victory. Agrippa greatly distinguished himself in the battle against the Æquians, by flinging an ensign into the midst of the enemies’ battalions, and rushing forward to recover it—which action, it was thought, insured the victory to the Roman army. The consuls B.C. 446. demanded no triumph;^[100] they were satisfied with having done their duty.^[101]

A dispute happened in this consulship respecting some lands, to which the people of Ardea and Aricia lay claim, but which they mutually agreed to submit to the arbitration of Rome. The Romans dishonestly decided the matter by keeping the lands for themselves, P. Scaptius, an aged plebeian, having declared that they belonged to Corioli before her conquest by the Romans, and therefore had become the property of the commonwealth. The consuls Quinctius and Agrippa opposed a measure so dishonourable to the Roman people, but in vain.^[102] After the republic became a mighty power, she constantly acted in this manner. In a small state such conduct is considered robbery; in a great one it is termed policy. Caius Curtius and M. Genucius, the consuls for the following year, wished to prepare for the war which the open revolt of the Veientines and the discontent of the Ardeatanes appeared to render necessary. The tribune Canuleius considered some reformation in the laws more necessary than fighting. That forbidding the intermarriages of the two orders, though abolished, had never been removed from the Twelve Tables, and therefore the restriction still remained in force, which limited the rank of the children to that of the plebeian mother, nor were such children capable of inheriting from the father, not being even under his guardianship. These regulations, in fact, placed them on the same footing as if they had been the illegitimate offspring of guilt, and not the issue of virtuous wedlock. For this hardship the tribune proposed a legal remedy. The dispute respecting it was carried to such a height on Mount Janiculum, whither the people had withdrawn, that the senate allowed the restriction to be removed.^[103] According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the storm was not raised respecting this question, but originated in the demand of Canuleius, who asked “what prevented the admission of the plebeian order to the consulship.” To which one of the consuls imprudently replied: “that no plebeian could hold an office which required the auspices, since they could only be taken by men of pure and unmixed blood.” This answer was received by the commons with such a burst of indignation, that in order to allay the popular feeling, the law respecting the intermarriage of the rival orders was instantly repealed.^[104] From the union between the noble and plebeian classes sprang the glorious men who became the ornament and pride of the Republic of Rome.

The admission of the plebeians to the consulship was violently opposed by many of the patricians. The Horatian and Valerian families took no part in the discussion which was maintained by Caius Claudius with great heat against the commons, but which was finally adjusted by the moderation of the Quinctian family,^[105] who proposed a change in the supreme magistrates, substituting six military tribunes, invested with consular power, to be taken indiscriminately from the two orders. All parties were satisfied with this arrangement, which was warmly seconded by the consul Genucius; but when the people assembled in comitia to elect the new magistrates, they chose only three, and those from the patrician body,^[106] though their old favourites, the tribunes, were present dressed in the white robes of candidates to solicit their votes. The tribuneship only lasted three months, for some informality was discovered in taking the auspices. An inter-rex was named, and two consuls were chosen. Nothing remarkable occurred during the short time of their consulate. The sixty-sixth consulship was rendered memorable by the institution of two officers called censores or censors, who were instituted to relieve the consuls of a troublesome part of their duty—that of taking the census—which occurred every fifth year, by which the persons of the Roman people were enumerated, and their goods assessed.^[107] Titus Quinctius and Geganius were chief magistrates when the censorial office was exercised, for the first time, by Papirius Mugillanus and Sempronius Atratinus, the consuls of the preceding B.C. 443-42-39. year. The consuls who had replaced the military tribunes were men who had the interest of their country at heart. Titus Quinctius gained the good-will of the people, while Geganius defeated the Volscians, who were besieging Ardea, and put an end to the civil war within that place. In the consulship of M. Fabius and Posthumius Æbutius, the lands of which the Ardeans had been defrauded by the Roman people were restored, and a colony was planted there. The commissioners employed in this business were prosecuted, because they had not received their commission from the people, upon which T. Clœlius, Agrippa Menenius, and M. Æbutius, the accused parties, withdrew to Ardea, of which city they declared themselves citizens. After three years of peace Rome was visited with a grievous famine, rendered memorable by the conspiracy of Spurius Mælius, a wealthy knight. The Roman historians have all united to brand this member of the equestrian order with a stigma which he most probably did not deserve. Minucius, the purveyor-general, had been sent by the consuls to buy corn; but obtaining very little, not only discovered that Mælius overbid him in the market, but heard that he was conspiring against the government. Arms, he was told, were carried into his house, where he held midnight meetings, the object of which was his usurpation of the regal dignity.^[108] Minucius did not bring this intelligence to Rome till Titus Quinctius Capitolinus was in his sixth consulship in conjunction with Agrippa Menenius.^[109] Of the conspiracy itself there was no proof beyond the assertion of the purveyor-general, and the fact that Mælius was purchasing corn to feed his starving countrymen at his own expense, who in return loved and venerated their benefactor. In the jealousy of his own order alone any traces of the treason of Mælius are to be found. As soon as Quinctius learned the danger of the state he named his brother Cincinnatus dictator, with the entire approbation of the senate. The old man, who was at the advanced age of eighty, endeavoured to excuse himself from the arduous office, and when about to accept it, piously prayed that his country might not suffer for his infirmities. He created Servilius Ahala his general of horse, and having invested the city with troops, sent him to summons the conspiring knight before his tribunal. Mælius refused to obey, caught up a butcher’s knife,^[110] and took refuge among the people, who drove away the lictor who had taken him into custody, upon which the newly-appointed general of horse drew his sword and slew the suspected knight, after which he re-entered the Forum, and addressed the dictator in these words, “Mælius refused to obey your summons, and endeavoured to raise a rebellion; he has by this hand received his due punishment.” “It was greatly done,” replied the dictator, “and you have saved the liberty of the commonwealth.”^[111] The tribunes and the people were justly incensed at the punishment of a man, without the formality of a trial,^[112] who had fed, in this period of dearth, the starving population. They forced Ahala to leave Rome,^[113] and chose military tribunes instead of consuls, as magistrates for the ensuing year, but elected three patricians to this office. L. Minucius, the master of the markets, whose representations, whether true or false, had caused the death of Mælius, dexterously got rid of the odium he had incurred with the commons by selling grain at so low a rate to them, that he acquired an immense share of popularity. It was the sale of the corn Mælius had bought up, which, becoming the property of the state, so reduced the price that at the end of three market-days the poorest citizen was able to become a purchaser. An ox with gilded horns was presented to Minucius by the plebeians as a sacrifice,^[114] while a statue was raised to his honour at their expense without the Porta Trigemina, formed out of the coins which each contributed, at the rate of an ounce, or twelfth part of an as, per man.^[115] The story of his becoming an eleventh tribune, and passing from his own order into that of the commons, does not appear probable, unless we suppose B.C. 437-36-35. that he was either degraded by the censors for some alleged crime, or evaded the prosecution of which he might have become the subject for his accusation against Spurius Mælius, by the renunciation of his patrician privileges. We are assured that no Minucii were found in the order of nobility after him.^[116] This story, if true, proves how fleeting and uncertain is popular opinion, since the people not only forgot their benefactor, but heaped honours upon the man whose accusation had occasioned his death.

The revolt of Fidenæ to Tolumnius, king of the Veientines, was followed by the murder of four Roman ambassadors, to which atrocity the Fidenatans were excited by their new ally.^[117] As this colony had been Roman ever since the time of Romulus, its defection was considered very criminal. The consulship was once more restored, and L. Sergius and M. Geganius were elected. It fell to the lot of the latter to conduct the war. He was successful, but lost so many soldiers, that it was judged proper to choose a dictator who, with equal bravery, would be less prodigal of human life. Æmilius Mamercus was named by the consuls, and he carried on the war with great success. Tolumnius, the king of the Veientines, was slain in single combat by Cornelius Cossus, one of the dictator’s legionary tribunes, who carried the royal robes and armour he had won from him on his shoulders, at the triumph of Mamercus. He deposited these spolia opima in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius, where Romulus had formerly placed those of King Acron. As this was only the second occurrence of the kind in Rome it excited great attention.^[118]

In the following consulship Servilius Ahala was prosecuted for the murder of the Roman knight Mælius by another Sp. Mælius, a tribune.^[119] The ground of his accusation was, “that he had put a Roman citizen to death untried and uncondemned.” It is uncertain whether he was acquitted or punished.

The plague raged with great fury in the consulships of Julius Iulus and L. Virginius, upon which the Veientines and Fidenatans marched up to the gate of Rome called Collina, and encamped thereby, to the consternation of the sick citizens. Upon this emergency the consuls named Quintus Servilius Priscus as dictator, who marched out to attack the enemy, upon which they retreated to Nomentum, where he totally defeated them, and afterwards took Fidenæ. The victor assumed the surname of Fidenas in memory of his victories, but was allowed no triumph, as the war was considered civic.^[120]

Æmilius Mamercus, on a false report of an Etruscan war, was appointed dictator a second time.^[121] His services were not required in the field, and his attempt to shorten the period of the censorship from five years to eighteen months led to the infliction of an enormous fine upon him by Furius and Geganius who then held the office. The people, who loved Æmilius, would have torn the censors to pieces if the generous dictator had not saved them. He paid the money exacted from him, though eight times more in amount than it ought to have been.

The fourth military tribuneship, being composed of patricians, was so displeasing to the influential plebeians, who imagined that they owed this preference to the politeness of their behaviour at elections, that they passed a law to prevent those who aimed at the chief offices in the state from wearing robes of superior whiteness (from whence they were called candidates), and soliciting votes thus attired. The Roman consuls next year were defeated at Algidus, this disaster being attributed to the dissensions between them. The senate proposed a dictator, whereupon the rival consuls declared there should be none, but at length were compelled to nominate one by lot. Quinctius, who gained it, named his father-in-law, Postumius Tubertus, who chose L. Julius Iulus for his general of horse. The dictator was a man of military talent and great resolution. He soon drove the enemy out of the field, though not before he had gained a hard-fought battle, for which he was granted a triumph. Postumius Tubertus, in the course of the war, publicly executed his son for a breach of military discipline in engaging the enemy without orders.^[122]

The fifth military tribuneship did not increase the B.C. 426. reputation of the republic, for the tribunes were defeated in battle by the Veientines, and Æmilius Mamercus was made dictator to repair their blunders. The revolt of the Fidenatans added to the difficulties of Æmilius; these people united with those of Veii, and encamping near their own city, gave battle to Æmilius, and during the fight exhibited a new feature in military tactics. A band of soldiers dressed like furies, armed with flaming torches, which they brandished on every side, suddenly rushed out of the gates of Fidenæ. The Romans recoiled at this unexpected sight. “What,” cried the brave dictator, “are you a swarm of bees, that you are thus terrified at smoke? Beat down those torches with your swords, and then fire the city with them.”^[123] His orders were obeyed, the allies were defeated, and Fidenæ was taken. Æmilius laid down the dictatorship, which he had only held sixteen days.

Three years after this victory, Sempronius, a brave soldier, but inexperienced general, engaged the Volscians with more valour than prudence; but the bravery and skill of Tempanius, a veteran captain of horse, saved the Roman army from destruction. Leaping from his horse, he rallied the legions, crying out, “Follow my lance as your standard, and let us show the enemy that on foot or horseback nothing can withstand it!” This gallant speech was followed up by gallant deeds, and though surrounded by the enemy, Tempanius firmly maintained his ground till the Volscians retreated on one side, and the consul Sempronius with the infantry on the other, both being ignorant that Tempanius and the cavalry were fighting on foot between the main body of the Volscians. Great was the surprise of the old veteran when he could discover neither friends nor enemies in the field. Both camps were deserted, and not knowing what had become of their Roman and Volscian tenants, he returned to Rome, where a false report of the destruction of the consular army had already preceded him. The tribunes of the people immediately summoned Tempanius, to inform them what had really happened; but he could tell them nothing beside his own exploits, and those of his new infantry. Of the fate of the Roman army with that of the Volscian he was equally ignorant; though he knew that Sempronius had fought bravely. Upon the question of the military skill of the general, he generously refused to give an opinion; but he praised his valour, and, as if to put an end to more minute inquiry, asked leave to retire, in order to have his wounds looked to. The discovery that the consular army was safe, restored the public tranquillity.^[124] In the eighth military tribuneship, L. Hortensius, a tribune of the people, cited Sempronius, the late consul, to answer for his misconduct during the war; but Tempanius and three others, who had lately been chosen tribunes of the people, stood generously forth in defence of the unfortunate general, to whose bravery they bore witness, finally declaring that they could not condemn one whom they and the whole army loved and honoured as their father; that they did not presume to deprive the Roman people of the authority to punish a magistrate, but that they would assume the same mournful attire as the accused to prove their sympathy, not with his faults, but with his misfortunes. “Not so,” replied Hortensius; “Rome shall not see her tribunes in mourning; I drop the prosecution altogether. I will advance no accusation against a commander thus tenderly beloved by his soldiers.”^[125]

The acquisition of lands won from the Volscians and Veientines occasioned the question of the agrarian law to be agitated again. These lands were either occupied by the patricians, or let out to them, no portion of the money coming into the treasury.^[126] When we remember that the services of the plebeians were without pay, being performed on military tenure, and that the great increase of this order demanded an increase of such grants, we must consider their demand based on the just grounds of absolute necessity. Nor can we consider men who asked for a share of what they had won, factious, for they only asked for a plot of ground whereon to raise bread for their families.

Two additional quæstors were added to the number of those magistrates during the consulship of T. Quinctius Capitolinus and Fabius Vibulanus. The commons claimed B.C. 416-14-13. a right to choose half from their own order—a privilege which was granted them. They did not, however, avail themselves of this concession, for both the quæstors and military tribunes were elected from the patricians.^[127] A design of the slaves in Rome to fire the city and seize the Capitol, was discovered by some of the servile conspirators themselves in time to prevent its execution.^[128]

An agrarian law was made in the thirteenth military tribuneship, by which fifteen hundred plebeians received allotments of two jugera per man out of the lands lately won from the Lavicans.^[129] To weaken the growing influence of the commons by gaining the tribunes was the astute policy of Appius Claudius, the grandson of the decemvir. His advice was agreeable to the senate, and six of the popular tribunes were won over to the patrician party, not, however, by the base influence of gold, but by that of courtesy, to the great mortification of Mæcileus and Metileus, the head tribunes, who found themselves opposed by their colleagues and outvoted; consequently the agrarian law was dropped again. It was the distinguishing attribute of the whole Claudian family to oppose fraud or force against the plebeian party. To half measures in the pursuit of ambition and pleasure they never submitted, and we shall find them hereafter on the throne, still displaying the same individuality of crime.

The fifteenth military tribuneship presented the extraordinary feature of the assassination of a general by his soldiery. P. Postumius Regillensis, one of the military tribunes, had retaken Volæ from the Æquians, the plunder of which place he had promised his soldiers previously to the capture; but broke his word with them after the town was won, because they were chiefly plebeians. A mutiny instantly broke out in the camp,^[130] and a stone was thrown at Sestius, a military quæstor, who was attempting to quell the storm. Such was the state of things when Postumius returned from Rome with the resolution of severely punishing the ringleaders of the revolt. His measures provoked retaliation instead of reducing mutiny, and the military tribune was stoned to death. This disaster had never occurred to a Roman general in the camp before.^[131] In the punishment of the late mutiny, the consuls acted mercifully, condemning few, and allowing these the choice of failing by their own hands, untortured by those of the lictor; the severity of Postumius having, they considered, provoked the military mutiny.^[132] The consul Furius took Ferentinum from the Volscians this year, and bestowed it upon the Hernicans, whose lands that people had ravaged. The three following years were marked by plague, famine, and civic disputes, and the consuls were compelled to buy corn for the relief of the starving population. To relieve the plebeians the tribune, Icilius, again brought forward the agrarian law, and Mænius, another tribune, would not suffer the consular levies to be raised, though the Volscians were ravaging the lands of the Hernicans, by which proceeding Carventum, a town of Latium, fell into the enemy’s hands. The other members of the tribunate were so disgusted with the conduct of Mænius, that they instantly ordered the levies to be made, punishing those who refused to enlist. Valerius, one of the consuls, recovered the citadel, in which he found a rich booty, which he paid into the quæstor’s hands for the use of the state. This proceeding displeased his soldiers, who chose to remember it at the ovation granted by the senate to their general, upon which occasion they divided themselves into two bands—one of which recited the praises of the tribune Mænius, while the other sang verses in depreciation of their commander. This was a precedent frequently followed from that time forward, the rude lyrics of the soldiers often converting the triumph of their general into a day of humiliation and shame.^[133] The truce between Rome and Veii having expired, the republic made some additional demands upon this state before they would engage to renew it. The people of Veii entreated them not to enforce them till their internal divisions were allayed.^[134] The Volscians took Verrugo from the Romans, and slew the garrison, but it was retaken by the military tribunes, and reprisals made upon the slayers.

The conduct of Fabius Ambustus, and his colleagues, opened the way to the conquest of Italy and the world B.C. 404. by a new regulation, for after they took Anxur (Terracina), these military tribunes divided the spoils among their armies, a measure which led to the Roman soldier receiving a stated sum for his services in the field. This arrangement displeased the tribunes of the people, but the patricians were so desirous that it should take place that they valued their own estates, in order to furnish the quota. Whether in this they paid the vectigal, or tithes as occupiers of the public land, is not certain, but it is probable they did. The plebeians saw the vectigal they paid to the state applied to this purpose with great pleasure, and even the prospect of a tax or tribute levied upon the whole people to make up any deficiency did not alter their opinion. They greeted the senators with the endearing name of fathers, and the poorest among them paid the tax with cheerfulness and alacrity. We must remember that the body of the army was composed of plebeians, commanded by patrician officers. The tax they paid would, therefore, return to them in the shape of pay. The first eclipse, recorded in the “Annales Maximi,” fell on the nones of June B.C. 402.^[135]

Veii was a strong Etruscan city, five miles in circumference, strongly entrenched, and very wealthy, and its siege, which commenced in the nineteenth military tribuneship, was as tedious as the real or fabulous one of Troy. The second year found the Romans before it, and the Etruscan states as its defenders, policy compelling them to unite against the growing power of the Romans. In the third year of the siege the Etruscans withdrew their aid under the pretence that the Veientines had elected a king—a measure displeasing to these republicans, but the real cause of their departure was the invasion of the Gauls. The besieged, soon after this, made a successful sally upon the Romans, whom they defeated, destroying also their war engines. The Roman people were not discouraged by this misfortune. The equestrian order offered to furnish their own horses, and to serve without pay. Their example was followed by the commons; for the senate had scarcely expressed their thanks, and accepted the gratuitous services of the knights, before the commons crowded round the Comitium to volunteer their services in the same disinterested manner. The senate, touched by their generosity, exclaimed, as they quitted the Comitium to thank the people in person, “Oh glorious day! Happy, eternal, and unconquerable is Rome made by this concord,”^[136]—words prophetic of the future greatness of the republic, and which, if not entirely fulfilled to the letter, must have been so if the public feeling of unanimity had continued that gave them birth. The senators and people wept together with joy, yet the republic had suffered a reverse, two of the military tribunes being defeated by the Faliscans and Capenatans, and one of these generals was slain.^[137] It is uncertain whether Furius Camillus was elected at this crisis military tribune or dictator, but his great talents were for the first time brought into notice during the last year of the siege of Veii.

Furius Camillus had been censor some years before, and during his office had passed a law which had rendered him obnoxious at the time, and contributed to his future unpopularity. This edict compelled the second marriages of the widows who had lost their husbands at the siege of Veii. The women of Rome, who considered such connections infamous, murmured at what they thought a conspiracy against their honour; nor were the bachelors, young and old, much better pleased with the censorial regulation, not supposing their domestic peace would be insured by these constrained political unions.^[138] He also laid a tax upon orphans who had hitherto been exempted from bearing any part in the public charges. Though of a patrician family, this illustrious Roman was the first of his name who graced the annals of his country. He is more generally known by his appellation of Camillus than by the patronymic of his family, which was Furius,^[139] and his descendants were always styled Camilli.

In the next but one military tribuneship, which was chiefly composed of plebeian names, a victory was won over the Fidenatans and Capenatans, the allies of the Veientines; but the public joy on that occasion was damped by the excessive mortality occasioned by the plague, which B.C. 401-396. followed the unusual heat and drought. This unhealthy summer had been preceded by a terrible winter, and the national calamities demanded a remedy. The duumvirs sought for one in the Sibylline books, which were solemnly opened in order to discover in what way the wrath of the gods might be expiated. Their search occasioned the celebration of the first lectisternium ever held in Rome.^[140]

The history of a natural phenomenon, followed by a great national work, has been so mixed up with superstition, and adorned by the poetical legend, that the introduction of the following tale would be impertinent and ridiculous but for the existence of the works that released the pent-up waters of the swollen Alban lake, and sent them to fertilise the plains they threatened to inundate and destroy:—It appears that the lake of Alba suddenly rose to the height of the rocks that surrounded it,^[141] whereupon an old Veientine, who had made acquaintance with a Roman sentinel, told him that Veii would never be taken till all the water ran out of the lake of Alba. The sentinel, instead of treating the matter as a boast, captured the old man and brought him to the generals, who, finding he had quoted an ancient prophecy, sent him to Rome, the senate despatching three patricians to Delphi to consult the oracle upon the prediction.^[142] The answer brought by the deputation from Delphi confirmed the Romans in the notion of draining the Alban lake.^[143] This was immediately done, a noble work, whose remains may still be traced in the present day;^[144] the tradition that linked the draining of the Alban lake with the fate of Veii rather proves that the work was carried forward during the last years of the siege, which was finally brought to a close during the dictatorship of Camillus. Some reverses sustained by the army reminded the people that this commander had never been defeated, a conclusion which led to his nomination; the complete victory he gained over the allies of the unfortunate Veientines at Nepete, justified the opinion of the Romans respecting the personal valour and military skill of the great dictator. Camillus, aided by a fine army, augmented by a band of volunteers, and by the Latins and Hernicans, then in alliance with the republic, prosecuted the siege with such vigour that the Veientines sent an embassy to Rome to implore for peace,^[145] which was harshly refused by the senate. The peremptory answer to the prayer of the distressed people, excited this indignant rejoinder from one of the deputies: “A goodly answer indeed you have made us, for though we humble ourselves before you, ye will have no mercy, but ungenerously threaten utterly to destroy us. Ye neither care for the anger of the gods nor for the revenge of men, but the gods shall punish your pride and lay waste your country, as you are destroying ours.”^[146] The military skill of Camillus was fast bringing the protracted siege of Veii to a close, and being certain of the capture of the city, when he had undermined the citadel, and bored a passage to the temple of Juno, the tutelar deity of Veii, he sent to Rome to inquire the pleasure of the senate respecting its spoil. After a long debate, it was determined that every man should possess the plunder won by his own hand at the storm of the city, a measure that greatly increased the army of the dictator.

The Veientine general was in the very act of sacrificing in the temple of Juno, when Camillus suddenly appeared before him, followed by a chosen band of soldiers, and concluded the sacrifice, actually fulfilling the words of the diviner who had just pronounced, “That the gods had declared that he should be the victor who finished that sacrifice.”^[147] The presence of the armed conqueror within the city, and the assault given by his legions without, sealed the fate of Veii, which Camillus considered rather as the fruit of his vow of the tenth part of the spoil to Apollo than of his sword. His good fortune alarmed him by its excess, and he prayed “that if any ill were about to fall upon Rome or him, on account of this prosperity, it might be upon his own head, and not upon his country.” As Camillus concluded the patriotic prayer before the shrine of Juno, he stumbled and fell in the very act of turning to depart,^[148] the veil which covered his B.C. 396. head by confusing his sight, naturally occasioning the accident, which he interpreted as a favourable response to his petition. It was a beautiful heathen custom for the votaries of the gods to veil themselves in token of their unworthiness to approach their presence. The protecting deity of the Veientines, Juno, was removed to Rome, with her own consent, “which was humbly,” the legend assures us, “solicited by the victors,” for upon their asking her if she would go with them to Rome, she graciously replied, “I will.” A stately temple was raised to the honour of this courteous deity, upon the Aventine Mount, by Camillus, in accordance with his vow.^[149] The tutelar goddess left Veii to the mercy of the Romans, “which, after its ten years’ siege, was at once despoiled of its wealth, its inhabitants, and its gods.”^[150] The return of Camillus to Rome was the signal of universal joy. Four days were set apart for a general thanksgiving to the gods, the triumph of the victor being the most splendid that had yet been seen in Rome. The heroic dictator appeared in a chariot drawn by white horses, crowned with laurel, and with his face painted with vermilion.^[151] Superstition regarded the colour of the steeds of the victor, and the paint on his countenance, with horror. The gods had hitherto engrossed the use of both to themselves. The vermilion was not simply a proof of personal vanity; it was not merely a mark of bad taste in Camillus; it was impiety and presumption in a superlative degree. He became unpopular with the people and senate; and, a year after his triumph, with his own soldiers also. He had forgotten his vow to Apollo respecting the tenth part of the spoil, and his remembrance of it after the whole had been appropriated, irritated the army.^[152] They refunded the dedicated portion with reluctance,^[153] and but for fear of falling under the wrath of Apollo, would have kept it back, but their superstition did not prevent them from hating their general.

The question respecting the colonisation of Veii was fiercely discussed in the senate and comitia. Licinius, one of the tribunes of the people, even proposed sending half the senate and inhabitants of Rome to that fine city. This was negatived by the nobles, upon the plea, “that a people so prone to dissensions while under one government, would certainly become more factious when divided into two.” The measure was, however, a popular one; and the people, who favoured it, would have come to blows, if some of the senators had not interposed their persons to the rioters, with the words,^[154] “Strike, kill, and destroy us.” When was boldness and decision ever lost upon this extraordinary people! The tumult ceased, and the project was abandoned.

The capture of Capena brought Camillus before Falerii, the capital city of the Faliscans. While he was engaged in the siege of this place, the public schoolmaster delivered up to him all the boys intrusted to him for education with this remark—“that with them he had brought the keys that would open the city.^[1]”

Camillus, who was himself a tender father, turned from the traitorous preceptor with disgust, and addressing some of his own friends, uttered this fine remark—“What a calamity is war, which is so often begun and ended with injustice; but to good men there are certain laws in war itself. Victory, however desirable, ought not to be purchased by the help of the wicked. A great general must rely upon his own valour, not upon the deceit and treachery of the base.” He ordered his soldiers to strip and bind the vile schoolmaster, and to put scourges into the hands of his pupils, to whom he left the punishment of their betrayer.^[2] The parents, who from the walls of their city had beheld their children led into the Roman camp with an agony of solicitude, saw the magnanimous conduct of the general with astonishment and admiration. They sent a deputation to the Roman camp to thank Camillus, and to assure him “that they considered themselves twice conquered by him: once in the field, and again by his generosity; and that they would now yield to his virtue what they had refused to his arms.”^[3] An honourable peace was the fruit of this negotiation. The soldiers murmured at the loss of the plunder of Falerii; but the triumphal entry of Camillus was greeted by admiring groups of citizens, who felt that the real glory of Rome had been advanced by a virtuous action more than by an additional laurel in her blood-stained wreath. The Faliscans, some years after the surrender of their city, were admitted into the four new Roman tribes.^[4] The magnanimity of Camillus was remembered from age to age in the heroic lays of the people, and being grafted into the records of Rome, was immortalised by the history of Livy and the biography of Plutarch. While Camillus had been engaged in the war with the Faliscans, Æmilius and Postumius were fighting with the Æquians. The personal bravery of Postumius changed a defeat into a victory. His army were flying panic-stricken to Verrugo, where Æmilius was in garrison. The reproaches of the deserted general made the troops ashamed of their conduct, and they suffered him to lead them back into the field, where he gained a complete B.C. 393-91. victory by moonlight. The garrison ran away from Verrugo, believing that Postumius had lost his camp, and brought the tidings of the supposed misfortune to Rome. The laurel-crowned letter of Postumius undeceived the senate, and the general consternation was changed into joy.^[5]

Consuls were elected again the year following these conquests; L. Lucretius Flavus and Servius Sulpicius Camerinus, holding this dignity, which for some time had been laid aside. Licinius, a tribune of the people, once more proposed retiring to Veii; he even fined those tribunes who had opposed it the preceding year. The senators went in a body to the Forum, where they dissuaded the people from a course that would have ruined the republic. They obtained a majority against the measure, and immediately assigned seven acres to each free citizen of the lands won from the Veientines, to enable them to bring up their families.

Rome was devastated with plague and famine, and one of the censors, Caius Julius, was carried off by this malady. He was succeeded by M. Cornelius. The sickness of both consuls led to the election of military tribunes. Thus Rome was governed by two distinct magistracies this year.^[6]

Two years later, the prosecution of the great Camillus^[7] led to more memorable events than the victories of Lucretius and Æmilius over the Vulsinians.

Camillus is supposed to have compelled the consuls of the preceding year to resign, and it is certain that M. Manlius—to whom he afterwards showed deadly enmity—was one of those persons; but if their neglect of the defence of Pyrgi which was taken by Dionysius of Syracuse from the Cærites—a people in alliance with Rome—was the ground of their deposition,^[8] no blame attached to Camillus. But his politically opposing the grant lately made to the people, rendered him unpopular with the citizens; nor had his reclaiming the tenth part of the spoil conciliated the army. Apuleius, a tribune of the commons, was the person who accused Camillus, whom he charged with having appropriated the spoils of Veii to his own use, in proof of which he declared that the brazen gates of that city were still in his house, and he cited him in form to take his trial before the people.^[9] Camillus was employed in closing the eyes of a promising son when the summons came, and he would not leave the newly-dead, but called his friends to the house of mourning to consult with them upon the propriety of making his defence:^[10] they assured him that his sentence was already pre-determined, and that they could only promise him assistance towards the fine, but would not engage to do more.^[11] This answer convinced Camillus that private friendship would be no shield against public insult and injury. He bade his family farewell, and walked in silence to the gate of the ungrateful city,^[12] giving no utterance to his indignant feelings till he had passed through the barrier, and stood without the gates of Rome an expatriated and impoverished man, cast forth from the country he had enriched and served. He then knelt down, and invoking Nemesis, stretched forth his hands towards the Capitol, and prayed “that if he were driven out without any fault of his own, and merely by the violence or envy of the Roman people, they might quickly repent it, and express to all the world their want of Camillus, and their regret for his absence.”^[13]

Camillus retired to Ardea, where he was received with the respect due to his merits and misfortunes. He had scarcely taken refuge in that city before he was fined fifteen thousand asses of brass by the tribunes of the people. This fine amounted to about forty-eight pounds of our currency, although it was accounted a considerable sum in Rome at that time.

A few days after Camillus had gone into exile, an embassy arrived in Rome from Clusium in Etruria,^[14] praying the republic to grant them aid against the Gauls who had entered Italy and were then besieging their city.^[15] This embassy was said to be the cause of the misfortunes that afterwards befel the Romans, by drawing B.C. 390. upon Rome the resentment of a revengeful and incensed people.^[16] The Senonians, a people located near the present site of Paris, were the nation whose attack had given the Clusians so much alarm, and had occasioned them to send an embassy to Rome.^[17] The Romans, though not in alliance with the Clusians, sent ambassadors to Brennus, the Gallic chief, requiring him to break up the siege of Clusium, upon the grounds that the people with whom he was at war had done no previous injury to him.^[18] The ambassadors, who were the sons of Fabius Ambustus, were interrupted by the scornful laugh of the king, or leader, of the Gauls. “No injury!” replied Brennus. “They have done us a great wrong, for they have more land than they can cultivate, and have refused to give a part of it to us who are strangers, numerous, and very poor.^[19] The most ancient of all laws ordains that the weak must yield to the strong, and the brave be lords of the world.” Brennus added to this blunt speech, “that he had never before heard of the Roman name.”^[20] His answer deeply offended the haughty Fabii, who showed their resentment by taking part in the defence of Clusium, for Quintus Fabius actually headed a sally made by the besieged, and slew a general of the Gauls, whose magnificent person and distinguished bravery had attracted his attention. While in the act of despoiling the slain of his armour, the Roman ambassador was seen and recognised by Brennus, who immediately sent a herald to Rome to complain of this violation of the laws of nations on the part of the Romans, and to demand that the offenders should be given up to him. If this justice were refused him, the herald was instructed to declare war against the Republic on the part of the chief.^[21]

The senate, the college of feciales, or heralds, and the priests, considered the conduct of the ambassadors highly culpable, and the demand of Brennus perfectly just. Nothing, in fact, but the birth and influence of the offenders prevented them from delivering up the Fabii to the Gauls. The assembly of the people, however, decided against the measure. Fabius Ambustus not only successfully carried the point in favour of his sons, but got them nominated to the military tribuneship for the new year, in concert with Q. Sulpicius, Q. Servilius, and Sergius Cornelius.^[22] The return of the Gallic herald was the signal for the march of Brennus; that barbarian, we are told, calmed the fears of the terrified country-people belonging to the villages through which he passed, by declaring with savage magnanimity that “he was at war with the Romans only.” In the general consternation prevailing at Rome when the tidings reached the doomed city that Brennus with seventy thousand men was at hand, the necessary preparations for its defence were neglected,^[23] no dictator was named; even the usual religious ceremonies were omitted. The military tribunes, who were young and inexperienced commanders, put themselves at the head of the hastily raised levies, and marched out to meet the enemy, whom they found near the Allia, upon the bank of the Tiber. The situation of this stream is not distinctly known; but in a country subject to commotions of the earth alterations are not uncommon, and the precise site may be lost. This battle was fought on a day considered unfortunate in the annals of the republic, being the same on which three hundred Fabii had perished by the swords of the Etruscans. It is probable that the Roman soldiers who were led to the contest by three of this name and family, were even then impressed by the evil omen. The position taken up by the six leaders was disadvantageous, and Brennus seizing the hill upon which they had placed a body of troops to guard their right flank, dispersed them with such celerity, that the greater part of the legions of the right wing fled without striking a blow to Rome, and without even shutting the gates upon the enemy took shelter in the citadel. The left were driven into the river by the charge of the Gauls.^[24] Many were drowned, but the greater part escaped to Veii, and shutting themselves within its gates, abandoned the city of Romulus to its fate. This memorable defeat happened upon the sixteenth of July, B.C. 390. The rush of the panic-stricken soldiery towards the Capitol told the shameful history of the day to the B.C. 390. affrighted inhabitants of Rome.^[25] The venerable patricians, who had formerly fought her battles, could not resolve to leave her. Incapable of defending her, they determined to perish with her. They advised the women and children to fly, and exhorted the garrison within the Capitol to maintain that temple fortress to the last “as the remains of a state that, for more than three hundred and sixty years, in all its wars, had been victorious.” After giving this counsel, they withdrew to the Forum followed by the tears and lamentations of the distracted populace.

Over the Sublician bridge poured the mighty multitude, unknowing whither to fly, without a leader or a home. The vestal virgins, bereft of their state, and encumbered with their sacred relics, followed the throng on foot;^[26] but even in that moment of general despair the Roman people did not forget their veneration for the priestesses of Vesta. Albinus, a plebeian, perceiving them encumbered with the weight of their burdens, made his family descend from the cart in which he was conveying them to a place of safety, to make way for the sacred order, who were still holy in his eyes as in the proud days of their prosperity.^[27] The small city of Cære in Etruria received the vestals and the symbols of their religion, and its rites from being duly performed there, took the name of cerimoniæ,^[28] from the place of asylum, from whence our English word “ceremony” is derived. To this spot of refuge the priests also repaired, having first buried the sacred objects of their misplaced veneration in the earth.^[29] The aged citizens, with whom the name of Rome was associated with the strength and glory of their vanished youth, alone remained within the walls of the deserted city, with the exception of the soldiers who guarded the Capitol, and those who were sick or unable to fly. These venerable men, by their generous self-devotion, hoped to avert the wrath of the gods from the survivors, and to fix it upon the victorious enemy. It was the superstitious notion of that age, that those who, by a voluntary sacrifice, devoted themselves to the infernal gods, purchased for their country every blessing, and secured the annihilation of her foes; it was perhaps some vague tradition of the great atonement that had lingered among the Gentile nations, and had been corrupted from its original purity. Before his departure, Fabius, the Pontifex Maximus, had hastily pronounced over the victims’ heads the oath of consecration, who, attiring themselves in their robes of state, and seated in the Forum on curule chairs,^[30] awaited the hour of their sacrifice.^[31] Towards sunset the scouts of Brennus informed their chief that the gates of Rome stood open, but that the city appeared deserted by its inhabitants. Brennus would not believe that a warlike people like the Romans could have yielded up their capital without a blow, till the death-like silence that reigned in the deserted streets convinced him that this was indeed the case. He entered with the Gauls at the Collina gate, and found that the same stillness prevailed everywhere.^[32] Upon the fortified heights of the Capitol, armed men alone were seen, for the population was gone. Yet the wary leader of the barbarian army still dreaded some stratagem, for he carefully invested every street and avenue leading to the Capitol before he advanced into the Forum, attended by a band selected from the flower of his army, where the sight of the aged and self-devoted Roman consulars^[33] attracted his attention, and filled his mind with superstitious awe. The bold barbarian looked long and fixedly upon their venerable faces; to him they appeared the tutelar gods, the protecting deities of the forsaken city,^[34] as arrayed in their magnificent purple habits, they sat in silent majesty unmoved by the presence of the foreign soldiers or their kingly leader. The Gauls, as superstitious as their chief, kept in the background, nor attempted to offer violence to the devoted Romans, whose mortality they evidently doubted. One soldier at length ventured to draw near to Marcus Papirius, determined to convince himself if he were really flesh and blood or only a visionary being, so, stretching forth his hand, he gently touched the long white beard of the old man.^[35] Marcus Papirius, who disapproved of the experiment, B.C. 390. convinced the curious soldier of his actual existence by striking him smartly with his ivory staff. The revengeful Gaul instantly slew the high-spirited veteran, and his example was followed by his companions in arms, who massacred these ancient patriots, amounting to the number of eighty; after which, they dispersed themselves through the city in search of plunder, putting to the sword all those whom age, feebleness or sickness had confined within the houses. Not content with this impotent revenge, they fired Rome in many places, and reduced it to a heap of mouldering ashes.^[36] Brennus upon the following day invested the Capitol, which he hoped to carry by assault, but finding it bravely and obstinately defended by the garrison, whom he proved to be more courageous than when he met them near the Allia, he changed the siege into a blockade, confidently expecting to starve the Romans into submission.^[37] Of water he could not deprive them, for the well of the Capitol remains a curious and undoubted monument of that remote time.^[38] To all human appearance, Rome had fallen to rise no more. Her people were dispersed, her walls cast down, and a powerful barbarian nation was encamped within her scorched and blackened ruins. But she must rise again, for the mighty destiny, foretold of her by the prophet Daniel,^[39] was to be accomplished, and how could this be if she were never to be rebuilt? Therefore she was to arise from her ashes, for the sword of the great fourth monarchy was to cleave the way for the seed of the Gospel to be shed abroad, and under the shadow of her eagle wings was Judea to repose during the period when the Prince of Peace was to be born, his wondrous mission unfolded, and atonement made for the sins of the whole world.

Brennus and his army soon experienced the ill consequences of their savage destructiveness, for they were in want of provisions, and the Capitol still held out. They were not men, however, likely to starve while food could be had for blows. They dispersed themselves in all directions to obtain forage, and levied contributions on every side from the affrighted towns and villages. A large body of Gauls encamped before Ardea, the city that had afforded an asylum to the exiled Camillus, and demanded supplies. That illustrious Roman, willing to repay the debt of gratitude he owed the generous Ardeatans, counselled them to refuse the demand of the Gauls. He offered to train their youth to arms, and lead them against the barbarians. The Ardeatans recalled to mind his great military prowess, accepted his offer with acclamations, and resolved to follow his directions. They accordingly shut their gates against Brennus, and commenced their military education under the greatest captain of that age.^[40] The Gauls, who spent their days in ravaging the fruitful plains of Italy, and their nights in feasting, entertained no dread of the besieged Ardeatans, or their Roman leader.^[41] Camillus took advantage of their security to storm their camp, and the sleepers only started from their stupor of intoxication, at the sound of the Ardeatan trumpets, to fall by the sword. Camillus, who resolved to wage a war of utter extermination against the destroyers of his native city, posted a strong body of troops in the neighbouring fields to cut off the stragglers. Few escaped to tell the tidings to their brother barbarians in the ruined city.^[42] The news of the victory reaching Veii filled the fugitive Roman legions who had shut themselves up there with shame and regret. They remembered the prayer of Camillus which, they thought, had been answered by the offended gods. They blushed for their past conduct, and resolved to entreat the exile to lead them against the Gauls. Rome that had cast him forth into exile was no more; and they hoped his resentment had perished with her. They sent a deputation to Ardea to this effect, and Camillus, more noble and forgiving than Coriolanus, gave them a favourable answer,^[43] contingent however upon the consent of the senate to his acceptance of the dictatorship, which the army offered to confer upon him. As the senate was blockaded in the Capitol, their assent was not easy to obtain, but the patriotic Roman declared “that while that citadel remained, and contained her senators, Rome had still a political existence. The ruined walls of the city marked the bounds of his country; to him, Rome in the dust was yet Rome; therefore, B.C. 389-388. from the Romans in the Capitol he must derive his commission.”

Pontius Cominius^[44] undertook to obtain the consent of the senate, yet the task might have deterred any one less patriotic, or less ambitious of glory, than the young Roman. The temple-fortress was invested on every side but one by Brennus and his Gauls, and that unguarded point was considered inaccessible. As the bridge was held by the invaders, Pontius must swim across the Tiber in the darkness of night, at a part of the stream where the current was strongest, and the danger most imminent, and when this difficult object was accomplished, there was still the craggy and hitherto untrodden heights of that part of the rock to be attained. Before the resolution of the patriotic youth these difficulties quickly vanished. With the aid of bladders (for it is doubtful whether he could swim the Tiber without such aid) he floated with the current down the stream, and landing near the Carmental Gate, climbed the steep precipice, and conveyed his tidings to those within the walls. That Camillus was in arms, and at the head of an army of Romans and foreigners of forty thousand strong, and awaiting their consent to lead his legions to Rome, appeared almost incredible good fortune to the besieged, and Pontius returned with letters from the senate confirming the appointment of Camillus.^[45] While the dictator was preparing to relieve the Capitol, that important fortress was nearly lost by the very means used by the adventurous Pontius for its preservation. Some Gauls wandering near the Carmental Gate observed the print of the daring Roman’s footsteps, and plainly perceived that communication had been lately held by some person with the garrison in the citadel. They immediately hastened to their chief, to whom they communicated their important discovery.^[46] Brennus, who knew that what man had done man might do again, determined to turn this discovery to his own advantage. He resolved to storm the Capitol by following the path scaled by the unknown enemy; selecting from his army a band of mountaineers, to whom such adventures were familiar, he directed them to ascend the precipice at night, two abreast, in the direction of the steps of the stranger. In silence and darkness the Gauls climbed the eminence, not even arousing the vigilance of the sentinels nor the fury of the watch-dogs;^[47] but, fortunately for the Romans, though these were sleeping, more wakeful creatures were stirring at the moment when the Capitol was scaled. The sacred geese, kept in the court of the temple in honour of Juno, heard the approach of the Gauls, and commenced a noisy cackling.^[48] A patrician named Manlius, struck with their clamour, roused his fellow-soldiers from their sleep, and seizing his sword, hurried to the rampart, where he found two Gauls awaiting the arrival of their comrades below. Possessed of extraordinary strength and invincible courage, Manlius struck off the right hand of one of his opponents with his sword, while he dashed his buckler full in the face of the other, hurling him down the rock upon his ascending countrymen. The gallant defender was then joined by the rest of the soldiers; the Gauls were slain or driven back, and the besieged delivered from their perilous position. One of the negligent sentinels, as a warning to the rest, was condemned, by the military tribune Sulpicius, to be hurled from the ramparts; while the addition of Capitolinus to his name, and the gift of so much wheat and wine from every soldier, comprised the rewards and honours that were bestowed upon Manlius; but in a time of scarcity the corn was more valuable than gold, and the family of Manlius continued to be distinguished by the surname in the most glorious eras of the Republic.^[49] Upon Roman geese was conferred the substantial and unwonted distinction of being fattened, but never eaten—a privilege not extended to those of other countries.^[50] In Italy, even at this remote period, a goose is never brought to table. A golden image of one of these watchful B.C. 389. birds was made to commemorate their vigilance, and upon a certain day in every year one was placed in a sumptuous litter, and carried in state about the city, while a dog was impaled upon an elder-stake, that act of barbarity being a manifestation of the national hatred and contempt for the animal.

At the end of seven months^[51] both the besieged in the Capitol and the besiegers were in a starving condition, for Camillus had invested all the roads leading to the ruined city, so that Brennus himself was in a state of blockade. The plague was making terrible ravages in his army; it was the consequence of his victory, for the slain Romans had been left unburied, and the great heat had generated this formidable disease. The Roman garrison, who had heard nothing from the dictator, and were ignorant of his intention to raise the blockade, began to listen to offers of accommodation, which commenced by dialogues carried on between the sentinels of the two nations.^[52] The result of their negotiations was quickly communicated to their commanders, when Brennus demanded ten thousand pounds weight of gold as the price of his departure.^[53] The tribune Sulpicius, with the consent of the senate, agreed to the terms, and, on the appointed day, brought the gold, amounting to forty thousand pounds sterling of English currency, to the appointed place, whither Brennus with his scales and weights came^[54] “to receive the ransom of the people destined to conquer the world.”^[55] The leader of the barbarian army, who did not possess a very nice sense of honour, produced false weights to get more gold from the Romans than was his due. Sulpicius detected his enemy’s unfair dealing, and remonstrated with him upon his want of faith. Brennus immediately flung his sword and buckler into the scale Sulpicius had considered too heavy, accompanying the action with a gesture indicative of defiance and contempt. The Roman, deeply offended, demanded the meaning of his conduct. Væ victis (woe to the conquered) was the insolent reply of the rapacious Gaul, whose bad Latin was perfectly comprehensible to his incensed auditors. Sulpicius was about to carry back his gold into the Capitol against the entreaties of his companions, some of whom were less scrupulous, when Camillus himself appeared upon the scene, who, confronting Brennus with a boldness worthy of the bravest of the Romans, cried out, “By steel and not by gold are the Romans accustomed to deliver their country.” The dictator then flung the gold from the scale with contempt, and commanded it to be carried back into the citadel.^[56] Brennus upbraided the Romans with their non-fulfilment of their agreement with him, and from words the Gauls and the troops of Camillus came to blows.^[57] The contest was not decisive, for the streets were crowded with rubbish, and presented no arena for the combatants. Brennus retreated to his camp, which he broke up on the following morning, and commenced his retreat from Rome, encamping, however, on the Gabinian way, about eight miles from the ruined city. Here he was overtaken by Camillus, who offered him battle, and having gained a great victory, stormed his camp and put to the sword all whom he found there.^[58] The story of the return of Camillus just in time to prevent the payment of the Roman ransom has been disputed by some modern historians, and is differently related by several ancient ones.^[59] Upon the thirteenth of February Camillus entered the ruined city in triumph.^[60] The returning population of Rome met the besieged in the Capitol. The soldiers and people crowded round the chariot of the conqueror, whom they hailed in their songs as “Romulus father of his country and second founder of Rome.”^[61] As soon as he had purified the city he rebuilt the temples, and erected a new one upon the spot where Marcus Cædicius heard the mysterious warning of the approach of the Gauls. This fane was dedicated to “Aius Locutius.”^[62] While Camillus was taking care for the restoration of the religion of the Romans, such as it was, the first enthusiasm of the public had faded away. They were discouraged at the laborious task of rebuilding their houses, and turning their thoughts to the noble city of Veii, which would contain them all, wished to transfer themselves and the government of Rome to that place. This project was B.C. 389-388. strenuously opposed by the senate and the dictator. The tribunes of the people, who wished for the measure, ungratefully charged Camillus with the ambitious design of being styled the second founder of Rome, to which they imputed his aversion to make the flourishing and prosperous Veii the capital of the Republic. The important matter was decided by a singular incident.^[63]

The senate, being assembled to debate the question, called upon Lucius Lucretius to give his vote for Rome or Veii. As he was rising to speak, he and the whole assembly heard the centurion who came with his company to relieve the guard say, “Ensign, plant the standard here; this is the place to stay in.” Struck with the singular coincidence these random words bore to the subject before them, Lucretius and the senators ran out of the temple where the assembly was held, crying out, “A happy omen. The gods have spoken, and we obey.”

The superstitious people were convinced, and abandoned the idea of removing to Veii for ever. The augural staff of Romulus was found among the ruins of Rome, buried among its ashes, yet unconsumed.

The thirty-second military tribuneship, which had proved such an unfortunate era for Rome, lasted nearly two years, as the magistrates were supposed to be too unlucky to preside at the election of new ones. Camillus and Cornelius Scipio were alternately inter-reges, and the former held the election for the magistrates for the ensuing year. Notwithstanding the national calamity that had attended the last tribuneship, six military tribunes were chosen instead of consuls. Their employment was wholly confined to re-collecting the regal and decemviral laws, and transferring what could be found of the latter to tables of brass set up in the Forum.^[64] The priests claimed the right of preserving and keeping the laws and records relative to religion, and expounding them to the people. A list of lucky and unlucky days was made, in which the 18th day of July as the day of the slaughter of the Fabii, and of the defeat at Allia, held a pre-eminent place among those marked as inauspicious to the republic. The rebuilding of Rome proceeded with more rapidity than attention to architectural beauty. The streets were irregularly planned, and the houses mean and inconvenient, being built from the old material, the government furnishing money for the roofs from the public treasury. Rome, the destined queen of the universe, rose out of her ashes with an appearance by no means suited to the lofty and unrivalled fortunes awaiting her. Her fall and her ransom by the sword, and not by gold, were celebrated in the heroic legends of the land; and to draw the line accurately where truth ends and fictitious ornament begins, appears impossible. It may be that Camillus merely reduced the ransom to its original standard of weight, or that he actually drove Brennus from Rome; but in either case he was hailed by his country as her deliverer and second founder, and the Gauls were chased from the land they had invaded by an incensed and indignant people. To ancient or modern Rome, a French army has always been fatal. Neither her strong walls nor valiant sons have ever successfully contended with France, and the events of her last siege only attest a fact often recurring in her annals, that one people at least have never found her invincible.

The annals of the world exhibit to the eyes of the historian continual phases of national progression and retrogradation. In that mirror he beholds the rise, the advance, and the fall of nations, each displaying a sort of resting-point in which the work of civilisation is effected, and the symptoms of decay are yet unfelt. The people of Italy had gained this climax before the infancy of Rome had passed away, and Etruria, with her beautiful works of art, her tombs, and her luxury, was awaiting the time when “that people who possessed more steel should win her gold.” If we were asked at what precise period of her history a country begins to retrograde, the answer given by experience would be, “when wealth becomes her standard of merit, and is considered the sole requisite in those who compose her government, instead of talent and moral worth.” Such a people abandon themselves to luxury, patriotism becomes extinct, and they fall into ruin to rise no more, the moral degradation always preceding the political death. Thus was it with the ancient empires of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Macedonia, with the mighty republic of Carthage, and finally with Rome herself; B.C. 388-387. but Rome at this period was struggling for her existence, while the possessors of the fair garden of Europe, Italy, had reached their culminating point; their star was about to decline before the Romans, who had raised from her ashes a city mean in architecture, and despoiled of her records and her wealth.^[65] The immediate neighbours of Rome—the Etruscans, Æquians, and Volscians—beheld her rise from those ashes, which they hoped had annihilated her political existence, with jealousy and hatred. Even the Latins and Hernicans, those ancient allies of the republic, united with her enemies in the attempt to crush her. In this era of danger the eyes of the Roman people were fixed upon Camillus, who was chosen dictator for the third time.^[66] He left a strong body of troops under Manlius to guard the city, despatching another under Æmilius to keep the Etruscans in check, while he stormed and fired the camp of the confederates. The total destruction of the combined army led to the reduction of the Volscians, who had been the formidable opponents of the republic for more than a century. Marching into the country of the Æquians, the dictator took their camp, and stormed Bola, their principal city. He next turned his victorious arms against the Etruscans, who were besieging Sutrium, a city belonging to the allies of Rome. He came too late to prevent the capitulation of Sutrium, but not to revenge her; for, upon meeting the dispossessed, homeless people, he assured them that their sorrow should soon be turned to joy. He fulfilled his promise by retaking the city that same day, and restoring it to its rightful owners in the evening.^[67] “Camillus returned to Rome in triumph, having concluded three wars with glory in the short space of three years.” His entry was very magnificent, and the sale of the Etruscan captives was applied to repay the Roman ladies for the jewels they had patriotically lent the state on some former occasion of public distress. Three vases of gold, inscribed with the name of the great dictator, were placed by order of the senate at the feet of the statue of Juno, in the temple of Jupiter, for that goddess was the tutelar deity of the valiant Roman.^[68] War, however, was not the sole employment of the Romans; for they faced the Capitol with stone, and so improved and adorned it, that even in the Augustan age the work was greatly admired for its architectural beauty.^[69] The restoration of the temple fortress was unfortunately undertaken at a time when the increase of the tributum, or taxes, pressed upon men whose means the destruction and rebuilding of Rome had greatly reduced. Four new tribes were added to the number this year, to which the names of Stellatina, Fromentina, Sabitina, and Anniensis were given.

The invasion of the Antiatans, or Volscians of Antium, again placed Camillus at the head of an army. Near Satricum he met the invaders, when, perceiving that his soldiers were discouraged by their numbers, he rode through their ranks to reassure them, and alighting from his horse, took a standard-bearer by the arm, whom he led towards the hostile ranks, with the words, “Soldiers, advance!” The Romans followed their heroic leader, and the battle was won.^[70] He raised the siege of Sutrium,^[71] which was again on the point of falling into the hands of the Etruscans, and retook Nepete, which had surrendered voluntarily to the Etruscans, putting the revolted garrison to the sword. An invasion of the Pomptine territory by the united forces of the Latins, Volscians, and Hernicans, was one of the leading features of the following military tribuneship, the Volsci claiming these lands by right of inheritance, which the Romans held by that of conquest. The event that stained the annals of the next tribuneship but one was the impeachment and condemnation of Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, the very man who had saved the temple fortress, the pride and ornament of the city, from the possession of the Gauls. To avert the real or pretended danger originating from the popularity of this eminent person, as well as to head the armies of the republic, a dictator was named in the person of Cornelius Cossus. This new magistrate appointed T. Quinctius Capitolinus for his master of horse, the title by which the republican cavalry general was generally distinguished.^[72] It is difficult and perhaps impossible to decide from the B.C. 381. scanty evidence before us whether we are to consider Manlius as a patriot or a victim, as the jealous rival of Camillus, or a noble-minded man, who stood forth to support and succour the distressed, or the guilty and ambitious aspirant aiming at absolute power through the favour of the people. Under each of these aspects we might view the patrician, who was tried and executed with the concurrence of the commons, on the accusation of the dictator Cossus. If we follow the narrative, the supreme magistrate was recalled from his victories over the Volscians to protect Rome from the daring ambition of Manlius^[73].

If Manlius were really a traitor, his treason took the shape of charity; for on every occasion in which the payment of debt was enforced on the aged and impoverished debtor, he satisfied the rapacious creditor, not without expressing his indignation against the exactor of usurious interest.^[74] The sight of a centurion who had served with him dragged through the Forum, on his way to the creditor’s house as his bondsman, gave publicity to these compassionate deeds; and the lofty patrician, who stooped from his position to redeem upon the spot the veteran who had served with him in the field, was recognised at once as the glory of his own order, and the hope and champion of the plebeian.^[75] After this he sold the principal part of his landed estates to alleviate the distresses of four hundred debtors,^[76] probably being conscious that the lands of the rich had been stolen out of the ager communis of the poor; for it was by such encroachments that the patrician order had become rich. Acts like these had obtained for the generous benefactor of the commons the endearing appellation of “Father.” His house in the Capitol was the resort of the poor and oppressed, in whose hearing he uttered invectives against the senate, accusing that body of having appropriated the gold that had been offered as a bribe to Brennus to their own use.^[77] This large sum he proposed compelling them to restore for the general benefit of poor plebeian debtors, whose obligations he calculated it would discharge. Such was the state of the republic when Cornelius Cossus, the dictator, was called from fighting her battles, to prevent or wage a civil war at home. Ascending his tribunal in the Forum, he sent a lictor to summon the popular Roman leader before him.^[78] Manlius obeyed, but entered the place accompanied by an army of retainers or clients, looking more like a general about to engage an enemy than a factious citizen called upon by the chief magistrate to answer for his sedition.^[79] The dictator’s chief object was to clear the senate from the charge of having stolen the treasure, and to express his willingness to appropriate it to the purposes proposed by Manlius if it could be found. He therefore called upon him to name the parties who had taken possession of it, under the penalty of imprisonment as a slanderer of the senatorial body.^[80] The proposition was a fair one; but if the accounts be not garbled, it was not met as candidly by Manlius. “Am I to reveal the place where your thefts are concealed?” haughtily retorted Manlius. “Ought not you rather to be compelled to reveal it?” The dictator immediately committed him to prison, whereupon Manlius passionately invoked all the celestial deities, and Juno in particular, whom he addressed as the queen of heaven, to deliver him from his enemies. “Will you suffer your defender to be thus treated by his enemies? Shall this right hand be locked in chains with which I drove the Gauls from your sanctuaries?”^[81] was the indignant prayer of her votary. The people saw their champion conducted to prison with tears, but they made no attempt to save him from that indignity. They confined their impotent pity to lamenting his misfortunes beneath the walls of his prison, neglecting their hair and beards, and assuming mourning habits.^[82] The committal of Manlius was followed by the dictatorial triumph. This show did not calm the irritated minds of the plebeians, who said openly, “that Manlius in his chains was wanting to swell the arrogance of the victor.” They affected to marvel at his absence, nor did the assignment of the territories of Satricum, as a colony, with the gift of two acres and a half of arable land to B.C. 381. each man who would repair thither, at all allay the public discontent. The senate, not willing that Manlius should owe his liberty to the people, who threatened to take him out of prison by force, released him by an act of their own power. The thirty-eighth military tribuneship was remarkable for the termination of the contest between the plebeian party with its illustrious patrician leader and the aristocracy, headed by Camillus, who was this year chosen military tribune^[83] for the fifth time. But the enmity of the aristocracy was not the sole cause in action to crush the leader of the people, the destructive force emanated from the democracy itself. The tribunes of the people hated him, and M. Manius and Q. Petilius, two of that college, boldly said, “Why do we make that to be a strife between the senate and commons, which ought to be a war of the state against one pestilent citizen? We will cite him to take his trial before the people. Nothing is more odious to the people than royalty, and when they are made judges in the cause, they will unquestionably show that there is nothing they regard so dearly as their liberty.”^[84] Too well had the tribunes of the people read the disposition of the Roman multitude. Manlius was cited to appear on his trial before the commons, in an assembly of centuries; and the man, who had saved the Capitol, exhibited in his mourning dress and deserted state what little reliance can be placed in the attachment of an interested and uneducated crowd. Yet the popular leader did not fall without a struggle on his part to awaken chords that might yet respond to his call in the bosoms of his fellow citizens. He cited forty persons whose necessities had been relieved and debts paid by his money, for the use of which he had received no interest. He exhibited two golden crowns, won for being the first man who entered towns taken by assault, and eight civic crowns of oak leaves, the simple yet honourable reward of him who had saved the life of a citizen in battle, of whom C. Servilius, a former general of horse, was one. He produced the spoils of thirty enemies, slain by his hand in single combat, and opening his bosom displayed the scars he had received there in the service of his country. His last appeal was to the Capitol, which he had saved, and the deities whose images it contained. He invoked its gods, and bade the people turn their faces towards that sanctuary, and think of those divine beings who resided there when about to pronounce judgment upon him.^[85]

The Campus Martius, in which the assembly was held, presented to the eyes of the people that temple citadel which was the object of their deep though misplaced veneration, and they could not resolve to condemn him who had saved it while it remained in their view. The military tribunes perceiving the bent of their feelings,—for such impulses are the actuating principles of an uneducated multitude—adjourned the conclusion of the trial to another day, and place.^[86] The trial of Manlius, thus adjourned, did not re-commence under the same form. His enemies, or the friends of the republic, for the prosecutors may be ranked under either head, saw at once that if they continued to defer the sentence of the accused, his acquittal would be certain. We are told that an assembly was summoned the following morning in the Pœtelinian wood without the gate Nomentana, where the Capitol was no longer visible, and that in that place Manlius was condemned by the voice of the people to be hurled from the height of the Tarpeian rock, the very stronghold his gallantry and personal prowess had saved.^[87] Such, remarks Livy, “being the end of a man who if he had not been born in a free state would have deserved to be remembered with honour by posterity.”^[88] By a public decree, the house of Manlius was razed, and no patrician was permitted from that time to dwell in the Capitol. A temple to the goddess Moneta was built upon the hearth of the state victim, while his family determined that none of their race should ever bear the fatal name of Marcus, thus in a measure justifying the sentence that condemned him. His own brother, Aulus Manlius, a usurious patrician, was one of his bitterest enemies. His crime, with his own order, appears to have been seeking popularity from the people, and with the tribunes of the commons for belonging to the patrician rank. He was the victim of an ill constituted government in times of universal ignorance. A warning example that B.C. 379. the popular idol of the hour may in the next become the victim of his worshippers.

Camillus, burdened with years, thought the plea of age might have excused him from forming a part of the military tribuneship, but neither the senate nor the people would permit the exemption he claimed; he therefore served in the forty-first, the conduct of the Volscian war being committed to his charge. His prudence displeased the younger tribune serving with him; who, upon the refusal of his veteran coadjutor to fight, told him, “age had cooled his blood, and that he ought to comply with the general wish of the army, and engage the enemy.” Camillus calmly replied, That the Roman republic had appeared perfectly satisfied with his method of conducting the war; that he wished the army success, since he could not restrain it from fighting, but that he should remain with the reserve body on account of his age and infirmities.

Having wrung this reluctant consent from the veteran general, Furius and his troops made a vigorous charge upon the Volscians; but being carried away by their ardour, were exposed to the disgrace of a defeat, but for the aid of Camillus, who joined them with the reserve in time to gain the victory. Among the prisoners, he found some Tusculans; and as that city had been the constant ally and friend of Rome, he dreaded lest its near vicinity might render it a new and dangerous enemy. He thought the matter of sufficient consequence to require the counsel of the senate, and therefore quitted the camp for the metropolis. Furius and his officers were alarmed at the departure of the commander-in-chief; and even the senate, who had heard of the disaster of the rash tribune, expected to receive a complaint instead of a recommendation, for Camillus named his brave adversary as his colleague in the war they had decided against the Tusculans, who were reported to be in open revolt. His conduct gained him the gratitude of Furius, and the esteem of the army.^[89]

Camillus found the inhabitants of Tusculum employed in the arts of peace, and not engaged in preparation for war. He advised the people to send a deputation to the senate to ask pardon for the rashness committed by some of the citizens. His wise and merciful counsel was followed; and this small city that had often assisted Rome in her time of need or danger, easily obtained the clemency she implored at the hands of her mightier neighbour. The privilege of Roman citizenship was conferred upon the Tusculans. The Prænestines took this crisis to invade the Roman territories, marching to the very gates of Rome; but finally encamping on the banks of the Allia, a spot they considered fatal to the Roman people. Titus Quinctius, who was made dictator, defeated them on that memorable spot, took all their towns, and forced them to surrender Præneste, their capital city, from whence he bore away the statue of Jupiter Imperator, which he placed in the Capitol.^[90] The idols of Rome were always won from the nations they conquered.

The Volscian war, conducted by the two Manlii, was unfortunate, those tribunes being drawn into an ambuscade by a Latin soldier in Roman military attire, who bade them hasten to save their foraging party then engaged with the Volscians. Nothing but the consummate personal bravery of the commanders saved themselves and their legions from being cut to pieces.^[91] This misfortune arose from the Latins speaking the same language as the Romans; such nations should never be foes.

The predatory incursions of the Volscians increased the distress of the poor debtors, of whose grievances no notice could be taken by the censors during the war. The tribunes of the people would not allow the levies to be made until the senate agreed to suspend the payment of public and private debts during the contest.^[92] The Volscians were then driven out with loss, and public tranquillity was restored. A stone wall, built by the censors, occasioned much displeasure, as the poorer classes were forced to contribute to its erection, a measure they considered oppressive.^[93] The Romans were engaged in a series of petty wars with the Latins and Volscians, but had the good fortune to retake Tusculum from them, which they restored to its inhabitants. A quarrel between these predatory nations occasioned them to abandon the contest with the republic. The restoration of peace did not calm the discontented citizens of Rome. The poor B.C. 379. plebeian landholder endured hardships and privations unknown to the ærarian class below him. He possessed, indeed, greater civic privileges, but then he wanted bread, or was reduced to the state of a bond-slave to a creditor, who often used him hardly. This law was, however, the amelioration of an ancient or more horrible one, by which the bankrupt debtor, after proclamation by the public crier upon three successive market days, could be killed, and his person divided among his creditors, unless redeemed by the payment of his debts. No instance of this law having been put in force is extant, but it must have been made when the people of Italy, from whom the Romans took it,^[94] were cannibals. The plebeians, thus oppressed and humbled, could hope for no relief while their order was prevented from exercising the supreme magistracy. They wished for the restoration of the consulship, and the nomination of a commoner to that dignity, as the best means of defending their interests, and recovering the privileges anciently granted them by King Servius. This privilege, which ought to have been revived when the regal gave place to the republican form of government, was finally accorded them, not as a matter of right, but to dry the tears of a weak, vain woman. It happened in the beginning of this military tribuneship^[95] that the younger daughter of Fabius Ambustus, who was married to a rich plebeian named Licinius Stolo, paid a visit to her elder sister, who was the wife of the military tribune Sulpicius. The lictor, who preceded the magistrate, made such an ostentatious knocking at the door, that Fabia, alarmed at the noise, asked her sister “what it meant.” Her sister, laughing at her fears, informed her “that it was caused by the lictor’s staff, who announced in this manner the return of her husband to his home.” “A very small matter,” remarks Livy, “will disturb the quiet of a woman’s mind.” He might have added when weak as Fabia; whose uneasiness was increased by the throng of visitors who came to pay their court to the wife of Sulpicius, and to request her good offices. The envious sister was so unhappy, that her father noticed her trouble, and kindly asked the cause. At first she was silent, being unwilling to confess that she was jealous of her sister, or dissatisfied with her own condition. Fabius Ambustus was of a family renowned for parental affection, and his tenderness drew from his weak daughter the fact that she was unsuitably married, and the manner in which she had made this mortifying discovery.^[96] The warrior and statesman laughed heartily at her confession, bade her dry her tears, and have patience, promising that in the course of a few years her ears should ring with the noise at home, which had become the object of her foolish ambition. Fabia was forced to be content with this promise, which her fond father soon performed, aided by Licinius Stolo and Sextius, a talented young patrician. His coadjutors stood for the tribuneship of the people, and no sooner entered upon their office, than they proposed the entire abolition of the military tribuneship, and the revival of the consular magistrates, who were to be chosen by the people, one always being a plebeian. They also proposed two new laws. The first related to the payment of debts, and provided that the interest already paid should be deducted from the amount of the principal, which was to be refunded in three equal payments in three years. The second is known in history by the name of the Licinian law; it was an agrarian law apparently instituted to remedy the evils suffered by the plebeian order.^[97] Licinius Stolo, the actual framer of the agrarian law, designed it as a stepping-stone to his own elevation to power. If we could merely regard this powerful and influential person through the medium of the measures he proposed, he would be justly entitled to our admiration; but Licinius was no real patriot, but an able and dishonest demagogue—a lawgiver who never intended to be restricted by the statutes he made. Oratory was a gift in the Licinian family, who were fine speakers, and had the art of gaining popularity and amassing wealth. Notwithstanding his want of public integrity, the law proposed by Licinius was founded in justice and reason.^[98] This tribune wanted the noble qualities of the popular victim, Spurius Cassius, who had been not only deserted by the commons, but immolated by them.

The struggle to prevent the agrarian law passing in this form was not limited to the aristocracy; the rich B.C. 377-371. plebeians, who had become possessed of the ager publicus while serving in those offices of state to which their order had been admitted, or as recipients of grants from their patrician relatives, dreaded a statute which would not only put a stop to such acquisitions in future, but would enforce and compel their restitution by the limitations it proposed. The tribunes of the people, whose peculiar office it was to regulate the possession of the public domain, saw themselves through their illegal occupation of it exposed by the new agrarian law, and therefore united in giving their veto against the offensive measures of their two colleagues.^[99] Licinius and Sextius chose to adopt the same word when the time came for the election of the new military magistrates; and it is the generally received opinion, grounded upon the Roman Fasti, that these two popular tribunes with the plebeian ædiles were the only magistrates remaining in office for the space of five years. The truth is not easily discovered; but whether the reign of Licinius Stolo and his colleague, L. Sextius, lasted five months or five years, the Latin war with the people of Tusculum compelled them to withdraw their veto, and permit the comitia to be held for the election of six military magistrates,^[100] of patrician houses, but well-disposed to the people. Two of these were near relations of Licinius Stolo, whose hardest battle was with the wealthy plebeians of his own order. The relief of Tusculum was effected, and the siege of Velitræ formed when the election for military tribunes placed the father-in-law of Licinius Stolo at the head of those magistrates^[101]—a circumstance which considerably strengthened the influence of his plebeian son-in-law, whose long continuance in the tribuneship of the people had lessened the opposition in his own college from eight to three.^[102] Velitræ still held out, and Sextius and Stolo proposed another law, by which the office of keeping the Sybilline books should be shared by the plebeians by the change of duumvirs into decemvirs, five of whom were to be taken from the commons.

Licinius Stolo and Sextius retained their seats in the tribunitial college, though illegally, through the favour of the people, and their continuance in an office limited in its utmost extension to fifteen months, must have convinced the clear-sighted of their ultimate triumph. In fact, they were resolved to carry their views in despite of all opposition, and this important crisis led to the revival of the dictatorial office. Camillus, notwithstanding his great age, was the man upon whom his country fixed their choice. He accepted the dignity for the fourth time with visible reluctance; for it placed him in the front of the battle, not against the enemy, but against the commons, by whom he had never been beloved. Seated in his tribunal, the veteran confronted the storm, “declaring that he came to protect the commons, and that he would never suffer one part of its tribunes to deprive the other of its right of opposition.” The two men of the people laughed at the speech, and proceeded to take the votes of the tribes without acknowledging the supreme power vested in the person of the dictator.^[103]

Camillus obliged the people to quit the Forum by means of his lictors threatening at the same time to enlist and lead them into the field. Stolo and Sextius, in return, brought in a bill to fine the dictator. Camillus either abdicated to avoid the fine, or discovered some defect in the auspices at his inauguration. P. Manlius was elected to succeed him in his short-lived office.^[104] Manlius chose C. Licinius, a plebeian, for his general of horse—an unprecedented measure, which excited as much surprise and indignation as if he had actually named Licinius Stolo, the factious tribune of the people, to that honourable office. He pleaded that Licinius was his relation, and had been a military tribune. In this case the ties of blood and private friendship were neither forgotten nor forsaken in the war of party. The leaders of the opposing faction threatened to give up the laws relating to usury and the conquered lands, unless the people stood by them in that of the consulate. They even offered to resign the contest for the tribuneship. The people re-elected them, and the senate conceded to them the law relative to the keeping of the Sybilline books, of which patricians and plebeians were now constituted the mutual guardians.^[105]

B.C. 367. Pleased with their victory, no opposition was made by the tribunes to the government being lodged in the hands of six military tribunes.

The forty-ninth military tribuneship was hardly formed, when the old war-cry, “The Gauls! the Gauls!” was raised, and Camillus was called by the voices of patrician and plebeian, people and senate, to repel the barbaric inundation flowing from the coasts of the Adriatic towards the city of Rome.^[106] Camillus accepted the dignity for the fifth time.^[107] He caused great alterations and improvements to be made in the armour and weapons of the Roman soldiery, which had hitherto been of an inferior construction to those of the Gauls. The Roman arms were crowned with victory. On the banks of the Arno the camp of the Gauls was taken and plundered, and the greater part of their host destroyed. It was nearly twenty-three years since the loss of the battle of the Allia had occasioned the desolation of Rome by these barbarians; but the Romans had no longer cause to dread defeat or invasion from these formidable foes. Camillus closed his military career by marching to Velitræ, which immediately surrendered to him.^[108] A triumph was granted to him for the successful campaign. He wished to conclude his public life by laying down the dictatorship, but the senate would not allow him to resign; for a political convulsion was at hand, and the venerable octogenarian who had so long wielded the sceptre of military glory, was exposed once more to greater danger than he had ever confronted in the field, for he was compelled to face the fury of an ungrateful and infuriated mob. The dictator was seated on his tribunal in the Forum, dispensing justice according to established custom, when an officer was despatched by the tribunes of the people to arrest and bring him before them. The patricians sprang forward to defend his person, while the infuriated people seconded the attempt of the officer, calling to one another, “Pull him down! pull him down!” Surrounded by an enraged and exasperated mob, the aged dictator displayed the courage that had always marked his eventful course, and retained his seat, regardless of their threats and imprecations, till a gallant band of patricians delivered him from his imminent peril, and guarded him in safety to the senate-house.^[109] Before entering that privileged place, he turned his face towards the Capitol, vowing to erect a temple to Concord if the gods would grant to the divided Roman people the blessings of peace.^[110] The senate, after this popular outbreak, permitted the agrarian law of Licinius to pass, and also that relating to debt. The concessions made by the Senate did not satisfy the tribunes, who resolved to ensure the participation of the consulship to their own order. This demand was wise and just, leading not only to the vast political importance of Rome, but to her moral ascendancy and internal greatness. The people, headed by their most influential tribunes, Caius Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius, decreed the abolition of the military tribuneship, nominating Æmilius Mamercinus a patrician, and Sextius then tribune, the successful plebeian candidates for the consulship. The senate pronounced the election to be invalid. But the dictator Camillus, from whom such a decision was least expected, over-ruled their objections, and recommended them to yield to the wish of the people.^[111]

To a patrician officer, called a prætor, was assigned the authority of supreme judge, an office hitherto attached to the consular dignity. To this magistrate was granted a curule chair, a purple robe, and attendant lictors. Spurius Camillus the son of the dictator, was the first man who held the office, being elected to it by the commons, as a mark of respect to his father. The announcement of these concessions to the people by the dictator, raised him to a height of popularity he had never known before. The commons were satisfied with their victory, and nothing was manifested by them but joy.^[112] Camillus raised his temple to Concord, on the same spot formerly occupied by his tribunal when he was attacked by the mob. A fourth day in memory of the reconciliation of the senate B.C. 366. and people was added to the great games, which were celebrated with unusual splendour. The ædiles refused to preside on this occasion for some unknown reason, or perhaps because the additional day was to mark the position assumed by the commons, who took their place by the side of the three old patrician tribes, Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres.^[113] Two new ædiles were appointed to be taken every other year from the two orders. These magistrates exercised the functions of the quæstores parricidii,^[114] trying criminals for various offences, and if any accused person appealed from their sentence, they prosecuted the party in the comitia of the centuries. But the functions of the curule ædiles were not limited to jurisprudence alone, but were multifarious and embraced a variety of objects. These magistrates, who were allowed curule chairs, held jurisdiction over all meetings, assemblies, theatres, or places of public resort for business or pleasure; overlooked the repairs of theatres and temples and the city walls; suppressed all novelties in religion; and when the Romans became a literary people, examined all books, particularly those pieces written for the stage.

The great Camillus, with the halo of popular favour round his venerable brow, expired soon after the civic disputes had been decided in the people’s favour, “more deeply regretted by his country than the whole multitude who died of the plague, the disease that carried him off.”^[115] Rome never boasted a prouder name than that of Furius Camillus. This great dictator lived fourscore years, of which he had passed more than sixty in the service of his country. Greece may rival his fame, but she never surpassed it. The reader has seen the public fault that dimmed the glory of this great patriot and soldier, if great attachment to his own order deserves so harsh a name, melt away like clouds before the setting sun. There is no actual foundation for the supposition that he occasioned the death of Manlius; but the hatred between them made it so generally believed, that it is not easy to clear the character of Camillus from the stain tradition has affixed to his name. But if we must not pronounce this mighty Roman a perfect man, we may admire and venerate him as the second father of his country. His military fame, great as it was, being exceeded by that undying attachment to Rome which her ingratitude could not annihilate. He did not, like Coriolanus, lead a foreign army against his country, but sought and succoured her in her ashes and degradation, giving to her citizens a noble example of public virtue. He saved the people who had cast him forth into exile, and finally consented to a measure of political justice in the senate which the furious attack of a mob could not wring from him. In the last days of his long life, he received the reward of his public services in the love of the people—a love he had always merited, but which was not fully accorded to his worth till then.^[116]

Ten years had elapsed since Fabius Ambustus had dried the tears of his youngest daughter, by the promise that her husband should be first magistrate. Licinius Stolo was chosen for the ninety-first consulship, in conjunction with C. Sulpicius, and the vow of Fabius was performed.^[1] The plague still continued its ravages, and the Romans, hoping to avert the scourge, introduced some new rites, in order to propitiate the offended gods. Shows, called Ludi Scenici, a sort of low comedies, were performed near the banks of the Tiber, in honour of them. This was the first dawn of the dramatic art in Rome; and though the pestilence did not decrease, the people were pleased with an amusement hitherto unknown to them. The performers were all Etruscans.^[2] In the following consulship, L. Manlius Imperiosus was made dictator, for the express purpose of driving a nail into the wall of the temple of Minerva.^[3] The dictator did not mean to pass his dictatorship in the construction of calendars; he refused to resign his authority, determining in his own mind to lead the Roman army against the Hernicans, but the consuls compelled him to resign. His going out of office was followed by his citation by Pomponius, a tribune of the people, to answer before them for his late conduct. Among other charges against Manlius, he enumerated the ill-treatment of his own son, who, on account of an impediment in his speech, was considered weak-minded by his haughty father, by whom he was kept to hard labour at his country house, having no companions but slaves. It is probable that the stern Roman made this toil a part of his son’s education; for the tribune Pomponius had scarcely sent the citation before he was startled by the appearance of the young client (of whom he had become the self-appointed patron) in his bed-chamber, who, drawing a poignard from under his garments, bade him swear to withdraw his accusation against his father, or die upon the spot.^[4] Pomponius, either convinced by the rough reasoning of young Titus Manlius, or alarmed at the alternative, promised to clear the accused of this charge.^[5] He kept his word, and gave the people the history of the courageous filial piety of the youth, as the cause of his withdrawing his accusation against the father. They extolled the conduct of young Titus, and gave a proof of their regard by placing him the second on the list of six legionary tribunes they were allowed the privilege of electing.^[6] The preceding year had been marked by alarming inundations, the Tiber overflowing the Circus Maximus at the time when the games for the propitiation of the gods were being performed in order to remove the plague. But this year an earthquake opened a great chasm in the Forum, B.C. 363. which continued to increase in depth and width to the terror and consternation of the Roman people, who laboured in vain to fill it up by casting in earth and stones.^[7] When we consider the volcanic nature of the site occupied by Rome, the opening of a gulf, from which flames frequently issued, will no longer be considered fabulous, but appear the natural result of such a situation. The augurs, when consulted upon the danger that threatened the city, declared it could not be averted until that in which the power and strength of the Roman people consisted was cast into the chasm, when it would not only close upon the sacrifice, but the offering would procure from the gods the eternal duration of the Roman state.^[8] The ambiguous meaning of the augurs, so evidently pointing at the immolation of the worthiest Roman citizen, escaped the penetration of the multitude. Each individual cast in what he deemed most valuable of his worldly possessions, but the chasm remained unclosed till Marcus Curtius, a noble Roman youth, declared “that Rome had nothing more precious to offer than arms and valour.” Arming himself as for the field, and mounting his battle charger, the generous young man entered the Forum at full speed, when, turning towards the Capitol, he invoked at the chasm, the celestial and infernal deities, declaring that he offered himself as a sacrifice for the welfare of his country; then spurring his horse, plunged headlong into the flaming gulf, burying in that living grave his youth and heroic qualities, to become the victim of a wild and cruel superstition. The people flung down upon him many precious moveables, and with these, it was said, the gulf was speedily filled up.^[9] It was most likely closed by another shock of earthquake—a phenomenon of not unfrequent occurrence in the natural history of Italy. This beautiful legend is said to have given to the marshy spot the name of the hero, but it was certainly called the Curtian Lake before this date.

The republic was employed in a continual series of wars with the Latin, Etruscan, and Gaulish nations, from the time when the great Camillus closed his military career. In the commencement of the contest with the Hernicans, the first plebeian consul who ever led a Roman army into the field lost a battle and his life. The dictator, Appius Claudius, soon after retrieved the honour of the republic, but his victory was attended with such an immense loss of life, that he was allowed no triumph. The Cis-alpine Gauls put themselves on the march for Rome, when the bridge of the Anio, which was between them and the Roman army, became the scene of a remarkable duel. A gigantic warrior, the Goliath of the Gauls, repeatedly challenged the Romans, when young Titus Manlius asked permission of the dictator, Quinctius Pennus, to encounter the boastful foe, the strictness of military discipline not permitting him to leave the ranks. “Go, Manlius, and be as valiant for Rome as thou wert for thy father,” was the reply of a commander who remembered the noble filial piety of the youth. Manlius slew his huge adversary, and took from his neck a rich collar, from which circumstance he afterwards bore the surname of Torquatus.^[10] The Gauls, alarmed at the fall of their champion, hastily broke up their camp. They returned the following year, while the consuls were employed in the Latin war, but were defeated by Servilius Ahala under the walls of Rome. The victor refused a triumph for his public service.^[11] In the following year, the plebeian consul Popillius was offering up a sacrifice to the goddess Carmenta, when the populace suddenly rose against the senate, upon which he hurried in his linen robe to the scene of contest, and, by his prompt appearance, put an end to the sedition. He was ever after distinguished by the name of Lænas.^[12] The appearance of the Boian Gauls in the plains of Præneste, caused C. Sulpicius to be created dictator, to repel the threatened danger.^[13] The Latins, who had reason to dread the coming of these barbarian hordes, at this critical juncture renewed their alliance with Rome, and furnished their usual quota of men and arms. This seasonable supply enabled the dictator Sulpicius to raise a considerable force for the war. Though within sight of the enemy, he did not think it prudent to engage with an army far more numerous than his own. His soldiers, upon his refusal to fight, mutinied, and, headed by an old centurion, Sextius, rushed tumultuously B.C. 361. into his presence. The dictator, who greatly esteemed the veteran for his worth and wisdom, took him aside, and expressed his surprise at finding him at the head of a mutiny. Sextius ingenuously replied, “That he consented to be leader to prevent a worse man from being chosen;” adding, “that the soldiers were determined to fight without the dictator, unless he yielded to their demands.” Sulpicius then consented to head them, and sending his muleteers into a neighbouring wood, covered by a stratagem the thinness of his army. The enemy seeing them advance from a distance, while the Romans were charging them in front, were deceived by the notion that a body of a thousand horsemen were approaching; for the mules, being covered with war furniture, presented a formidable appearance. At the sight of this new sort of cavalry, they fled in disorder, and Sulpicius put the greater part of them to the sword. For this victory Sulpicius obtained a triumph.^[14] A new law was passed to prevent the sale of votes. The following year one was enacted which fixed the rate of interest at one per cent. per month. High as this rate appears to us, it was better than remaining at the pleasure of the lender.^[15] Licinius Stolo was fined for having a thousand acres of land in his possession, being double the quantity his own law allowed. He had made a pretended gift of five hundred to his son—a subterfuge that exposed him to general contempt.^[16] As the limitation only regarded the public lands unlawfully taken possession of without purchase, the robbery perpetrated by this plebeian patriot upon the property of the state was particularly rapacious.^[17]

A fresh confederacy was formed against the Romans by the Faliscans and Etruscans, when the plebeian consul, Popillius, named C. Plautius Proculus magister equitum, who gained a complete victory over the combined armies, and took eight thousand prisoners. He was not, however, allowed to preside in the comitia for the election of the consuls for the ensuing year, as the auspices could only be taken by a magistrate of unmixed blood. The objection made by the patricians was considered valid. Two years later the consulship was held by patricians, M. Fabius Ambustus and T. Quinctius Pennus. The campaigns of these experienced commanders were equally successful. Fabius Ambustus reduced the Tibertines, while his colleague defeated the Tarquinians in a pitched battle. After the victory he put all the prisoners to death with the exception of those who were reserved for severer punishments, in return for the murder of three hundred and fifty Romans by the Tarquinians. By a decree of the senate, these victims were cruelly scourged with rods and then beheaded.^[18] The victories and executions of Quinctius Pennus reached the ears of the Samnites, who sent an embassy to desire the friendship of the warlike Romans, upon the same terms as the Latins. An alliance was then formed, which the haughty character of the contracting parties soon changed into a lasting quarrel. Sulpicius Peticus and M. Valerius Poplicola had scarcely taken the fasces before the Etruscans, Volscians, Faliscans and Tarquinians were in arms against Rome. As the consuls were obliged to march in different directions, and the Cærites were also in this offensive league, Titus Manlius Torquatus was named dictator to command the third army. Manlius had never been consul, but this point, a necessary qualification for a dictator, was ceded to his great merit. Cære submitted to his authority, and her citizens pleaded, in extenuation of their faults, the hospitality formerly accorded to the vestal virgins and priesthood of Rome. The claim was a second time allowed, and the dictator made a truce with them for a hundred years.^[19] No enemy appeared in the field against Manlius, who ravaged the lands of the Faliscans and returned to Rome.

C. Marcius Rutilus and Valerius Poplicola united together in the patriotic act of easing the distressed debtors. Five men of worth and probity were employed to pay their debts out of the public treasury. They were called bankers,^[20] and made a strict investigation into the manner B.C. 354. in which debt had been incurred. To those whose improvidence had brought them into bad circumstances, they lent money upon interest, taking security for the public property, and by this means eased their burdens without injuring the state.^[21]

The Gauls again appeared in arms, but were defeated by the plebeian consul Popillius, his patrician colleague Scipio being sick.^[22] Camillus, the son of the great Camillus, was chosen dictator. He nominated himself and Appius Claudius Crassus to the consulship, and, leading an army into the field, proved himself worthy of his father’s name and reputation. The Gauls, who had taken refuge among the hills of Alba, again invaded the Latin territory, at the very time when a body of Greek pirates appeared on the sea-coast, and took possession of that part of the country. The Gauls drove the robbers back to their ships, not wishing them to share their spoils. Camillus, after sending Pinarius, the prætor of Rome, to guard the sea-shore from the Greeks, encamped among the Pomptine Marshes, intending to starve his enemies, not to fight with them. The prudence of the general was overcome by a fortunate accident. As the armies were in sight of each other—a gigantic Gaul challenged Marcus Valerius, a tribune, to single combat, which being accepted, brought on a general engagement.^[23] The Roman champion, we are gravely assured by Livy, received great assistance from a raven, who incessantly annoyed his adversary by buffeting him during the combat. Valerius slew his enemy, and gained the name of Corvus. The Romans were completely victorious, slaying all those who did not fly to the shores of the Adriatic. Camillus rewarded Valerius with a crown of gold and ten oxen. The dictator hoped to conclude the campaign before he was out of office, but he was still in the field when Valerius Corvus, though very young, was chosen in conjunction with Popillius Lænas, for the one hundred and seventh consulship. Camillus succeeded in driving the pirate Greeks to sea, and left Rome once more in possession of profound peace. The most memorable event of the next year was the alliance between the republic and Carthage,^[24] which the African state sent an embassy to Rome to propose. No taxes or levies were raised in the next consulship, and the amount of interest was reduced one-half per cent.—a sure proof of the internal prosperity of Rome. The debtors also obtained three years time for the payment of their debts.

While the consuls Manlius Imperiosus and C. Marcius Rutilus were consecrating the temple of Juno, the foundations of which were laid upon the spot where the house of the unfortunate Marcus Manlius had formerly stood, a shower of stones fell accompanied with sudden darkness.^[25] This was upon the 1st of June, and was probably occasioned by some distant volcanic eruption. This temple was afterwards used for the public mint.

The Sidicines, a people of Ausonia, were attacked by the Samnites, and being unable to repel the invasion, applied to the Campanians, a rich commercial people, for assistance, who willingly undertook their defence. The Samnites, who were well acquainted with the unwarlike dispositions of the Campanians, cast their eyes upon their wealth, and abandoning the conquest of the inconsiderable Sidicines, turned their arms against their rich and imprudent allies. The Campanians, who knew nothing of war, sent an embassy to Rome, entreating the aid of the republic, and offering to present Capua and all their lands to the senate, if the Romans would secure them from the ravages of the Samnites.^[26] As the republic was in strict alliance with Samnium, they comforted the Campanian deputies, who were in tears, with the promise of using their influence with the Samnites, to withdraw their arms from their territories. Nevertheless, they accepted the investiture, and sent an embassy to Samnium, to entreat them to spare a people in alliance with Rome. The Samnites, displeased with the interference of their allies, of whose double dealing they were doubtless aware, gave the deputies no answer. They even ordered their general to ravage Campania in their presence. This insult was a declaration of war. Valerius Corvus marched with an army to defend Campania, while his colleague, Cornelius Cossus, invaded Samnium. Near Mount B.C. 344. Gaurus, Valerius gained a victory over the Samnites, in whom, notwithstanding their defeat, he found determined bravery.^[27] Cossus, less fortunate, was surrounded at Saticula, a place upon the borders of Samnium, and must have perished there with his legions, but for the boldness and bravery of Decius Mus. This valiant plebeian requested his general to give him the command of half a legion, and permission to post himself with these troops upon an eminence, in order to cover the retreat of the Roman army. His request was granted, and aided by the darts of this body of devoted men, the army cleared the dangerous defile.^[28] No escape was left to Decius and his band but through the camp of the enemy. They effected this hazardous enterprise in the night, by sliding down the hill, and passing through the sleeping host, yet not without discovery, for one of the legionaries struck his foot against the buckler of a foe, which accident roused the camp. The darkness favoured the Romans, who joined the army by break of day, without loss or injury.^[29] Cossus commenced an oration in praise of Decius, but the brave soldier bluntly interrupted him to point out a part of the Samnite camp which he thought assailable, advising the consul to attack it without delay.^[30] Cossus immediately surprised the Samnites, who lost thirty thousand men.^[31] The consul placed upon the bold brow of the brave plebeian, Decius, the golden, the obsidional, and oaken crowns in succession. He gave him a hundred oxen, and one milk-white bull with gilded horns. With the generosity that marked his character, Decius refused the oxen, but accepted the bull as a sacrifice to the god of war. His followers were rewarded by the gift of military habits, and a double allowance of corn for life.^[32] Valerius Corvus prosecuted the war in Campania with vigour and success. He made himself master of the Samnite camp, and took one hundred and seventy standards from them. This splendid campaign closed with the triumphs decreed by the Roman senate and people to the victorious consuls, whose triumphal entries were soon followed by the appearance of the ambassadors from Carthage, bringing presents and congratulations to the Roman republic upon the success of her arms.^[33] It is a curious fact that the wily African state offered a crown of gold to Jupiter Capitolinus, in gratitude for the Roman victories won under his auspices. The following year the valiant plebeian consul, Rutilus, marched to join the Roman forces in Campania, who discovered that the Roman soldiers left in Capua by Valerius Corvus had forgotten their love and allegiance to their country, having formed the wicked design of expelling the inhabitants of this fine city to found a state for themselves.^[34] Under various pretences, Rutilus despatched the most disaffected in the direction of Rome; but when he sent away whole companies, the rest of the army took the idea that their comrades had been tried and executed. They deserted the consul, and marched to Anxur, in Lautulæ, where they encamped in a strong position between a ridge of mountains and the sea. In this dangerous state of affairs, Valerius Corvus, a man much beloved by the Roman soldiery, was chosen dictator.^[35] He met the rebels about eight miles from Rome, on the Appian way. Although at the head of an army, Valerius did not wish to slaughter the revolted, who were not only his own countrymen, but the troops he had led to victory the preceding year. He addressed them in an able oration, in which he endeavoured to bring them back to their duty. Observing that T. Quinctius, a very valiant soldier, was their leader, he bade him “retire to the rear when the battle commenced, as a less shameful act than leading Romans against Romans.” Quinctius,^[36] whom the rebels had compelled to be their leader, burst into tears, and advised his legions to throw themselves upon the mercy of the dictator, who had always treated them with fatherly kindness. The revolted, moved at the tears of their general, and touched by the conduct of their former revered commander, Valerius, laid down their arms, upon which the dictator obtained for them a general amnesty from the senate and comitia of the people.

The revolt of Privernum and the invasion of the Volscians of Antium obliged the consuls for the new year, C. Plautius Hypsæus and A. Æmilius Mamercinus, to take the field. The former took Privernum, and fought with the Antiatans. The battle was a drawn one, but the B.C. 342. enemy, discouraged by the loss they had sustained, retreated to Antium in the night. Æmilius Mamercinus, at the same time, ravaged Samnium, when that brave people were forced to sue to him for peace. He granted it upon their giving the Romans a year’s pay for the army and three months’ provisions. To this treaty a strange clause was attached by the Samnites: they asked and obtained permission from the Roman senate to make war upon the Sidicines.^[37] This small people applied to the Romans for help, which was refused, because they had not asked for it before. The Campanians and Latins combined, however, with the Sidicines against Samnium, which country they laid waste, to the great indignation of the Samnites, who vainly applied to Rome for redress. The senate told the ambassadors that they would order the Campanians to withdraw from their country, but they had no power over the Latins. In fact, they were well aware that the Latin and Campanian nations were combining at that very time against Rome. For the Latins, on the strength of their late achievements in Samnium, were resolved to establish their complete independence, unless the Romans would admit them into the senate, and select one of the consuls from their nation.^[38] This demand was made in the consulship of Manlius Torquatus and Decius Mus by the two Latin prætors, L. Annius and L. Numicius, in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, where the senate and comitia were met to deliberate upon the answer to be given to the Latin embassy. Manlius spoke with great heat, and was answered with equal warmth by the Latin prætor, Annius, who insulted the idol, to whom the Romans accorded peculiar honours in his own fane. In turning to depart in a rage, Annius stumbled and fell from the top of the stairs to the bottom, which accident the proud patrician consul interpreted into a mark of divine wrath from the Capitoline Jupiter himself.^[39] War was instantly declared, and the two consuls marched into the countries of the Marsians and Pelignians, where the Samnites, their late enemies, appeared in the quality of allies. In the camp near Capua both the consuls had, or pretended to have, a remarkable dream. A man of majestic stature appeared to each leader in the night, and proclaimed victory to that army whose general should devote himself to the Dii Manes, or infernal gods. The haruspices, upon being consulted, predicted the same thing, upon which the consuls determined that he whose soldiers gave way should offer himself up for the good of his country. As the Latins were a well-disciplined and brave nation, it became necessary for the consuls to re-establish the ancient discipline if they hoped to conquer the Latins. They issued an order forbidding any Roman soldier to quit his ranks, whatsoever his degree might be, or however high his quality, without leave being first obtained from his general.^[40] “Nor was the precaution unnecessary, as the Latins spoke the same language with their enemies, with whom they had lately been united in friendship, as well as relationship.” Young Manlius, brave and rash like the proud family from whence he sprang, accepted the challenge of a Latin, whom he chanced to meet while heading a squadron of horse. The Latin, who commanded a troop, knew him well; and the gallant Roman, not choosing to be outbraved by him before his band, paid no regard to the new military order, but fought and conquered. Perhaps the remembrance of a similar deed performed by his own parent made him engage in this combat. Having stripped his enemy of his rich armour, he hurried to the tent of his father, and in animated language related his victory, and displayed the spoils he had won from the Latin chief.^[41] The consul regarded him sternly—ascended his tribunal, summoned his army, and condemned his son to die by the hands of the lictors for this avowed breach of military discipline.^[42] Yet there was something of paternal pride displayed in his manner when he crowned his son as a victor, and not without a touch of parental tenderness bewailed the sad necessity that obliged him to sacrifice his offspring to his stern sense of military justice.^[43] He bade him remember the spirit of his family in this dreadful hour, and submit with courage and dignity to his inevitable doom. The youth, whose veins were filled with the proud blood of the Manlii, bent his head in silent acquiescence to his fathers sentence, and died by the axe of the lictor on the spot.^[44] Loud murmurs and deep execrations from B.C. 340. the army were levelled at the general, whose lofty integrity could not stoop to save a son full of hopeful promise for a fault he would not have overlooked in a private soldier. They murmured as unreflecting minds will murmur, but they made no attempt to save the victim. Even the stern consul would doubtless have pardoned the general rebellious movement that preserved his son. The incident will remind the reader of a passage in Holy Writ,^[45] but the Hebrew soldiery rescued Jonathan from the severe sentence of his father; the Romans, less noble, left their young champion to die by the decree of his parent and general. Remarkable funeral honours were paid to the gallant youth who had been sacrificed to military etiquette in the morning of his days; nor was the terrible example lost upon the army, for the obedience of the Roman soldier to his commander became a link that could only be severed by death.

Near Mount Vesuvius the Roman consuls gave the Latin army battle. The combat was fiercely and furiously maintained on both sides with obstinate and determined valour. “Upon the left wing of the Roman army where Decius commanded, the front line fell back, whereupon the plebeian consul, following the Pontifex Maximus, Marcus Valerius, in the form of prayer proper to the occasion, and standing on a spear with his head veiled, uttered the dedicatory words of his own self-immolation for the victory he hoped to procure by his death for his country.” “Thou Janus, thou Jupiter, thou Mars, our father; thou father Quirinus, thou Bellona; ye Lares, ye the nine gods (dii Novensiles, Etruscan deities supposed to hurl lightning); ye the gods of my ancestors; ye the gods who rule over us and our enemies; ye the gods of the dead. To you I pray, you I beseech that ye would bless and prosper the Roman people and Quirites with might and victory, and send upon their enemies terror, dismay, and death. Thus do I on behalf of the Roman people and of the Quirites, on behalf of the army, both the legions and the allies of the Roman people and the Quirites, devote the legions and the allies of the enemy, together with myself, to the gods of the dead and to mother earth.”^[46] From the moment the self-devoted consul appeared on horseback, he was beheld with superstitious awe by the enemy. He rushed upon death in the midst of the Latin legions, and from that instant throughout the hardly-contested day the Romans fought with the assurance of victory, which Manlius and his triarians finally won. The body of Decius was not found till the following morning, under a heap of enemies: it was buried with great splendour. In this sanguinary engagement the Latins lost the fourth part of their troops, and their camp fell into the hands of the Romans.^[47] Manlius had received the intelligence of his colleague’s death with tears of admiration; though Cicero, in a more enlightened age, condemned the action of Decius as barbarous and unbecoming in a general; but in that heroic one of which we write, his self-devotion was considered an act of sublime virtue. The Latin war cost Decius his life, and Manlius his son. The triumphs of this brilliant campaign were certainly dearly purchased by the Romans at such sacrifices.

Near Capua, Manlius again defeated the Latins and their allies. After this victory, he entered Latium, laying that country waste on every side.^[48] The Latin towns made no resistance; Privernum, in the country of the Volscians, surrendering to him, as well as those of Campania. Their lands were distributed among the plebeians of Rome.^[49] The report of his campaign of victories brought forth all the old men to greet the consul’s return to Rome. The young Romans, however, remained at home to mark their displeasure at the decree that had consigned the son of Manlius to an untimely tomb. They absented themselves from his triumph, and execrated his severity.^[50] They forgot that Manlius in his youth had endured from his father cruelty and degradation far bitterer than death, when they added to his affliction by this public manifestation of their feelings. The dangerous illness of the stern consul was doubtless caused by grief for his son. Upon this occasion L. Papirius Crassus was created dictator, who named Papirius Cursor as his general of horse.

The revolt of the Latins was partially put down by the plebeian consul, Publilius, who obtained a triumph. B.C. 339. This honour was denied his colleague, Tiberius Æmilius, who demanded it upon insufficient grounds. He became from that time an enemy to his own order, and having named the plebeian consul dictator out of opposition to the senate, caused some alteration in the constitution of Rome; for Brutus Scaeva, the general of horse named by Publius, procured the commons several important privileges. “That their decrees should be observed by all the Romans; that the laws passed by the centuries should be authorised by the senate before they were put to the vote in the comitia; that one of the censors should always be a plebeian.”^[51]

Camillus, the grandson of the great dictator, defeated the combined Latin army, and took Pedum the same day. This brilliant success was followed by the reduction of Latium. The consuls were granted not only a splendid triumph, but equestrian statues, which were erected to their honour in the Forum. Camillus, in his oration to the senate, said, “It depends upon your pleasure, conscript fathers, whether the Latins exist as a people; yet it beseems the Romans to show mercy to the conquered.” A noble sentiment worthy of a brave man.^[52] Some of the Latin towns were made municipal, while others were razed. From Antium its galleys were taken and destroyed. The beaks of brass with which these vessels were adorned, called rostra, afterwards ornamented the pulpit in the Forum, from whence that celebrated place obtained its name. The inhabitants of Præneste and Tibur lost their lands, as well as the cities of Campania. Thus a successful war added two fine countries to the Roman republic, “that republic destined to bear rule over all nations upon earth.”^[53]

Rome was at peace at home and abroad. The public magistracies being equally divided between the two orders was conducive to public virtue, as well as public harmony. No state is ever truly great until the formation of a middle class, and this was now effected by the talent and ability of the educated among the plebeians, for poverty did not prevent good citizens from the exercise of any office of trust in the republic. The unhealthy and degrading influence of wealth was little felt in this age of Roman virtue.^[54] The office of prætor was for the first time held by a plebeian the following year. The consulship of Atilius Regulus and Valerius Corvus, was remarkable for the invention of new machines, moveable towers with covered galleries, by Valerius. They were employed by him in the siege of Cales, which he took by assault, and it was made a Roman colony the following year.

The warlike preparations made by the Samnites disturbed the public mind, till it was found they were only raising troops to drive Alexander, king of Epirus, from Pæstum, upon which he had made a descent. Two new tribes were added to those already established at Rome, which received the names of Mæcia and Scaptia.

It has long been a question among the learned, whether about this time the Romans sent an embassy to Alexander the Great to request his alliance. That mighty victor seated on his throne at Babylon, received ambassadors from all parts of the world, Italy included. The Roman annalists are silent upon the subject.^[55]

The year of Rome 423, was remarkable for an alleged conspiracy of a number of Roman ladies to poison their husbands. As the accusation rested solely upon the evidence of their female slaves, who probably intended to fill their places, these matrons may have been innocent of the crime with which they were charged. It is pretended that more than a hundred patrician ladies poisoned themselves at the instigation of Cornelia and Sergia, the B.C. 331. leaders of the plot, who set them the example in this sweeping act of self-destruction.

The rebellion of Privernum, headed by Vitruvius, a Latin, to whom the privileges of Roman citizenship had been accorded, found employment for both the consuls. One reduced Fundi into submission, while the other besieged Privernum, which was not taken till the following year. Vitruvius the leader of the rebellion was scourged with rods and beheaded, and the Privernatans were brought up for judgment by the consuls to the senate-house.^[56] A senator asked one of the captive Privernatans, “What punishment he thought they deserved.” “That due to men who think themselves worthy of liberty,” was his bold, brief reply to the puerile question. The consul Plautius, willing to soften the rejoinder added, “But suppose we should pardon you, how will you conduct yourselves for the future?” “If you grant us an honourable peace, very faithfully, but if the terms be hard, not long.” This manly avowal displeased some of the senators, but others who possessed more liberal minds, thought it rather deserved commendation than reproof. The brave and generous consul Plautius, who appeared as the advocate of the captives, declared, “that the people whose only ambition was freedom, and their only dread a fear to lose it, were deserving of liberty.” This magnanimous sentiment was responded to by the Roman senate, and Privernum was declared free.^[57] The consul Æmilius took the surname of Privernas, but the name of Plautius must have been written in the hearts of the captive people for whom he had so generously pleaded. Both consuls obtained a triumph.

The Romans gave umbrage to the Samnites,^[58] by rebuilding and colonising Fregellæ, a city formerly razed by that people in their war with the Sidicinians, to whom it then belonged. The Palaeopolitans, before the rupture took place, invaded the territories of the Roman republic during the time when the elections for the consulship were about to be held, but the new consuls, L. Cornelius Lentulus and Q. Publius Philo, marched with their armies into the field, the first taking up a strong position between Palaeopolis and Neapolis (Naples), cut off the communication between the sister cities, whilst his colleague watched the movements of the Samnites, being stationed near Capua for that purpose. He reported to the senate that they were tampering with the fidelity of the Roman colonies, and had strongly garrisoned the two cities with which the Romans were at war. The Samnites denied the charge altogether.^[59] The garrisons of Palaeopolis and Neapolis, they said, were reinforced by a band of independent volunteers. If this explanation did not satisfy the Roman ambassadors, the Samnites were equally discontented respecting the colonisation of Fregellæ, and replied with great excitement to the arbitration proposed by the Romans: “Arbitrators we will have none, but the gods and our swords. Let our armies face each other between Capua and Suessula, and try there the question whether the Samnites or the Romans shall be lords of Italy.”^[60] “Our legions,” replied the Roman plenipotentiaries, “take their orders from their own generals, and not from their enemies.” The quarrel was taken up by the Roman Fecialis,^[61] who, stepping forward, referred it immediately to the martial deities, by raising his hands to heaven, and uttering a prayer, which appealed to the gods for the decision of the approaching contest between Rome and Samnium.

The campaign was not opened till the following consulship, when C. Pætelius Libo and L. Papirius Mugillanus, being aided by the people of Apulia and Lucania, took from the enemy three towns. For the first time in Roman history, we hear of the pro-consular magistracy, which originated in the sound policy of retaining the services of an eminent commander in the field, longer than the lawful period of his consulship. Publilius had been left before Palaeopolis, with the title of pro-consul, to conclude the military operations he had so skilfully commenced. As the besieged were not only straigtened for provisions, but greatly oppressed by the Samnite garrison and other foreign auxiliaries, the chief magistrates Nymphius and Charilaus, with the consent of the inhabitants, devised a plan for putting the city into B.C. 326. the hands of the pro-consul, as the least evil of the two.^[62] Charilaus escaped to the Roman camp, and led the consular army to that part of the town which was defended by the Samnites. Nymphius persuaded the Samnite garrison to equip the fleet against the Romans. The Samnites fell into the snare, leaving the walls weakly defended, upon which the Romans made themselves masters of the city, to the joy of the inhabitants and great mortification of the Samnites.^[63] The pro-consul was honoured with a triumph for this important acquisition to the dominions of the republic. The Samnites, not to be outdone by the Romans in wiles, contrived to withdraw the Lucanians from their newly-formed alliance with that people, by bribing some young Lucanians to endure a hearty scourging, which they pretended had been done in the Roman camp by the consul’s order. War between the Lucanians, who were deceived by the tale, and the Romans, who resented it, was the immediate consequence of this falsehood.^[64]

An affecting incident changed the custom of seizing the person of the debtor for his liabilities, or accepting a substitute in the person of his son, on the part of the creditor. Publilius, a young plebeian, through a sense of filial duty, became a nexus or bond-slave, in the place of his father, to a man of base mind, named Papirius, from whom he received such injurious treatment that he claimed the protection of the Roman people.^[65] A law was passed restricting the claims of the creditor to the goods, but not allowing him to seize the person, of the debtor.

Camillus, who had the important charge of the Samnite war, fell sick, and was obliged to nominate Papirius Cursor dictator, who selected the brave young Fabius Rullianus for his general of horse. The dictator, though a great man, was a very superstitious one. He fancied that something had been omitted in the auspices at his inauguration, and departed for Rome to have the ceremonies renewed. He left the command of the army to Fabius, forbidding him to engage the enemy in his absence. The aspiring general of horse was young, brave, and less superstitious than his commander. He hazarded a battle on his own responsibility, and gained a great victory, twenty thousand Samnites being left dead on the sanguinary field. Once, indeed, Fabius was in danger of losing the honour of the day, which was only redeemed by his own impetuous charge with the Roman cavalry, which nothing could withstand.^[66] The young victor added to this breach of military discipline the graver fault of burning the spoil taken from the enemy, instead of placing it in the quæstor’s hands. This he did to prevent its adorning the triumph of Papirius. Moreover, he wrote to the senate an account of his victory, instead of communicating it first to the dictator, according to the customary rules of military etiquette.^[67] The news of his successful disobedience enraged his commanding officer so much, that he quitted Rome to punish him in an exemplary manner. The occasion of his hasty return was made known to Fabius by some friends in the city, who reminded him of the fate of Titus Manlius, and warned him to provide for his personal safety. He assembled his victorious army, and obtained a promise from them that they would stand forth in his defence in case Papirius was inclined to keep his severe resolution. He had scarcely gained their suffrages before he was cited by the public crier to appear before the stern dictator’s tribunal.^[68] The sight of the rods and axes of the lictors presented a more formidable appearance to the brave young man than the front of the hottest battle. Yet he boldly entered upon his defence, and that too in terms that increased the displeasure of the incensed dictator, who immediately passed sentence of death upon him, which was to be preceded by the accustomed scourging. Upon the lictors endeavouring to disrobe Fabius, he called upon the soldiers to deliver him; and breaking from the executioners, took shelter with the triarians, who opened their ranks to allow him to pass through, the only means they thought proper to use in his behalf. Fabius was at Rome the following day, where his affectionate father, justly proud of his gallant son, had already disposed the senate in his favour, when young Fabius came to plead his cause in person before that august assembly. In the B.C. 325. midst of his defence, the dictator entered with his lictors, and regardless of the sanctity of the place, or the dignity of the assembly, claimed the criminal, whose life was forfeited to military law.^[69] The fond father of the daring cavalry general was no Manlius Torquatus; he appealed to the tribunes and the people in comitia, a power that Papirius himself dared not defy, although the appeal was without a precedent. The cause in dispute was transferred to the Forum, whither the senate, the stern military judge, and the multitude, hurried to decide the fate of the unfortunate master of the horse.^[70] Both the Fabii ascended the rostra, meaning to harangue the people, but Papirius, whose rightful place it was in quality of dictator, ordered six lictors to dislodge them from that vantage ground; but the father would be heard. He complained of the cruelty and jealousy of Papirius. He extolled the bravery of his rash son. He called upon the gods for help; he appealed to the people; and, overcome by his paternal feelings, threw himself upon the neck of young Fabius, bathing him with tears,^[71] holding him locked in his arms, as if to defend his person from assault at the peril of his own life. The Fabii were fond fathers; in that illustrious line—and Rome never boasted a nobler—the best affections of the heart were as deeply venerated and cherished as valour. The senate and people, greatly moved, regarded the father and son with interest and compassion. The stern eloquence of the Roman dictator was then heard. He reminded his auditors of Titus Manlius, condemned by his own father for the crime for which his guilty officer then stood amenable. He pronounced the military code and the glory of Rome to be inseparable, and reproached the Romans with having lost that heroic love of country which formerly had been the supreme object of their affections.^[72] That proud feeling of patriotism was not appealed to in vain. The Roman people, and even the Fabii themselves, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, avowed the justice of the dictator’s sentence; and, falling simultaneously at his feet, besought his clemency; Papirius Cursor immediately granted the general prayer, declaring “that the strictness of military discipline was equally maintained whether he took or gave the life of Fabius, since he pardoned the condemned at the intercession of the Roman people.”^[73] This concession did him honour; and well, in after years, did the young warrior whose life they had saved, deserve the affection of the Romans, who, from the moment in which they became his preservers, regarded him as their adopted son. Papirius returned to Samnium, where he found his severe behaviour had done much mischief. His own relation and master of horse, Papirius Crassus, had been braved in his camp by the Samnites, without daring to resent their insults.^[74] The army was disaffected to him, and in the next engagement made no effort to ensure him a triumph. Papirius did not punish his refractory soldiers, but took the wiser course of regaining their affection. He effected this by visiting them when sick, and conversing with them familiarly at other times. His soldiers formed a strong attachment to his person, and from that time the Samnites found him invincible. The dictator, by a series of brilliant victories, obliged the Samnites to sue for peace, which was granted them upon condition that they clothed his army and gave them one year’s pay. As the treaty was only to be in force for that period, the return of Papirius Cursor to Rome was the signal of its cessation on the part of the Samnites.

Although the name of Roman citizens had been long accorded to the people of Privernum, and more recently to those of Tusculum, neither had received the privilege of voting for the different magistracies, their civic rights being extended to them as private individuals, not incorporating them with a great political body of freemen. These discontented Roman citizens took an opportunity to revolt during the absence of the consuls Sulpicius Longus and Q. Aulius Cerretanus from Rome, the first leading an army into Samnium, while his colleague posted himself in Apulia. The insurgents elected a consul in the person of L. Fulvius Curvus, a Tusculan chief, and at midnight were at the gates of Rome. The citizens hurried to the walls to defend the city from this unexpected attack, and compelled the enemy to retreat. The danger alarmed the senate and people of Rome so much, B.C. 323. that some arrangement was made by negotiation, by which the Tusculans received their full rights, and their leader was chosen for the Roman consulate the following year. These concessions arose from the idea that the whole Latin people would have united with the Tusculans and Privernatans, and passed over to the Samnites.^[75] The knowledge that the inhabitants of Velitræ had been incited by them to join the revolt, formed however the ground of the accusation afterwards made by Flavius, a tribune of the people.^[76] This small republic, which had been often useful to that of Rome, implored the clemency of the Romans, which every tribe but the Pollian was willing to grant, the dissentient voting for beheading the men and enslaving the women and children. The Tusculans, who were incorporated with the Papirian tribe, never forgot this insult, for, even in the time of Livy, it would not give a vote to enable any man belonging to the Pollian to fill a public office.

Quintus Fabius and L. Fulvius Curvus, the consuls for the year, united their armies and marched into Samnium, where they gave the Samnites a dreadful overthrow, but not before their brave opponents had contested the victory with the Roman legions from nine in the morning till two in the afternoon. Alarmed by the progress of the consuls, they considered this defeat as the vengeance of the gods upon their broken faith.^[77] Accordingly they despatched an embassy to Rome to sue for peace, taking with them for punishment the man who had advised them to break the truce. Brutulus Papius, the national victim, was a person of distinguished birth and factious spirit. He died by his own hands on the way to Rome; but the corpse of the self-murderer was presented in due form by the ambassadors to the senate, who did not choose to grant the peace they demanded.^[78] This impolitic conduct led to results very different from what the Roman legislators expected, and left a blot upon the annals of the republic which could never be effaced.

The choice of the Roman people for the 133rd consulship fell upon T. Veturius and Spurius Postumius, who were to conduct the Samnite war. That valiant people elected a brave and able general in the person of Pontius Herennius to meet the coming danger. The Samnite commander was well acquainted with the nature of the country he was called upon to defend. This knowledge enabled him to lay a successful snare for the Roman army. When the two consuls were approaching Caudium, near which place he was encamped, he spread a false report that the Samnite army was besieging Luceria. In order to make this rumour appear more credible, he disguised some of his own soldiers as herdsmen, and ordered them to put themselves in the way of the Romans to repeat the same story. The Romans, as Pontius expected, immediately marched to the relief of Luceria, forsaking the highway, which was broad and open, for a shorter route through a narrow defile between impending rocks. The road was marshy leading to a passage through a hollow rock, which was narrow, deep, and difficult.^[79] Not at all aware of the danger that surrounded them, the Romans fell into the trap laid for them, till upon reaching the valley just described, they found their egress barred by fragments of rock and trunks of trees. Struck with consternation, they turned back in the vain hope of escaping by the entrance, which had been secured in like manner. The rocks above them were manned by the Samnites, who scornfully looked down from the heights upon their imprisoned enemies. The soldiers silently formed their camp about the consuls’ tent, and passed the long night without sleep and without hope. “The gods themselves,” remarks Livy, “could hardly have given them any assistance.” The fate of the armed multitude within their power required some deliberation on the part of the Samnites. They sent to consult Herennius, the father of their general, respecting the best method of dealing with the Roman legions. “Do them no injury, but open a passage for them home,” was the wise and merciful reply of the prudent old man.^[80] The Samnites did not like the advice, and sent to him a second time, upon which a council of war was formed, in which Herennius gave a different B.C. 321. opinion. “Slay them all,” was the laconic and puzzling sentence he now uttered upon the important subject in debate.^[81] This apparent contradiction in a man of well-known wisdom excited great surprise, and Pontius was entreated to send for his father, that he might explain his own reasons for such differing counsel. “If you dismiss your enemies with kind treatment,” replied Herennius, “you make them friends, and this seems to me the wisest and best means you can adopt. If you slay them you diminish their strength; but there appears to me to be no middle way between mercy and severity.” Pontius and the council thought differently, and they resolved to fix a stain upon the military honour of the Roman people. They dictated hard terms to the captive warriors, who were to pass, man by man, unarmed and half naked under the yoke. The consular armies were not only to evacuate Samnium, but to restore the lands and towns the Romans had taken from them in the course of all their wars.^[82] The consuls remained silent; human valour could not now deliver them from a choice of evils which human foresight might have prevented. “Starvation and massacre alone awaited them in that gloomy valley. The destruction of the Roman army at this critical period would be the ruin of Rome; but the proposed disgrace might be obliterated by future deeds of glory.” Thus argued Lentulus, a distinguished officer, and his counsel prevailed. The consuls signified to Pontius their acceptance of the part of the treaty relative to the army; that which regarded Samnium could only be made with the senate. They could but promise and leave hostages for the performance of those conditions.^[83] Six hundred Roman knights were chosen for this purpose, whose heads were to answer for the non-ratification of the treaty by the senate. A yoke, or gallows, was then set up, under which the hostages, man by man, passed on their way to the Samnite camp, divested of their arms and upper garments. In this manner the consuls, chief officers and the whole army, marched out of the defile. If any one resisted, or refused compliance with the degrading ceremony, he was slaughtered without mercy.^[84] The disgraced Roman army halted in the fields near Capua rather than enter the city in such woeful plight. The report of their misfortunes had, however, preceded them, and the magistrates of Capua, as soon as they heard of their arrival, sent them food, arms, horses, tents and clothing. Even the delicate attention of lictors and fasces were not forgotten, as the consuls had lost theirs. The following morning the magistrates and Campanian nobility conducted the Romans to the frontier;^[85] but these tokens of respect could not dispel the general dejection. Some of the Campanians in the senate the next day declared that the Roman spirit had for ever deserted these soldiers. An old man replied, “This dejection will prove fatal to the Samnites, for the Romans will have this shameful treaty before their eyes whenever they encounter a Samnite army, nor will these everywhere find Caudine defiles.”^[86] The army entered Rome, each soldier regaining his home in the silence and secresy of night. Postumius, when he appeared before the senate to report the treaty he had made with the Samnites, declared that the Roman people were not bound by it, expressing the willingness of himself and his colleague Veturius to give themselves up to that people, to atone for the infraction of the treaty. The self-devotion of Postumius was extolled and accepted. A new army was raised, and the Caudine legions were once more enrolled.^[87] Cornelius Arvina being appointed fecialis to conduct the devoted consuls and their officers to Samnium. The fecialis took the way to the Samnite camp, bringing with him his unhappy countrymen, whom he delivered up to Pontius in the name of the senate and people of Rome, who had, he said, refused to ratify the treaty. Postumius then struck the fecialis with his knee, for his hands and feet were fettered, saying, “Thou art a Roman ambassador, and I am now one of the Samnite people; with this blow I compel you to war with us.” Pontius indignantly reproved the artifice, and dismissed the prisoners,^[88] but he repented of his severity to the Roman army, and wished he had followed the counsel of his wiser father. The Romans, resolving to deliver the knights, chose Publilius and Papirius Cursor B.C. 321. for their consular generals. As the hostages were in Luceria, Papirius marched towards that place, while the dictator Cornelius Lentulus, gave battle to Pontius; and so eager were the Romans to engage with the Samnites, that they would not listen to the speech of the dictator, but clashing their arms cried out, “To battle! to battle!” The Samnites were defeated with great loss, and their camp was stormed and taken. The dictator, after his victory, marched to the assistance of Papirius, who was lying before Luceria, and in want of provisions. Lentulus not only supplied his colleague’s wants, but cut off the supplies of the Samnite army, who were encamped at Luceria. Papirius knowing that the besieged were suffering the horrors of famine, resolved to bring the Samnite army to a battle, but the enemy would not engage with him. He was obliged to attack them in their entrenchments, where he gave them a dreadful overthrow. Every Samnite would have perished by the hands of the Romans, but Papirius reminded them that six hundred of their countrymen were prisoners in Luceria, who would be put to death if they totally exterminated their enemies.^[89] The famine-stricken inhabitants of Luceria offered to give up the hostages, but Papirius would not receive them, nor agree to any capitulation, unless the garrison and all the inhabitants passed under the yoke. Pontius and seven thousand men went through this ceremony. The hostages were delivered, and the degradation of the Roman name effaced in the eyes of her enemies, but the Romans themselves never forgot the Caudine forks.^[90] Their remembrance of the national disgrace outlasted the existence of Samnium. The second year after these events, the Roman senate, made some objection to prolonging the truce with Samnium, nor would they extend the term for more than two years. The Falerina and Ufentina tribes were added at this time to the Roman people, making the number thirty-one. A census was also taken, by which it appeared that the free citizens of Rome, capable of carrying arms, amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand. The acquisition of Apulia was made by the consul, Junius Brutus, who rendered illustrious once more, by that conquest, names so dear to Roman liberty. In the following consulship the war with Samnium commenced with the siege of Saticula, in Campania, which was conducted by L. Æmilius, who was named dictator for that purpose. It is uncertain whether this town in Campania belonged to the Samnites, or had been drawn into an alliance with that people. Papirius Cursor and Publilius Philo received the fasces, and forced Saticula to surrender. The revolt of Sora, by obliging one of the consular armies to march thither, while the other remained in Apulia, left Campania exposed to the irruption of the brave and restless people with whom the Romans were at war. The Samnites raised quickly a third army for the occupation of Campania, without withdrawing their armies from Apulia, and the vicinity of Sora.^[91] Papirius Cursor and his colleague named Quintus Fabius Rullianus for dictator. The impetuosity of Aulius Cerretanus, whom Fabius had chosen for his master of horse, led to his destruction. He slew with his own hands the Samnite general, but was himself slain by the brother of the fallen leader in the very moment of victory.^[92] He had charged without orders, following the example formerly given by the dictator himself. An obstinate fight was maintained by the cavalry on both sides, for Roman knight and Samnite equestrian warrior, dismounting from their steeds, fought hand to hand on foot. This battle took place at the pass of Lautulæ, between Anxur and Fundi; but though the victory was claimed by the Romans, it must have been a defeat, since every town in the vicinity revolted from the republic to the Samnites,^[93] Campania, and even Capua becoming disaffected to the Roman interest.^[94] The extension of the Roman franchise to the Volscians and Latins had secured their fidelity at this critical juncture. Plistia had been won by the Samnites immediately after the fight at Lautulæ. The victory at Sora, gained by the dictator, was followed by the siege of that place. Sulpicius Longus won a great battle over the Samnites, near Caudium, and encamped before Bovianum, a large city B.C. 314. in Samnium, where he took up his winter quarters.^[95] Luceria, Sora, and some other towns were taken, but all the inhabitants were put to the sword.

Several Roman colonies were planted at Luceria, lately desolated by war; one at Suessa Aurunca, and another in the volcanic island of Pontia (now Ponza); while two were ordered to be formed at Interamna on the Liris, and at Casinum, one of its tributary streams. This measure not only relieved Rome of her growing population, but provided the republic with a line of defence wherever she planted her colonies. In this branch of political economy Rome has never been surpassed, for if she destroyed towns and cities, she founded new ones on their ruins.^[96] One of the leading events of this year was the trial of A. Atilius Calatinus, on the charge of betraying the garrison of Sora, of which he had been governor at the time that city was surprised. His escape, or ransom from an enemy who had reduced his whole garrison to slavery, irritated the minds of the Roman people. His defence was undertaken in the comitia by his illustrious father-in-law, Quintus Fabius, whose mild policy and great public services had endeared him to that people to whose generous prayer he owed his life. “This charge,” he said, “is groundless; for were it true, I should not have allowed my daughter to remain the wife of a traitor.”^[97] The manly declaration of the patriotic Roman occasioned the acquittal of the unfortunate officer.^[98]

We have now arrived at a celebrated period of Roman history, the censorship of Appius Claudius, who applied the resources lately gained in the Samnite war, to those noble works which still exist, as enduring public blessings in our own day.^[99] In the beginning of his censorship, Appius Claudius made some important changes in the state, which gave immense offence not only to the plebeian, but also to that patrician order of which he was a distinguished member. War and pestilence having created many vacancies in the senate, and the increased power of the republic making it necessary to fill them up, this censor, passing by those members of the aristocracy who expected it as a right, and those plebeians who naturally made their admission to the senate a laudable point of ambition, placed on his list a class of men called libertini, the sons of manumitted slaves—a race combining the intelligence of advanced civilisation, with the industrial habits of craftsmen, mechanics, and scribes. Forbidden the pursuits of war and agriculture, the libertini became rich by the arts of peace, and cultivated sciences unknown to the poor oppressed plebeian citizen of Rome, whose civic privileges, while they maintained his political freedom, did not find him sufficient land to furnish his family in bread. Appius Claudius, a man of learning and genius, able, scientific, and astute as his race, was not slow in discovering the political importance of this hitherto despised class. He recognised in the libertini some of the ablest persons of the commonwealth, in which till then they had enjoyed such slender privileges. They were the notaries of the republic. The pen in the early ages was seldom used in literary compositions, but an immense deal of public business was committed to writing by this class.^[100] That part of his office which gave Appius Claudius the power of excluding his countrymen from their senatorial and civic privileges, was exercised by him in a very arbitrary and unjust manner. In order to lessen the political importance of the Roman people, and to destroy the ascendancy of his personal opponents in the patrician order, he actually deprived them of their seats in the senate, filling the vacancies with the sons of freedmen, who probably were his own clients.^[101] The innovation made by Appius Claudius on the senatorial customs was not the only one he introduced. He gained the consent of the Potitii for the transfer of the priesthood of Hercules, which their traditionary records declared had been instituted by Evander, and given to their ancestor. The altar belonging to this priesthood B.C. 310. was called Ara Maxima, which he assigned to the slaves employed upon his vast public works. This measure gave general dissatisfaction to the Romans,^[102] though founded upon sound political wisdom, and perhaps even upon benevolent principles. Some of the labours of Hercules had been performed in slavery, and in associating piety and industry together, Appius Claudius lessened the physical degradation of the labourers, by the example presented to them in the god they worshipped. He also sought to raise this large body of servile workmen, by giving them an altar, priests, and sacrifices; and however low the standard of religion might be in the Roman republic, it was certainly better than atheism, into which slavery is so apt to fall. His public works commenced in the first year of his censorship, but took some years to bring them to a close.^[103]

The great Appian way lasted entire for more than eight hundred years. It led from Rome to Capua, and was afterwards continued from that place to Brundusium, on the Adriatic coast.^[104] In the construction of his famous aqueduct, the censor considered the wants of the poor, whose health had suffered from their being hitherto compelled to drink the unwholesome and turbid water of the Tiber. To the impoverished citizens the science of the great censor at least brought health and comfort. Employment it did not give them, for the pride of the Roman citizen would have classed the laborious industry of forming his road, digging his canals, or boring his water course, with the bitter toils of slavery.^[105] The costly public works of this celebrated censorship exhausted the whole revenue of Rome, and it is conjectured that in order to prosecute his grand designs, Appius Claudius must have sold a great part of the domain land of the republic.^[106] Though the supposition has no historic basis, it is by no means unlikely; and how could the resources and treasures of the state have been better employed than in works of such grandeur and utility? The resignation and death of C. Plautius, his colleague, before his year was out, left the remaining censor more funds to prosecute his designs. It is said that Plautius, finding himself overborne by Appius, and his censorial list disregarded, abdicated.^[107] His death enabled the survivor to pursue his plans unopposed—a state of independence suited to his governing mind and arbitrary will. His changes in the state being unpopular, the first act of the new consuls, Junius Brutus and Q. Æmilius Barbula, was to annul the privileges lately granted to the libertini by Appius Claudius. In this consulship two officers, called naval duumvirs, were instituted to take charge of the nautical affairs of the republic. This looks as if the Romans had a navy, though we know not of what it consisted. To the people was accorded the power of choosing sixteen out of the twenty-four legionary tribunes. The consul Brutus carried on the war in Samnium with such success, that Cluvia and Bovianum were both carried by assault. Near the lake Avernus the Samnites laid an ambush for the consular army, which was discovered in time to permit the Romans to form in order of battle. Twenty thousand Samnites were slain on this occasion. The consul Æmilius was equally successful in Etruria, where he gained a victory for which he was decreed a triumph.^[108]

The time had arrived for Appius Claudius to resign his office, his eighteen months being completed; but he refused to give up his censorial authority, not choosing to leave his immortal works unfinished to adorn the name of another censor. The tribune, Sempronius Sophus, threatened to fine and imprison him; but Appius, who had secured to his interest three voices out of the ten composing the tribunitial college, set his veto and those of his six colleagues at defiance, and continued to exercise his functions in defiance of the laws and customs of Rome—functions which the most despotic sovereign of regal Rome had never exercised—resolutely carrying on his great public works, which made even his disobedience glorious. The libertini whom he had raised, and the poor plebeians, for whom he was constructing his aqueduct, must have stood by the censor through his long reign of five years. In all his intrigues to retain his power, Appius was materially assisted by a libertinus named Cneius Flavius, his clerk, a man of worth and talent.^[109]

The first consulship of Quintus Fabius Rullianus took B.C. 310.place this year. He had already opened a splendid military career by the victory that had made him amenable to military law, from the penalty of which the general intercession of the Roman people alone had saved him. Fourteen years had now elapsed since their prayer had prolonged his glorious existence, and his elevation to the consular dignity was now an additional proof of their love for their favourite patrician. He opened the Etruscan campaign by the victory of Sutrium, passing through the recesses of the Ciminian forest, which no Roman army had ever till then penetrated.^[110] In the dead of night Fabius attacked the Etruscans, destroyed their camp, and slew sixty thousand men.^[111] The fruits of this brilliant consular campaign were the delivery of Sutrium, and a truce concluded for thirty years with the three principal Etruscan cities—Perusia, Arretium, and Cortona.

The consul Marcius was less fortunate in the Samnite campaign, and the first Roman navy that ever put to sea was robbed of the plunder it had won in its victorious descent on Pompeii, by the Campanians, who overtook the expedition on the return, and having despoiled them, drove them back empty-handed to their ships^[112]—a glorious exploit, though very mortifying to the Romans. This was most likely the mischance which occasioned a deputation to be sent to the victorious Fabius, entreating him to nominate a dictator, in the person of his old general, Papirius Cursor, to conduct the Samnite war. The consul heard the senatorial decree read, and listened in deep silence to the eloquent appeal of the senators who composed the deputation. The sacrifice required by his country was severe to a man who had never forgiven Papirius, and we cannot wonder that he was loth to make it. He withdrew without uttering a word. In the dead of night, he nominated his old commander to the dignity, but when the deputation thanked and praised him for his magnanimity, he abruptly quitted, and dismissed them without breaking his indignant silence.^[113] At Viterbo, Fabius gained a third victory over the Etruscans, though the battle was obstinately contested, and the consul wounded; but the desperate valour of the Roman knights finally retrieved the day.^[114] This engagement must have been hazarded by those Etruscan cities who had not made the late treaty with Rome.

Papirius Cursor did not lose his old reputation in this his last Samnite campaign. The enemy made a splendid appearance, some wearing white garments, others the gay parti-coloured plaid, the national costume of the Celts; for the Samnites had settled in Oscan or Celtic cities. The silver shields borne by numbers^[115] marked them as members of a sacred band, devoted to conquer or die for their country. They had been admitted previously into a white tent, in secresy, darkness, and silence, where they had been pledged by fearful oaths to stand by each other; any hesitation on the part of the person to be initiated occasioning him to be immediately slain by an invisible foe.^[116] The report of the solemnity had found its way into the Roman camp, and alarmed the superstitious, who looked with uneasiness upon the silver or gilded shields of the devoted, upon whose helms lofty plumes were fixed, to add to their magnificent appearance the advantage of height.^[117] Papirius removed the prevalent feeling of awe from the minds of his army by drily remarking, “that the Samnite finery would not look very well when stained with dust and blood, but that the shields would make a rich prize for valiant soldiers.”^[118] He faced the plaided warriors, but Junius Brutus Bubulcus, his master of horse, who was posted directly opposite the white bands, effaced the impression their sight made on the cavalry by crying aloud, “I devote those men in white to Pluto,” as he gallantly headed the charge, before which the white cohorts gave way. “What! with the dictator at your head, shall the victory of this day begin on the left?” was the remark of Papirius to his infantry, when he beheld the daring bravery of his master of horse. His own lieutenants, Valerius and Decius, nobly seconded their general, and the last great victory of Papirius Cursor ended with the destruction of the Samnite camp. It was B.C. 309. during this battle that Junius Brutus Bubulcus vowed a temple to health, if the victory fell to the Romans. A very splendid triumph was granted to the dictator, who made his public entry on the fifteenth of October,^[119] the silver shields and gay garments won from the Samnites making the pageant remarkable for its magnificence. The shields were divided among the silversmiths whose shops lined the Via Sacra, to adorn the square pillars looking towards the Forum.^[120] But it was not upon the gorgeous spectacle afforded them by the campaign of Papirius Cursor, that the Roman people looked with sole interest that year; for the dictatorial triumph was soon followed in November by that of the consul, Quintus Fabius Rullianus, which gratified them more because the popular conqueror of Etruria was, though a patrician of the highest rank, the friend and idol of the commons. Papirius Cursor retired from the dictatorship to the repose of private life, and left to Fabius the charge of sustaining in the next campaign the glory of the Roman arms against Etruria and Samnium. The third consulship of Fabius, in conjunction with Decius, was marked by great success. Decius forced the Etruscans to sue for peace, but would not grant a treaty for more than one year, for nothing less than the complete reduction of Etruria could now satisfy the growing greatness and ambition of the Roman people. He was continued in the field as pro-consul—an honour that had been accorded to him once before.

The long censorship of Appius Claudius was drawing to a close; the tribunes, whose influence had supported his power, had successively gone out of office, and not one in the whole college was inclined to favour its retention. His canvass for the consulship was certain to be a successful one; but he aspired to something beyond it, wishing to unite in his own person the censorial and consular magistracies—honours destined several centuries later, with the additional one of the perpetual tribuneship, to meet in the persons of his direct descendants, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, and Galba.^[121] This year, Appius Claudius received the fasces, with L. Volumnius for his colleague. He insisted upon retaining his censorship, which he had already held five years, but such an innovation upon the Roman constitution was not suffered to become a precedent, for the tribunitial college would no longer support his ambitious measures, to which L. Furius opposed his veto, forbidding the comitia to proceed with any business relative to the elections till the aspirant to a second consulship had resigned the censorship. His election immediately followed his abdication.^[122] The new censors, Junius Bubulcus Brutus, and M. Valerius Maximus, excluded from the senate L. Antonius, for divorcing his wife without having assembled his friends to pass judgment upon her. This divorce took place before that of Spurius Carvilius Ruga, which is erroneously supposed to be the first instance of the kind.^[123] In the same year, C. Fabius painted the Temple of Health for the censor Junius Bubulcus Brutus, from which he acquired the name of Pictor,^[124] and the subject is conjectured to have been the battle against the Samnites which had occasioned the vow of the founder. Dionysius praised this painting, which, according to him, was very correctly drawn and finely coloured.^[125] Marcus Valerius afterwards placed in this temple a picture of his battle against Hiero.^[126] Rome in the ages of her military glory was, however, never celebrated for her works of art; for war is no nursery of those refinements which are the offspring of peace. To Rome the peaceful and the Christian, belonged, in after centuries, the re-creation of sculpture and painting. The censors, in imitation of their able predecessor in office, made several roads, and that from Rome to Tibur was ever after distinguished by the name of the Valerian Way, B.C. 308. although only the first twenty miles was the work of Valerius.^[127]

Literature was beginning to dawn, and its first gleams emanated from the same genius that had given Rome in the fifth century roads and aqueducts. There existed in the days of Cicero a poem of Appius Claudius the Blind, of which some fragments have been discovered.^[128] This composition bore a strong resemblance to a poetical piece written by Pythagoras—a likeness supposed to have originated in the censor’s knowledge of Greek.^[129] Oratory seems to have been an hereditary gift in the family. The Claudii were all good speakers, but were more distinguished for eloquence than principle. Of the Claudian race, Appius Claudius was undoubtedly the best, if not the greatest son. That he was well-intentioned, the conduct of the patricians towards him during his long usurpation of the censorship appears to afford a proof; for their forbearance can hardly have originated in a fear of driving him to extremities, but rather in their conviction that the completion of his vast and patriotic designs was his sole object. During the consulship of Appius Claudius and Volumnius Flamma, Fabius was continued in the command of an army, with the title of pro-consul. He defeated the Samnites at Allifæ, and took many prisoners. The Samnites he disarmed and sent away unhurt, for what reason we are not informed, but doubtless they had surrendered upon those express conditions. The troops of various nations he sold for slaves,^[130] those of the Hernicans were sent to Rome; the senate committed them to the wardship of the Latin allies of the republic. L. Volumnius Flamma, the plebeian colleague of Appius Claudius, was placed at the head of an army; he subdued the Salentines, while his associate in the chief magistracy was employed in finishing his great public works. Volumnius though much beloved by the soldiers, had not yet attained the splendid military renown for which he was afterwards distinguished. It is uncertain what treatment the Hernican prisoners received in consequence of the consuls, Marcius Tremulus and P. Cornelius Arvina, bringing their case before the senate.^[131]

The third treaty between Rome and Carthage was ratified this year, for as yet no rivalry subsisted between these warlike states. The victory of the consuls Postumius and Minucius at Bovianum over the Samnites was very decisive, though the latter was slain in storming their camp. In these battles Postumius took the Samnite general prisoner, and forty-six ensigns. Bovianum was taken by Fulvius Curvus, the brave successor of the slain consul, for which exploit he was decreed a triumph. The commencement of the consulship of Sempronius Sophus and Sulpicius Saverrio was remarkable for the peace concluded with the Samnites, and for the war with the Hernicans and Æquians, which terminated so disastrously for these nations,^[132] who lost forty-one towns in the course of fifty days, of which the chief part were destroyed. In the remains of their massy walls, the desolating hand of the conquering Roman “may still be distinctly traced in the pastoral upland valley of the Himella or Salto, from Alba to the vicinity of Reate,”^[133] to attest to the truth of the ancient records that relate their fall. The remains of the Æquian nation submitted to the consuls, receiving the name of Roman citizens without those political rights which rendered the civic franchise so valuable; but we find them only five years later admitted to this enviable privilege, and enrolled among the tribes.^[134] The greater portion of their territory was, however, appropriated by the victorious commonwealth. Many colonies were planted in the conquered country. C. Flavius made a calendar for the use of the Roman people, which he effected by fixing up boards, painted white, upon which the days and weeks were marked in every month. This useful work enabled the people to find out the days upon which law business might be transacted, without applying to the pontifices, who had hitherto preserved a secret which gave them power over the commons. Few even of the B.C. 305. patricians understood the mysteries of the pontifical rules, therefore the painted calendar of the learned scribe, which noted the holidays, was very acceptable to them; and was remembered at a time when their gratitude could be really serviceable to the man who had conferred such a lasting benefit upon them.^[135] The beneficial labours of the scientific libertinus deeply offended the patrician pontifices, from whom the plebeians had hitherto received the necessary information of times and seasons, days and years. From a fragment of Cato the Censor we find that the computation of the eclipses of the sun and moon belonged exclusively to the pontiffs, and were duly registered in their annals.^[136] But the regulation of time and the revolutions of the great heavenly bodies, were not the sole employment of the pontifical college, for Rome was indebted to this priesthood for its earliest records, known by the name of the Pontifical Annals, which, though styled by a great historian lately deceased,^[137] “a dry and meagre skeleton of history,” was still very useful and valuable, as giving some stability to facts adorned by poetry, and commemorated in the songs of an ancient people.^[138]

Some curious particulars are related of Cneius Flavius’s ædileship. When the first votes were given to this libertinus, the presiding ædile insolently refused to receive them, accompanying his harsh refusal with this sarcastic remark—“It is not a proper thing for a clerk to hold a curule magistracy.” The observation was particularly cutting, because the ambitious aspirant to that dignity was attending upon the curule ædile with his tablets and style in his hand, ready to register the votes as a humble notary.^[139] He was, however, determined that his lowly calling should not stand in the way of his rising fortunes, so putting down his tablets, he declared upon oath, that from that hour he gave up his clerkly profession for ever. The haughty ædile reluctantly received the votes for the ci-devant scribe, and pronounced Cneius Flavius duly elected for the curule magistracy. His colleague was a native of Præneste, but the opposing candidates were men of high birth.^[140] The blow the affection of the commoners gave to the patricians by the election of Flavius, was shown by a deep and general mourning; the senators laid aside their gold rings, while the younger members of their families put off their gold chains, and the knights the silver curbs of their horses, in proof of their sorrow for the curule magistracy being represented by the grandson of a slave.^[141] His colleague did not stand so low in their estimation, for when he was indisposed, some young noblemen paid him a visit of condolence, treating him with the respectful attention due to his official dignity. While conversing with the sick ædile, they were interrupted by the entrance of C. Flavius, whom they did not choose to recognise by any courteous salutation, much less to quit their seats, as the customary etiquette required them to do. Like most risen men, the curule ædile, Cneius Flavius attached much importance to the homage and prestige of his situation. He therefore resolved to compel these haughty youths to render that respect to his office which they churlishly denied to his person. He directed one of his attendants to bring in his curule chair and place it directly in the doorway of the apartment. Cneius Flavius seated himself in great state, reducing the patrician visitors of his colleague to the necessity of waiting his pleasure to go home. Their rising to do so looked like respect to his person and as for pushing the curule chair on one side—the contempt they had displayed for the libertinus they dared not extend to the insignia of his office.^[142] We are not informed which party yielded up the point, but it is certain that the curule ædile must have either departed himself when he had mortified them sufficiently, or have ordered his chair to be removed, that they might leave the apartment. The lesson obliged these patricians to treat him for the future with more respect. The intrigues and dissensions his election had caused to both orders—for the rich plebeians were as angry with the choice of the people as the nobility—made Flavius vow a temple to Concord whenever the internal state of Rome should become pacific and united. He laid by the sums he had acquired in his ædileship, arising from the B.C. 304. penalties enforced upon those wealthy money-lenders who had exacted usurious interest from their creditors, for this purpose—a noble proof of disinterestedness. Rarely indeed was this precedent imitated by future ædiles, whose fines helped to fill the pockets which they had emptied in giving costly shows to the people. “This fane was of bronze, and stood within the precincts of one dedicated to Vulcan, near the northern side of the Comitium.”^[143] Flavius made no attempt to pursue any further the thorny and ambitious path he had chosen; the wealthy and learned libertinus having discovered that political power had been dearly purchased by the grandson of the slave.

The censorship of Fabius Rullianus and his colleague Decius was memorable for the changes they made in the constitution. To his eminent civil services, and not to his military talents, the noble patrician censor is said to have derived the name of Maximus. In order to destroy the independence of the commons, he removed the freedmen and citizens^[144] who had been engrafted in the Roman tribes by Appius Claudius, from the main body, among which they had been divided, and placed them in the four old civic tribes; thus remedying the evil their inclusion had occasioned without depriving them of the political and civic rights they had acquired; for these ancient tribes were less likely to be influenced by these new citizens than any other of the thirty-one into which the Roman people were divided. At the dedication of the Temple of Concord vowed by Cneius Flavius, which was finished during this censorship, the Pontifex Maximus, L. Cornelius Scipio, haughtily refused to pronounce the necessary formula the libertinus was to repeat after him, but the people in comitia compelled the reluctant patrician to complete the consecration;^[145] though if Flavius had not won their favour by his obliging conduct and public services, they would probably have regarded his temple, the fabric vowed by the grandson of a slave, with as much contempt as the exclusive pontiff himself.

The descent on Italy made by Cleonymus, the youngest son of Cleomenes, king of Sparta, and grandson of that Cleombrotus who fell at Leuctra, was the next remarkable event in Italian history. This expedition was undertaken at the entreaty of the Tarentines, who were jealous of the Lucanians^[146] securing their own independence by the aid of the Romans, who had compelled the Samnites to withdraw their garrisons from all the Lucanian towns. Areus, the nephew of the enterprising chief, being then on the throne of Sparta, aided his design with all his influence with the state, so that, with five thousand Greek mercenaries, Cleonymus was enabled to land near Thurii, with the evident intention of forming a colony on the sea coast, which doubtless was the true object of his coming to Italy, rather than to assist the Tarentines against the Lucanians. The Romans dislodged this prince from Thurii,^[147] but the piracies committed by Cleonymus after he was driven from his first station, occasioned the Grecian cities to combine against their general enemy. He made a second descent near the spot where the city of Venice now stands, but was compelled to abandon that position, and return to Sparta with great loss.^[148]

Intestine divisions in Arretium brought about the Etruscan war. The high aristocratic party implored the aid of the Romans, which was granted, for even in this early part of their history, we find them actuated by the crafty policy which afterwards led to the subjugation of Greece. Some Etruscan noblemen, disguised as shepherds, endeavoured to lead the Roman army into a snare, but Valerius detected their quality by the superiority of their language and manners, which did not suit the class to which they pretended to belong. He dismissed them uninjured, with the observation, “that their countrymen would find it as hard to deceive as to overcome the Romans.”^[149] The Etruscans attacked Fulvius, his lieutenant, and besieged him in his fort near the Roman camp, upon which Valerius marched to his relief and defeated them with great loss, when the Etruscans sued for peace, but obtained a cessation of hostilities for two years only.

During the consulship of Valerius a bill was proposed by the tribunes Quintus and Cneius Ogulnius, to increase B.C. 301. the pontifical and augural colleges, by the admission of the commons of Rome. Appius Claudius opposed the law with great vehemence,^[150] which was finally passed through the manly eloquence of the Censor Decius, who reminded them of the self-immolation of his father, who, devoting himself to death to render the Roman people victorious, had himself become a sacrifice. “If my father were as eligible as his patrician colleague, to become an expiatory victim to the deities, he could not have been unfit to preside and direct their worship.” This allusion to the patriotism of Decius Mus caused a majority for the measure, the bill was allowed to pass, and the pontifices received four commoners, which completed the number of nine. Five plebeian augurs were at the same time added to the four patrician members, to sanctify the three original tribes of Rome by a religious ministration.^[151] The consul Valerius, in reviving a law of his ancestor Poplicola, which had been once before restored by a scarcely less famous man in that Valerius who had expelled the decemvirs, conferred a greater public benefit. This law was the Valerian, which permitted the accused, in capital cases, to make his appeal to the people—a statute that rendered the execution of a citizen of Rome an event of rare occurrence in that and the two next centuries, unless by the illegal method of military law under the pretext of the republic being in danger.

“About this time the arts began to flourish, and the celebrated group still extant of the she-wolf nurturing the twin founders of Rome was set up in the Capitol. Let no one suppose that the Romans, before they adopted the civilisation of the Greeks, were barbarous. That people, which under its kings, constructed such gigantic sewers, and which at this time possessed a painter like Fabius Pictor, and a sculptor able to produce a work like the Capitoline she-wolf, cannot,” remarks Niebuhr, “have been without some kind of literature.”^[152] To this era the sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio belongs, the oldest sepulchral monument yet discovered in Rome, an existing proof of the excellency of statuary and design in the fifth century of the Roman age. Papirius Cursor dedicated a sun-dial in the temple of Quirinus, taken from the spoils of Samnium.^[153] Rome was adorned at this time with many fine buildings and new streets; the buildings were of peperino, but the statues were of brass or bronze.^[154]

In this period King Demetrius Poliorcetes, or the Besieger, sent the prisoners he had taken in Roman privateers to the senate with a complaint, that a Greek people, which thought itself entitled to the dominion of Italy, and had erected a temple in its market-place to the Dioscuri, the tutelar gods of navigation, should allow pirates to sail out.^[155] These acts of piracy on the Greek sea were committed by some of the maritime towns subject to Rome. The circumstance is curious, because it shows that this prince ascribed to the Romans a Greek descent.

The Roman consul, M. Fulvius Paetinus, besieged for a long time the strong Umbrian town of Nequinum on the Nar, the resistance of the inhabitants being aided, it is thought, by a Samnite garrison.^[1] The Roman war in Etruria afforded that people an opportunity of breaking the treaty with Rome, while the irruption of the Gauls enabled them to form a powerful combination against the general enemy. The name of the Gauls sounded ominously in Roman ears, and several nations of this warlike and predatory people were already seated in Italy, which circumstance favoured their march across the Alps.^[2] The Sabines joined the confederacy against Rome, but the Lucanians gave hostages to their Roman allies, dreading much the rule of the Samnites, who had already made themselves masters of a great part of their territories. The Roman people wished to elect Fabius Maximus to the consulship, but he declined the honour, accepting the curule ædileship, an office of great importance at a time when Rome was threatened with famine. He took care to purchase corn from distant countries, and provided so bountifully for the wants of the people, that dearth and its attendant horrors were averted from Rome. He really rendered greater service to his country by his careful ædileship, than by his ever-victorious consulships. The death of the consul Manlius, who was killed by a fall from his horse, occasioned Valerius Corvus to be chosen in his place. The old man fought throughout the campaign with all the fire and energy of youth, everywhere compelling the Etruscans to fly before him.^[3]

Cornelius Scipio and the consul Fulvius Centumalus marched into Lucania, where the presence of a Samnite army had banished the loyalty lately demonstrated by that people for the Romans. Of the conquests of Cornelius Scipio, nothing is known but the ancient eulogistic verses on his tomb, which may or may not have a foundation in fact. In his epitaph he is said to have subdued the whole of Lucania.^[4]

The people insisted this year on re-electing Fabius Maximus to the consulship, and they carried their point, notwithstanding the opposition their favourite made to the illegality of the proceeding by reading the law they B.C. 298. chose to break, in order to advance him to that dignity. Decius, his old plebeian colleague, was chosen with him. Fabius named Cornelius Scipio for his lieutenant and Valerius and Fulvius served under him as military tribunes.^[5] The consuls made their campaigns in Samnium; Fabius directing the military operations by Sora and the upper Liris, while Decius occupied the country of the Sidicines and the Vulturnus. Both these great commanders devastated the country round them with fire and sword, the legions under them encamping in one hundred and thirty-one places.^[6] The loss of a pitched battle on the part of the Samnites led to this destructive warfare on the part of the Roman invaders. “The nature of the country, which in its lofty vales and cliffs afforded refuge to the people and pasture for their flocks, enabled them to retreat from the deserts created by their enemies.”^[7]