Book 3

1.1. When Pompilius had died, the senate, having again become master of public affairs, resolved to remain under the same constitution, the people taking no other view; and it established from the elders those who should hold the interregnum for a fixed number of days, by whom was appointed king the man whom the whole people thought worthy, Tullus Hostilius, who was of such descent as this:

1.2. From the city of Medullia, which the Albans founded but Romulus, having received it by agreement, made a colony of the Romans, a man of noble birth and powerful in wealth, Hostilius by name, having transferred his life to Rome, took a wife of the Sabine race, the daughter of Hersilius — she who had counselled the women of her nation to go on an embassy to their fathers on behalf of their husbands, when the Sabines were warring with the Romans, and who was held to have been the chief cause of the leaders' coming together into friendship. This man, having shared with Romulus in many wars and displayed great deeds in the battles against the Sabines, died, leaving an only child, and was buried by the kings in the noblest part of the Forum, thought worthy of a pillar with an inscription attesting his valour.

1.3. From this only son, when he had come to manhood and made a distinguished marriage, was born Tullus Hostilius, an energetic man, who was appointed king both by the civic vote cast concerning him according to the laws, and by the divine power, which through favourable auspices ratified what seemed good to the people. The year in which he took up the leadership was the second of the twenty-seventh Olympiad, which Eurybates the Athenian won in the stadium-race, Leostratus being archon at Athens.

1.4. This man, having displayed the most magnificent deed of all, at once, as soon as he took up the office, made the whole labouring and needy part of the people his own. It was of this kind. The kings before him had a choice and large and good tract of land set apart, from which, drawing the revenues, they performed sacrifices to the gods and had abundant means for their own living — which Romulus had acquired in war, taking it from those who then held it, and which, when he died childless, Numa Pompilius, who reigned after him, enjoyed; it was no longer public property, but the inheritance of the successive kings.

1.5. This land Tullus permitted those of the Romans who had no allotment to divide among themselves man by man, declaring his ancestral property sufficient for himself both for the rites and for the expenses of life. By this benefaction he raised up the needy of the citizens, having made them cease serving on others' lands; and that none might be without a share of a house either, he added to the city the so-called Caelian hill, where those of the Romans who were homeless, obtaining a sufficient portion of the ground, built their houses; and he himself had his dwelling in this place. These, then, are the civil deeds of the man handed down as worthy of account.

2.1. But of his warlike deeds many others also are recorded; the greatest, concerning which I am going to tell, I shall begin with the war against the Albans. The cause of the cities falling apart and dissolving their kinship was an Alban man, Cloelius by name, thought worthy of the highest office, who, being aggrieved at the prosperity of the Romans and unable to restrain his envy, and being by nature wilful and somewhat frenzied, resolved to set the cities at war

2.2. with one another. But not seeing how he might persuade the Albans to permit him to lead an army against the Romans, since he had no just or necessary pretexts, he contrived something of this sort: he permitted the most needy and boldest of the Albans to plunder the fields of the Romans, promising them impunity, and so prepared many men pursuing risk-free gains — who, not even when checked, were likely through fear to desist — to fill the borderland with a brigand's war.

2.3. This he did on a reasoning not unlikely, as the event bore witness. For he supposed that the Romans would not endure the plunderings, but would go to arms, and that he would have occasion to accuse them before the people as authors of the war; and that the greater number of the Albans, envying the colonists their good fortune, would gladly receive the calumnies and carry on the war against

2.4. them — which is what came to pass. For while the most malefactory of each city plundered and despoiled one another, and once a Roman force invaded the country of the Albans, by which many of the brigands were either slain or captured, Cloelius, having called the multitude together into assembly, in which he made much accusation of the Romans, displaying many wounded and bringing forward the kinsmen of those seized or slain and lying about more than had happened, got it voted first to send an embassy to demand satisfaction for what had occurred; and if the Romans should be unreasonable, then to carry the war against them.

3.1. When the envoys came to Rome, Tullus, suspecting that they had come to demand satisfaction, resolved to do this himself first, wishing to shift onto them the charge of breaking what had been agreed concerning the colony. For there were treaties between the cities made in the time of Romulus, holding among their other just provisions that neither should begin a war; but the one bringing complaint of whatever wrong should demand satisfaction from the wrongdoer, and, if she should not obtain it, then bring on of necessity the war, the truce being already dissolved.

3.2. Guarding against the Romans being the first to be asked satisfaction and refusing, and so becoming liable to the Albans, he ordered the most distinguished of his friends to entertain the Alban envoys with all kindness and to keep them within their houses; and he himself, pretending to be engaged in certain necessary occupations, put off

3.3. their audience. The very next night, having charged distinguished Romans with what they must do, he sent them to Alba together with the peace-judges to demand satisfaction from the Albans for the wrongs done the Romans; who, having finished the journey before sunrise, when the morning market was full, met Cloelius in the marketplace and, going through the wrongs done the Romans by the Albans, demanded that he do what had been agreed between the cities.

3.4. But Cloelius, on the ground that the Albans had first sent to Rome those to demand satisfaction and had not been thought worthy even of an answer, bade the Romans depart as having transgressed the agreements, and proclaimed war against them. The leader of the embassy, as he was departing, thought fit to hear from him only this: whether he confessed that those who first were asked satisfaction and submitted to none of the holy observances were the transgressors of the truce.

3.5. When Cloelius confessed it, "I call to witness, then," he said, "the gods whom we made witnesses of the truce, that to the Romans, not having first obtained justice, the war against the transgressors of the truce will be holy; and you are the ones who have fled from this justice, as the very facts show. For first, when asked justice, you did not render it, and first you have proclaimed war against us. Therefore await us, with our arms, not far off, to requite you."

3.6. When the envoys had come to Rome and Tullus had heard these things, he then ordered the Albans to be brought in and to say concerning what they came for. When they announced what Cloelius had commanded and threatened war if they should not obtain satisfaction, "I have done this before you," he said, "and having obtained none of the things the treaties commanded ... these are shown to have been first dissolved by you and thought worthy of no account; wherefore I proclaim to the Albans the necessary and just war."

4.1. After these pretexts both sides prepared for the war, not only arming their own forces but also calling in those of their subjects; and when all was ready for them, they came together and encamped forty stades distant from Rome — the Albans about what are called the Cloelian Ditches (for they still keep the name of the man who made them), the Romans a little nearer, having chosen the place most suitable for a camp.

4.2. But when both perceived that each other's forces were neither inferior in numbers nor mean in arms nor in their other equipment contemptible, they desisted from the swift impulse toward the contest which they had at first, thinking to rout the enemy by the very onset; and they took thought rather for defence than for first attack, raising their ramparts higher; and there came upon the more thoughtful of them a reflection that they were not deliberating for the best, and a censure of those in office.

4.3. As the time was being drawn out to no purpose (for they did one another no harm worth mentioning, whether by raids of light troops or by skirmishes of horse), Cloelius, who seemed to have been the author of the war, being aggrieved at the fruitless inactivity, formed the resolve to lead out his army and to challenge the enemy to battle, and, if they should not respond, to assault their defences.

4.4. Having prepared for the contest and, in case there should be need of an assault on the walls, contrived whatever is suited to such a work, when night came, as he was sleeping in the general's tent with his accustomed guard about him, he was found dead about dawn, having upon his body no sign of slaughter or strangling or poison or any other violent mischance.

5.1. The death seeming, as was natural, paradoxical to all, and the cause being sought (for one could not even allege a preceding sickness), some, referring all human fortunes to divine providence, said that he had died by the wrath of a divinity, because he had kindled against the mother-city a war against her colony neither just nor necessary; but others, deeming the war a means of profit and thinking themselves robbed of great gains, transferred the deed to a human plot and envy, charging that some of their political opponents, having devised secret and hard-to-detect poisons, had through these made away with the man;

5.2. others said that, overcome by grief and helplessness, he had used a voluntary death, since all things were turning out for him harsh and hopeless, and nothing was going according to the mind of what had been expected at the beginning, when he entered upon affairs; but to those who were outside both friendship and enmity toward the general and judged the event from the best motives, it seemed that neither divine vengeance nor the envy of his opponents nor despair of his affairs had made away with the man, but the necessity of nature and destiny, as having fulfilled the lot owed, which all that come to be are fated to meet.

5.3. Cloelius, then, before he could display any noble deed, met with such an end; and in his place was appointed general with full powers by those in the camp Mettius Fufetius, a man neither a sufficient leader in war nor a steadfast guardian of peace, who, having been no less eager than any of the Albans at the first to set the cities apart and on that account thought worthy of the office after Cloelius' death, when he had obtained the leadership and perceived how many difficult and hopeless things were in the affairs, no longer abode in the same counsels, but thought fit to bring matters to delays and postponements, seeing neither all the Albans still having a like eagerness for war, nor the victims, whenever he sacrificed concerning battle, becoming favourable;

5.4. and at last he resolved even to challenge the enemy to a reconciliation, sending heralds first, having learned of the danger hanging over both Albans and Romans from without, unless they should make peace with one another, a danger unguarded against, which was likely to sweep away both their forces. It was of this kind:

6.1. The Veientines and Fidenates, possessing great and populous cities, in the reign of Romulus came to war with the Romans over rule and dominion, in which both, having lost many forces and been penalized by a parcelling-out of their land, were forced to become subject to their conquerors. Concerning these I have set forth the exact account in the writing before this; and in the dominion of Numa Pompilius, enjoying secure peace, they had a great advancement in good manhood and wealth and the rest of prosperity. Elated, then, by these goods, they again reached after liberty and took on a higher spirit and prepared as men who would no longer hearken to the Romans.

6.2. For a while, then, their intention of revolt was unclear, but in the war against the Albans it was made manifest. For when they learned that the Romans had gone out with their whole army to the contest against the Albans, supposing they had got the best occasion for an attack, they made secret conspiracies through their most powerful men that all able to bear arms should come together to Fidenae secretly and in small parties, going so that they might least become manifest to those plotted against;

6.3. and there, waiting, they were to await the moment when the forces of the Romans and Albans, leaving their camps, should come forth to the contest (this certain scouts lying in ambush in the mountains were to make manifest to them by signals); and when the signals should be raised, they were all to take arms and march against them with speed (the road leading to the camps from Fidenae was not long, but such as could be accomplished in two hours or at most three); and, appearing at the contest now already at its end, as was natural, to count nothing friendly, but, whether the Albans should conquer or the Romans, to slay those who had conquered. These were the things resolved upon by the leaders of the cities.

6.4. Now if the Albans had rushed more boldly to the contest, despising the Romans, and had resolved to decide the whole matter in a single battle, there would have been nothing to hinder the contrived snare against them from escaping notice and both their armies from being destroyed; but as it was, the prolongation of the war, paradoxical to all, and the long time during which they prepared, dissolved their plans. For some of those in the conspiracy — whether seeking to win private gains for themselves, or envying the chief men of their own who had introduced the plan, or fearing the denunciation of others (which it has befallen many to suffer in numerous and long-protracted conspiracies), or constrained by a divine will that did not think fit that an unholy deed should descend to a fortunate end — became informers to the enemy of the plot.

7.1. Fufetius, learning this, hastened still more to make the settlement, as no choice was now left them not to do these things. And the denunciation concerning this conspiracy had come to the king of the Romans also, from his friends in Fidenae, so that he too, no longer delaying, accepted Fufetius' overtures. When they came together into the space between the camps, each bringing as advisers men sufficient to judge what was needful, having first greeted one another as they had been wont before and shown the kindnesses of comrades and kinsmen, they discoursed concerning the settlement.

7.2. The Alban began first, speaking thus: "It seems to me necessary first to set forth the reasons for which I was the first to think fit to discourse about ending the war — neither conquered by you in battle, nor hindered from bringing in supplies, nor shut up into any other necessity — that you may not suppose me to have judged my own force weak and, deeming your strength hard to contend against, to be seeking a seemly release from the war. For you would become unbearable through arrogance, if you should be persuaded of any such thing concerning us, and would submit to do nothing moderate, as men already prevailing

7.3. in the war. That, then, you may not conjecture false reasons concerning my purpose, for which I think fit to end the war, hear the true ones. I, having been appointed general with full powers by my fatherland, as soon as I took up the office considered what were the pretexts that had thrown our cities into confusion. And seeing them small and paltry and not sufficient to dissolve so great a friendship and kinship, I held that neither the Albans nor you had deliberated for the best.

7.4. And still more I recognized this, and condemned much madness in both of us, when I had come to affairs and was making trial of each man's purpose. For neither in private nor in common gatherings did I see all the Albans of one mind concerning the war; and the divine signs, far more difficult than the hardships apprehended by human reasoning, becoming, whenever I used the victims concerning battle, more difficult, gave me much despondency and helplessness.

7.5. Reflecting on these things, I held back from the impulse toward the contests, and made delays and postponements of the war, thinking that you would be the first to begin words about friendship; and indeed you ought, Tullus, to have done this, being our colonists, and not to have waited until the mother-city began. For as much honour as fathers think fit to obtain from their offspring, so much do the founders of cities from their colonists.

7.6. But while we were delaying and watching one another, which of us should be the first to begin reasonable words, a certain other necessity, stronger than all human reasoning, has encompassed and brought us together; which I, learning while it still escaped your notice, no longer thought I ought to aim at the seemliness of reconciliations. For dreadful contrivances, Tullus, are woven against us, and an inescapable snare has been stitched against both, which was about, without dust and without toil, to crush and destroy all our

7.7. affairs, falling upon them like fire or a flood. The fashioners of these unholy counsels are the most powerful of the Fidenates and Veientines, who have banded together. But what the manner of their plot was, and whence the knowledge of their secret counsels has come to me, hear."

8.1. Having said this, he gives to one of those present to read the letters, which someone happened to have brought him from his guest-friends in Fidenae, and he brought forward the one who had brought them. When the letters had been read and the man had set forth all that he had heard by word of mouth from those who entrusted them to him, and great consternation had seized the hearers — as was natural at so great an evil heard unexpectedly — Fufetius, after a short pause, spoke again:

8.2. "You have heard the reasons, men of Rome, for which I for a time put off the contests with you, but now have thought fit even to be the first to begin words about friendship. And do you now consider what follows: whether you think you ought, over the seizure of a few cattle and sheep, to keep an irreconcilable war against your founders and fathers — in which, whether conquered or conquering, you will perish — or, having dissolved the enmity toward your kinsmen, to march with us against the common enemies, who have plotted against you not only revolt but uprising, having suffered nothing dreadful nor fearing they should suffer; and who attacked us not openly, as the common law of war thinks fit, but under cover of darkness, so that one might least suspect their plot and guard against it.

8.3. But that we must go against these unholy men with all zeal, having dissolved our enmities (for to think the contrary is madness), I have no need to say more or to exhort you as men who have resolved and will do it. But in what manner the settlement might become fair and advantageous to both cities (for this perhaps you have long desired to hear) I shall now try to say.

8.4. I hold the best reconciliations and the most befitting kinsmen and friends with one another to be those in which there is nothing rancorous nor mindful of evil, a guileless remission being made by all toward all for what they have done or suffered; and less seemly than these those in which the multitude is released from the charges, but those who have wronged one another are compelled to submit to justice, judged by argument and law.

8.5. Of these reconciliations it seems to me that we ought to choose the more seemly and the more magnanimous, and to resolve to bear no rancour against one another concerning anything. But if you do not wish to be reconciled in this manner, Tullus, but think it right both to give and to receive justice of those liable to the charges from one another, the Albans are ready to do this too, having first dissolved the common enmities. And if you have any other reconciliations to name beside these, either fairer or juster, do not delay to bring them into the midst, and I shall owe you much thanks."

9.1. When Fufetius had said this, the king of the Romans, taking up the discourse, spoke: "We too, Fufetius, supposed that a grievous calamity would overtake us, if we should be compelled to decide a war between kinsmen through blood and slaughter; and we were hindered by the rites, whenever we sacrificed the preliminary offerings, from beginning battle. As for the secret conspiracies of the Fidenates and Veientines, which they swore against us both, we have learned of them a little before you from our guest-friends there, and we are not unguarded against them, but have prepared so as to suffer no harm ourselves and to punish them worthily for the plot; and we wished, no less than you, to end the war without fighting rather than through arms.

9.2. But we did not think fit to be the first to send an embassy about reconciliation, since neither did we ourselves first begin the war, but defended ourselves against those who began it. When you lay aside your arms, we accept the overtures gladly and make no fine reckoning about the reconciliation, but accept the best and most magnanimous, remitting every wrong and every offence of the city of the Albans — if indeed one ought to call them offences common to the city, of which your general Cloelius was the author, who on behalf of us both has paid no light penalty to the gods.

9.3. Let every pretext, then, of complaint, both private and common, be remitted, and let there be no further memory of past ills, as seems good to you too, Fufetius. But it does not suffice for us to consider this alone, how we might dissolve the present enmity toward one another, but we must take care that we shall never again make war hereafter; for we have come together not to make delays of our ills, but to be quit of them. What, then, the secure dissolution of the war shall be, and what each of us must contribute to affairs that we may be friends now and for all time — you, Fufetius, have left out, but I shall try to add this too.

9.4. If the Albans should cease envying the Romans the goods they have, having acquired them not without great dangers and many toils (for you, having suffered no harm from us, neither greater nor less, hate us for this, that we seem to fare better than you); and if the Romans should cease holding the Albans in suspicion as ever plotting against them and guarding against them as enemies — for no man could become a steadfast friend to one who hates him.

9.5. How, then, will each of these come about? Not if we write them in the agreements, nor if we both swear over sacrifices (for these are small and weak safeguards), but if we deem each other's fortunes common. For there is one only remedy, Fufetius, for the human grief that arises at the goods of others: that the envious no longer deem the goods of the envied to be another's.

9.6. That this may come to pass, the Romans, I think, ought to put into the common stock with the Albans all the goods they now have and shall hereafter have; and the Albans gladly to accept what is given, and to become — best of all, all of you, but if not, the most and the best of you — inhabitants of the city of the Romans. For surely, if it was well for the Sabines and Tyrrhenians, leaving their own cities, to transfer their lives to us, it will not be well for you, our nearest kinsmen, that this same thing should come about?

9.7. But if you will not think fit to dwell in one city, ours, being already great and to be still greater, but will cling to your ancestral hearths, do at least this: appoint one council, which shall deliberate the things expedient for each city, and give the leadership to the one stronger city and the one able to do more good to the weaker. This, then, is what I think fit; and these things being done, I hold that we shall then be securely friends; but dwelling in two cities of equal height, as now, that we shall never be of one mind."

10.1. Having heard this, Fufetius asked time for deliberation, and, withdrawing from the conference with the Albans present, considered whether they ought to accept the proposals. When he had taken the opinions of all, returning again to the conference, he spoke: "To us, Tullus, it does not seem good to leave our fatherland nor to desolate the ancestral rites and the hearths of our forefathers and a place which our fathers have held for near five hundred years — and that too with no war having overtaken us nor any other god-sent calamity; but to establish one council and for one city to rule

10.2. the other is not displeasing. Let this part too, then, be written in the agreements, if it seem good, and let every pretext of war be removed." When they had agreed on these terms, they differed concerning the city that should take the leadership, and many words were spoken on both sides, each claiming the right that his own city should rule the other. The Alban, then, put forward such claims as these:

10.3. "We, Tullus, are worthy to rule even the rest of Italy, because we present a Greek nation, and the greatest of the nations inhabiting this land; but of the Latin nation, even if of no other, we think it right to be leaders, not without cause, but according to the common law of men, which nature has given to all, that ancestors rule their offspring. And above all the other colonies, against which up to the present we bring no complaint, we hold that we ought to rule your city, having sent out the colony to it not long ago, so that the stock from us is already extinct, worn out by time, but in the third generation before this one. But if nature, reversing the human judgments, should ordain that the young rule the elder and the offspring the ancestors, then we too will endure the mother-city being ruled by the colony, but not before.

10.4. Presenting this one claim of rule, then, we would not willingly yield to you; but here is another such. Receive it not as spoken in slander and reproach of you, but for necessity's sake: that the race of the Albans is such, even unto our times, as it was in the days of the founders of the city, and one could not point to any tribe of men, outside the Greek and the Latin, to which we have given a share of citizenship; but you have corrupted the purity of your own constitution by receiving Tyrrhenians and Sabines and certain other homeless and wandering men, and barbarians very many, so that what is genuine of you, namely all that set out from us, is small, or rather a tiny fraction of the

10.5. imported and alien. And if we should yield you the rule, the bastard will rule the genuine and the barbarian the Greek and the imported the native-born. For you could not even say this — that you have allowed the immigrant crowd to be master of none of the common affairs, but rule the city yourselves and deliberate, you the native-born; nay, you appoint even kings who are foreigners, and the greater part of your senate is from the immigrants, of which you would not say you endure any of it willingly. For who willingly is ruled, being the better, by the worse? It is much folly and baseness that what you would say you endure of necessity

10.6. we should accept willingly. My last argument is this: that no part of the constitution of the city of the Albans is any longer in commotion, the city being now inhabited for the eighteenth generation and performing all its customary and ancestral rites in good order; but your city is still unarranged and disordered, as being newly founded and gathered together from many nations, which needs long times and sufferings of all kinds, that it may be set in order and cease being troubled and faction-ridden as now. And all would say that the settled ought to rule the troubled, and the tried the untried, and the healthy the sick; in which you, claiming the opposite, do not act rightly."

11.1. When Fufetius had spoken thus, Tullus, taking up the discourse, said: "The justice from nature and the virtue of ancestors, Fufetius and you Alban men, is common to us both; for we both pray to the same forefathers, so that on this account neither of the two ought to have more nor less than the other. But that mother-cities should at all events rule their colonies, as some necessary law of nature, was thought by you neither true nor just;

11.2. for there are many tribes of men among whom the mother-cities do not rule but are subject to their colonies. The greatest and most conspicuous example of this argument is the city of the Spartans, which thinks fit to rule not only the other Greeks but even the Doric race from which it was colonized. And what need to speak of the others? For you yourselves, who colonized our city, are colonists of the Lavinians.

11.3. If, then, it is a law of nature that the mother-city rule the colony, would not the Lavinians be first in appointing terms of justice for us both? As regards your first claim, then, and the one of greatest fair show, this is enough. But since you undertook also to compare the lives of the cities one with another, Fufetius, saying that the nobility of the Albans abides ever the same, but ours has been corrupted by intermixtures of the alien, and you thought it not right that bastards should rule the genuine, nor the immigrants the native-born — learn that in this too you most of all mistake the claim.

11.4. For we are so far from being ashamed at having made the city common to those who wish, that we even plume ourselves most of all upon this very deed — not having ourselves begun this emulation, but having taken the example from the city of the Athenians, whose glory among the Greeks is greatest, and on this account not least, if not even

11.5. most, their polity. And the matter, having become for us the cause of many goods, brings no censure nor repentance as for men who have erred; and there rules and deliberates and reaps the other honours among us not the man who has acquired much money, nor the one able to point to many native fathers, but whoever is worthy of these honours. For we deem human nobility to lie in nothing else but virtue. And the rest of the crowd is the body of the city, furnishing strength and power to what is resolved by the best. And our city has become great out of small, and fearful to its neighbours out of contemptible, through this benevolence; and of the leadership, for which none of the other Latins disputes against us, this very polity which

11.6. you accused, Fufetius, has been the source for the Romans. For in the strength of arms lies the power of cities, and this comes from many persons; but the small and few-peopled, and on this account weak, cannot rule others,

11.7. nay nor even rule themselves. In general, I for my part suppose that one ought then to disparage the constitutions of others and to praise one's own, when one can show one's own city, from practising the things he speaks of, to be happy and great, but those traduced, through not choosing these, to be ill-fated. But our affairs are not so; rather your city, beginning from a greater boast and having obtained more starting-points, has shrunk to a lesser bulk, while we, taking small first beginnings, have in no long time made Rome the greatest of the neighbouring cities, using these very polities which you accused.

11.8. And our faction, since you charged this too, Fufetius, comes not for the corruption and diminution of the common good, but for its preservation and increase. For we, the younger, vie with the elder, and the colonists with those who invited them, which of us shall do the common good more services.

11.9. But that I may say it in brief: those who are to rule others must have these two things, strength in war and prudence in counsel, both of which are about us; and that the boast is not empty, experience, stronger than all argument, bears us witness. So great a city in size and power it would not have been possible to become in the third generation after the founding, had not both courage and prudence abounded in it. Sufficient to attest its power are the many cities of the Latin race, having their founding from you, which, despising your city, have come over to us and think fit to be ruled by the Romans rather than by the Albans, as deeming us competent in both — to do good to friends and harm to enemies — but you in neither.

11.10. I had still many strong things, Fufetius, to say against the claims you put forward; but seeing the discourse to be vain, and that the many things to be said are equal to the few before you, who are our adversaries as judges of the right, I cease speaking. But supposing one manner to be best and the only one able to decide our quarrels — that which many barbarians and Greeks, having come to enmity, some over leadership, some over disputed land, have used — I shall cease when I have spoken this:

11.11. if we should each, with some part of our own army, bringing the fortune of the war to a very small number of men, make the contest; and out of whichever city the victors over the adversaries should come, to that we should yield the rule of the other. For what is not decided by reason is decided by arms."

12.1. The claims, then, spoken concerning the leadership of the cities by both generals were such; and the end that followed their words was such as the Roman proposed. For those present in the conference, of both Albans and Romans, seeking to make a swift release from the war, resolved to decide the quarrel by arms. This too being agreed, an inquiry arose concerning the number of those who should contend, the two generals declaring not the same opinion.

12.2. For Tullus wished the decision of the war to be made in the fewest persons, one Alban, the most brilliant, fighting in single combat against one Roman, the best; and he was eager himself to contend on behalf of his own fatherland, challenging the Alban to the like ambition, declaring the contests over rule and dominion fair for those who have taken up the leadership of armies — not only if they should conquer brave men, but even if they themselves should be overcome by the brave; and recounting how many generals and kings had offered up their own lives in the forefront of danger for the common good, thinking it dreadful to bear off more of the honours themselves but less of the toils.

12.3. But the Alban thought it rightly said that the cities should risk the matter in few persons, but differed concerning the fight of one against one, saying that to those who lead armies, when they are establishing their own dominion, the contest over rule against one another is fair and necessary; but for the cities themselves, when they dispute against one another over the primacy, the risk through single combat is not only perilous but even shameful, whether they meet with the better fortune or the worse.

12.4. And he advised that three picked men from each city should contend under the eyes of all, both Albans and Romans. For this number, he said, was most suitable for every decision of a disputed matter, having in itself a beginning and middle and end. The Romans and Albans having assented to this opinion, the conference was dissolved, and each side departed to their own camps.

13.1. Then, having called both forces into assembly, the generals went through what they had discoursed with one another and on what terms they had agreed to end the war. When both armies had ratified, with much approval, the agreements of the generals, a wonderful ambition seized both captains and soldiers, very many being eager to bear off the prizes of the battle and showing their ambition not in word only but in deed, so that the choice of the most suitable became difficult for their leaders.

13.2. For if anyone was brilliant in the distinction of his fathers, or pre-eminent in bodily strength, or noble in deed of hand, or marked by some other fortune or daring, he thought fit to rank himself first among the three.

13.3. This ambition, prevailing far in both armies, the general of the Albans stayed, having reflected that some divine providence, long foreseeing the contest about to befall the cities, had contrived that those who should risk danger on their behalf should be of no obscure houses, and good in war, and most beautiful to behold, and partakers of a birth not like the many but rare and wonderful for its paradox.

13.4. For to a certain Horatius, a Roman, and to Curatius, an Alban by race, at the same time Sicinius an Alban had betrothed his twin daughters. To both of these the wives, having become pregnant together, brought forth as their firstborn offspring triplet male babes; and these, their parents, taking them as a good omen both for their city and their house, reared them all and brought them to maturity; and God gave them, as I said at the beginning, beauty and strength and indeed nobility of soul, so as to be inferior to none of the best-natured. To these men Fufetius resolved to entrust the contest over the leadership, and, challenging the king of the Romans to a parley, says to him:

14.1. "Some god, Tullus, seems, taking forethought for each of the cities, to have made his goodwill manifest, both in many other things and in particular in this contest. For that there should be found, to contend on behalf of all, men inferior to none in birth and good in war and most beautiful to behold, and besides this sprung from one father and born of one mother, and — most wonderful — coming forth into the light in one birth, among you the Horatii, among us the Curatii, seems like some wonderful and altogether divine benefaction.

14.2. Why, then, do we not accept so great a forethought of the divine power, and each of us summon the triplet brothers to the contest over the leadership? For all the other things which we should wish to be in those who shall fight best are in these men; and the not abandoning of their comrades when hard pressed will belong to these, being brothers, more than to any others of the Romans and Albans; and the ambition of the other young men, hard to resolve in any other way, will have a swift decision.

14.3. For I conjecture that there is among you too, as among the Albans, some grudge among the many who lay claim to valour; whom, if we should teach that some divine fortune has forestalled the human efforts, herself furnishing those who shall make the contest for the cities on equal terms, we shall not hardly persuade. For they will seem to be inferior to the triplet brothers not in valour, but in the good fortune of nature and in a fitness, equally balanced toward the adversary, of fortune."

15.1. When Fufetius had said so much, and all had praised the opinion (for the best of both Romans and Albans happened to be present with both), Tullus, after a short pause, says: "In other things you seem to me to have reckoned rightly, Fufetius; for wonderful is the fortune that has brought forth in both cities, in our generation, a similarity of birth that never before occurred. But one thing you seem not to know, which will give the young men much hesitation, if we should think fit that they go to battle against one another.

15.2. For the mother of our Horatii is sister to the mother of the Alban Curatii, and the youths have been reared in the bosoms of both women, and greet one another and love one another no less than many love their own brothers. See, then, lest it be not even holy to give arms to these and to call them to mutual slaughter, being cousins and foster-brothers. For the pollution of kindred blood, if they should be compelled to murder one another, will come upon us who compel them."

15.3. Fufetius says to him: "Neither has the kinship of the youths escaped me, Tullus, nor have I prepared to compel them to go to battle against their cousins if they should not themselves be willing to undertake the contest; but as soon as this plan came into my mind, having sent for the Alban Curatii, I myself by myself made trial whether the contest was according to their wish; and when they received the proposal with an incredible and wonderful eagerness, then I resolved to uncover the plan and bring it into the midst; and I suggest that you do this same thing, summoning your triplets and making trial of their mind.

15.4. If, then, they too willingly offer up their persons to risk danger on behalf of their own fatherland, accept the favour; but if they shrink back, lay no necessity upon them. And I divine concerning them what I do concerning ours, if indeed they are such as we hear, like the few best-natured and good in war; for the report of their valour has come even to us."

16.1. Tullus, then, accepts the counsel, and having made a ten-day truce, during which he would deliberate and, having learned the mind of the Horatii, would answer, returned to the city. On the following days, having deliberated with the best men, since it seemed good to the majority to accept Fufetius' proposals, he sends for the triplet brothers and says to them:

16.2. "Men, Horatii, Fufetius the Alban, having come to a parley with me at our last meeting in the camp, said that three brave men had, by divine providence, been born to risk danger in the forefront on behalf of each city, than whom we could find no others either nobler or more suitable — of the Albans the Curatii, of the Romans you; and that, having perceived this, he himself first examined whether your cousins were willing to offer up their persons to their fatherland, and, learning that they undertook the contest on behalf of all with much eagerness, took courage to bring the matter now into the midst; and he asked me too to make trial of you, whether you will wish to risk danger in the forefront for your fatherland, coming to grips with the Curatii, or

16.3. yield this ambition to others. As for me, by reason of your valour and the nobility of hand which you have, not unobserved, I supposed that you above all would take up the danger over the prizes of valour; but fearing lest the kinship with the Alban triplets should become a hindrance to your eagerness, I asked time for deliberation, making a ten-day truce. And when I had come here, I called the senate together and proposed that we consider the matter in common; and it seemed good to the majority of opinions: if you willingly undertook the contest, which is fair and befitting you (which I was eager to fight alone on behalf of all), to praise and accept your favour; but if, shrinking from the pollution of kindred (for surely you do not confess to be cowards in soul), you should think fit to summon those outside the family, to lay no necessity upon you. The senate having voted these things, and being one that will neither receive it with anger if you take the deed with hesitation, nor be little grateful to you if you deem your fatherland more honoured than your kinship, you are at liberty to deliberate well."

17.1. When the young men heard this, withdrawing to another place and conferring a little with one another, they come forward again to answer, and the eldest speaks on behalf of all as follows: "If, being free and masters of our own judgment, you had given us liberty, Tullus, to deliberate about the contest against our cousins, we should, delaying no longer, have answered you our own reflections; but since our father survives, without whom we think it right neither to say nor to do the least thing, we ask you to wait a little while for our answer, until we have conferred with our father."

17.2. Tullus, having praised their piety and bidden them do so, they departed to their father. And having disclosed to him Fufetius' proposals and the words Tullus had spoken and their own final answer, they asked him to say what opinion he himself held.

17.3. He, taking up the word, said: "A pious thing, indeed, you do, my sons, living for your father and accomplishing nothing without my judgment; but it is time for you yourselves now to appear to think for yourselves in matters of such moment. Suppose, then, that my life is already at its end, and make plain to me what you would yourselves have chosen to do, deliberating about your own affairs without your father."

17.4. The eldest answers him as follows: "We should have accepted, father, the contest over the leadership, and have submitted to suffer whatever should seem good to the divine power; for we would rather be dead than live having become unworthy of you and of our ancestors. As for the kinship with our cousins, we shall not be the first to dissolve it, but, as fortune has dissolved it, we shall acquiesce.

17.5. For if to the Curatii kinship is judged less than honour, neither will the family appear to the Horatii more honoured than virtue." The father, when he learned their mind, becoming overjoyed and raising his hands to heaven, said he owed much thanks to the gods, that they had given him sons to be born fair and good; then, embracing each of them and giving the sweetest kindnesses of greetings and kisses, "You have," he said, "my judgment too, good sons; and go and answer Tullus

17.6. the pious and fair answer." They, then, rejoicing at their father's exhortation, departed, and coming to the king undertake the contest; and he, having called the senate together and bestowed many praises upon the young men, sends envoys to the Alban to declare that the Romans accept the choice and will furnish the Horatii to contend over the rule.

18.1. Since the subject demands that I go through both the manner of the battle precisely and the sufferings that came after it, like the reversals of the stage, I shall try to relate these too, not carelessly, and to tell each with accuracy, as my power goes. When, then, the time came in which the agreements were to take their end, the forces of the Romans went out in full array, and after them the young men went out, having prayed to the ancestral gods, and advanced together with the king, blessed by the whole crowd of the city and having their heads strewn with flowers; and by now the army of the Albans too had gone out.

18.2. When they had encamped near one another, making the middle ground the boundary dividing the Romans' land from the Albans' — where before too each had their camps — first, having sacrificed, they swore over the burnt offerings to acquiesce in the fortune that each city should bear off from the battle of the cousins, and to keep the agreements firm, bringing no guile against them, both themselves and the race from them. And when they had performed their duties toward the gods, laying down their arms, they both came forth from the camp to be spectators of the battle, leaving a space of three or four stades for the combatants; and not long after came the general of the Albans leading the Curatii, and the king of the Romans the Horatii, armed most beautifully and having the other adornment such as men receive for death.

18.3. Being near one another, they gave their swords to their shield-bearers, and running up embraced one another, weeping and calling on each other by the sweetest names, so that all fell to tears and accused both themselves and their leaders of much heartlessness, that, when it was possible to decide the battle by some other persons, they had shut up the contest over the cities into kindred blood and the pollution of kinsmen. The young men, ceasing from their greetings and taking their swords from the shield-bearers, when those near had withdrawn, ranged themselves by age and came together.

19.1. For a while, then, quiet and silence held both forces; afterward there arose crowded shoutings from both of them, and exhortations to the combatants by turns, and prayers and wailings and the continuous cries of every other emotion of contest — some at the things done and seen by each side,

19.2. others at the things to come and suspected; and the conjectures were more than the realities. For the sight, being from a great distance, had much of the indistinct, and the sympathy of each toward their own combatants made what was being done take on the shape of what they wished; and the continuous advances and retreats of the fighters, and their counter-shiftings back to even terms, being many and swift, took away accuracy of judgment. And these things went on for a long time.

19.3. For each happened to have like strength of body and equally balanced nobility of soul, and were covered as to their whole bodies with the most beautiful arms and left no bare part which, if wounded, would bring a swift death; so that many both of Romans and of Albans, from contending and sympathizing with their own, unawares took on the emotion of those in danger, and wished rather to be combatants than spectators of what was being done.

19.4. But at length, late, the eldest of the Albans closes with the one arrayed against him, striking and being struck blow upon blow, and somehow chances to drive his sword through the Roman's groin. And the Roman, already stupefied by his other wounds and having this last, mortal blow, his limbs giving way, falls and dies.

19.5. When the spectators of the battle saw this, all together shouted, the Albans as now victorious, the Romans as overcome. For they supposed that their two would now be easily dispatched by the three Albans. While these things were happening, the Roman who fought beside the fallen man, seeing the Alban overjoyed at his success, rushes swiftly upon him, and, having given many wounds and himself received many, chances somehow to dip his sword into the man's throat

19.6. and to dispatch him. Fortune having in a little while changed both the deeds of the combatants and the emotions of the spectators, and the Romans having taken courage from their former dejection, and the Albans being robbed of their joy, again another fortune, blowing against the successes of the Romans, abased their hopes and lifted up the spirits of the enemy. For when the Alban fell, his brother who stood next to him closes with the one who had brought him down, and both at the same time chance to deal each other prodigious blows — the Alban dipping his sword into the Roman's back as far as the entrails, the Roman slipping under the enemy's guard and cutting through one of his hams.

20.1. He who received the mortal wound died at once; but the one wounded in the ham was no longer firm to stand, and, limping and mostly propping himself on his shield, nevertheless still held out, and together with the surviving one of his brothers advanced upon the Roman who stood his ground; and they surrounded him, the one approaching from the front,

20.2. the other from behind. To the Roman, fearing lest, encircled by them, he should be easily dispatched, fighting against two who came on from both sides — and he was still unhurt — there came a reckoning to separate the enemy from one another and to fight each apart. And he supposed he would most easily part them if he should present an appearance of flight; for he would be pursued not by both Albans but by one, seeing his brother no longer strong of foot. Having so reasoned, he fled with what speed he had, and it fell out for him not to fail of his hope.

20.3. For the one of the Albans who had no mortal wound pursued him close, while the one unable to step lagged far behind what was needed. Thereupon, while the Albans cheered on their own and the Romans reviled their own combatant — these singing paeans and crowning themselves as at a contest being won, those lamenting as though fortune would no longer raise them up — the Roman, husbanding the moment, turns sharply, and before the Alban could guard himself, anticipates him by bringing a blow with his sword upon his arm and cutting through the elbow.

20.4. And the hand having fallen to the ground together with the sword, he brings one more mortal blow and kills the Alban; and after him, thrusting upon the last, half-dead and exhausted, he slays him over. And having stripped the corpses of his cousins, he hastened to the city, wishing to be the first to announce his own victory to his father.

21.1. But it was fated that this man too, being human, should not be wholly fortunate, but should taste something of the envious divinity, which, having made him great out of small in a little while and raised him to a wonderful and paradoxical distinction, threw him down, bringing him that same day to an unhappy fratricidal calamity.

21.2. For as he came near the gates, he sees a crowd of every kind pouring out of the city, and in particular his sister running toward him; and being thrown into confusion at the first sight, that, leaving her keeping of the house with her mother, a maiden ripe for marriage, she had given herself to an unknown crowd, and taking many strange reflections, he at last inclined to the milder and kindlier ones, that she, longing to be the first to greet her saved brother and wishing to learn from him the valour of the dead, had overlooked some of the seemly observances, suffering something womanly.

21.3. But she in fact, not longing for her brothers, had ventured to go out by the unwonted ways, but mastered by love of one of the cousins, to whom she had been betrothed by her father in marriage, keeping her passion a secret; and when she heard one of those from the camp announcing the events of the battle, she no longer restrained herself, but leaving the house, like the maenads, rushed toward the gates, paying no heed to her nurse who called her back and pursued her.

21.4. When she had got outside the city, when she saw her brother overjoyed, wearing the crowns of victory with which the king had bound him, and his comrades carrying the spoils of the slain, among which was an embroidered robe which she herself, having woven it with her mother, had sent as a gift to her betrothed for the coming marriage (for it is the custom for the Latins to clothe with embroidered robes those who go to fetch their brides) — seeing this robe befouled with blood, she rent her tunic, and beating her breast with both hands, lamented and called upon her cousin, so that great consternation came upon all who were in the same place.

21.5. And having bewailed the death of her betrothed, with fixed eyes she looks at her brother and says: "Most abominable man, you rejoice at having killed your cousins and at robbing me, your all-wretched sister, of marriage, O wretch! Nay, no pity even comes upon you for the kinsmen you have destroyed, whom you called brothers; but as though you had wrought some good deed, you are beside your senses with pleasure and wear crowns over such evils, having the soul of what beast?"

21.6. And he, taking up the word, said: "The soul of a citizen who loves his fatherland and chastises those who wish it ill, whether they chance to be aliens to it or kin; among whom I count you too, who, having learned in one moment of the greatest of goods and of evils that have befallen us — both the victory of the fatherland, which I, your brother, am here bringing home, and the death of your brothers — rejoice not, O abominable one, at the common goods of the fatherland, nor grieve at the private calamities of the house, but, overlooking your own brothers, bewail the death of your betrothed; and that not having stolen away somewhere alone in the dark, but before the eyes of all; and you reproach me with my valour and my crowns, O false maiden and brother-hater and unworthy of your ancestors. Since, then, you mourn not your brothers but your cousins, and have your body among the living but your soul beside the dead, go to him whom you call upon, and disgrace neither your father nor your

21.7. brothers." Having said this, he did not keep moderation in his hatred of wickedness, but, as his anger held him, drives his sword through her side; and having killed his sister, he came to his father. So hatred of wickedness and wilful were the characters and spirits of the Romans of that time; and if one should wish to examine them beside the present deeds and the lives of our day, they were cruel and harsh and not far removed from the beastlike nature, so that the father, hearing of so dreadful a calamity, so far from being indignant, supposed that what had been done was fair and fitting;

21.8. for he neither suffered the corpse of his daughter to be brought into the house nor permitted it to be placed in the ancestral tombs nor to share in funeral and laying-out and the other customary rites; but those who passed by, where she lay cast out in the place where she was slain, heaping stones and earth upon her, buried her as a corpse bereft of those who care.

21.9. These things, then, were stern in the man, and besides these what I am about to tell. For as at fair and fortunate deeds, that same day he sacrificed to the ancestral gods the sacrifices he had vowed and received his kinsmen at a splendid feast, as at the greatest festivals, deeming his private calamities less than the common goods of the fatherland.

21.10. And this not only Horatius, but after him many other distinguished Romans are recorded to have done — I mean the sacrificing and wearing of crowns and bringing home of triumphs when their children had recently perished, whenever through them the common good prospered; concerning whom I shall speak at the proper times.

22.1. After the battle of the triplets, the Romans then in the camp, having made splendid burials of the dead in the places where they fell, and having sacrificed the thank-offerings for victory to the gods, were at their good cheer; but the Albans, aggrieved at what had befallen and holding their leader to blame, as having generalled badly, the greater number passed that evening fasting and uncared for.

22.2. The next day the king of the Romans, having called them into assembly and consoled them much — that he would lay upon them nothing shameful nor harsh nor unbefitting kinsmen, but with the same judgment for both cities would counsel the best and most advantageous things — and having kept their ruler Fufetius in the same office, and altering and disturbing nothing else of their polity, led his force homeward.

22.3. When he had brought home the triumph voted by the senate and had begun to manage civic affairs, there come to him certain not obscure of the citizens leading Horatius to trial, as not pure of kindred blood because of the slaying of his sister; and, taking their stand, they went through a long harangue, bringing forward the laws that allow no one to be killed untried, and recounting the wraths of all the gods against cities that do not chastise the polluted.

22.4. But the father pleaded on behalf of the youth, accusing his daughter and saying that what had been done was a punishment, not a murder, and claiming to be himself the judge of his own ills, having become father of both. Many words being spoken by each side, much perplexity held the king, what end he should bring forth

22.5. concerning the suit. For neither did he suppose it well to acquit of murder the one who confessed he had slain his sister before trial — and that for things in which the laws did not permit killing — lest he bring the curse and the pollution from the doer into his own house; nor to put to death as a murderer the one who had chosen to risk danger in the forefront for his fatherland and had become the cause of so great a dominion for it — especially as the father acquitted him of the charge, to whom both nature and the law assigned the anger concerning his daughter first.

22.6. Being at a loss what to do with the matter, at last he resolved that it was best to entrust the decision to the people. And the Roman people, having then for the first time become master of a capital trial, assented to the father's opinion and acquits the man of murder. Yet the king said it did not suffice for those who wished to keep their duties toward the gods, the judgment passed for him by men; but, sending for the hierophants, he ordered them to propitiate the gods and divinities and to purify the man by those purifications by which it is customary to expiate involuntary murders.

22.7. And they, having set up two altars, one to Juno, to whom it has fallen to watch over sisters, and the other to a certain native god or divinity called Janus in the native tongue, but surnamed after the Curatii, the cousins slain by the man, and having made certain sacrifices upon them, used the other purifications and at last led Horatius under the yoke. It is a custom among the Romans, whenever they become masters of enemies surrendering their arms, to fix two upright stakes and to fit a third crosswise above them, then to lead the captives under these, and, when they have passed through, to release them free to their own homes. This is called among them a yoke, which those who then purified the man used as the last of the customary rites concerning purifications.

22.8. And the place of the city in which they performed the purification all Romans hold sacred; it is in the alley leading down from the Carinae to those who go to the Cyprian alley, where the altars then set up remain, and a beam is stretched over them, fitted into two walls facing one another, which comes over the heads of those who go out, called in the Roman tongue

22.9. the sister's beam. This place, then, is kept in the city as a memorial of the man's calamity, honoured with sacrifices by the Romans every year; and another, as testimony of the valour he displayed in the battle, is the corner pillar that begins the one colonnade in the Forum, on which lay the spoils of the Alban triplets. The arms, then, have perished through length of time, but the pillar still keeps the same name, being called the Horatian Spear.

22.10. There is also a law among them, ratified on account of that calamity, which they use even down to my own day, conferring honour and undying fame upon those men, ordaining that to those to whom triplet children are born, the maintenance of the children be furnished at public charge until manhood. The things, then, that befell the house of the Horatii, having taken on wonderful and paradoxical reversals, met with such an end.

23.1. The king of the Romans, having let a year's time pass, in which he prepared all things suitable for the war, resolved to lead an army against the city of the Fidenates, making these the pretexts for the war: that, summoned to make defence concerning the plot they had formed against the Romans and Albans, they had not obeyed, but at once taking up arms and closing their gates, and bringing in the alliance of the Veientines, had openly revolted, and to the envoys come from Rome who inquired the cause of the revolt had answered that they had no longer any common affair with the city of the Romans since their king Romulus had died,

23.2. with whom they had made the oaths concerning the friendship. Taking these pretexts, then, he armed his own force and sent for those of the allies. The most numerous and strongest auxiliary force came from the city of the Albans, brought by Mettius Fufetius, adorned with conspicuous arms, so as to surpass all the allied forces.

23.3. Tullus, then, praised Mettius as having resolved to share in the war from eagerness and from the best motives, and made him sharer in all his counsels; but this man, being under accusation among his citizens as having generalled the war ill, and indeed traduced for treason, since now the third year he had continued in the office of full power at Tullus' command, and not thinking it right to hold an office subject to another's office nor to be subordinate rather than himself to lead, plotted an unholy thing.

23.4. For having secretly sent envoys to the enemies of the Romans, who were still doubtful about the revolt, he urged them not to shrink back, on the ground that he himself would join in attacking the Romans in the contest; and doing and devising these things he escaped the notice of all. Tullus, when he had prepared his own and the allied force, led it out against the enemy, and crossing the river Anio, encamped not far from

23.5. Fidenae. Finding before the city a large army arrayed, both of the Fidenates themselves and of those allied with them, he kept quiet that day; but the next, having sent for Fufetius the Alban and the most intimate of his other friends, he considered with them in what manner the war ought to be conducted; and when it seemed good to all to set on battle quickly and not to waste time, having declared beforehand the place and post which each was to hold, and fixed the next day for the battle, he dissolved the conference.

23.6. The Alban Fufetius (for he was still unobserved even by many of his own friends in contriving treason), having called together the most distinguished captains and officers of the Albans, says to them as follows: "Men, officers and captains, I am about to bring before you great and unexpected matters, which till now I have hidden; and I beseech you to keep them secret, if you would not undo me, and, if it seem to be advantageous when accomplished, to help me in them. The occasion, being brief, does not allow me to say much, but I shall tell the most necessary things themselves.

23.7. I have passed all the time between, from when we were subjected to the Romans down to this day, with a life full of shame and pain, although honoured by their king with the office of full power, which now the third year I hold and shall hold, if I wish, forever. But deeming it the last of all evils that, when the common affairs are not prospering, I alone should prosper, and reflecting that, contrary to all things held holy among men, we have been robbed of the leadership by them, I considered how we might recover it without making trial of any great calamity; and taking many reflections of all kinds, I found one road leading to the matter, easiest and least dangerous, if some war should rise up against them from the neighbouring cities.

23.8. For coming into this, I supposed they would need allies, and us first of all. The thing after this I supposed would need no great teaching for you: that it is fairer and juster to make the contest for our own liberty rather than for the dominion of the Romans.

23.9. Having reflected on these things, I stirred up a war against the Romans out of their subjects, persuading the Veientines and Fidenates to go to arms, on the ground that I would join them in the war. And until now I have escaped the notice of the Romans in doing these things and in husbanding for myself the moment of the attack; in which consider how much we shall profit.

23.10. First, not having deliberated revolt in the open, in which there was danger on either side — either, being hurried unprepared and trusting to our own force alone, to cast the die for all, or, while preparing and raising up help, to be forestalled by those already in readiness — having made trial of neither of these difficulties, we shall have the usefulness from both. Next, the strength and fortune of our adversaries, being great and hard to war against, we shall try to bring down not by the violent way, but by those means by which all things overweening and not easy to be brought down by force are taken — by guile and deceit, being neither the first to begin them nor the only.

23.11. Besides this, since our own force is not a match to be arrayed against the whole strength of the Romans and their allies, we have taken in addition the strength of the Fidenates and Veientines, as great as you see; and it has been so contrived by me that the auxiliary force, by coming in, should furnish one the greatest courage of a secure alliance.

23.12. For the Fidenates, having raised the contest not in our land but risking danger in the forefront for their own, will at the same time guard ours too. And what is sweetest of all to men, but has fallen to few in the past age, this too will be ours: receiving good from our allies, we shall ourselves seem to do them good.

23.13. And if the deed go according to our mind, as is likely, the Fidenates and Veientines, having freed us from a grievous subjection, as though they had suffered this from us, will themselves be grateful to us. These, then, are the things which, prepared with much thought, seem to me sufficient to furnish you both courage and eagerness for the revolt.

23.14. But in what manner I have resolved to attempt the deed, hear me. Tullus has assigned me the post under the mountain and bids me lead one of the wings; and when we are about to come to grips with the enemy, I shall begin by breaking ranks to lead toward the mountain, and you shall follow me, leading the companies in order. And when I have seized the heights and become in safety, in what manner I shall use the matters that follow, hear me.

23.15. If I see the things I am reckoning going according to my mind — the enemy become bold, as though we were aiding them, and the Romans low and full of fear, as though betrayed by us, taking thought for flight rather than for defence, as is likely — I shall fall upon them and fill the plain with corpses, coming down from a commanding position to the slope, bringing a bold and orderly force against panicked and scattered men.

23.16. For dreadful in wars is the appearance, falling in even to no purpose, of treason of allies or of the onset of other enemies; and many great armies, we know, have already been utterly destroyed by no other fearful experience so much as by empty appearance. And ours will be no empty word nor unseen terror, but a deed more fearful than all sight and experience.

23.17. But if I see things turning out contrary to what I have reckoned (for let the things that are wont to meet us contrary to human expectations be told too, since lives bring many things even improbable), I shall undertake to do the opposite of what I purposed. For I shall lead you against the enemy together with the Romans and shall share with them in the victory, and shall pretend that the seizure of the heights was made for the encircling of those arrayed against us. And my word will be made credible, having furnished deeds agreeing with the pretence, so that we shall share in the dangers with neither side, but partake of the better fortune from both.

23.18. I, then, have resolved these things and shall do them, with the gods' help, as best both for the Albans and for the other Latins; but it behoves you, first keeping silence, then preserving order and sharply serving the orders given, to become eager combatants and to render those under you eager — reflecting that the contest for liberty is not the same for us and for the other men, to whom it has become a custom to be ruled by others, and to whom their fathers handed down such a polity.

23.19. For free, sprung from the free, we were born, and our fathers handed down to us the rule over our neighbours, having guarded this fashion of life for well-nigh five hundred years; of which let us not deprive our offspring. And let fear come upon none of you, if he wills to do these things, lest he dissolve the treaties and transgress the oaths made upon them; but let him consider that he will restore to the original the treaties dissolved by the Romans, and those not of the least worth, but which human nature itself established and which the common law of all, both Greeks and barbarians, confirms — that fathers rule and appoint terms of justice to their offspring, and mother-cities to their colonies.

23.20. These treaties, then, never to be done away with from human nature, it is not we who think fit that they should ever remain in force that transgress, nor would any of the gods or divinities be wroth at us as doing unholy things if we are vexed at being slaves to our own offspring, but those who dissolved them from the beginning and undertook the lawless deed of making human law stronger than divine. And the wrath of the divine will set itself, in likelihood, not against us but against these, and the vengeance from men will descend upon these instead of us.

23.21. If, then, these things seem to all of you to be best, let us do them, calling upon gods and divinities as helpers; but if any of you has resolved the contrary, and either thinks we ought never to recover the ancient dignity of the city, or, waiting for some other occasion more suitable than the present, puts off the present, let him not shrink from bringing into the midst what he thinks. For whatever counsel shall appear best to all of you, this we shall use."

24.1. The present having praised the opinion and promised to do all things, having bound each of them by oaths, he dissolved the conference. The next day the forces of the Fidenates and the allies came forth from the camp as the sun rose and arrayed themselves as for battle, and the Romans came out against them and set themselves in order.

24.2. The left wing Tullus himself and the Romans held, opposite the Veientines (for these held the right wing of the enemy); and on the right wing of the Romans Mettius and the Albans were arrayed against the Fidenates along the flank of the mountain.

24.3. When they came near one another, before they came within bowshot, the Albans, splitting off from the rest of the army, led their companies in order toward the mountain. The Fidenates, then, learning this and believing the Albans' promises about the treason to be true to them, now bore upon the Romans more boldly; and the right wing of the Romans, stripped of the alliance, was being broken and was hard pressed, but the left was fighting with all its might, where Tullus himself was, fighting among the picked horse.

24.4. Meanwhile a horseman, riding up to those fighting with the king, said: "Our right wing is hard pressed, Tullus. For the Albans, having left their post, are hastening to the heights, and the Fidenates, against whom they were arrayed, being over the stripped wing, are about to encircle us." When the Romans heard this and saw the rush of the Albans toward the mountain, fear seized them that they would be encircled by the enemy, so that it occurred to them neither to fight nor to hold their ground.

24.5. Thereupon Tullus is said to have used a stratagem, in no way disturbed in his judgment by so great and so unexpected an evil that had appeared, through which he not only saved the Roman army shut up in manifest destruction, but also crushed and destroyed all the affairs of the enemy. For when he heard the messenger, using a loud voice, so that the enemy too might hear,

24.6. "We prevail," he said, "men of Rome, over the enemy. For the Albans have seized for us this neighbouring mountain, as you see, by my orders, that, getting behind the enemy, they may fall upon them. Reflecting, then, that we have our bitterest foes in a fair position, some coming on in front, some behind, where, able neither to go forward nor to turn back, shut off on the flanks by river and mountain, they will give us fair satisfaction — go against them with much contempt."

25.1. These things he said, passing along all the ranks; and at once fear of a counter-treason came upon the Fidenates, as having been outgeneralled by the Alban, since they saw him neither array himself against the Romans nor drive straight upon the Romans, as he had promised them; but the words roused the Romans to good courage and filled them with boldness; and with a great shout they rush upon the enemy in a mass. And after this comes a rout of the Fidenates and a disorderly flight

25.2. toward the city. The king of the Romans, dashing his horse upon them while they were panicked and in confusion, and pursuing them for a while, when he learned that they were scattered from one another and would neither take thought to rally nor had power, leaving the fleeing, advanced against the part of the enemy still standing and holding. And there is a fair contest of the foot, but a still fairer one of the horse.

25.3. For the Veientines arrayed there did not give way before the onset, struck though they were by the Roman horse, but held out for a long time. Then, learning that their left was beaten and the whole army of the Fidenates and the other allies was fleeing headlong, fearing lest they be encircled by those who returned from the pursuit, they too turned, breaking their ranks, and tried to save themselves through the river.

25.4. Those of them, then, who were strongest and least burdened by wounds and not unable to swim crossed the stream without their arms; but those who lacked any of these died in the eddies; for the current of the Tiber about Fidenae is swift and winding.

25.5. Tullus, having ordered a portion of the horse to kill those thrust into the river, himself, leading the rest of his force against the camp of the Veientines, becomes master of it at the first onset. And the affairs of the Romans, having met with an unexpected salvation, stood thus.

26.1. The Alban, when he beheld those about Tullus now brilliantly conquering, having himself brought down his own force from the heights, advanced against the fleeing of the Fidenates, that he might become manifest to all the Romans as doing some deed of an ally, and destroyed many of those scattered in the flight.

26.2. Tullus, understanding his intent and hating the counter-treason, thought he ought to convict him of nothing for the present, until he should get the man under his power, but pretended to many of those present to praise his withdrawal to the heights as made from the best motives, and, sending a portion of the horse to him, asked him to show his eagerness complete, bidding him search out and kill those who, unable to flee to the walls of the Fidenates, were scattered through the country, being many.

26.3. And he, as having accomplished one of the things he had hoped and escaped the notice of Tullus, rejoiced, and for a long time, riding over the plains, destroyed those he caught; and when the sun had already set, he came leading the horse to the Roman camp from the pursuit, and passed the coming night in good cheer with his comrades.

26.4. Tullus, having remained in the camp of the Veientines until the first watch and questioned the most distinguished of the prisoners, who were the leaders of the revolt, when he learned that the Alban Mettius Fufetius too was among the conspirators, thinking the things done by him to agree with what was disclosed by the prisoners, mounting his horse and taking the most trusty of his comrades, rode off toward the city;

26.5. and before midnight, having called the senators together from their houses, he tells them of the treason of the Alban, offering the prisoners as witnesses, and relates in what manner he himself had outgeneralled both the enemy and the Fidenates. The war having taken the best end, he asked them now to consider the rest: in what manner one ought to punish the traitors and to render the city of the Albans more temperate for the future.

26.6. Now to punish those who had attempted unholy deeds seemed to all just and necessary; but in what manner this might be done most easily and most safely gave them much perplexity. For to dispatch many good men of the Albans by an unseen and secret death seemed to them impossible; but if they should attempt openly to arrest and punish those liable to the charges, they supposed the Albans would not look on, but would go to arms. And to war at the same time against Fidenates and Tyrrhenians and the Albans who had come together for their alliance they did not wish. While they were at a loss, Tullus last declared an opinion, which all praised, concerning which I shall speak shortly.

27.1. Forty stades being between Fidenae and Rome, having driven his horse at full speed, he came to the camp; and before bright day, having called Marcus Horatius, the survivor of the triplets, and given him the freshest of the horse and foot, he ordered him to lead toward the city of the Albans, and, having entered within the wall as a friend, when he should get those within into his power, to raze the city to its foundations, sparing no building either private or public except the temples, but to kill or harm no man,

27.2. but to let all keep their own. Having sent this man off, he called the officers and captains, and, having made clear what had seemed good to the senate, set a guard of these about his person; and not long after came the Alban, rejoicing as at a common victory and congratulating Tullus. Tullus, still keeping his resolve secret, praised him and declared him worthy of great rewards, and urged him to write down and bring to him the names of the other Albans too who had done anything distinguished in the battle, that they too might bear off a portion of the prizes of victory.

27.3. And he, becoming overjoyed, having written into a tablet the most trusty of his friends, whom he had used as accomplices in his secret counsels, gives it over. The king of the Romans called all into assembly, having laid down their arms; and as they came together, he ordered the leader of the Albans, together with the officers and captains, to stand beside the very tribunal, and next to these the rest of the Albans, arrayed, to be in assembly, and after the Albans the rest of the multitude of the allies; and outside all he stationed Romans, among whom were the noblest, hiding swords under their robes. When he supposed he had his enemies in a fair position, rising he spoke as follows:

28.1. "Men of Rome and other friends and allies, those who openly dared to set themselves at war with us, the Fidenates and their allies, we have punished with the gods' help, and one of two things — either they will cease henceforth to trouble us, or

28.2. they will pay penalties still worse than these. But the occasion demands, since our first affairs have gone according to our prayer, that we punish also the other enemies — those who have the names of friends and were taken along to this war as men who would do harm to the common foes together with us, but abandoned their faith toward us, and, having made secret compacts with the enemy, set about to destroy us all.

28.3. For these are far worse than the open enemies and worthy of greater punishment; for the former it is easy for those plotted against to guard against, and, when joined in fight as enemies, possible to ward off; but friends who do the deeds of enemies it is neither easy to guard against nor possible for those forestalled to ward off. These are the allies sent to us by the city of the Albans for treachery, having suffered no harm from us,

28.4. but many great goods. For being their colonists, having torn nothing from their dominion, we acquired our own strength and power from our own wars; and, having fortified our own city as a bulwark against the greatest and most warlike nations, we afforded them much security from the war from the Tyrrhenians and from the Sabines; in whose city, faring well, they ought above all to have rejoiced, and, stumbling, to have grieved no less than for their own.

28.5. But they, in fact, continued to envy not us alone our goods but even themselves the good fortune that came through us; and at last, when they could no longer hold back their festering enmity, they proclaimed war against us. And learning that we were well prepared for the contest, that they could work no harm, they called us to reconciliation and friendship and thought fit that the quarrel over the leadership be decided in three persons from each city. We accepted these proposals too, and, having conquered in the battle, held their city under our hand.

28.6. Come now, what did we do after this? Though it was in our power to take hostages of them and to leave a garrison in the city, and to slay some of the chief men who had set the cities apart and to cast out others, and to change the order of their polity to what was advantageous to us, and to penalize them by a parcelling-out of land and goods, and — what was easiest of all — to take their arms from them, by which we should have established our rule more securely, of these things we thought fit to do none, but, entrusting it rather to the piety than to the security of our rule, and deeming the seemliness toward all better than what was privately profitable to ourselves, we allowed them to enjoy all their own, and Mettius Fufetius, whom they themselves had adorned with the highest office, as being the best of the Albans, we permitted to administer the common affairs up to the present.

28.7. In return for which, hear what thanks they rendered us, when there was the more need of the goodwill of friends and allies. Having made secret compacts with the common enemies, on the ground that they would join in attacking us with them in the contest, when we came near one another, leaving the post to which they were assigned, they went off toward the neighbouring mountains, hastening at a run to seize beforehand the strongholds.

28.8. If, then, the attempt had gone according to their mind, there would have been nothing to prevent us all from perishing, encircled by enemies and friends, and the many contests of our city which we fought for the leadership from being destroyed in a single day.

28.9. But when their plan miscarried — the goodwill of the gods having led the way (for to them I attribute all fair and good deeds), and then my generalship having furnished no small portion both toward the fear of the enemy and toward your courage (for what I said in that contest, that the Albans, at my bidding, were seizing the mountains beforehand for the encircling of the enemy, were fabrications and

28.10. stratagems of mine) — affairs having gone for us as was advantageous, we should not be men such as it befits us to be, if we did not punish the traitors, who, apart from the other necessity which, on account of their kinship, they ought to have kept, having lately made truces and oaths with us, neither fearing the gods, whom they made witnesses of the agreements, nor regarding justice itself and human vengeance, nor reckoning the magnitude of the danger if the treason should not go according to their mind, attempted to destroy us in the most piteous manner — us, their colonists and benefactors — they, the founders, having stood with our bitterest and most hostile foes."

29.1. While he was saying these things, there were wailings of the Albans and entreaties of all kinds, the people saying they had known nothing of what Mettius contrived, and those holding the commands pretending that they had not learned of the secret counsels before they were in the very contest, when it was in their power neither to prevent nor to refrain from doing what was commanded; and some now referring the matter to involuntary necessity through marriage-tie or kinship;

29.2. to whom the king, having bidden them be silent, said: "Neither has any of these things you plead escaped me, Albans; but I think the multitude of you ignorant of the treason, conjecturing that, when many are privy, secrets are by nature kept silent not even the least time; and of the officers and captains I hold that but a small part shared in the plot against us, but the greater part were deceived and brought into involuntary necessities.

29.3. But even if none of these things were true, but the desire to do us harm had entered all the Albans, both you who are here and those left in the city, and this not now for the first time, but had been resolved by you a very long time ago, yet there is much necessity for the Romans, for kinship's sake, to bear even

29.4. these wrongs of yours. But that you may plot nothing further unjust against us, neither forced by the leaders of the city nor deceived, there is one safeguard and forethought: if we should all become citizens of the same city and deem one fatherland, of which, faring well and worse, each will bear his appointed portion of fortune. But so long as from a divided judgment, as it now is, each of us, we two, judge the more and the less, our friendship toward one another will not be secure — especially if those who first plot against the others are likely, succeeding, to have more, or, failing, to be in no danger because of the kinship, while those against whom the attempts are made, being brought under hand, suffer the extreme, and, if they escape, bear no rancour like

29.5. enemies, which has happened even in the present case. Know, then, that these things have been resolved by the Romans, I having gathered the senate the past night and written down what seemed good to the councillors: that your city be razed, and that nothing of either the public or the private buildings be allowed to remain standing, except the temples;

29.6. and that all in it, keeping the allotments they now have, of slaves and cattle and the other goods, deprived of nothing, dwell in Rome from this time; that all the land your community possessed be divided among those of the Albans who have no allotment, apart from the sacred properties from which the sacrifices to the gods were made. And of the building of houses, in which you who migrate are to settle your lives, in what parts of the city they shall be, I am to take forethought, helping the most needy of you with the expense for the works.

29.7. And the rest of your multitude is to be enrolled, distributed among tribes and phratrae, together with our commons; but these houses are to share in the senate and take magistracies and be reckoned among the patricians: the Julii, Servilii, Curatii, Quinctilii, Cloelii, Geganii, Metilii; and Mettius and those who deliberated the treason with him are to submit to such penalties as we shall appoint, sitting as judges concerning each of those liable; for we shall deprive none of trial nor of speech."

30.1. When he had said this, all the Albans who were poor were content if they should dwell at Rome and have an allotment of the land, and praised with a great shout what was given; but those more brilliant in dignities and stronger in fortunes were grieved, if they should have to leave the city that bore them and to desolate their ancestral hearths and dwell for the rest in a foreign land; but it came to none of them to say anything, shut up as they were into the extreme necessity. Tullus, when he saw the mind of the many, ordered Mettius to make his defence, if he wished to say anything against these things.

30.2. But Mettius, having nothing to say against those who accused and bore witness against him, said the council of the Albans had charged him to do these things in secret, when he led the force out to the war, and asked the Albans, for whom he had attempted to recover the leadership, to aid him and neither to look on while their fatherland was being razed nor while the most distinguished of the citizens were being seized for punishment. A disturbance arising in the assembly, and some having rushed to flee to their arms, those who had ringed the crowd, a certain signal being raised, held up their swords.

30.3. All having become panic-stricken, Tullus, rising again, said: "It is no longer possible for you to make revolution or to do wrong, men of Albans. For if you should dare to move anything, you will all be destroyed by these" (showing those who held the swords). "Receive, then, what is given, and become from this time Romans. For one of two things you must do — either to dwell at Rome or to have no other land as fatherland.

30.4. For Marcus Horatius, sent out by me at dawn, is gone to raze your city from its foundations and to transfer all the men to Rome. Knowing, then, that these things are all but already done, cease your eagerness for death and do what is commanded. But Mettius Fufetius, who has secretly plotted against us and even now has not shrunk from calling the turbulent and factious to arms, I shall punish worthily of his evil and treacherous soul."

30.5. When he had said this, the provoked part of the assembly cowered, as overcome by an inescapable necessity; but Fufetius, still indignant and crying out alone, calling upon the treaties which he himself was convicted of transgressing, and not yielding his boldness even in evils, the lictors, at King Tullus' command, seizing and tearing his garment off, scourged his body with very many lashes.

30.6. And when this punishment was enough, having driven up two pairs of horses, to the one they attached his arms, to the other his feet, held by long thongs; and as the drivers urged the pairs apart from one another, the wretch, torn upon the ground and dragged back by each toward opposite sides, was in a little while rent asunder.

30.7. Mettius Fufetius, then, met with such a piteous and shameful end; but for his comrades and those privy to his treason, the king, having seated courts, put to death those of them convicted, according to the law of deserters and traitors.

31.1. During the time these things were happening, Marcus Horatius, sent on ahead with the picked men to the destruction of Alba, having quickly finished the journey and found the gates unbarred and the wall unguarded, easily becomes master of the city. Having gathered the multitude into assembly, he disclosed to them all that had been done in the battle and

31.2. went through the decree of the Roman senate. And though the men besought him and asked time for an embassy, making no delay, he razed the houses and the walls and whatever other building, private or public, there was; but the men, with much care, he escorted to Rome, leading and carrying their own goods;

31.3. whom Tullus, having come from the camp, distributed among the Roman tribes and phratrae, and helped to build dwellings in whatever parts of the city they themselves chose, and apportioned of the public land what sufficed for those of them who laboured for hire, and with the other

31.4. kindnesses raised up the multitude. The city of the Albans, then, which Ascanius, the son of Aeneas the son of Anchises and of Creusa the daughter of Priam, had founded, having lasted after its founding four hundred and eighty-seven years, during which it had much advancement in good manhood and wealth and all the rest of prosperity — the one that had colonized the thirty cities of the Latins and had led the nation all that time — destroyed by the last colony, remains desolate to this day.

31.5. King Tullus, having let the coming winter pass, at the beginning of spring leads an army against the Fidenates again. To the Fidenates no aid at all in common came from any of the allied cities, but certain mercenaries flowed together from many places, trusting in whom they took courage to come forth from the city; and, having arrayed themselves and killed many in the battle, but lost many more still,

31.6. they were shut up again in the town. When Tullus had walled their city about and ditched it round and shut up those within into the extreme want, they were forced to surrender themselves to the king on whatever terms he wished. The king, having become master of the city in this manner, put to death those responsible for the revolt, but released all the rest and allowed them to enjoy all their own in the same manner, and, having given back the polity they had before, disbanded his army; and coming to Rome, he rendered to the gods the trophy-bearing procession and sacrifice, bringing home that triumph the second time.

32.1. After this war another arose for the Romans from the Sabine nation; and its beginning and pretext was this. There is a holy sanctuary, honoured in common by Sabines and Latins, exceedingly sacred, of a goddess named Feronia, whom those who render her into the Greek tongue some call Anthophorus (flower-bearer), some Philostephanus (lover of garlands), some Persephone; into this sanctuary there came together from the neighbouring cities, at the appointed festivals, many rendering vows and sacrifices to the goddess, and many to do business because of the assembly — merchants and craftsmen and farmers; and markets were held there more splendid than those held in any other places of Italy.

32.2. To this assembly, when certain not obscure men of the Romans had once come, some Sabine men, seizing them, bound them and took their goods; and when an embassy came concerning them, they would do nothing of justice, but kept both the persons and the goods of those seized, themselves charging the Romans in turn, that they harboured Sabine fugitives, having established an inviolable sanctuary, concerning which I have set forth in the

32.3. discourse before this. From these charges, then, coming to war, both went out into the open with large forces, and there comes a pitched battle of theirs; for they continued fighting on even terms and were parted by night, leaving the victory disputed. The following days both, learning the multitude of the dead and the wounded, no longer wished to make trial of another contest, but, leaving their camps, departed;

32.4. and, having let that year pass, again they went out against one another, having prepared greater forces, and there comes a contest of theirs near the city of Eretum, a hundred and sixty stades from Rome, in which many on both sides fell; and that battle too remaining evenly balanced for a long time, Tullus, raising his hands to heaven, vowed to the gods, if he should conquer the Sabines on that day, to establish public festivals of Saturn and Rhea, which the Romans hold every year when they have gathered in all the fruits of the earth, and to double the number of those called Salii. These are men of noble fathers who move in armed dances to the pipe at the appointed times and sing certain ancestral hymns, as I have set forth in the

32.5. former discourse. After this vow a certain courage seizes the Romans, and like fresh men thrusting upon the wearied, they break their ranks toward late afternoon already, and force the front rank to begin the flight; and following them as they fled to the camp and casting down many more about the ditches, they did not even so turn back, but, having remained the coming night and beaten off those fighting from the rampart, became masters of the camp.

32.6. After this deed, having ravaged as much of the Sabines' land as they wished, since no one came out any longer to fight them for the country, they departed homeward. From this battle the king brought home the third triumph, and not long after, the Sabines having sent an embassy, he ends the war, having recovered from them the prisoners they happened to have taken in the foragings, and deserters, and cattle and beasts of burden and the other goods, as many as they had taken from the farmers; having exacted the penalty which the senate of the Romans appointed, assessing the damages in money.

33.1. The Sabines, having ended the war on these terms and set up pillars with copies of the agreements in the sanctuaries, when a war arose for the Romans against the Latin cities, banded together in common, not easy to be brought down in a little time (the reasons for which I shall tell a little later), receiving what had happened gladly, forgot those oaths and agreements as though they had never even been; and, thinking they had a suitable occasion to recover from the Romans many times over the money they had paid them, at first few and secretly going out, they plundered the borderland;

33.2. then many, coming together and even openly, since the first attempts went according to their mind, no aid having come for the protection of the farmers, despising the enemy, they planned to march against Rome itself and gathered an army from every city, and discoursed also with the Latin cities about

33.3. alliance. Yet it was not granted them to make friendship and a joint campaign with that nation; for Tullus, learning their intent, having made a truce with the Latins, resolved to lead an army against these, both arming the whole force of the Romans, which was now double the former, since he had taken in the city of the Albans, and sending for as much auxiliary force as he could from the other allies.

33.4. The army of the Sabines too was now gathered, and when they came near one another about what is called the Malefactors' Wood, leaving a little space between, they encamped. The next day, falling together, they fought and were evenly balanced for a long time; but now toward late afternoon the Sabines give way, forced by the Roman cavalry, and there is much slaughter of them in the flight; and the Romans, having stripped the corpses of the enemy and plundered whatever goods there were in the camp and ravaged the best of the country, departed homeward. This was the end of the war that befell the Romans against the Sabines in the reign of Tullus.

34.1. The cities of the Latins then for the first time became at difference with the Romans, not thinking fit, when the city of the Albans had been razed, to hand over the leadership to the Romans who had destroyed it. For fifteen years having passed after the disappearance of Alba, the king of the Romans, sending embassies to its thirty colonist and subject cities, thought fit that they obey what was commanded by the Romans, as having taken over, along with the other things the Albans had, the leadership of the Latin nation also — declaring two modes of acquisition, by which men become masters of others' things, the compulsory and the voluntary, and saying that the Romans had taken over by each of these modes the leadership of the cities the Albans held.

34.2. For, the Albans having become enemies to them, they had prevailed by arms, and, when these had lost their own city, had given them a share of their own; so that to the Albans both unwilling and willing it belonged to retire in favour of the Romans from the rule over the subjects.

34.3. But the cities of the Latins privately made no answer to the envoys; and, having held an assembly of the nation in common at Ferentinum, they vote not to yield the rule to the Romans, and at once choose two generals with full power of peace and war, Ancus Publicius of the city of Cora and Spusius Vecilius of Lavinium.

34.4. For these reasons, then, arose for the Romans the war against their kinsmen, and it went on for the space of five years, being a kind of civic and old-fashioned one. For neither, when they joined whole armies against whole in pitched battle, did great calamity and entire destruction befall, nor did any city of theirs, conquered in war, make trial of razing or enslavement or any other irremediable calamity; but, invading one another's land at the time the corn was ripe and foraging, they led their forces homeward, exchanging the prisoners.

34.5. But one city of the Latin nation, Medullia, which had become still earlier a colony of the Romans in the reign of Romulus, as I have set forth in the discourse before this, having gone over again to its kinsmen, the king of the Romans, having reduced it by siege, persuaded to make no further revolution; but no other of the dreadful things that wars bring befell either side at that time. And therefore the settlements, easy and holding no rancour, were accomplished, the Romans being eager.

35.1. Having accomplished these things in his own reign, King Tullus Hostilius, a man worthy among few to be praised both for his courage in war and his prudence in dangers, but above both these for this — that, not being quick to go to war, once set in it, he was steadfast to prevail over his adversaries in all things — having held the office two and thirty years, ends his life, his house being burned; and with him perish his wife and children and all the rest of the household crowd, caught by the fire.

35.2. Some say the house was burned by a thunderbolt, the god being wroth through the neglect of certain rites (for in his reign certain ancestral sacrifices had been left out, and others, not native to the Romans, had been introduced); but the greater number say the calamity came from a human plot, attributing the deed to Marcius, who ruled the city after him.

35.3. For this man, born of the daughter of Numa Pompilius, was grieved that, sprung from a royal race, he himself was a private man, and, seeing a family being reared to Tullus, suspected above all that, if anything should befall Tullus, the rule would come to his children. Reflecting on these things, he had long since set up a plot against the king, having many Romans who joined in establishing his dominion; and, being a friend of Tullus and trusted among the foremost, he watched for when a suitable occasion of the attack should appear.

35.4. When Tullus was about to perform a certain sacrifice at home, which he wished only his intimates to know of, and that day having become by chance very stormy, with rain and tempest and darkness, so that the place before the house was left empty of the guards, supposing the occasion suitable, together with his comrades who had swords under their robes, he passed within the doors, and, having killed the king and his children and of the rest whomever he met, set fire to the house in many places; and having done these things, he spread the account of the lightning-stroke.

35.5. But I do not accept this account, deeming it neither true nor probable, and assenting rather to the former, I think the man met with this end by some divine agency. For neither was it likely that the deed, prepared by many, should be kept secret, nor was it certain to the one who set it up that after Hostilius' death the Romans would appoint him king of the city, nor, even if the things from men were sure and firm for him, were the things from the gods likely to be similar to human ignorances.

35.6. For after the voting that would be done by the tribes, the gods had to sanction the kingship for him by favourable auspices; and what god or divinity was going to allow a man defiled and bloodied with so many unjust murders to approach altars and begin the sacrificial offerings and perform the other services? I, for these reasons, refer the deed not to a human plot but to the will of a god; but let each judge as he wishes.

36.1. After the death of Tullus Hostilius, the interregnal magistracy, appointed by the senate according to the ancestral usages, chooses as king of the city Marcius, surnamed Ancus; and the people having ratified what seemed good to the senate, and the auspices from the god having proved fair, Marcius, having fulfilled all that was according to law, takes up the office in the second year of the thirty-fifth Olympiad, which Sphaerus the Lacedaemonian won in the stadium-race, at the time when at Athens Damasias held the annual office.

36.2. This king, perceiving that many of the rites which his maternal grandfather Pompilius Numa had established were neglected, and seeing that the most of the Romans had become warlike and grasping and no longer worked the land as before, having gathered the multitude into assembly, thought fit that they worship the divine again, as in Numa's time they continued to worship — setting forth that, through the neglect of the gods, many pestilential diseases had descended upon the city, by which no small part of the multitude perished, and that King Hostilius, who did not keep the watch over them that he ought, ailing for many years in body with sufferings of all kinds and no longer remaining master even of his own mind, but corrupted in his wits along with his body, met with a piteous overthrow, himself and his family;

36.3. and, praising the order of polity established for the Romans by Numa as fair and temperate and furnishing each man his daily plenty from the justest works, he urged them to renew it again, with husbandry and cattle-raising and the other labours to which no wrong attached, and to despise plunder and violence and the gains that come from war.

36.4. Discoursing these and like things and bringing all into much desire of unwarlike quiet and temperate love of work, and after this having called together the hierophants and received from them the writings concerning the rites which Pompilius had composed, he recorded them on tablets and set them up in the Forum for all who wished to consider, which came in time to be destroyed; for there were not yet bronze pillars then, but the laws and the descriptions concerning the rites were inscribed on oaken boards; but after the expulsion of the kings they were brought again to a public recording by a man, a hierophant, Gaius Papirius, who held the leadership of all the priests.

36.5. Having restored the rites that had been neglected and sent off the idle crowd to their own labours, he praised the diligent farmers, but blamed those who managed their own properties ill, as not steadfast citizens.

37.1. Establishing these polities and hoping above all to pass his whole life without war and evils, like his maternal grandfather, he had not a fortune like his purpose, but, contrary to his own intent, was forced to become warlike and to live no time without danger and disturbance.

37.2. For straightway, as soon as he came to the leadership and was establishing the unmeddlesome polity, the Latins, despising him and thinking that through cowardice he was not competent to general wars, sent bands of robbers each into the country bordering on them, by which many of the Romans were harmed.

37.3. And when envoys came from the king and thought fit that they submit to justice to the Romans according to the agreements, they pretended both to know nothing of the things charged concerning the robberies, as not done with common consent, and not to be liable to the Romans concerning any matter; for they had not made the agreements with these, but with Tullus, and, Tullus having died, the compacts concerning the peace were dissolved for them.

37.4. Compelled, then, by these causes and answers of the Latins, Marcius leads an army against them, and, sitting down before their city Politorium, before any aid came to the besieged from the other Latins, takes the city by agreement; he treated the men, however, with nothing dreadful, but, letting them keep their own, transferred them in a body to Rome and distributed them among the tribes.

38.1. The following year, the Latins having sent colonists to the deserted Politorium and being at work on the land of the Politorini, Marcius, taking his force, led it against them. The Latins having come forth from the wall and arrayed themselves, having conquered them he takes the city the second time. And having burned the houses and razed the wall, that the enemy might have no base of operations again nor work the land, he led his army away.

38.2. The following year the Latins, having marched against the city of Medullia, in which were colonists of the Romans, sitting down before the wall and making assaults from every side, take it by storm. But Marcius takes a distinguished city of the Latins, Tellenae, about the same time, having both conquered in pitched battle and reduced it by assault on the walls, and the captured, taking nothing of what they had from them, he transferred to Rome and apportioned them a place in the city for building houses;

38.3. and Medullia, having been under the Latins three years, he recovers again in the fourth year, having reduced it by many great battles. And not long after he takes the city of the Ficanenses, which two years before, having taken by agreement and transferred all from it to Rome, but having done the city no other harm, he seemed to have deliberated more equitably than prudently.

38.4. For the Latins, having sent colonists to it and holding fast their land, themselves enjoyed the territory of the Ficanenses, so that Marcius was again forced to march a second time against the city, and, having with much labour become master of it, to burn the houses and raze the walls.

39.1. After this there are two battles, the Latins and Romans arraying themselves with great forces. In the first, then, having contended for a long time and seeming to have come out evenly balanced, they parted and each withdrew to their own camps; but in the latter the Romans conquer the Latins and pursue them as far as their

39.2. camp. After these battles no pitched contest any longer arose between them; but raids of the borderland were made by both continually, and skirmishes of the horse and light troops that patrolled the country, in which the Romans for the most part prevailed, having a force in the field stationed in the strategic forts,

39.3. which the Tyrrhenian Tarquinius led. And the Fidenates too revolted from the Romans about the same time, not declaring the war openly, but in small parties and secretly damaging their country by raids; against whom Marcius, marching with a light-armed force, before the Fidenates prepared their war-supplies, pitches his camp near the city.

39.4. They at first pretended to be ignorant for what wrongs the Roman army had come against them; but when the king said he had come to take satisfaction from them for what they had plundered and damaged of his land, they pleaded against these things that the community was not the cause of the wrongs, and asked time for the inquiry and search of those liable to the charges, and wore out many days doing nothing of what was needful, but secretly calling in their allies and busying themselves with the making of arms.

40.1. Marcius, learning their intent, dug mines, beginning from his own camp, under the walls of the city; and when the work was now finished, having roused his army, he led it against the city, bringing many engines and ladders and the other things prepared for the assault, not at the place where the tunnels were made, but

40.2. at another. The Fidenates having run together in a mass to the besieged parts of the city and nobly beating off the assaults, the Romans appointed for this, having opened the ends of the mines, got within the circuit, and, destroying those who came to grips, open the gates to the besiegers.

40.3. Many perishing in the taking of the city, Marcius, having ordered the rest of the Fidenates to surrender their arms and proclaimed that all come together into one place of the city, scourging and killing a few of them, those responsible for the revolt, and allowing his soldiers to plunder the houses of all, and leaving a sufficient garrison in the city, led his force away against the Sabines.

40.4. For neither did these abide in the agreements they made concerning the peace with King Tullus, but, invading the Roman land, ravaged the borderland again; and Marcius, learning from scouts and deserters the moment for the attack, the Sabines being scattered and plundering the fields, himself, coming with the foot to the enemy's camp, which had a small guard, takes the rampart at the first onset, and ordered Tarquinius, leading the horse, to hasten against those scattered in the foragings.

40.5. The Sabines, learning that the Roman horse was driving against them, dropping the booty and the other spoils which they were carrying and leading, fled to their camp; and when they learned that this too was held by the foot, being at a loss whither to turn, they made for woods and mountains. Pursued by the light troops and the horse, a few of them were saved, but the greater number were destroyed. And after this calamity, having sent an embassy again to Rome, they obtain peace such as they wished. For the war that had arisen for the Romans against the Latin cities made necessary the truces and settlements with their other enemies.

41.1. About the fourth year after this war, Marcius the king of the Romans, leading the civic force and sending for as much of the allied force as he could, marched against the Veientines and ravaged much of their country. They had begun, a year before, by invading the Roman land and making many seizures of goods and much destruction of men;

41.2. and a large army having come out from the Veientines and pitched a camp across the river Tiber near the city of the Fidenates, taking his force he led it with what speed he had, and first shut them off from going out into the country, prevailing in cavalry; then, having forced them to come forth to pitched battle, he conquered and became master of their camp. This war too having gone according to his mind, he brought home to the city the victory-procession and the customary triumph to the gods on his arrival.

41.3. In the second year after, the Veientines having again dissolved the truces they made with him and thinking fit to recover the salt-works, which they had given up by agreement in the reign of King Romulus, he sets another battle against them about the salt-works, greater than the former, which he easily won,

41.4. and from that time held the salt-works indisputably. The prizes of valour from this battle too the leader of the horse Tarquinius received, and Marcius, deeming him the best of all men, continued to honour him in other ways and enrolled him in the number of the patricians and senators.

41.5. There was a war for Marcius against the nation of the Volscians too, bands of robbers going out from there also against the fields of the Romans; and having marched against them with a great force, he encompassed much booty, and, sitting down before their city Velitrae, he ditched it round and palisaded it and set on an assault of the walls, prevailing in the field. When the eldest came out with suppliant boughs and promised both to make good the damages, as the king should adjudge, and agreed to deliver up those liable to the charges for trial, having made a truce with them and received justice from them willing, he composes a peace and friendship.

42.1. From the Sabine nation again certain others, who had not yet made trial of the Roman power, dwelling in a city prosperous and great, having nothing to charge against them, but compelled to envy their good fortunes, which were greater than reasonable — men formidable in war — at first, gathering in small numbers, began with robberies and raids of the fields, then, enticed by the spoils, make an open campaign against them and, ravaging much of the borderland, harmed it grievously.

42.2. Yet it was not granted them either to carry off the spoils or to depart themselves unscathed, but the king of the Romans, coming to the rescue in haste and pitching his camp near their camp, forced them to come forth

42.3. to battle. There was, then, a great contest, and many fell on both sides, but the Romans prevailed by experience and love of toil, in which they had been practised for the longest time, and got the better of the Sabines by far, and, following close upon those of them who fled to the camp, scattered and out of order, made much slaughter.

42.4. Having mastered their camp too, full of goods of all kinds, and recovered the prisoners whom the Sabines had taken in the foragings, they departed homeward. The warlike deeds, then, of this king that obtain remembrance and account among the Romans are said to have been such; the civil ones I am about to tell.

43.1. First, he added to the city no small portion, having walled what is called the Aventine. It is a hill tolerably high, about eighteen stades in circuit, which was then full of wood of all kinds, but most and finest of laurel, from which a certain place on it is called by the Romans Lauretum; but now it is all full of houses, where, with many others, the temple of Diana too is set up; and it is separated from another of the hills encompassed with Rome, the one called Pallantium, about which the first founded city was settled, by a deep and narrow ravine. But in later times the whole hollow between the hills was filled up.

43.2. This hill, then, seeing that it would be a stronghold against the city, if any army should come against it, he enclosed with wall and ditch, and settled in this place those transferred from Tellenae and Politorium and the other cities of which he became master. This, then, is one institution of the king handed down as fair and at the same time practical, from which it came about both that the city became larger by the addition of another city, and less easy to be taken when a great force of enemies should march against it;

44.1. and another, mightier than the aforesaid institution, which both made it more prosperous in all the things of life and roused it to take in hand nobler enterprises. For the river Tiber, coming down from the Apennine mountains and flowing past Rome itself and emptying into harbourless and broken shores which the Tyrrhenian sea makes, benefiting Rome but little and not worth mentioning, because it had no fort at its mouths to receive the provisions brought in by sea and those brought down from above and to exchange them with the merchants — though it was sufficient to be sailed up as far as its springs by good-sized river-boats, and up to Rome itself even by large sea-going merchantmen — he resolved to build a port at its mouths, using as a harbour the very mouth of the river.

44.2. For it widens out greatly as it joins the sea and takes great bays, such as the best of the sea-harbours; and — what one would most marvel at — it is not closed at its mouth, blocked by the sea-sand, which many even of the great rivers suffer, nor, wandering into marshes and swamps now one way now another, is it used up beforehand before its stream joins the sea, but is ever navigable and empties through its one genuine mouth, beating back the sea-billows, although a great and harsh wind blows there from the west.

44.3. The oared ships, then, of whatever size they may chance to be, and of the merchantmen those up to three thousand bushels' burden, come in through this mouth and are conveyed up to Rome, drawn by rowing and by hawsers; but the larger, riding at anchor before the mouth, are unloaded and reloaded by the river-boats.

44.4. And in the elbow between the river and the sea, the king, having built a city, which from the circumstance he named Ostia, or, as we should say, a door, prepared Rome to become not only inland but also maritime, and gave it a taste of the goods from across the sea.

45.1. He walled also what is called the Janiculum, a high mountain lying beyond the river Tiber, and established a sufficient garrison in it for the safety of those sailing on the river; for the Tyrrhenians plundered the merchants, holding all the country beyond the river;

45.2. and the wooden bridge, which it is enjoined to be fastened without bronze and iron, held together by the timbers themselves, he is said to have laid over the Tiber, which to the present they keep up, deeming it sacred. And if any part of it should be damaged, the hierophants tend it, performing certain ancestral sacrifices together with the

45.3. construction. Having accomplished in his own reign these things worthy of record, and having handed down Rome not a little stronger to those who came after than that which he himself received, having held the kingship four and twenty years, he dies, leaving two sons, the one still a child in age, the elder just coming to his beard.

46.1. After the death of Ancus Marcius, the senate, the people having again entrusted to it to establish whatever polity it wished, resolved to remain under the same and appoints interreges. They, having gathered the multitude for the election of magistrates, choose as king Lucius Tarquinius. The signs from the divine power having confirmed what was judged by the multitude, he takes up the kingship about the second year of the forty-first Olympiad, which Cleondas the Theban won in the stadium-race, Heniochides being archon at Athens.

46.2. Of what kind of parents this Tarquinius was, and from what fatherland he sprang, and for what reasons he came to Rome, and through what pursuits he came to the kingship, as I have found in the histories of the country I shall tell.

46.3. A certain Corinthian man, Demaratus by name, of the kindred of the Bacchiadae, having chosen the life of a merchant, sailed to Italy, bringing his own ship and his own cargo. Having sold the cargo in the cities of the Tyrrhenians, which were then the most prosperous of those in Italy, and gathered great gains thence, he no longer wished to put in to other harbours, but worked the same sea continually, bringing Greek cargo to the Tyrrhenians and carrying Tyrrhenian to Greece, and becomes master of very much money.

46.4. But when faction overtook Corinth and the tyranny of Cypselus rose up against the Bacchiadae, thinking it not safe to live under a tyranny possessing much wealth, especially being of the oligarchic house, having packed up as much of his substance as he could,

46.5. he departed, sailing from Corinth. And having many good friends among the Tyrrhenians through his continual intercourse, but most of all in Tarquinii, then a great and prosperous city, he builds a house there and takes a wife distinguished in birth. Two sons being born to him, he gave them Tyrrhenian names, to the one Arruns, to the other Lucumo, and, having educated both in Greek and Tyrrhenian learning, when they came to manhood he takes for them wives from the most distinguished houses.

47.1. And not long after, the elder of his sons dies, leaving no visible offspring. And a few days after, Demaratus himself dies of grief, leaving as heir of his whole substance the surviving one of his sons, Lucumo; who, having received his father's wealth, which was great, chose to take part in public life and manage the common affairs and be among the first of the citizens.

47.2. But being driven off on every side by the natives, and so far from being reckoned among the first, that he was not even among the middling, he bore the dishonour grievously. Hearing concerning the city of the Romans that, gladly receiving all strangers, it makes them citizens and honours each according to his worth, he resolved to transfer his dwelling there, having packed up all his goods and bringing his wife and of his other friends and household those who wished; and those who were eager to set out with him were many.

47.3. When they were at what is called the Janiculum, whence Rome is first descried by those coming from Tyrrhenia, an eagle, swooping down suddenly and seizing the cap lying on his head, flew up again, borne aloft in a circling sweep, and hid it in the depth of the surrounding air; then suddenly sets the cap upon Lucumo's head, fitting it as it had been fitted before.

47.4. The sign appearing wonderful and paradoxical to all, the wife of Lucumo, Tanaquil by name, having sufficient experience from her forefathers in Tyrrhenian augury, taking him alone apart from the company, embraced him and filled him with good hopes that from a private fortune he would come to royal authority. Yet she counselled him to consider how he might receive the leadership from the Romans willing, having shown himself worthy of this honour.

48.1. Overjoyed at the sign, when he was now drawing near the gates, having prayed the gods that the prophecies might be fulfilled and that he might enter with good fortunes, he passed into the city; and after this, having come to a parley with King Marcius, first he made clear who he was, then that, wishing to dwell in the city, he had come bringing all his ancestral substance, which he said he put into the common stock for the king and the city of the Romans, being greater than for a private man to possess.

48.2. The king having gladly received him and enrolled him, together with the Tyrrhenians present with him, into a tribe and phratry, he builds a house, having obtained by lot a sufficient place in the city, and receives an allotment of land. When he had settled these things and become one of the citizens, learning that to each of the Romans a common name is given, and after the common another, which is their family and patronymic, wishing to be made like them in this too, he takes for himself Lucius as the common name instead of Lucumo, and Tarquinius as the family name, from the city in which he chanced to be born and reared;

48.3. and in a very little time he becomes a friend of the king, giving gifts of which he perceived him to be most in need, and furnishing money for the war-needs, as much as he required, and on the campaigns fighting best of all, both foot and horse, and, where good counsel was needed, reckoned among the most prudent of the advisers.

48.4. Having become honoured by the king, he did not fail of the goodwill of the other Romans either, but won over many of the patricians by his benefactions and prepared the common multitude to be well-disposed toward him by affable greetings and pleasing intercourse and the imparting of money and the other kindnesses.

49.1. Such, then, was Tarquinius, and for these reasons, while Marcius lived, he became the most distinguished of all Romans, and when he died, he was judged worthy of the kingship by all. When he took up the office, first he warred upon the so-called Apiolani, a city of the

49.2. Latin nation not obscure. For the Apiolani and all the other Latins, thinking after the death of Ancus Marcius that the agreements concerning the peace were dissolved, plundered the Roman land with robberies and forays; in requital for which Tarquinius, wishing to punish them, marched out with a great force and ravaged the best of their land;

49.3. and a great relief having come to the Apiolani from the neighbouring Latins, he sets two battles against them, and prevailing in both, set about the siege of the city and brought his forces against the walls in relays; and those from the city, few fighting against many and getting no respite at any time, were in time taken. The city being captured by storm, the greater number of the Apiolani were slain fighting, but a few, surrendering their arms, were sold along with the rest of the spoils, and their children and wives, enslaved by the Romans, were led off, and the city, plundered, was burned.

49.4. Having accomplished these things and razed the wall from its foundations, the king led his force homeward, and after this led another army against the city of the Crustumerini. This was a colony of the Latins, but had come over to the Romans in the reign of Romulus; and when Tarquinius took up the office, it began again to think the things of the Latins. Yet there was no need to reduce this too by siege

49.5. and toil; for the Crustumerini, learning both the multitude of the force come against them and their own weakness, no aid having come to them from the other Latins, opened the gates, and the eldest and most honoured of the citizens, coming forth, surrendered the city to him, asking him to deal equitably and moderately with them.

49.6. To him the matter appeared according to his prayer, and, passing within the wall, he killed none of the Crustumerini, but penalized very few, those responsible for the revolt, with perpetual exile, and to all the rest allowed to keep their own and to share in the Roman citizenship as before; and that they might make no further movement, he left Roman colonists among them.

50.1. The same things it was granted also to the Nomentani, who had thought to obtain the same, to obtain. For these too, sending bands of robbers against the fields of the Romans, became their enemies openly, trusting in the alliances of the Latins; and Tarquinius having marched against them and the relief of the Latins being too late, being themselves unable to hold out against so great a force, taking up suppliant boughs they came out of the city and surrendered themselves.

50.2. But those who inhabited what is called Collatia attempted to come to battle against the Roman forces and advanced outside the city; but, being worsted in all the encounters and receiving many blows, they were forced to flee back to the wall and sent to the Latin cities asking alliance. But as the things from them were too slow, and the enemy made assaults at many parts of the wall, they were forced in time to surrender the city.

50.3. Yet they did not obtain the same moderation as the Nomentani and Crustumerini, but the king took away their arms and penalized them with money and left a sufficient garrison in the city, and appointed to rule them, with an unaccountable office for life, Tarquinius Arruns, his own nephew, who, after the death both of his father Arruns and of his grandfather Demaratus, had inherited the due portion neither of his father's nor of his grandfather's goods, and for this reason was surnamed Egerius; for the needy and poor the Romans so name. But from the time when he took over the charge of that city, he himself was called Collatinus, and all those descended from him.

50.4. After the surrender of Collatia the king marched against what is called Corniculum; this too was a city of the Latin nation. Having ravaged their country with much security, none defending it, he marches against the city itself, challenging the men to friendship; but as they did not wish to come to reconciliation, but, trusting both in the strength of the wall and thinking alliance would come from many quarters, having set his force about the whole circuit of the city, he assaulted the walls.

50.5. The Corniculani for a long time held out, fighting bravely and giving the assailants many blows; but, wearied by the continuity of the toils and no longer all keeping the same mind (for to some it seemed good to surrender the city, to others to hold out to the end), most of all worn down by their very faction, they were taken by storm.

50.6. The best part of them, then, in the taking of the city perished fighting, but the base, and on this account saved, were sold as slaves together with women and children, and their city, plundered by the conquerors, was burned.

50.7. At which the Latins, bearing it hard, voted in common to lead an army against the Romans, and, having prepared a great force, invaded their best country, from which they led off many prisoners and became masters of much booty. King Tarquinius went out against them, bringing his light-armed and ready force, but no longer succeeding in overtaking them, invaded their country and did the like.

50.8. Such things happened, many by turns, to both as they campaigned against the bordering lands — losses and advantages; but one pitched battle of theirs occurred near the city of Fidenae, all the forces clashing, in which many of both fell, but the Romans conquered and forced the Latins, leaving their camp by night, to depart to their own cities.

51.1. After this contest, having the Roman force arrayed, Tarquinius advanced against their cities, putting forward words about friendship. And they, having neither a force united in common nor trusting in their own preparations, accepted the proposals, and some of them surrendered their cities, seeing that on those taken by storm followed enslavements and razings, but on those that came over by agreement only obedience to the conquerors, and nothing else irremediable.

51.2. First, then, the Ficolneenses came over to him, a considerable city, on certain agreed terms of justice; then the Camerini, whom certain other small towns and strong

51.3. forts followed. At which the rest of the Latins, being troubled and fearing lest he should make the whole nation subject to himself, having come together to the assembly at Ferentinum, voted both to lead out their own force from every city and to call in the strongest of the neighbouring nations, and sent embassies to the Tyrrhenians and

51.4. Sabines asking alliance. The Sabines, then, promised them that, when they should hear that they had invaded the Roman land, they too, taking up arms, would ravage the country near them; but the Tyrrhenians agreed to send whatever alliance they should need, not all being of the same mind, but five cities only — the Clusini and Arretini and Volaterrani and Rusellani, and besides these the Vetulonienses.

52.1. Elated by these hopes, the Latins, having prepared a considerable force of their own and added that from the Tyrrhenians, invaded the Roman land, and at the same time the cities of the Sabine nation that had promised to share the war with them ravaged the country bordering on them. The king of the Romans, having himself in the meantime prepared a large and good force, led it out against the enemy with

52.2. speed. To war against Sabines and Latins at once, and to divide his force into two parts, he supposed not safe, but resolved to lead his whole army against the Latins and pitches his camp near them. At first, then, each side hesitated to risk all their forces, fearing one another's preparations; but the light troops, coming down from their defences, made continual skirmishes on both sides and were for the most part evenly matched;

52.3. but later, contention having fallen upon both from such skirmishes, each coming to the aid of their own, few at first, then all, were forced to come forth from their camps. And, having come to battle, men neither unpractised in warlike contests nor far inferior to one another in numbers, both foot and horse, roused to the war with like eagerness and thinking they were casting the last of dangers, both contended worthily of account, but parted from one another evenly matched as night came on.

52.4. The intent of each after the contest, however, being not alike, made manifest those who had fought better than the others; for the next day the Latins no longer came forth from their camp, but the king of the Romans, having led out his forces into the plain, was ready to make another battle and for a long time kept his phalanx in array. But as the enemy did not come out against him, having stripped their dead and taken up his own, with much boasting he led his army back to his own camp.

53.1. On the following days, another alliance having come to the Latins from the Tyrrhenians, a second contest takes place, far greater than the former, from which King Tarquinius bears off a most distinguished victory, of which he himself was agreed by all to have been the author.

53.2. For the Roman phalanx now flagging and being broken on the left wing, learning of the disadvantage occurring to his own men (he happened then to be fighting on the right wing), having wheeled the best squadrons of the horse and taken up the freshest of the foot, he led them behind his own army, and, passing the left wing, drove still further beyond the phalanx. Then, wheeling to the right and applying the spurs to the horses, he charges into the flank of the companies of the Tyrrhenians (for these, fighting on the right wing of the enemy, had routed those opposite them), and, appearing to them unexpectedly, caused much consternation and confusion.

53.3. Meanwhile the foot force of the Romans too, recovering itself from its former fear, advanced to even terms, and after this there was much slaughter of the Tyrrhenians and a complete rout of the right wing. Tarquinius, having bidden the leaders of the foot follow in order and at a foot's pace, himself advanced against the camp of the enemy, driving the horses at full speed; and, forestalling those who were saving themselves from the rout, becomes master of the camp at the first onset. For those left in it, neither having foreknown the calamity that had seized their own men nor able, because of the suddenness of the onset, to recognize the approaching horsemen, let them pass in.

53.4. The camp of the Latins being taken, those withdrawing from the rout, as to a safe refuge, were destroyed by the horsemen who had seized it, and those who rushed to flee from the camp into the plain were slain by the Roman phalanx coming to grips; but the greater number of them, thrust by one another and trampled about the palisades or in the ditches, perished in the most piteous and ignoble manner; so that the survivors, able to find no means of safety, were forced to surrender themselves to the conquerors.

53.5. Tarquinius, having become master of many persons and much goods, sold the prisoners, but bestowed the things taken in the camp upon the soldiers.

54.1. Having accomplished these things, he led his force against the cities of the Latins, to reduce by battle those that did not come over to him; yet there was no need for him of assaults on the walls. For all turned to supplications and entreaties, and, sending envoys from the common body, asked to end the war on whatever terms he wished, and surrendered their cities.

54.2. Having become master of the cities on these agreements, the king dealt with all most equitably and most moderately. For he neither killed nor forced to flee nor penalized with money any of the Latins, but allowed them to enjoy their own land and permitted them to use their ancestral polities, but ordered them to give back to the Romans the deserters and the prisoners without ransom, and to restore to their masters the slaves of whom they had become masters in the foragings, and to make good whatever goods they had taken from the farmers, and to repair whatever else they had damaged or destroyed in the invasions.

54.3. And having done these things, to be friends of the Romans and allies, doing all that they should command. The war, then, that had arisen for the Romans against the Latins came to this end, and King Tarquinius brought home the victory triumph from this war.

55.1. The following year, taking his force, he led it against the Sabines, who had long foreknown his purpose and the preparation against them. Not enduring that the war should come into their own country, but having prepared a sufficient force in turn, they came to grips. A battle taking place between them about the borders of the country, until night neither conquered, but both toiled exceedingly hard.

55.2. On the following days, then, neither the leader of the Sabines led his forces forth from the camp nor the king of the Romans, but both, breaking camp and harming nothing of each other's land, departed homeward. The intent of both was alike, to lead out another, greater force against each other's country at the beginning of spring.

55.3. When all had been prepared by them, the Sabines came out first, having a sufficient force of Tyrrhenians for alliance, and encamp near Fidenae about the confluence of the Anio and the Tiber, having pitched two camps facing and continuous with one another, holding between them the common stream from both rivers, over which a wooden bridge had been built, supported by boats and rafts, which made the passages to one another swift and the camp one.

55.4. Tarquinius, learning of their invasion, led out the Roman army himself too and settled a little higher up than their camp, beside the river Anio, on a certain strong hill. Both being roused to the war with all eagerness, no pitched contest, neither greater nor less, arose between them. For Tarquinius forestalled them, having by a general's sagacity crushed all the affairs of the Sabines and taken both their camps. The man's stratagem was of this kind:

56.1. having prepared river-boats and rafts full of dry wood and brushwood, and besides pitch and sulphur, on the one of the rivers beside which he himself had encamped, then having waited for a favourable wind about the morning watch, he ordered fire to be set to the wood and the boats and rafts to be let go to drift with the current. They, in a very little while having crossed the intervening passage, fall upon the

56.2. bridge and set it ablaze in many places. The Sabines, when they saw a great flame suddenly borne along, having run together to the rescue and contrived all things that were quenchers of fire, Tarquinius came about dawn, leading the Roman force in array, and, assailing the one camp, the most having abandoned the guard-posts because of the rush to the burning, and a few turning to defence,

56.3. becomes master of it without toil. While these things were being done, the other camp of the Sabines too, lying beyond the river, another force of Romans, coming upon it, takes — which had been sent on ahead by Tarquinius about the first sleep, and had crossed the one stream formed from the two rivers in boats and rafts at the part where, crossing, it was likely to escape the notice of the Sabines, and had come near the other camp just as it beheld the bridge burning; for this was the signal to it

56.4. for the onset. Of those caught in the camps, some were cut down fighting by the Romans, others, casting themselves into the confluence of the rivers and unable to be carried over the eddies, were swallowed up; and no small portion of them perished also at the rescue of the bridge by the fire. Tarquinius, having taken both camps, allowed the soldiers to distribute among themselves the goods taken in them, but the prisoners, being very many, both of the Sabines themselves and of the Tyrrhenians, he led to Rome and kept under much guard.

57.1. The Sabines, then, recognized their plight, forced by the calamity of that time, and, sending envoys, made a truce of the war, a treaty for six years; but the Tyrrhenians, bearing it with anger that they had been beaten by the Romans many times, and that Tarquinius did not give back to them the prisoners when they sent an embassy, but kept them as hostages, make a decree that all the cities of the Tyrrhenians carry on the war against the Romans in common, and that the one not sharing in the campaign be excluded from the treaty.

57.2. Having ratified these things, they led out their forces and, crossing the Tiber, pitch their camp near Fidenae. Having become masters of this city through treachery, those in it being at faction with one another, and having taken many persons and driven off much booty from the Roman country, they departed homeward, leaving a sufficient garrison in Fidenae. For this city seemed to them to be the best base of operations for the war against the Romans.

57.3. King Tarquinius, for the coming year having armed all the Romans and taken as many of the allies as he could, led them out against the enemy at the beginning of spring, before those, gathered from all the cities, should come against him as before; and, having divided his whole force into two parts, himself leading the Roman army, marched against the cities of the Tyrrhenians, and of the allied force, in which the greater part was of the Latins, having appointed Egerius his kinsman general, he bade him advance against the enemy in Fidenae.

57.4. The allied force, then, having pitched its camp near Fidenae in a place not safe, through contempt of the enemy, lacked little of being wholly destroyed; for the garrison in the city, having secretly sent for another relief from the Tyrrhenians and watched for a suitable occasion, came out of the city and took the enemy's camp at the first onset, ill guarded, and wrought much slaughter of those who had gone out for the

57.5. foragings. But the Roman force which Tarquinius led, shearing and ravaging the country of the Veientines and bearing off many spoils, when a great relief had come together to the Veientines from all the Tyrrhenian cities, joining battle, bears off an indisputable victory; and after this, going through the country of the enemy, plundered it without fear, and, having become master of many persons and of much goods, as from a prosperous country, when the summer was now ending, departed homeward.

58.1. The Veientines, then, having been greatly harmed by that battle, no longer came forth from the city, but endured to see their country sheared. King Tarquinius, having made three invasions and for three years deprived the Veientines of the fruits of their own land, when he had made the most of it desolate and could no longer harm it, led his force against the city of the Caeretani, which formerly was called Agylla while Pelasgians inhabited it, but, having come under the Tyrrhenians, was renamed Caere, and was prosperous, if any other of the cities in Tyrrhenia, and populous;

58.2. from which a great army came out to fight for the country, and, having destroyed many of the enemy but lost many more still of its own, fled into the city. The Romans, mastering their country, which furnished all things in abundance, tarried many days, and when it was time to depart, leading off as many spoils as they could, they departed homeward.

58.3. Tarquinius, when the things against the Veientines had gone according to his mind, leads his army against the enemy in Fidenae, both wishing to cast out the garrison in it and eager to punish those who had surrendered the walls to the Tyrrhenians. There was, then, both a pitched battle of the Romans against those who came out of the city and a fierce contest in the assaults on the walls.

58.4. The city was taken by storm, and the garrison, bound together with the other Tyrrhenian prisoners, was under guard; and of the Fidenates those who seemed to have been responsible for the revolt, some, scourged with whips in public, had their necks cut off, others were penalized with perpetual exile; and their properties the Romans left behind as colonists and as garrison of the city divided by lot.

59.1. The last battle of the Romans and Tyrrhenians took place near the city of Eretum in the Sabine land. For through that country the Tyrrhenians made their march against the Romans, persuaded by the powerful men there that the Sabines would join the campaign with them. For the six-year truce concerning the peace with Tarquinius had now passed, and many of the Sabines longed to repair their former defeats, a sufficient youth having grown up in the cities.

59.2. Yet the attempt did not go according to their mind, the Roman army appearing too quickly, nor was it granted that a common alliance be sent to the Tyrrhenians from any of the cities, but a few volunteers aided them, drawn on by great pay.

59.3. From this battle, the greatest of the former ones, as many as they had warred against one another, the affairs of the Romans took a wonderful advancement, having borne off a most beautiful victory, and the senate and people voted that King Tarquinius bring home the trophy-bearing procession; but the spirits of the Tyrrhenians fell, having sent out to the contest all the forces from each city, but received back a few out of many, the saved. For those fighting in the array were cut down, and those in the rout, falling into difficult places without exit, surrendered themselves to the conquerors.

59.4. Having made trial of such a calamity, the most powerful of those in the cities did the deed of prudent men. For when King Tarquinius led out another army against them, having come together to one assembly, they voted to parley with him about ending the war and send the eldest and most honoured men from each city, appointing them with full power over the agreements concerning the peace.

60.1. The king, having heard them say many things alluring toward equity and moderation, and reminding him of the kinship he had with the nation, said he wished to learn this one thing only from them: whether they still disputed about equal terms and came to make the agreements concerning the peace on certain stated conditions, or recognized themselves to be conquered and entrusted their cities to him. When they answered that they both entrusted their cities to him and would acquiesce in the peace on whatever just terms they should ever obtain it, becoming overjoyed at this,

60.2. "Hear now," he said, "on what just terms I shall end the war and what favours I grant you. I am eager neither to kill any of the Tyrrhenians nor to make any an exile from his fatherland nor to penalize with the loss of his possessions, and I release to you all your cities ungarrisoned and untaxed and self-governing, and I allow each to keep its ancient order of polity.

60.3. But, giving you these things, I think one thing in return for all I give ought to be mine from you — the leadership of the cities, of which I shall be master even against your will so long as I prevail in arms, but I wish to obtain it from you willing rather than unwilling. Announce these things to the cities, and I promise to grant you a truce until you return."

61.1. The envoys, having received these answers, departed, and after a few days were present, bringing him not bare words only, but also the symbols of the leadership with which they themselves adorned their own kings — bringing a golden crown and an ivory throne and a sceptre having an eagle upon its head, and a purple tunic with golden devices, and a purple embroidered mantle, such as the kings of the Lydians and Persians wore, save that it was not four-cornered in shape, as those were, but semicircular. Such garments the Romans call togas, the Greeks tebenni, I know not whence having learned it; for the name does not appear to me to be Greek.

61.2. And as some relate, they brought him also the twelve axes, taking one from each city. For it seems to be a Tyrrhenian custom that before each of the kings in the cities one rod-bearer go in front, bearing an axe along with the bundle of rods; and if a common campaign of the twelve cities should take place, the twelve axes were handed over to the one who took up the office of full power.

61.3. Yet not all agree with those who say these things, but they say that even earlier than the dominion of Tarquinius twelve axes were borne before the kings, and that Romulus established this custom straightway as soon as he took up the rule. But nothing prevents the invention from being the Tyrrhenians', and Romulus' having first used it, taking it from them, and the twelve axes' having been brought to Tarquinius along with the other royal adornments — just as even now the Romans give the sceptres and diadems to the kings, confirming their authority for them, since even without receiving them from these they have them.

62.1. These honours Tarquinius did not use straightway on receiving them, as most of the Roman historians write, but, having given to the senate and the people the decision whether they ought to be taken, since it was the wish of all, then he accepted them, and all the time from that on, until he passed to his destiny, he wore a golden crown and was clad in a purple embroidered garment and, holding an ivory sceptre, sat on an ivory throne, and the twelve rod-bearers, carrying the axes along with the rods, stood beside him as he judged and went before him as he went.

62.2. All this adornment remained also to those who held the kingly office after him, and after the expulsion of the kings to the annual consuls, except the crown and the embroidered garment; these alone were taken from them, having seemed to be vulgar and invidious. Except that, whenever, bringing home a victory from war, they are thought worthy of a triumph by the senate, then they both wear gold and are clad in embroidered purple. The war, then, that arose for Tarquinius against the Tyrrhenians, having lasted nine years, had such a conclusion.

63.1. One nation only being left, the Sabine, a rival to the Romans for the rule, having warlike men and inhabiting much good land lying not far from Rome, Tarquinius had much eagerness to subject these too, and proclaimed war against them, charging the cities that they had been unwilling to give up those who had promised the Tyrrhenians that, if they should come leading an army into their country, they would make their own fatherlands friendly to those but hostile to the Romans.

63.2. And they gladly receive the war, not thinking fit that the most powerful of the citizens be taken from them, and, before the Roman force came against them, themselves lead out an army against that of the Romans. King Tarquinius, when he heard that the Sabines had crossed the river Anio and that all about the camp was being ravaged by them, taking up the most lightly armed youth of the Romans, with what speed he had, led them out against those scattered for the foragings.

63.3. Having killed many of them and taken away all the booty they were leading, he pitches his camp near their camp, and, having let a few days pass, until both the rest of the force came to him from the city and the relief from the allies was gathered, he came down into the plain as if to fight.

64.1. The Sabines, seeing the Romans advancing eagerly to the contest, led out their forces too, being inferior to the enemy neither in number nor in valour, and, having clashed, fought, showing all daring, so long as theirs was the one contest only against those arrayed against them. Then, learning that another army of enemies was coming upon them in the rear, advancing in order and array, abandoning their standards, they turn to flight. They were picked men of the Romans, foot and horse, who appeared behind the Sabines, whom Tarquinius had set in ambush in suitable places by night.

64.2. These men, then, the Sabines, fearing them as they appeared unexpectedly, displayed no more any noble deed, but, as men outgeneralled by their enemies and stricken by an irresistible calamity, tried to save themselves, some by one road, some by another; and in this most of all there was much slaughter of them, pursued by the Roman horse and shut off on every side; so that very few of them were the saved who reached the nearest cities, but the greater part, as many as did not fall in the battle, came under the hand of the Romans. For neither did those left in the camp take courage to beat off the onset of those who came against them, nor come to trial of battle, but, thrown into confusion by the unexpected calamity, surrendered without a fight both themselves and the rampart.

64.3. The cities of the Sabines, then, as outgeneralled and robbed of the victory by the enemy not through valour but through guile, prepared to send out greater forces again and a more experienced general. But Tarquinius, learning their intent, gathered his army quickly and, before all those came

64.4. together, forestalls them by crossing the river Anio. Learning this, the general of the Sabines went out with what speed he had, taking up the newly gathered force, and encamps near the Romans on a certain high and steep hill, but did not think fit to begin battle until the rest of the Sabine forces should come together, but, sending out continually some of the horse against those foraging the country and setting companies in ambush in woods or glens, kept the Romans from going out into the country.

65.1. While he was carrying on the war in this manner, many skirmishes in small parties of light troops and horse took place, but no general battle of all. As the time was being drawn out, Tarquinius, bearing the delay with anger, resolved to lead his forces against the enemy's camp and made many assaults.

65.2. Then, perceiving that by violent means it was not easy to be taken because of its strength, he resolved to war against those in it by the scarcity of provisions, and, building forts along all the roads leading to it, and not allowing them to gather wood and forage for the horses and to take many other necessaries from the country, he brought them into much want of all things; so that they were forced, having watched for a stormy night with rain and wind, to flee shamefully from the camp, leaving in it the beasts of burden and the tents and the wounded and all the equipment for the war.

65.3. The next day the Romans, learning of their departure and becoming masters of the camp without a fight, plundered the tents and beasts of burden and goods, and, leading off the prisoners, returned to Rome. This war continued, being waged continuously for five years, in which both, ravaging each other's land and fighting many battles, lesser and greater, persevered, the Sabines having a little good fortune in the contests, but the Romans the most; and in the last battle it took its entire end.

65.4. For the Sabines came out to the war, not as before in relays, but all together as many as were of military age, and the Romans, all of them, taking up the forces of the Latins and Tyrrhenians and the other allies, came to grips with the enemy.

65.5. The general of the Sabines, then, dividing his forces in two, makes two camps, but the king of the Romans, making three divisions and pitching three camps not far from one another, himself led the Roman force, and appointed Arruns his nephew general of the Tyrrhenian alliance;

65.6. and over the Latins and the other allies he set a man noble in war and most able to think what was needful, a stranger and without a city — Servius was his personal name, Tullius the family one — to whom the Romans, after the death of Lucius Tarquinius, entrusted the kingship of the city, there being no male offspring of Tarquinius, admiring the man for his valour both in civic and in warlike affairs. The lineage of this man and his upbringing and fortunes and the distinction that came about him from the divine, when I come to that part of the discourse, I shall narrate.

66.1. Then, at all events, when the things needful for the contest had been prepared by both, they came together to battle; and the Romans held the left wing, the Tyrrhenians the right, and in the middle of the phalanx the Latins were arrayed. A fierce contest taking place through the whole day, the Romans conquered by far, both killing many of the enemy who had been brave men in the battle, and taking many more prisoners in the flight; and, becoming masters of both camps and encompassing a great wealth of goods, they now without fear mastered all the open country, which, having marred with fire and sword and all evils, when the summer ended, breaking up their camps, they departed homeward. And King Tarquinius brought home from this battle the third triumph of his own reign.

66.2. The following year, the king again preparing to lead an army against the cities of the Sabines and having resolved to bring them over by sieges, no noble or youthful counsel any longer arose in any of them, but all, using a common judgment, resolved to end the war before coming into danger of enslavement and razing.

66.3. And the best of the Sabines came from each city to King Tarquinius, who had already come out with all his force, surrendering to him their walls and asking that he make the agreements moderate. He, gladly receiving the submission of the nation without dangers, makes a treaty with them for peace and friendship on the same agreements by which he had earlier brought over the Tyrrhenians, and gave them back the prisoners without ransom.

67.1. These are the warlike deeds of King Tarquinius that are recorded; the peaceful and civic ones are such as the following, for these too I do not wish to pass over unmentioned. For straightway, as soon as he took up the office, eager to make the common people his own, as the former kings did, he won them over by such benefactions: having chosen a hundred men out of all the commons, to whom all bore witness some warlike valour or civic prudence, he made them patricians and enrolled them in the number of the senators; and then for the first time the Romans had three hundred senators, being till then two hundred.

67.2. Then to the sacred virgins, by whom the unquenchable fire is guarded, being four, he added two others; for, more rites being now performed by the city, at which the sacrificers of Vesta had to be present, the four did not seem to suffice. Tarquinius having begun, the rest of the kings followed, and down to our own times six are appointed ministers of Vesta.

67.3. He seems also to have been the first to devise the punishments by which those who do not keep their virginity are chastised by the hierophants — whether by reasoning or, as some think, persuaded by a dream — which after his death the interpreters of the rites say were found in the Sibylline oracles; for a certain priestess in his reign, Pinaria the daughter of Publius, was detected approaching the rites not pure. What the manner of punishment is by which they chastise the corrupted, I have set forth in the

67.4. writing before this. The forum too, in which they judge and hold assemblies and perform the other civic acts, he adorned, enclosing it with workshops and colonnades, and the walls of the city, which were rough and poor in workmanship, he first built of wagon-sized stones worked to the rule.

67.5. He began also to dig the subterranean channels, through which all the water flowing together from the alleys is conducted into the Tiber, having constructed works wonderful and beyond description. I, for my part, among the three most magnificent works of Rome, from which most of all the greatness of the empire is shown, count the aqueducts and the paving of the roads and the construction of the sewers, referring my judgment not only to the usefulness of the work, concerning which I shall speak at the proper time, but also to the costliness of the expenditures, which one might conjecture from a single work, taking Gaius Acilius as confirmer of what is to be said, who says that, the channels having once been neglected and no longer drained, the censors let the cleaning out and repair of them for a thousand talents.

68.1. Tarquinius also built the largest of the hippodromes, the one lying between the Aventine and the Pallantium, being the first to make roofed seats round it (for till then they viewed standing) upon scaffolds, beams set beneath the wooden stands; and, dividing the places into thirty phratrae, he assigned to each phratra one portion, so that each, sitting in the proper place, might view.

68.2. And this work too was destined in time to become among the very fair and wonderful constructions of the city. For the length of the hippodrome is three and a half stades, and the breadth four plethra; and round it, along the longer sides and along one of the shorter, a channel for the reception of water has been dug, ten feet in depth and breadth. Beyond the channel three-storeyed porticoes have been built. Of these the lower have stone seats, as in the theatres, rising a little one above another,

68.3. and the upper wooden. The greater porticoes come together into one and join one another, being closed by the lesser, which has a crescent shape, so that out of the three there comes one amphitheatrical portico of eight stades, sufficient to receive a hundred and fifty thousand persons. The remaining one of the shorter sides, left open to the sky, has vaulted starting-stalls for the horses, all opened together by

68.4. a single barrier. There is also outside the hippodrome another single-storeyed portico having workshops in it and dwellings above them, through which there are entrances and ascents for those who come to the spectacle at each workshop, so that the so many myriads are in no way hindered in entering and being released.

69.1. This king undertook also to build the temple of Jupiter and Juno and Athena, rendering a vow which he made to the gods in the last battle against the Sabines. The hill, then, on which the temple was to be set up, needing much labour (for it was neither easy of access nor level, but steep and drawn together into a sharp summit), having encompassed it on many sides with high retaining-walls and heaped much earth into the space between the retaining-walls and the summit, he made level and most suitable for the reception of temples.

69.2. But he did not succeed in laying the foundations of the temple, surviving four years after the ending of the war. Many years later, the third to reign after him, Tarquinius — the one cast out of the office — laid the foundations and wrought the most of the building. Yet not even this one completed the work, but under the annual magistrates who held the consulship in the third year the temple received its completion.

69.3. It is worth recounting also the things that happened before its building, which all who have collected the histories of the country have handed down. For when Tarquinius was about to build the temple, having called together the augurs, he ordered the men first to take auspices concerning the place itself: what site of the city was most suitable to be dedicated as sacred and most pleasing to the gods themselves.

69.4. When they had pointed out the hill overlooking the forum, which then was called Tarpeian, but now Capitoline, he again ordered them, having taken auspices, to say in what part of the hill it would be necessary to lay the foundations. This was not very easy; for there were many altars of gods and divinities on it, a little apart from one another, which it was necessary to remove elsewhere and to give over the whole ground to the precinct that was to be the gods'.

69.5. It seemed good, then, to the augurs to take auspices concerning each altar of those set up, whether the gods would yield to having them moved at that time. The other gods and divinities, then, permitted them to transfer their altars to other places, but those of Terminus and Youth, though the diviners besought them much and importuned, were not persuaded nor endured to yield their places. Therefore their altars were included in the building of the temple, and now the one is in the porch of Athena, the other in the very shrine, near the seat of the god.

69.6. From this the diviners conjectured that no time would move the boundaries of the city of the Romans nor change its prime; and down to my own times both of these is true of them, already to the twenty-fourth generation.

70.1. The most distinguished of the augurs, the one who moved the altars and consecrated the precinct of Jupiter and foretold the other divine matters to the people through divination, was himself called by the common and personal name Naevius, and by the family name Attius; who is agreed to have been the most dear to the gods of all who were exact in the art, and to have obtained through it the greatest name, having displayed certain incredible excesses of the science of augury; of which I, having chosen one which I have most marvelled at, shall tell, premising from what chance setting out and what beginnings taking from the divine power he had so great a distinction as to make unenviable all who flourished in the

70.2. same age. He had a poor father who farmed a paltry plot, with whom Naevius, being a boy, worked at the other tasks, as much as was in the power of those of his age, and, driving out the swine, tended them. Having once fallen asleep, and after waking not finding some of the swine, for a while he wept, dreading the blows from his father; then, going to the shrine of the heroes set up in the plot, he asked the heroes to help him find the swine, and, this being done, he promised to sacrifice to them the largest of the clusters of grapes from the

70.3. plot. Having after a little found the swine, he wished to render to the heroes his vow, but was in much perplexity, unable to find the largest cluster. Distressed at the matter, he asked the gods to make plain to him through auspices what was sought. Then it came upon him by some divine prompting to divide the vineyard in two, taking one part of it on the right, the other on the left; then over each of the parts he observed the auspices presenting themselves. Birds having appeared over the one part, such as he himself wished, he again divided that ground in two and distinguished the birds presenting themselves in the same way. Using this division of the places, and going up to the last vine pointed out by the birds, he finds an incredible thing of a cluster, and, carrying it himself to the shrine of the heroes, is seen by his father.

70.4. And to his father, who marvelled at the size of the bunch and inquired whence he had got it, he narrates all from the beginning. And he, supposing — which was the case — that there were certain inborn beginnings of divination in the boy, having brought him to the city, places him with teachers of letters; and when he had sufficiently shared in the common education, he hands him over to the most learned of the Tyrrhenians to be taught the

70.5. art of augury. Having the inborn divination and acquiring the learned art from the Tyrrhenians besides, Naevius far surpassed, as I said, all the other augurs, and to all the public examinations the augurs of the city, though he was not of the college, summoned him because of the success of his divinations, and foretold nothing that did not seem good to him.

71.1. This Naevius, when Tarquinius once wished to appoint three other new tribes out of the horsemen previously enrolled by himself, and to make the added tribes named after himself and his own companions, alone opposed it stoutly, not allowing any of the things established by Romulus to be disturbed.

71.2. The king, aggrieved at the hindrance and holding Naevius in anger, set about to cast down his science to nothing, as a man boastful and saying nothing true. Having resolved this, he summoned Naevius to the tribunal, a great crowd being present in the forum. Having discoursed beforehand with those about him in what manner he supposed he would prove the augur a false prophet, when he came, taking him up with kindly greetings, "Now," he said, "is the time to display the exactness of your prophetic science, Naevius. For, intending to undertake a great deed, I wish to learn whether the possibility attaches to it. But go, and, having taken auspices, come quickly, and I, sitting here, will await you."

71.3. The diviner did as commanded, and not long after was present, saying he had received favourable auspices and declaring the deed possible. Tarquinius, laughing at the word and bringing out from his bosom a razor and a whetstone, says to him: "You are caught, Naevius, deceiving us and manifestly lying against the divine power, since you have dared to call even impossible deeds possible. For I was taking auspices whether, striking this whetstone with this razor, I shall be able to cut it through the middle."

71.4. Laughter arising from all about the tribunal, Naevius, in no way disturbed by the mockery and the uproar, "Strike with confidence, Tarquinius," he said, "the whetstone, as you purpose; for it will be divided, or I am ready to suffer anything whatsoever." The king, marvelling at the boldness of the diviner, brings the razor against the whetstone, and the edge of the iron, going down through the whole stone, both divides the whetstone and cuts off some part of the hand holding it.

71.5. All the rest, then, when they beheld this wonderful and incredible deed, struck with amazement cried out, but Tarquinius, ashamed at the trial of the art and wishing to repair the unseemliness of his reproaches, first desisted from his attempts concerning the tribes, then, resolving to court Naevius himself, as the most dear to the gods of all men, won him over both by many other kindnesses and, that he might obtain undying remembrance from those who came after, having made a bronze image of him, set it up in the forum, which was still in my own time lying before the senate-house near the sacred fig-tree, smaller than a man of middling stature, having a mantle over its head. A little apart from it both the whetstone is said to be hidden under the earth and the razor under a certain altar; the place is called by the Romans the Well. And the things recorded concerning this diviner are these.

72.1. King Tarquinius, now resting from warlike deeds because of old age (for he was eighty years old), is treacherously slain by the sons of Ancus Marcius and dies — they having attempted even earlier to cast him out of the office and often laboured at this, in the hope of the dominion falling to them when he should be expelled, as being their ancestral right and most easily to be given them by the citizens.

72.2. But when they failed of this hope, they contrived an inescapable plot against him, which the divine power did not suffer to go unpunished. And I shall narrate the manner of the plot, beginning from their first attempt.

72.3. That Naevius, the formidable augur, whom I said once opposed the king when he wished to make more tribes out of fewer, at the time when he most flourished through his art and was most powerful of all the Romans, whether envied by some rival in the art, or plotted against by enemies, or having suffered whatever else, suddenly becomes invisible, and neither could any of his relatives conjecture his death nor find his body;

72.4. and the people being aggrieved and bearing the calamity grievously and taking many suspicions against many, the sons of Marcius, having marked the impulse of the multitude, referred the slander of the pollution to King Tarquinius, having nothing else to bring as proof or sign of the slander, but strengthening it by these two probabilities: first, that, having resolved to transgress in many new ways concerning the polity, he wished to put out of the way the one who would oppose him, as in the former cases; then, that, a dreadful calamity having occurred, he made no search for the doers, but handed the deed over to neglect — which none of those outside the charge would do.

72.5. Having prepared great factions about themselves of patricians and commons, to whom they had given their own substance, they made much accusation of Tarquinius and exhorted the people not to look on while a defiled man laid his hands upon the rites and polluted the office, and that too one not native but an immigrant and without a city.

72.6. Haranguing such things in the forum, men reckless and not unable to speak, they stirred up many of the commons, who, when he came to the forum for the sake of his defence, attempted to drive him out as not pure; yet they were not strong enough to overcome the truth nor able to persuade the people to cast him out of the office.

72.7. But when both he himself, having defended himself most powerfully, cleared away the slander concerning himself, and his son-in-law Tullius, to whom he had given his other daughter, being most powerful among the people, drew the Romans into pity, they, having been deemed sycophants and base men and incurring much shame, departed from the forum.

73.1. Having failed of this attempt and obtained through friends a reconciliation of the enmity — Tarquinius bearing their unreasonableness moderately because of the benefactions from their father and supposing repentance a sufficient correction of their rashness — they remained three years in the pretence of friendship; but when they supposed they had a suitable occasion, they stitch against him such a snare as this:

73.2. having clothed two of the boldest young men from the conspiracy in shepherds' garments and armed them with woodmen's bill-hooks, they send them to the king's house at midday, having taught them what they must say and do and shown them beforehand the manner of the attack. These, coming near the palace, reviled one another as men wronged, and did not even keep their hands off one another's bodies, and, using a great shout, both called for the help from the king, many from the conspiracy being present with them — countrymen, of course, in the story — sharing the indignation of both and bearing witness for them.

73.3. When the king, having called them in, ordered them to say concerning what they were at difference, they pretended to be disputing about goats, and, shouting at once and passionately gesticulating in the wild manner and saying nothing to the point, they roused much laughter from all. When they thought they had got, from being despised, the suitable occasion of the attempt, they bring blows with the bill-hooks down upon the king's head, and, having done this, fled out of doors.

73.4. A cry arising at the calamity and help running together from many quarters, being unable to escape, they are seized by their pursuers, and after this, mangled with tortures and forced to name the leaders of the plot, they met in time with the fitting punishment. King Tarquinius, then, having become the author of no small nor few goods to the Romans, having held the office eight and thirty years, thus ends his life.