Book 8

1.1. The consuls appointed after these, in the seventy-third Olympiad—in which Astylus of Croton won the foot-race, Anchises being archon at Athens—Gaius Julius Iulus and Publius Pinarius Rufus, men least warlike and for that very reason obtaining this office from the people, were forced to fall into many great dangers, a war breaking out from their term through which the city very nearly was destroyed from its foundations.

1.2. For that Marcius Coriolanus, who had incurred the charge of aiming at tyranny and been driven into perpetual exile, indignant at his misfortune and wishing to take vengeance on his enemies, considering by what manner and with what force this might come about, found that the one strength then a match for the Romans was that of the Volscians, if they should use a common counsel and, having got a prudent leader, set the war on foot against them.

1.3. He reckoned, then, that if he should persuade the Volscians to receive him and entrust him with the command of the war, he would easily accomplish the deed; but his conscience troubled him, that very often in the battles he had done them dreadful harm and taken from them allied cities. Yet he did not desist from the attempt because of the greatness of the danger, but resolved to go into the very perils and to suffer from them whatever might be.

1.4. Watching for a night, and that a dark one, he came to Antium, the most distinguished of the cities among the Volscians, when those in the city were at supper, and, going into the house of a powerful man—one who thought much of himself for his birth and wealth and his deeds in the wars, and who for the most part led the whole nation—whose name was Tullus Attius, he became the man's suppliant, seating himself at the hearth.

1.5. Having related to him the necessities that gripped him, on account of which he endured to flee for refuge to his enemies, he asked him to feel moderate and human things about a suppliant man, and no longer to consider him an enemy now that he was in his power, nor to display his strength against the unfortunate and the humbled, reflecting that the fortunes of men do not remain in the same state.

1.6. "You could," he said, "learn this best from me myself, who, once thought the mightiest of all in the greatest city, now, cast out desolate and city-less and humble, shall suffer whatever may seem good to you, being my enemy. And I promise to do the Volscians as much good, becoming a friend to the nation, as I wrought them evil being an enemy. But if you think otherwise about me, use your anger at once and grant me the swiftest death by your own hand, sacrificing your suppliant at your own hearth."

2.1. While he was still saying this, Tullus, putting his right hand in his and raising him from the hearth, bade him take courage, as one who would suffer nothing unworthy of his own valour, and said he owed him much thanks for his coming to him, declaring this too no small honour; and he promised to make all the Volscians his friends, beginning from his own country; and he falsified none of his promises.

2.2. When some little time had passed, the two men, Marcius and Tullus, deliberating among themselves, resolved to set the war on foot. Tullus wished at once to take the whole force of the Volscians and march upon Rome while it was in strife and had unwarlike leaders; but Marcius thought they ought first to establish a pious and just ground for the war, teaching that the gods join in all actions, but most of all in those of war, inasmuch as these are greater than the rest and are wont to fall out to uncertain fortunes. Now there happened at that time to be between the Romans and Volscians truces and a cessation of war from one another, and a treaty for two years made a little while before.

2.3. "If, then," he said, "you bring war recklessly and quickly, you will be the cause of the treaties' being broken, and you will not have the divinity gracious; but if you wait until they do this, you will seem to be defending yourself and aiding broken treaties. And how this may come about, and how they may begin to break the treaties, while we may seem to bring a holy and just war, I have found out with much forethought. They must be deceived by us into beginning the lawbreaking.

2.4. "The manner of the deception, which till now I kept secret, awaiting its proper season, but now, since you are eager to set to work, I am compelled to bring out sooner, is this: the Romans are about to perform sacrifices and hold games at much cost, very splendid, and many of the strangers will come to view them.

2.5. "Awaiting this time, go you too, and prepare as many of the Volscians as you can to come to the spectacle; and when you are in the city, bid one of your most necessary friends go to the consuls and tell them in secret that the Volscians mean to attack the city by night, and have come in a body for this work. Know well that, if they hear this, with no further hesitation they will cast you out of the city and will furnish a ground for just anger."

3.1. When Tullus heard this, he greatly admired it, and, putting off the present occasion of the campaign, busied himself with the preparation of the war. When the time of the office arrived, Julius and Pinarius having already taken up the consulship, the best of the Volscian youth from every city, as Tullus thought fit, were present at the spectacle of the games; and most of them lodged in sacred and public places, having no lodging in houses or with guest-friends, and whenever they passed through the streets they went in bands and clubs in a body, so that there was already talk about them throughout the city and strange suspicions.

3.2. Meanwhile there comes to the consuls the informer suborned by Tullus, as Marcius had suggested; and, as one about to bring out a secret design against his own friends to their enemies, he binds the consuls by oaths for his own safety and that none of the Volscians should learn who it was that had laid the information against them. And after this he gives the information about the false attack.

3.3. The story seemed to the men to be true, and at once the senate, summoned by the consuls man by man, was convened, and the informer, brought before it and having received their pledges, spoke the same words to it. To them the matter had already long seemed full of suspicion—that so great a youth from one nation hostile to them should come to the spectacle—and, when the information was added, whose deceit they did not know, the opinion gained firm strength; and it seemed best to all that the consuls send the men out of the city before sunset, and proclaim death against any who would not obey, and take care of their departure that it might be without insult and with safety.

4.1. The senate having voted these things, some, going through the streets, proclaimed that the Volscians should depart from the city at once, all going out by one gate, the so-called Capene; others escorted those departing along with the consuls; there especially was seen how great their multitude was, and how all of it in its prime, going out at one time and by one gate. First of them Tullus went out quickly, and, seizing a fitting place not far from the city, there gathered those who lagged behind.

4.2. When all had assembled, holding an assembly he used much outcry against the city of the Romans, declaring dreadful and intolerable the insult with which the Volscians, alone of all the strangers, had been insulted by them, being driven out of the city; and he bade each say these things to his own city and act so that the Romans should cease from their insolence by paying penalties for their lawbreaking. Having said this and whetted men already indignant at the affront, he dissolved the assembly.

4.3. When, departing each to his own country, they made plain to the rest the insult, magnifying what had happened, every city was indignant and could not contain its anger; and, sending embassies one to another, it thought fit that all the Volscians come together to one assembly, that they might use a common counsel about the war.

4.4. These things came about with Tullus most of all urging them on; and from every city those in office and much other crowd came together to the city of the Ecetrans; for this city seemed to lie in a position most convenient for meeting the others. Many speeches being made, which those in power in each city delivered, the vote was given to those present, and the prevailing opinion was to set the war on foot, on the ground that the Romans had begun the lawbreaking about the treaties.

5.1. When those in office proposed to consider in what manner they should make war on them, Tullus came forward and advised them to summon Marcius and learn from him how the power of the Romans might be brought down; for he knew best of all men both where the city's affairs were weak and where they were most strong. This seemed good, and at once all shouted to summon the man. And Marcius, taking the occasion he wished, rose, downcast and tearful, and after pausing a little while delivered such words as these:

5.2. "If I supposed you all to think alike about my misfortune, I should not have judged it necessary to make defence about it; but reflecting that, as is likely among many and various tempers, there are some to whom there will come an opinion neither true nor fitting about me—that the people would not have driven me from my country without a true and just cause—I think it most of all necessary first to make defence about my exile in public

5.3. to you all. But bear with me, by the gods, even those of you who know best what I have suffered from my enemies and how I have made trial of this fortune which befits me not, while I go through it; and do not first crave to hear what must be done, before you have examined what manner of man I am who shall declare the opinion. And the speech about these things, even if I begin from afar, shall be brief.

5.4. "The Romans had at first a polity mixed of monarchy and aristocracy; then the last king, Tarquinius, thought fit to make the rule a tyranny. Banding together against him, then, the leaders of the aristocracy cast him out of the city, and themselves held the commonwealth, establishing, as all acknowledge, the best and most temperate polity. But not many years before these now, only the third or fourth year ago, the poorest and most idle of the citizens, using wicked leaders, committed many outrages, and at last attempted to overthrow the aristocracy. At which all the leaders of the senate were vexed, and thought fit to consider how those who were

5.5. disturbing the polity might cease from their insolence. And above all the aristocrats, of the elders Appius, a man worthy to be praised on many accounts, and of the younger men myself; and we continually made free speeches in the senate, not warring on the people, but suspecting the rule of the base, nor wishing to enslave any of the Romans, but thinking fit that freedom belong to all alike, while the presidency over public affairs should be rendered to the better.

6.1. "Seeing this, those most wicked leaders of the multitude resolved first to put out of the way us who most openly opposed them, not attacking both at once, lest the matter become envied and heavy, but beginning from me, the younger and more easily handled. First, then, they attempted to destroy me untried; next they thought fit to take me, handed over by the senate, for execution; and failing of both, they summoned me to a trial which they themselves were to judge, fastening on me the charge of tyranny.

6.2. "And they did not even learn this, that no tyrant wars on the people, banding with the best, but on the contrary destroys, with the people, the best part of the city; and they assigned me not the court that was ancestral, summoning the centuriate assembly, but that which all acknowledge to be the worst court, and which came into being for the first time and against me alone—in which the labourers and homeless and those plotting against the livelihoods of others were to have the advantage over the good and the just and those who wish the commonwealth

6.3. to be preserved. So far did my doing of no wrong avail me that, being judged among a crowd whose greater part hated good men and on that account was hostile to me, I was convicted by two votes only, the tribunes laying aside their power if I should not be condemned, and saying they would suffer the worst at my hands, and using all zeal and eagerness against me during the contest.

6.4. "Having suffered such things from my own fellow citizens, I judged the rest of my life would be unliveable for me, if I did not take justice of them; and on this account, though I might have lived free from trouble—whether I wished it in the cities of the Latins on account of kinship, or in the newly founded ones which our fathers colonised—I would not, but fled for refuge to you, whom I knew to have been most wronged by the Romans and most hateful to them, that in common with you I might take vengeance on them, so far as I am able—with words, where words are needed, and with deeds, when deeds are needed. And I owe you great thanks both for receiving me and still more for the honour with which you honour me, bearing no rancour nor reckoning what you suffered from me, once your enemy, in the wars.

7.1. "Come, what kind of man should I be, if, deprived of the glory and honours which it befitted me to obtain from my own fellow citizens, by those whom I had benefited; and besides this, driven from my country and home and friends and ancestral gods and the tombs of my forefathers and every other good; but having found all these among you, for whose sake I warred against them—if I should not prove harsh to those whom I have got as enemies instead of fellow citizens, and kind to those whom I have got as friends instead of enemies? But I would not even reckon him in the lot of a man who neither holds in anger that which makes war on him, nor in goodwill that which saves him. And I hold my country to be not the city that has disowned me, but that of which, being

7.2. an alien, I have become a citizen; and the land dear to me not that in which I am wronged, but that in which I have my safety. And if a god join in, and your part be, as is fitting, eager, I hope the change will be great and swift. For know well that the Romans, having now made trial of many enemies, feared none more than you, nor is there anything they continue to be more eager for than to render your nation weak.

7.3. "And on this account some of your cities they hold, having taken them in war, others they have beguiled by hope of friendship, that you may not, becoming all one, bring out a common war against them. If, then, you on the contrary continue to vie in zeal and all hold one opinion about the war, which you are now doing, you will easily put an end to their power.

8.1. "In what manner you shall contend and how you shall use affairs, since you think fit that I declare my opinion—whether bearing witness to my experience, or to my goodwill, or to both—I shall say, and will not hide it. First, then, I advise you to consider how you may furnish a pious and just pretext for the war. And what a pious and just pretext for the war would be, and at the same time advantageous to you,

8.2. hear from me. The land the Romans had at first is small and poor; the acquired land, which they hold having taken it from their neighbours, is large and good; and if each of the wronged should think fit to recover his own, there would be nothing so small or weak or destitute as the city of the Romans would become.

8.3. "Of this I think you ought to make a beginning. Send envoys, then, to them, demanding back the cities of yours which they hold, and thinking fit that they abandon all the forts they have built in your land, and, if they hold by force anything else of yours appropriated, persuading them to give it back. But do not yet begin war, before you receive their answers. For if you do this, one of two things you wish will be yours: either you will recover your own without danger and expense, or you will have got a fair and just pretext for the war. For that one should not covet what is another's, but demand back one's own, and, failing of this, make war—all would acknowledge to be honourable.

8.4. "Come, what do you think the Romans will do when you have chosen this course? Will they give back the places to you? And what will hinder them from withdrawing from all that is another's? For the Aequians and Albans and Tyrrhenians and many others will come, each to recover his own land. Or will they hold the places and do nothing just? Which I think. Therefore, saying that you are the first wronged by them, you will of necessity go to arms, and you will have as allies all who, deprived of their own, have despaired of recovering it otherwise

8.5. than by making war. And the time is best, and such as no other, to attack the Romans—which fortune has prepared for the wronged beyond even their hope—while they are in strife and suspect one another and have leaders inexperienced in war. The things, then, which it was right to suggest in words and advise as to friends, said by me with all goodwill and good faith, are these; but what, in the very deeds, it will be needful from time to time to foresee and contrive, leave to the commanders of the force to consider.

8.6. "For my part too will be eager, in whatever place you post me, and I shall try to be inferior to no one, neither soldier nor centurion nor commander; but use me, taking me wherever I am likely to benefit you in anything, and know well that, if, warring on you, I was able to do great harm, fighting with you too I shall be able to do great good."

9.1. Such things Marcius said. The Volscians, while the man was still speaking, were plainly admiring his words; and when he ceased, all signified with a great shout that he had given the best counsel, and, proposing no debate to anyone, they ratified the opinion. The decree being written, they at once chose the most distinguished men from each city and sent them as envoys to Rome; and to Marcius they voted a share in the senate in every city and the right to seek offices everywhere and to partake of all the other things that were most honoured among

9.2. them. And before awaiting the Romans' answers, all set to work preparing for war; and as many of them as had hitherto been disheartened, weakened in the former battles, then all took courage, as men who would bring down the strength of the Romans.

9.3. The envoys sent by them to Rome, presenting themselves before the senate, said that the Volscians made much of settling the grievances against the Romans and being for the future friends and allies without guile or deceit. And they declared the pledge of their friendship would be sure, if they should recover both their own land and the cities which had been taken from them by the Romans; but otherwise neither peace nor friendship would be sure for them; for the wronged is ever by nature an enemy to the wrongdoer. And they thought fit that the Romans should not put them into the necessity of war by their failing of justice.

10.1. When the envoys had said this, the councillors deliberated among themselves, having removed the men; and when they had decided what answers should be made, summoning them again to the assembly they gave this reply: "You do not escape us, Volscians, in needing no friendship, but wishing to take a seemly pretext for war. For what you have come to demand back from us, you well know you will never receive; for you crave things both unjust and impossible.

10.2. "If, then, having given us the places, you then changed your mind and now demand them back, you are wronged in not recovering them; but if, deprived of them by war, you are no longer their masters, you do wrong in coveting what is another's. We hold those possessions best which we take, having prevailed by war, neither being the first to establish this law nor thinking it a law of men more than of gods; and knowing that all, both Greeks and barbarians, use it, we would yield you nothing soft, nor would we any longer withdraw from what is won by the spear.

10.3. "For it would be great baseness, if what one acquired by valour and manliness should be taken away by folly and cowardice. And we neither compel you to make war if you are unwilling, nor beg you off if you are eager; but if you begin, we shall defend ourselves. Report these things to the Volscians, and say that they will be the first to take up arms, and we the later to lay them down."

11.1. The envoys, having received these answers, reported them to the multitude of the Volscians. An assembly being convened again after this, a common decree of the nation is ratified, to declare war on the Romans. Then they choose as generals with full powers of the war Tullus and Marcius, and vote to enrol forces and levy money and prepare the other things,

11.2. as much as they supposed the war would need. As the assembly was about to break up, Marcius rose and said: "What your commonwealth has voted is well, and let each be done at its proper season; but while you are about to enrol the armies and make ready the rest, which will have, as is likely, some occupations and delays, let me and Tullus set to work. As many of you, then, as wish to plunder the enemy's land and cut off much booty, come with us. And I undertake, if a god joins in, to give you many fine spoils.

11.3. "For the Romans are still unprepared, seeing your force not yet assembled, so that it will be in our power without fear to overrun as much of their country as we wish."

12.1. The Volscians having approved this opinion too, the generals went out quickly, before their plans should become known to the Romans, leading a large willing force; a part of which Tullus took and invaded the Latin country, that he might draw off thence the enemy's help, while the rest Marcius led and marched against the Romans' territory.

12.2. As the calamity fell unexpected on those spending their time in the country, many free persons of the Romans were captured, many slaves, and no small quantity of oxen and beasts of burden and other cattle; and all the grain that was caught and the iron and whatever else the country is farmed with—some was plundered, some destroyed. For at last the Volscians even cast fire into the steadings, so that for a long time those who had lost them could

12.3. not recover them. And the possessions of the commoners suffered this most, while those of the patricians remained unharmed; and if any were damaged, they seemed to be damaged in slaves and cattle. For this was commanded by Marcius to the Volscians, that the patricians might be still more suspected by the commoners, and the strife not be removed from the city—

12.4. which is just what happened. For when the incursion of the country was announced to the Romans, and they learned that the calamity had not befallen all alike, the poor cried out against the rich as bringing Marcius upon them, and the patricians made defence and declared this some knavery of the general. But to help those being destroyed or to save what was left, through suspicion of one another and fear of betrayal, no one thought fit; so that with much security Marcius led off the army and brought all his men back home, having suffered nothing dreadful, but done all they wished, and become rich in much money.

12.5. And Tullus too came a little later from the Latin country bringing much booty; for there too they had no force to come to grips and fight the enemy, being unprepared and the peril having fallen upon them beyond expectation. From this every city was lifted up in its hopes, and faster than one would have supposed the enrolment of the soldiers came about, and the other things, of which the generals had need, were supplied.

13.1. When the whole force was now assembled, Marcius deliberated with his colleague how the remaining affairs should be used. He said, then: "It seems to me, Tullus, best for us to divide the forces in two; then for one of us, leading the most vigorous and eager, to come to grips and fight the enemy; and if they shall endure to come to close quarters with us, to decide the contest in one battle; but if they shrink, as I believe, to entrust the contest for the whole to a newly levied army and leaders inexperienced in war—and meanwhile to invade and ravage their country and draw off their allies and destroy their colonies and do every other harm he can.

13.2. "The other of us, remaining here, should keep guard over the country and the cities, lest the enemy fall upon us unawares unguarded, and we suffer a most shameful thing, in which, while reaching after what is absent, we should be deprived of what is present. Rather, he who remains here must now both raise up the walls that have fallen, and clear out the ditches and strengthen the forts, that there may be refuges for those who farm the land, and enrol another army besides, and supply provisions to those outside, and forge arms, and quickly furnish whatever else necessary thing there shall be.

13.3. "And I give you the choice, whether you wish to command the army abroad or that which remains here." When he said this, Tullus greatly admired the opinion, and, knowing the man's energy and success, entrusted to him the command of the army abroad.

14.1. And Marcius, no longer delaying, came leading the force against the city of Circeii, in which there were Roman colonists living together with the natives, and takes the city at the first assault. For when the Circeians learned that their country was mastered and the army was approaching the wall, opening the gates they came out to the enemy unarmed, thinking fit to surrender the city—which was the cause of their suffering nothing irreparable.

14.2. For the general neither killed any of them nor drove them out of the city; but, taking clothing for the soldiers and provisions sufficient for a month and a moderate sum of money, he led off the force, leaving a small portion in the city both for the security of the inhabitants, lest they suffer any harm from the Romans,

14.3. and that they might attempt no revolution later. When what had happened was announced at Rome, there was much greater confusion and tumult, the patricians holding the people to blame, that, casting a false charge upon a warlike and energetic man full of a noble spirit, they had driven him from the city and made him become leader of the Volscians;

14.4. while the leaders of the people made accusations of the senate and said the whole affair had been contrived of plot by them, and pretended that the war was brought not against all in common, but against themselves alone; and the most malicious part of the people was with these. But to enrol armies or summon the allies or prepare the pressing things, because of their enmities toward one another and the accusations in the assemblies, they did not even take into mind.

15.1. Perceiving this, the eldest of the Romans, banding together, persuaded privately and in common the most factious of the commoners to cease from their suspicions and accusations against the patricians, teaching that, if through the exile of one distinguished man so great a danger had gripped the city, what must be expected if the many of the patricians, insulted by the people, were forced to think the same? And these checked the disorder of the multitude.

15.2. The great tumult having ceased, the senate, assembling, answered those present from the Latin commonwealth on their request for alliance, that it was not easy for them to send help for the present, but that it permitted them to enrol their own army and send out their own commanders of the force, whenever they themselves should send out a force. For in the treaties they had made with them concerning friendship, each of these was forbidden.

15.3. To the consuls they gave leave to gather an army from the levy and to keep the city under guard and to summon the allies, but not yet to lead the forces into the open, until everything should be ready. And the people ratified this. But the time left to the consuls of their office was short, so that they accomplished none of what was voted, but handed over everything half-finished to the consuls after them.

16.1. Those who took over the office from these, Spurius Nautius and Sextus Furius, both established as great an army as they could from the citizen levy, and posted beacons and scouts in the most strategic forts, that they might be ignorant of nothing being done in the country; and they made ready much money and grain and arms in a short time.

16.2. Their own affairs, then, were prepared by them as best they could, and seemed to need nothing more; but the allies did not all obey eagerly, nor were they willing, such as to share in the war, so that they did not even think fit to compel them, fearing betrayal. And some already openly revolted from them and joined the Volscians.

16.3. First the Aequians began the revolt, having gone at once when the war was set on foot to the Volscians and made an alliance with oaths; and these sent Marcius a very large and eager army. These beginning, many of the other allies too secretly aided the Volscians, sending them alliances not by decrees nor by common resolve, but, if any of their own people wished to share in the campaign, not only not turning them aside but even urging them on.

16.4. And there had come about in no long time so great a force about the Volscians as they never had, even when they most flourished in their cities; leading which Marcius again invaded the Romans' land, and, encamping there many days, ravaged as much of the country as he had passed over in the former invasion.

16.5. Of free persons, then, he no longer became master of many in this campaign; for the people had earlier carried off their most precious things and fled for refuge, some into the city, some into the nearby forts, if any were very strong. But their cattle, as many as they could not drive off, and the slaves tending them, he takes; and the grain still lying on the threshing-floors and the other crops—

16.6. some in hand, some already gathered—he carries off. Having plundered and ravaged everything, no one daring to come to grips, he led the army home, heavy now with the multitude of spoils and marching at leisure.

17.1. The Volscians, seeing the greatness of the booty brought back and hearing of the timidity of the Romans, who, having lately plundered another's land without fear, now endured to see their own ravaged, were filled with great boasting and were in hope of empire, as though it were easy and ready at hand for them to bring down the strength of their adversaries; and they made thank-offerings to the gods and adorned their temples and marketplaces with dedications of spoils, and all were in festivals and rejoicings, and continued to admire and celebrate Marcius, as being the most terrible of men in war and a general such as neither Roman nor any other general of Greeks or barbarians.

17.2. Most of all they counted him blessed in his fortune, seeing everything he attempted go for him according to his mind without effort; so that there was no one of military age who thought fit to be absent from the man, but all rushed to share in his deeds and came together to him from every city.

17.3. The general, when he had strengthened the eagerness of the Volscians and shut up the manliness of the enemy in a humble and unmanly helplessness, led the force against their allied cities, as many as kept their faith; and at once, having prepared what was useful for a siege, he marches against the Tolerini, of the Latin nation.

17.4. The Tolerini, having long beforehand prepared the things for war and brought into the city the things from the country, received him as he came on, and for a time held out, fighting from the walls and wounding many of the enemy; then, driven back by the slingers and toiling till late evening, they abandoned many parts of the wall. Perceiving this,

17.5. Marcius ordered the other soldiers to bring ladders against the bared parts of the circuit, while he himself, taking the best of the army, rushed at the gates, pelted from the towers, and, breaking the bolts, was the first to enter the city. There stood drawn up at the gates a large and strong body of the enemy, who received him stoutly and for a long while held out, fighting; but, many being killed, the rest were routed and, scattered, fled through the streets.

17.6. He followed, killing those he caught, all who did not throw down their arms and turn to supplication; meanwhile those mounting by the ladders gained the wall. The city being taken in this manner, Marcius, having set apart from the spoils what should be offerings to the gods and adornment for the Volscian cities, allowed the soldiers to plunder the rest.

17.7. There were there many persons, much money, much grain, so that it was not easy for the conquerors to carry off everything in one day, but, in relays leading and bearing some themselves and some on the beasts of burden, they were forced to spend much time.

18.1. The general, when the persons and money had all been carried off, leaving the city desolate, led off the force against Bola, another Latin city. The Bolani too happened to have foreknown his coming and prepared everything needful for the contest. Marcius, then, as one about to take the city at the first assault, made attacks on many parts of the wall; but the Bolani, awaiting a fitting occasion, open the gates, and, rushing out in a body in rank and order, clash with those opposite, and, killing many of them and wounding still more, and shamefully forcing the rest to flee, returned to the city.

18.2. When Marcius learned of the rout of the Volscians—for he did not happen to be present in the place where the disaster occurred—he came with a few in haste, and, rallying those scattered from the rout, formed them up and encouraged them; and when he had set them in ranks, having shown what they must do, he ordered them to attack the city at the same gates.

18.3. The Bolani using the same device again and rushing out in a body, the Volscians do not receive them, but, giving way, fled down the slope, as the general had suggested to them; and the Bolani, not knowing the deceit, pursued for a long way. When they were far from the city, Marcius, having the picked young men, came to grips with the Bolani; and there was much slaughter of them there, some defending themselves, some fleeing.

18.4. He, following those thrust toward the city, forced his way into the wall before the gates could be slammed to. When the general had once become master of the gates, the rest of the Volscian multitude followed, and the Bolani, abandoning the wall, fled to their houses. Becoming master of this city too, he permitted the soldiers to enslave the persons and plunder the goods, and, in the same manner as before, having carried off all the booty, in time and at much leisure, after this burned the city.

19.1. Thence, taking up the force, he led it against the people called Labicani. This too was then a Latin city, a colony of the Albans like the others. Wishing to terrify those within, he burned their country as soon as he came on, whence they would most see the flame. But the Labicani, having a well-built wall, were neither dismayed at his coming nor yielded anything soft, but held out, fighting nobly, and often beat off the enemy as they mounted

19.2. the wall. Yet they did not hold out to the end, few fighting against many and resting not even the least time. For many assaults were made all over the city by the Volscians in relays, the weary ever withdrawing and others coming up fresh; against whom fighting the whole day, and resting not even in the time of the night, they were forced through exhaustion to abandon the wall. Taking this city too, Marcius enslaved it and allowed the soldiers to divide the spoils.

19.3. Setting the force in motion thence against the city of the Pedani—this too was of the Latin race—he comes with his army in order, and takes it too by storm as soon as he drew near the walls. And dealing with it as with the cities taken before, at daybreak he at once moved the force and led it against Corbio.

19.4. When he was near the wall, those within, opening the gates, met him, holding out suppliant boughs instead of arms and surrendering the wall without a fight. Praising them as having taken the best counsel about themselves, he ordered them to come bringing what the army needed, both silver and grain, and, having received what he commanded, led off the force to the city of the Coriolani. Those within surrendering this too without a fight and with much eagerness furnishing the force provisions and money and whatever else was enjoined on them, he led off the army as through a friendly land. For

19.5. this too he made much of, that those who surrendered the cities to them should suffer none of what war is wont to do, but recover their land unravaged and get back their cattle and slaves, as many as they had left on their possessions; and he did not let the force lodge in the cities, lest some harm come about through plunder or theft on their part, but encamped beside the walls.

20.1. Setting the army in motion from this city, he marched against Bola, which was then distinguished and reckoned among the very few cities leading the Latin race. Those within not receiving him, but trusting both in their fortress, which was very strong, and in the multitude of those who would fight from it, having exhorted the force to fight eagerly and promised great gifts to the first who should mount the wall, he set to work; and a fierce battle arose about this city.

20.2. For the Bolani not only warded off those who approached from the wall, but, opening the gates, ran out in a body and forced down the slope those who withstood them; and much slaughter of the Volscians occurred there, and the time of the assault on the wall was long, and the hope of mastering the city was for all hard to attain. But the general made the loss of those killed unseen by substituting others, and encouraged the despondency of the weary, himself thrusting into the toiling part of the army. And not his word only was alluring to courage, but also his deeds. For he undertook every danger and was absent from no venture, until at last the wall

20.3. was taken. Having mastered this city too in time, and of the captured having killed some by force of hands and taken others prisoners, he led off the force, having won a most brilliant victory and bringing the fairest and most numerous spoils, and enriching the army with very much money of which he became master; for there was there such as in none of the captured places.

21.1. After this, all the country he passed through was subject, and no city opposed him save Lavinium—which the Trojans who came to Italy with Aeneas founded as their first city, and from which the Roman race sprang, as I have shown before. Those dwelling in it thought they ought to endure everything first rather than abandon their faith toward their descendants the

21.2. Romans. There were, then, some fierce assaults on the wall there and sharp battles before the strongholds; yet the wall was not taken by storm at the first assault, but the siege seemed to need time and delay. Desisting, then, from the siege, Marcius entrenched the city all round and walled it off, guarding the roads, that neither provisions nor any help might reach them from outside.

21.3. The Romans, hearing of the destruction of the cities already mastered and the necessity of those who had joined Marcius, and troubled by the embassies coming to them daily from those who remained in the friendship and begged for help, and dreading the encirclement of Lavinium that was in hand, and thinking that if this fort were taken the war would come at once upon themselves, supposed there would be one release of all the evils, if

21.4. they should vote Marcius his return. And the whole people shouted for this, and the tribunes wished to bring in a law about the annulment of the condemnation; but the patricians opposed them, not thinking fit to undo any of the things judged. No preliminary decree being made by the senate, it did not seem good to the tribunes either to propose the opinion to the people.

21.5. At which it is worth marvelling, from whatever cause the senate, eager in the former time on behalf of Marcius, then opposed the people when it wished to bring him back—whether making trial of his mind and, by not readily conceding, urging him on to greater eagerness, or wishing to clear themselves of the slanders against them, that they were neither the cause nor the accomplice of any of the things the man was doing. For it was hard to conjecture their counsel, which had been kept secret.

22.1. Hearing this from certain deserters, Marcius, as he was in his anger, at once set the force in motion and led it against Rome, leaving a sufficient guard of Lavinium; and at once, forty stades distant from the city, he encamped about the so-called Cluilian trenches.

22.2. On those in the city, learning of his arrival, so great a tumult fell, as though the war would at once be brought to the walls, that some, taking their arms, ran to the walls without command; others were borne in a body to the gates without a leader; others, having armed their slaves, set them on the roofs of the houses; others seized the citadel and the Capitol and the other strong places of the city; and women with hair let loose ran to the precincts and the temples, lamenting and begging the gods to turn away the coming terror from the city.

22.3. When the night had passed and the greatest part of the following day, and none of what they feared came about, but Marcius remained quiet, all the commoners ran together into the marketplace and summoned the patricians to the senate-house, and said that, if they would not pass a preliminary decree about the man's return, they would themselves deliberate about themselves as men betrayed.

22.4. Then indeed, coming together into the senate, the patricians vote to send envoys to Marcius, five men of the eldest, those whom he most cherished, to treat of a settlement and friendship. Those chosen from among them were these: Marcus Minucius and Postumus Cominius and Spurius Larcius and Publius Pinarius and

22.5. Quintus Sulpicius, all consulars. When they came to the camp and Marcius learned of their arrival, sitting with the most distinguished of the Volscians and the other allies, where most would hear what was said, he ordered the men to be summoned. When they came in, Minucius began the speech—he who during his consulship had most exerted himself on his behalf and most opposed the commoners—and spoke as follows:

23.1. "That you have suffered unjust things from the people, Marcius, driven from your country on a shameful charge, we all know; and we think you do nothing marvellous if you are harsh and indignant at your fortunes. For this is a common law of all men's nature, that the wronged is an enemy to the wrongdoer.

23.2. "But that you do not examine with prudent reckoning whom you ought to defend yourself against and punish, nor are moderate in the exacting of justice, but set the guiltless on a par with the guilty and friends with enemies, and disturb unalterable laws of nature and confound the holy things toward the gods, and no longer even remember from what and what manner of man you sprang—at this we have marvelled.

23.3. "We have come, sent by the commonwealth as envoys, the eldest of the patricians and most zealous about you, bringing a plea mixed of justification and entreaty, and to report to the people on what terms we think fit you should dissolve the enmity; and besides this, to advise you what we think fairest and most advantageous for you.

24.1. "Let the speech about justice begin. The commoners banded against you, provoked by the tribunes, and came to kill you untried, to whom you were formidable. This deed we of the senate hindered, and let you suffer nothing that was not then just. After this those who had been hindered from destroying you summoned you to a trial, charging you with having spoken wicked words against them in the senate.

24.2. "We opposed this too, as you know, and did not permit you to undergo trial either for opinions or for words. Failing of this too, at last they came to us, charging you with attempting tyranny. This charge you yourself undertook to answer, since you were very far from it, and you put it in the power of the commoners to take the vote about yourself.

24.3. "And the senate was present then too and made many entreaties about you. Of what, then, of the evils that befell you have we patricians been the cause, and why do you make war on us who showed such goodwill about you in that contest? Nay, not even all the commoners were found wishing you driven out; by two votes only were you convicted, so that not even to these would you justly be an enemy, who acquitted you as one doing no wrong.

24.4. "But I grant, if you will, that it seemed good to all the commoners, and appeared right to the whole senate, that you should use this misfortune, and that your hatred toward all of us is just; but the women, Marcius, what dreadful thing did they do you, that you make war on them? What vote about exile did they cast, or what wicked words did they speak against you?

24.5. "And our children, having done or intended what wrong against you, are they in danger of captivity and of the other things they are likely to suffer if the city is taken? You do not judge justly, Marcius; and if you think you ought to hate the guilty and the hostile in such fashion as not even to spare the guiltless and the friendly, you do not think the things that befit a good man.

24.6. "But to let all these things pass, what could you say, by Zeus, if someone should ask you: the tombs of your forefathers, what have you suffered from them, that you dig them up and rob them of the honours they receive from men? And the altars of the gods and the precincts and temples, for what wrong's anger do you plunder and burn and overturn, and not allow them to obtain the lawful worship? What would you say to these things? For my part I see nothing.

24.7. "These things, Marcius, about us of the senate and about the other citizens whom you are eager to destroy, having suffered no harm from them, and about tombs and sacred things and the city that bore and reared you—let the just be said.

25.1. "Come, even if it befitted all men, even those doing you no wrong, together with their wives and children, to give you justice, and all the gods and heroes and divinities and the city and country to suffer for the folly of the tribunes, and that no part be left exempt and unpunished by you—have you not already exacted sufficient justice from all, having wrought so great a slaughter of men, having ruined so great a land with fire and steel, having destroyed so many cities from their foundations, having forced festivals and sacrifices and worships of gods and divinities in many places to become without festival and without sacrifice and without their lawful honours?

25.2. "For my part I should not have thought fit that a man who has any care for valour should either destroy the friendly along with the hostile, or be harsh in anger and inexorable toward those who err in anything against him—especially when he has taken from

25.3. them many great penalties. These, then, are the things we had to say in defence of ourselves and to beg you off concerning the commoners; and what your most honoured friends, come out of goodwill, suggest to you and promise if you are reconciled with your country, are these: while the power lies most with you and the divinity still joins in, to be moderate and to husband your fortune, reflecting that all affairs have their changes and nothing is wont to remain in the same state, and that all that is eminent is visited with the gods' indignation when it reaches the height of distinction, and turns again to nothing. And this most of all befalls the hard and proud spirits that overstep the bounds of human nature.

25.4. "And it is now in your power, best of all, to end the war; for the whole senate is set to vote you your return, and the people is ready, a law being ratified, to dissolve the perpetual exile. What, then, still hinders you from recovering the sweetest and most honoured sights of your nearest, and getting back your much-fought-for country, and ruling, as befitted you, over rulers, and commanding commanders, and leaving to children and descendants the greatest boast? Of these promises we are all sureties, as things that will come about at once. For now it was not well that the senate

25.5. or the people should vote you anything fair or moderate, while you are encamped against us and do the deeds of enemies; but if you should withdraw from arms, the decree about your return, carried by us, will come to you before long."

26.1. "These goods, then, will be yours if you are reconciled; but if you remain in your anger and do not dissolve your hatred toward us, many and harsh things, of which I shall now tell the two greatest and most manifest. First, that you have a wicked passion for a hard—rather, an impossible—thing, to bring down the strength of the city of the Romans, and that with Volscian arms; next, that, having succeeded and obtained everything, you will be reckoned the most unfortunate of all men. And from what these things come to my mind to think about you, hear, Marcius, in no way embittered against the freedom of my words. Consider first about the impossible.

26.2. "The Romans, as you too know, have much native youth, of which, if the factious element be removed—and this will come about of great necessity now through this war, for all differences are wont to be composed by a common fear—not that the Volscians will prevail, nor any other of the nations in Italy. And great is the strength of the Latins and the other allies and colonies of the city, almost all of which you may expect to come as help. And generals such as you, both old and young, are so many in number as are not in all the other cities.

26.3. "But the greatest help of all, which has never falsified our hopes in dangers and is better than all human strength, is the goodwill of the gods, through whom we not only dwell free in this city to this time, now in the eighth generation, but also prosperous and ruling many nations.

26.4. "And do not liken us to the Pedani or Tolerini or the other petty cities whose towns you took; for a general less than you, and with a smaller force than so great, could have forced their fewness of men and the meanness of their strongholds; but reflect on the greatness of the city and the brilliance of its deeds in wars and the fortune from the divinity present to it,

26.5. through which it has become so great from small. And do not think your own force, which you lead in attempting so great a work, has changed; but remember exactly that it is an army of Volscians and Aequians that you bring, whom we who are now alive conquered in many battles, as often as they dared to set themselves against us in war; so that, about to fight with the worse against the better, know that you fight, with the ever-defeated, against the ever-victorious.

26.6. "And even if the contrary of these things were so, it is worth marvelling how it has escaped you, who are experienced in matters of war, that boldness in dangers is not wont to come equally to those fighting for their own goods and those going against another's; for the one are harmed in nothing if they do not succeed, while to the other nothing is left if they fail. And this was among the chief causes of great forces being tripped up by the lesser and the stronger by the meaner. For necessity is terrible, and the danger about the uttermost is enough to put courage into a man even when it is not there by nature. I had still more to say about the impossible, but these too suffice.

27.1. "One speech still remains to me, which, if you judge it not in anger but by reckoning, will seem rightly said, and repentance for what you are doing will come over you. What is this speech? To no mortal born have the gods given to have sure knowledge of what is to be, nor would you find in all time one for whom all affairs have gone according to his mind, fortune opposing in nothing.

27.2. "And for this reason those who surpass others in prudence—which long life and many lessons bring—before setting hand to any work whatever, think they ought first to consider its end, not the one only which they wish to come about for themselves, but also that which will turn out contrary to their judgment; and most of all the leaders of wars, inasmuch as they become masters of greater affairs, and all refer to them the causes of successes or failures. Then, if they find no harms, or small and few ones, in not succeeding, they set to work; but if many and great,

27.3. they desist. This do you too, and consider before the work, if you should be tripped up in the war and not everything be yours, what it will befall you to suffer. You will be blamed by those who received you; you will blame yourself too, as having attempted greater things than were possible; and, our army again coming there and destroying their land—for we shall not endure not to take vengeance in turn on those who began to harm us—you would fail of neither of two things: either to be shamefully destroyed by those very men to whom you will be the cause of great calamities, or by us, against whom you came to kill and

27.4. enslave. Perhaps they, before falling into any harm, attempting to make a settlement with us, would think fit to hand you over for punishment—which many barbarians and Greeks, having fallen into such fortunes, were forced to endure. Do these things seem to you small and not worth speaking of, and that you ought to disregard them, or to suffer the uttermost of all evils?

28.1. "Come, if you should succeed, what marvellous and much-fought-for good will be yours, or what glory will you carry off? For examine this too. First, it will be yours to be deprived of your dearest and nearest persons—a wretched mother, to whom you render no fair returns for your begetting and rearing and the other toils she had over you; next a temperate wife, who through longing for you sits in solitude and widowhood every day and night, lamenting your exile; and besides these, two children, who, being descendants of good forefathers, ought to reap their honours, being held in good repute in a prosperous country.

28.2. "Of all of whom you will be forced to behold pitiable and unhappy overthrows, if you dare to bring the war against the walls; for those endangering their own and ill-treated by you in the like, will spare none of yours, but will turn to dreadful maltreatments of them and merciless outrages and every other form of insult, forced by their calamities; and of these not the doers, but he who imposes the necessity on them, will be the cause—

28.3. such pleasures will you reap if this work goes according to your mind. But praise and emulation and honours, which good men ought to long for—consider what kind these will be. You will be called a slayer of your mother and a child-murderer and a sinner against your wife and a destroyer of your country; and neither at sacrifices nor libations nor hearth, wherever you may come, will any of the pious and just consent to share with you; nor will you be honoured even by those to whom, showing goodwill, you do these things, but each of them, having reaped some advantage from your impieties, will hate the arrogance of your character.

28.4. "For I forbear to say that, besides the hatred you will have from the most equitable, much envy too will meet you from your equals, and fear from your inferiors, and through both these, plots and many other harsh things which are likely to befall a man desolate of friends and in a foreign land. For the Furies sent by gods and divinities upon those who have done impious and dreadful deeds I pass over—by whom, maltreated in soul and body, they drain out wretched lives

28.5. and undergo pitiable ends. Reflecting on these things, Marcius, change your mind and cease bearing rancour against your own country; and, reckoning fortune the cause of all the evils you have suffered from us or done us, depart rejoicing to your own, and recover the most gentle embraces of a mother and the sweetest kindnesses of a wife and the sweetest greetings of children, and render yourself, a fairest debt, to the country that bore you and reared so great a man."

29.1. When Minucius had gone through this, Marcius, after pausing a little, said: "To you, Minucius, and to you who were sent with him by the senate, I am a friend and eager to do good if I can, because formerly too, when I was your fellow citizen and managed public affairs, you proved useful to me in many necessary crises, and after my exile you did not turn away from me out of contempt for my fortune then, as one no longer able to do good to friends or harm to enemies, but remained kind and steadfast friends, caring for my mother and wife and children, and making their misfortunes lighter for them by your own attentions.

29.2. "But the rest of the Romans I hate as much as I can and make war on, and I shall never cease hating them—who, in return for many fine deeds for which I ought to be honoured, drove me shamefully from my country as one who had committed the greatest wrongs against the commonwealth, neither reverencing my mother nor pitying my children nor taking any other gentle feeling at my fortunes.

29.3. "Knowing this, if you yourselves need anything from us, say so without hesitation, as men who will fail of nothing possible; but about friendship and reconciliation, which you think fit that I make with the people in hope of my return, cease talking. For I should be very glad to come down into such a city, in which wickedness carries off the prizes of valour, and the punishments of wrongdoers are endured by those who have done no wrong!

29.4. "Come, by the gods, tell me, by the charge of what wrong have I made trial of this fortune, or what deed did I practise unworthy of my own forefathers? My first campaign I served being quite young, when we fought against the kings coming back by force. From that battle I was crowned with prizes of valour by the general, having shielded a fellow citizen and killed an enemy.

29.5. "Then how many other battles, of cavalry and infantry, I fought—I was distinguished in all and took the prizes from all; and no city was taken by storm of its wall which I was not the first to mount, either alone or with a few; nor was there a rout of enemies from a pitched battle of which all present did not acknowledge me to have been most the cause; nor was any other of the brilliant or noble deeds in wars accomplished without my courage—or fortune.

30.1. "And these things perhaps another noble man too might have to say of himself, if not so many; but who, general or centurion, could boast of having taken a whole city, as I took the city of the Coriolani, and on the same day, the same man, of having routed an army of enemies, as I routed that of the Antiates which came to help the besieged?

30.2. "For I forbear to say that, having displayed such valour, when I might have taken from the spoils much gold, much silver, slaves and beasts of burden and cattle and much good land, I did not think fit to, but, wishing to make myself as far as possible above envy, I took one war-horse only from the spoils and my own guest-friend from the prisoners, and the rest of the wealth

30.3. I brought and laid in the common stock. Was I, then, deserving to undergo punishment for these things, or to receive honours? And was I to come under the basest of the citizens, or myself to prescribe justice to the inferior? But it was not for these things the people drove me out, but because in the rest of my life I was licentious and extravagant and lawless? And who could show anyone fleeing his country, or having lost his freedom, or deprived of money, or using any other misfortune, through my lawless pleasures? Nay, not even any of my enemies ever charged or slandered me with any of these things, but it was testified by all that my daily life too was unblamed.

30.4. "But the choice, by Zeus, one might say, of your policies, being hated, wrought this misfortune for you. For when you might have chosen the better side, you chose the worse, and continued saying and doing everything by which the ancestral aristocracy would be overthrown and an ignorant and wicked crowd become master of public affairs. But I did the opposite, Minucius, and took forethought that the senate should ever have care of public affairs and the ancestral order of the polity remain.

30.5. "Yet in return for these fine pursuits, which our forefathers thought worthy of emulation, I have got these fortunate and blessed returns from my country, driven out not by the people only, Minucius, but much earlier by the senate, which at the outset, lifting me up with empty hopes when I opposed the tribunes who were clothing themselves in tyranny—as though it would itself furnish me security—when it suspected some danger from the commoners,

30.6. withdrew and handed me over to my enemies. And you yourself were then consul, Minucius, when the preliminary decree about the trial was made, and when Valerius, advising to hand me over to the people, was in high repute for his words, and I, fearing lest, the vote being given by the councillors, I should be convicted, consented and promised to offer myself willingly for the trial.

31.1. "Come, then, Minucius, answer me: did I seem to the senate too to deserve punishment because I governed and acted for the best, or to the people alone? For if it seemed so to all then, and you all drove me out, it is plain that all of you who wished this hate valour, and there is no place in the city receiving nobility; but if the senate, forced, gave way to the people, and its deed was of necessity, not of judgment, you confess, surely, to be ruled by the base, and that the senate is master of nothing it may choose.

31.2. "Then do you think fit that I come down into such a city, in which the better part is ruled by the worse? You have condemned me of much madness. Come, suppose I have been persuaded, and, having dissolved the war as you think fit, have come back: what will my mind be after this, and what life shall I live? Choosing the safe and danger-free part, shall I endure, seeking offices and honours and the other goods of which I think myself worthy, to court the crowd that holds the power of these? Then I shall become wicked from good, and there will be no profit to me of my former valour.

31.3. "Or, remaining in the same ways and keeping the same choice of polity, shall I oppose those who do not choose the same? Then is it not plain that the people will war on me again and think fit to take other justice again, making this its very first charge, that, having obtained my return through it, I do not govern to its pleasure? There is no other way to put it.

31.4. "Then there will appear some other demagogue like Icilius or bold like Decius, who will charge me with dividing the citizens from one another, or plotting against the people, or betraying the city to the enemy, or attempting tyranny, as Decius charged, or some other wrong, whatever may

31.5. seem good to him; for hatred will not lack a charge. And besides the other charges these too will come, carried before long—all that has been done by me in this war, that I have ravaged your country and driven off booty and taken cities, and of those who defended these some I have killed, others handed over to the enemy. If the accusers say these things, what shall I say to them in defence, or what help shall I use?

32.1. "Is it not plain, then, that you speak fairly and use irony, Minucius, putting a fair name on an impious deed? For you do not give me a return, but lead me down as a victim to the people—perhaps even having deliberately resolved to do this, for nothing kind toward you any longer comes into my mind; but if you wish—I grant it—

32.2. foreseeing nothing of what I shall suffer, what profit will your ignorance or folly be to me, when you would be able to hinder nothing even if you were willing, but would be forced to grant this too to the people along with the rest? But that this, which you call a return but I a swift road to destruction, will not profit my safety, I think needs no more words; and that it tends neither to good repute nor honour nor piety—since you too, Minucius, thought fit that I take forethought of these things, doing well—but that I shall do most shameful and impious things if persuaded by you, hear in turn.

32.3. "I became an enemy to these Volscians and wronged them much in war, gaining for my country empire and strength and glory. Ought I not, then, to be honoured by those benefited, and hated by those wronged—if anything reasonable had come about? But fortune overturned both these and transferred the dues to the opposite. For you, on whose behalf I was an enemy to these, took from me all that was mine and, treating me as nothing, cast me out; while these, who had suffered dreadful things from me—the destitute, homeless, humble, city-less man—

32.4. received me into their cities. And it did not suffice them, having done this so brilliant and magnanimous deed alone, but they gave me citizenship in all their cities and offices and honours, the greatest among them. I forbear the rest; but now they have appointed me general with full powers of the army abroad and put all their affairs in my hands alone.

32.5. "Come, what heart should I take to betray these men, by whom I have been adorned with such great honours, having suffered no wrong, great or small? Unless indeed their favours wrong me, as mine did you. A fine reputation, surely, this counter-treachery will bring me among all men, when it is known! Who would not praise me, hearing that, having found my friends, by whom I ought to be well treated, enemies, and my enemies, by whom I ought to have been destroyed, friends—instead of hating what hates and loving what loves—I held the contrary opinion?

33.1. "Come now, consider also the things from the gods, Minucius—what has met me now, and what, if I should be persuaded by you to betray these men's faith, will be mine for the rest of my life. Now, indeed, in every action I lay hand to against you they join with me, and I fail of no attempt.

33.2. "And how great a proof do you think this is of my piety? For if I had set on foot an unholy war against my country, all the things from the gods ought to be contrary to me; but since I have used the fortune of war blowing fair, and whatever affairs I attempt all go rightly for me, it is plain that I am a pious man and have

33.3. chosen fair deeds. What, then, if I change and seek to increase your affairs and humble theirs, will become of me? Will not the contrary, and shall I not have an evil retribution from the divinity as avenger of the wronged, and, as from humble I became great through the gods, so again from great become humble, and my sufferings become lessons to others?

33.4. "For my part this is what occurs to me to think about the divinity; and I am persuaded that those terrible and inexorable Furies which attend on those who have done any impious deed—of whom you too made mention, Minucius—will then follow me, maltreating soul and body, when I abandon and betray those who saved me, destroyed by you, and who, besides saving me, added many fine benefits—those to whom I gave the gods as sureties that I made my coming for no evil and would keep clean and undefiled the faith which is with me to this time.

34.1. "And when you still call friends, Minucius, those who drove me out, and a country one that has disowned me, and invoke the laws of nature and discourse about holy things, you seem to me to be ignorant alone of the most common things and unknown to none: that the friendly or the hostile is defined neither by the character of a face nor by the giving of a name, but each of these is shown by uses and deeds; and we all love what benefits us and hate what harms us, no men having set down this law for us, nor able ever to abolish it if the contrary seem good to them, but having received it laid down by common nature for all time for all who share in perception, and to remain forever;

34.2. and on this account we disown friends when they wrong us, and make enemies friends when some favour comes to us from them; and the city that bore us, when it benefits us, we cherish, but when it harms us, we leave—loving it not for the place, but for the advantage.

34.3. "And it is not that private men think thus singly, but not also whole cities and nations; so that he who uses this judgment thinks fit nothing outside the divine laws, nor acts contrary to the common right of all men. For my part, doing these things I think I do what is just and advantageous and fair, and at the same time most holy toward the gods; and I need not take as judges of them men who conjecture the truth by guess and opinion, since I do what is pleasing to the gods. For I do not suppose I attempt impossible things, having the gods as my leaders—if indeed one must conjecture the future from what has already come about.

35.1. "As for the moderation to which you exhort me, and the not destroying root and branch the Roman race nor raising up the whole city from its foundations, I had it in my power, Minucius, to say that I am not master of this, nor is the speech about these things to me, but I am general of the force, and these men are masters of war and peace; so that you should ask of them a truce for reconciliation, not of me.

35.2. "Yet I do not give this answer; but, revering the ancestral gods and reverencing the tombs of forefathers and the land from which I sprang, and pitying your wives and children, on whom, undeserving as they are, the faults of fathers and husbands will come—and not least of all on account of you, Minucius, chosen by the city—I answer this: if the Romans give back to the Volscians as much land as they have taken from them, and as many cities as they hold, recalling the colonists, and make friendship with them for all time and grant them equal citizenship as to the Latins, having made oaths and curses against those who transgress the agreements, I will dissolve the war with them, but not before.

35.3. "Report these things, then, to them, and in the same manner as to me, so to them too discourse very pointedly about justice. It is a fine thing, surely, for each to live in peace holding his own possessions, and worth much to fear no one, neither enemy nor occasion; but shameful to endure an unnecessary war, clinging to another's, in which they will risk all their own goods. And show them the prizes, which are not equal whether they succeed or fail, since they crave another's land; and, if you wish, add the cities of the wronged, which, if they do not prevail, they wish to take besides—their own land and city be taken away too, and, besides this, to look on their wives suffering the most shameful things and their children led off to outrage and their parents becoming slaves instead of free on the threshold of old age.

35.4. "And at the same time teach the senate that of these evils they could not blame Marcius, but their own folly. For when it lies in their power to do what is just and fall into no danger, they will take up the contest for the uttermost, clinging forever to what is another's.

35.5. "You have the answers; you would get nothing more from me than these. But depart and consider what you must do; and while you deliberate, I give you a time of thirty days. In the meantime, for your sake, Minucius, and for the rest of you, I will lead the force out of the country; for you would be greatly harmed if it remained here. And on the thirtieth day expect me to come to receive your answers."

36.1. Having said this, he rose and dissolved the meeting. On the following night, about the last watch, setting the army in motion he led it against the remaining Latin cities—whether having truly learned that some help was about to come thence to the Romans, as he then said in his harangue, or himself having invented the story, that he might not seem to have left off the war as a favour to his enemies.

36.2. Falling upon the so-called Longula and becoming master of it without effort, and in the same manner as the others enslaving and plundering it, he marched against the city of the Satricani. Taking this too, those in it holding out a short time, and ordering the spoils from both these cities to be carried off by part of the army to Ecetra, he led the rest of the force against another city called Cetia. Becoming master of this too and plundering it, he invaded the country of the Polyscani. The Polyscani being unable to hold out, he took these too by storm and advanced against the next. The Albietae, then, and the Mugillani he takes by storm of their walls, and the Coriolani he receives by surrender.

36.3. Having become master of seven cities in thirty days, he came against Rome leading a force much larger than the former, and, distant from the city a little more than thirty stades, encamped beside the road leading to Tusculum. While he was taking and winning over the Latin cities, the Romans, having deliberated much about his demands, resolved to do nothing unworthy of the city, but, if the Volscians should depart from their country and from the land of their allies and subjects, and, dissolving the war, send envoys to treat of friendship, that the senate make a preliminary decree on what terms they should be friends, and bring the resolutions before the people; but while they remained in the country, they and their allies doing the deeds of enemies,

36.4. to vote them nothing humane. For the Romans had always much regard for doing nothing at command nor yielding to fear of enemies, but, when their adversaries had made a treaty and offered themselves as subjects, to grant and concede whatever they needed of moderate things. And the city, keeping this spirit in many great dangers, both in foreign and in civil wars, has continued to our time.

37.1. The senate having voted these things and chosen other envoys, ten men of consular rank, to ask the man to issue no harsh command unworthy of the city, but, dissolving the enmity and removing the force from the country by persuasion and reconciling words, to attempt these things, if he wished to make sure and lasting agreements of the cities, since the things conceded out of some necessity or occasion are dissolved, both for private men and cities, as soon as the occasions or necessities change—the envoys appointed by it, as soon as they learned of Marcius's arrival, going to him, discoursed many alluring things, keeping in their words too the dignity of the city.

37.2. Marcius answered them nothing else, but advised them to come back within three days, having deliberated something better; for these would be their only truce of the war. When the men wished to say something to this, he did not allow it, but ordered them to depart as quickly as possible from the camp, threatening that, if they did not, he would treat them as spies; and they, departing in silence, went off at once.

37.3. When the senators learned from the envoys the arrogant answers and threats of Marcius, they did not even then vote to lead out an army abroad—whether fearing the inexperience of their own soldiers, for the most of them were newly enrolled; or the timidity of the consuls, for there was least of the energetic in them, thinking it dangerous to take up so great a contest; or because the divinity opposed them in the matter of the expedition through omens or Sibylline oracles or some ancestral superstition, which the men of that time did not think fit, like those of now, to disregard—but they resolved to keep the city under more careful guard and to ward off the assailants from the strongholds.

38.1. Doing these things and making ready, and not yet abandoning the hope that it was still possible for Marcius to be persuaded if they should beg him with a greater and more honoured embassy, they vote that the hierophants and augurs and all the others, as many as had received any sacred honour or public service about divine things—and there are among them priests and ministers of the gods very many, and these themselves most distinguished of the rest both in the houses of their fathers and in the worth of their own valour—holding, along with them, the symbols of the gods worshipped and ministered to, and clad in the sacred robes, should go in a body to the enemy's camp, carrying the same words as the former envoys.

38.2. When the men came and said what the senate enjoined on them, to these too Marcius gave no answer about what they asked, but advised them either to do what was commanded, departing, if they wished to keep peace, or to expect the war to come against the city; and he forbade them for the future to treat with him.

38.3. When the Romans failed of this attempt too, despairing of all hope of reconciliation, they prepared as men about to be besieged, posting the most vigorous under the ditch and at the gates, and those already discharged from campaigns, whose bodies were still able to endure hardship, on the walls.

39.1. But their women, as the danger was now near, abandoning the seemliness of staying at home, ran to the precincts of the gods, lamenting and rolling before the images; and every sacred place was full of the wailing and supplication of women, but most of all the temple of Capitoline Jupiter.

39.2. There one of them, surpassing in birth and dignity and then in the prime of her age and most able to judge what was needful—Valeria by name, sister of Publicola who had helped free the city from the kings—moved by some divine impulse, stood on the topmost step of the temple and, calling the other women to her, first consoled and encouraged them, thinking fit that they should not be dismayed at the terror; then she promised that there was one hope of safety for the city, and that this lay in them alone, if they should

39.3. be willing to do what was needful. And one of them said: "And what could we women do to save the country, when the men have given up? What strength so great is there about us, weak and wretched?" "Not strength," said Valeria, "needing arms and hands; for of these nature has released us; but goodwill and speech." A shout arising after this, and all begging her to make plain what the help was, she says to them:

39.4. "Wearing this squalid and unadorned dress, and taking with us the other women and leading our children, let us go to the house of Veturia, the mother of Marcius; and setting our children before her knees, let us beg with tears that she, pitying us who are the cause of no evil, and the country in the uttermost dangers, go forth to the enemy's camp, leading her grandsons and their mother and us all—for let us follow her, bringing our children—and then, becoming a suppliant of her son, ask and beg him

39.5. to work no irreparable harm against his country. For while she laments and beseeches, some pity will enter the man and a gentle reckoning. He has not so hard and unwounded a heart as to endure his mother rolling at his own knees."

40.1. When those present approved the speech, having prayed the gods to set persuasion and grace about their entreaty, she went forth from the precinct, and the others followed. And after this, taking with them the other women, they went in a body to the house of Marcius's mother. When Marcius's wife Volumnia, sitting near her mother-in-law, saw them coming, she marvelled and said: "Needing what, women, have you come in a body to a wretched and humble house?"

40.2. And Valeria said: "Being ourselves and these infants in the uttermost dangers, we have fled for refuge as suppliants to you, Veturia, the one and only help, asking you first to pity the common country, which, never having become subject to anyone, you should not look on while it is deprived by the Volscians of its freedom—if indeed they will spare it when they prevail, and not attempt to destroy it root and branch; and next, beseeching you on behalf of ourselves and these wretched children, that we may not fall into the outrage of enemies, being the cause of none of the evils that have befallen you.

40.3. "If there is in you any part left of a gentle and humane soul, pity, Veturia, woman that you are, women who once shared sacred and holy rites with you; and, taking with you Volumnia the good woman and her children, and us your suppliants bringing these infants, and being yourself noble, go to your son and persuade and entreat and cease not begging, asking one favour in return for many—that he make a treaty with his own fellow citizens and come down into the country which begs to recover him; for you will persuade, know it well, and a pious man will not look on while you lie cast at his feet.

40.4. "And having brought your son down into the city, you yourself will have immortal renown, as is fitting for one who has rescued her country from so great a danger and fear; and to us you will be the cause of some honour among our husbands, in that we ourselves dissolved the war which they could not break up; and we shall truly appear descendants of those women who, by their own embassy, dissolved the war that arose between Romulus and the Sabines and, bringing together the leaders and the nations, made the city great from small.

40.5. "A fine venture, Veturia, to recover your son, to free your country, to save your fellow citizens, to leave to those who come after immortal renown of valour. Give us willingly and eagerly the favour, and make haste, Veturia; for the danger, being sharp, admits neither deliberation nor time."

41.1. She, having said this and shed many tears, fell silent; and the other women too lamenting and making many entreaties, after pausing a little, Veturia, weeping, said: "To a weak and slender hope you have fled, Valeria—the help from us wretched women, in whom goodwill toward our country is present, and the wish that our fellow citizens, such as they are, be saved, but strength and

41.2. power are not. For Marcius is alienated from us, Valeria, ever since the people drove him out, and he has come to hate his whole house along with the city; and I shall tell you a proof of his estrangement. When he was about to depart from the country, having neither sent for us nor communicated anything with us, and we, learning of his departure from others, came running to the gates, falling at his feet, the wretched women that we are, and lamenting,

41.3. 'Marcius is gone from you, mother,' he said, 'and you too, Volumnia, best of women, driven out by his fellow citizens because he was noble and a lover of his country and endured many contests for it. But, as befits good women, so bear your misfortunes, doing nothing unseemly or ignoble; and, having these children as consolations of my desolation, rear them worthily of yourselves and of the race; to whom may the gods grant, when they come to manhood, a fortune better than their father's, but valour not worse; and fare you well. For I depart now, leaving the city which no longer has room for good men. And you, household gods and ancestral hearth and divinities who hold this place, fare you well.'

41.4. "When he had said this, we wretched women, crying out the cries the calamity demanded and beating our breasts, threw ourselves about him to take our last embraces; and of these children I led the elder, while his mother held the younger on her arm. But he, turning away and thrusting us off, said: 'Neither shall Marcius any longer be your son, mother, from this time, but your country has taken from you the nurse of your old age; nor your husband, Volumnia, from this day—but may you be fortunate, taking another husband happier than I; nor your father, dearest children, but orphaned and desolate beside

41.5. these women shall you be reared, until you come to manhood.' Having said this and arranged nothing else nor charged anything nor told whither he was going, he departed from the house alone, women—without slave, without resource, the wretched man not even bringing his daily food from his own goods. And this is now the fourth year since he fled the country, in which he has reckoned us all alien to himself, neither writing anything nor sending message, nor

41.6. wishing to know what concerns us. Toward such a soul, then, so hard and unwounded, Valeria, what strength will our entreaties have—to whom he gave no share of embraces nor of kisses nor of any other kindness when he went the last road from the house?"

42.1. ... But if you too need this, women, and altogether wish to see us behave unseemly, suppose that I and Volumnia have come to him, leading the children: what words shall I, his mother, first say to him, and what entreaty shall I make of my son? Tell me and teach me. To spare his fellow citizens, who have driven him from his country, though he had done no wrong? To become merciful and compassionate toward the commoners, from whom he got neither mercy nor compassion? Or, then, to abandon and betray those who received his exile, who, having suffered many dreadful things from him before, showed toward him not the hatred of enemies, but the goodwill of friends and kinsmen?

42.2. "With what soul shall I think fit to ask my son to love what destroyed him, and to wrong what saved him? These are not the words of a sound mother to her son, nor of a wife who reckons what she ought to her husband. Nor do you, women, force us to ask of him what is neither just toward men nor holy toward gods, but let us pitiable women, as we have fallen by fortune, lie low, behaving no further unseemly."

43.1. When she had ceased, so great a lamentation arose from the women present, and so great a wailing seized the house, that the cry was heard over a great part of the city, and the streets near the house became full of crowd.

43.2. Then Valeria again stretched out other long and compassionate entreaties, and the other women, kin by friendship or relationship to each of the two women; and they remained, beseeching and clasping her knees, so that, not knowing what to do at their lamentations and many entreaties, Veturia gave way and promised to fulfil the embassy on behalf of the country, taking with her the wife of Marcius and the children and as many of the other citizen women as wished.

43.3. They, overjoyed and calling upon the gods to join in their hope, departed from the house and reported what had happened to the consuls; and they, praising their eagerness, summoned the senate and inquired, opinion by opinion, about the departure of the women, whether it should be conceded to them. Many speeches, then, were made by many, and they continued till evening deliberating what should be done.

43.4. For some thought they ought not to permit them to go to the enemy's camp, holding it neither safe nor seemly that the women, going out, should put themselves into the power of the man's enemies—lest, contrary to all expectation, supposing that he would not even endure to reverence his mother, they should be slain by him; for thus the city would be deprived of the noblest persons and at the same time despaired-of, and the men too dispirited at the loss of those dearest;

43.5. For these declared it no small risk to the city to allow women, along with children, to go to an enemy camp; for if, disregarding the customary holy usages about embassies and supplications, the enemy should resolve no longer to send the women back, the city would be taken without a battle; and they thought fit to allow only the women related to Marcius to go, along with his children. Others thought they ought not to permit even these to go out, but to keep these too carefully under watch, reckoning that they held hostages from the enemy, a pledge that the city would suffer nothing irreparable from them. But others advised conceding the departure to all the women who wished, that the women related to Marcius might make their entreaty for the country with greater dignity; and that no harm would befall them they declared would be guaranteed, first by the gods, to whom, consecrated, they would make their supplications; then by the man himself, to whom they were to go,

43.6. who had kept his life pure and undefiled of every unjust and impious deed. The opinion conceding the departure to the women prevailed nonetheless, holding the greatest encomium for both: of the senate, for its prudence, because it foresaw the best and what would come about, in nothing disturbed by a danger so great; and of Marcius, for his piety, because, being an enemy, he was trusted to commit no impiety against the weakest part of the city, having become master of it.

43.7. When the preliminary decree had been written, the consuls, coming forth into the marketplace and convening an assembly, it being now dark, made plain what the council had resolved, and proclaimed that all should come at dawn to the gates to escort the women going out; and they said they themselves would take care of the pressing matters.

44.1. When it was now about dawn, the women, leading their children, came with torches to the house, and, taking up Veturia, led her forth to the gates; and the consuls, having prepared mule-teams and wagons and as many other conveyances as possible, escorted them, seated, for a long way. There accompanied them many of the senate and the other citizens, with prayers and praises and entreaties, making their departure more conspicuous.

44.2. When the women, still approaching from afar, became visible to those in the camp, Marcius sent some of the horsemen, ordering them to learn who the crowd was approaching from the city and on what they came. Learning from them that the Roman women were coming, leading children, and that his mother and wife and children led them, first he marvelled at the boldness of the women, that they had had the mind to come into an enemy camp without the guard of men, bringing children—neither taking forethought, as befits free and temperate women, of the modesty that should keep them from being seen among unaccustomed men, nor taking fear of the dangers they were about to hazard, if it should seem some gain and advantage to men who chose

44.3. the expedient before the just to make away with them. When they were near, he resolved to go forward from the camp to meet his mother with a few, ordering his attendants to lay down the axes which it was the custom to carry before the generals, and to lower the fasces when he should be near his mother.

44.4. This it is the custom for the Romans to do when those holding the lesser offices meet the greater offices, as is done even to our time. Keeping this custom then, Marcius, as one about to come into the presence of a greater authority, laid aside all the insignia of his own office. So great was the reverence about him and the forethought of piety toward his kin.

45.1. When they were near one another, first his mother came forward to greet him, clad in mourning rags and her eyes wasted with tears, very pitiable. Seeing her, Marcius—hitherto unmelting and hard, such as to withstand all that is grievous—was no longer able to keep any of his resolutions, but was carried away by his feelings to what is human, and, embracing her, greeted her and called her by the sweetest names, and for a long while, weeping and caressing, held her up as she swooned and sank to the ground. When he had had enough of his mother's greetings, he greeted his wife as she came forward along with the children, and said:

45.2. "You have done the deed of a good wife, Volumnia, in remaining with my mother and not abandoning her solitude; to me you have given the most pleasant of all gifts." After this, drawing each of the children to him and rendering the fitting greetings, he turned again to his mother and bade her say, needing what, she was present. And she said she would speak in the hearing of all—for she would ask nothing impious—and she begged him to sit in the place where, sitting, he was accustomed

45.3. to judge the crowds. And Marcius gladly received what was said, as one who would use much abundance of justice toward her plea and would make his answer to the crowds in a fitting place. Coming to the general's tribunal, first he ordered his attendants to take down the chair from it and set it on the ground, not thinking he ought to have a place higher than his mother nor to use any authority against her; then, setting beside him the most distinguished of the commanders and centurions, and allowing whoever wished of the others to be present, he bade his mother speak.

46.1. And Veturia, setting beside her the wife of Marcius and the children and the most distinguished of the women in Rome, first wept, looking to the ground for a long while, and moved much pity in those present. Then, recovering herself, she said:

46.2. "The women, Marcius my child, reflecting on the outrages and the other calamities that will befall them if our city comes under the enemy, having despaired of all other help—since to their husbands, who thought fit to dissolve the war, you gave arrogant and harsh answers—leading their children and clad in these mourning rags, have fled for refuge to me, your mother, and to Volumnia, your wife, begging us not to look on while they suffer at your hands the greatest of human evils—they who have wronged us in nothing, great or small, but, when we prospered, showed us much goodwill still, and, when we stumbled, compassion.

46.3. "For we can bear them witness that, from the time you departed from your country, and we were left desolate and become as nothing, they continually came to us and consoled our misfortunes and grieved with us. Taking remembrance of this, I and your wife, who keeps house with me, did not turn away their supplications, but endured to come to you, as they asked us, and to make our entreaties on behalf of the country."

47.1. While she was still speaking, Marcius, taking her up, said: "You have come asking impossible things, mother, thinking fit that I betray to those who cast me out the men who received me, and to those who took from me all my own the men who bestowed on me the greatest of human goods—to whom, taking over this command, I gave gods and divinities as sureties that I would neither betray their commonwealth nor end the war beforehand, unless it should seem good to all the Volscians.

47.2. "Revering, then, the gods by whom I swore, and reverencing the men to whom I gave my pledges, I shall war on the Romans to the end. But if they give back to the Volscians the land which they hold of theirs by force, and make them friends, sharing with them all the equal rights as with the Latins, I will dissolve the war with them; but otherwise not.

47.3. "You, then, women, depart and tell your husbands these things, and persuade them not to cling unjustly to what is another's, but to be content if anyone allows them to keep their own; and not, because they hold the Volscians' lands having taken them in war, to wait until again they are deprived of them by war at these men's hands. For it will not suffice the conquerors to recover only their own, but they will think fit to hold the property of the conquered too. But if, clinging to what in no way belongs to them, they endure to suffer anything whatsoever, keeping their arrogance, you will blame those men for the evils that overtake you—not Marcius nor the Volscians nor any other of men.

47.4. "But of you, mother, in turn, being your son, I beg that you do not summon me to impious and unjust deeds, nor, ranged with my bitterest enemies and yours, reckon as foes those nearest to me; but, being with me, as is just, dwell in the country which I inhabit, and the house which I have got, and reap my honours, and enjoy my glory, reckoning the same men friends and enemies that I do; and lay aside now the mourning which, wretched woman, you have endured for my exile, and cease punishing me by this garb.

47.5. "For to me, mother, the other goods have come from gods and men greater than my hopes and beyond my prayers; but the care about you, to whom I did not render the thanks of nourishing your old age, frozen in my heart, made my life bitter and unprofitable of all goods. If you will range yourself with me and consent to share in all that is mine, I shall need no further of human goods."

48.1. When he had ceased, Veturia, after pausing a little while, until the praise of those standing round—much and long-continued—had stopped, said to him: "But I, Marcius my child, do not think fit that you become a traitor to the Volscians, who, having received you in your exile, both honoured you with the rest and entrusted you with their own command, nor that, against the agreements and oaths you gave them when you took over the forces, you dissolve the enmity privately without common counsel; nor suppose that your own mother is so filled with such god-stricken folly as to think her beloved and only son should be summoned to shameful and

48.2. impious deeds. But with common counsel I think fit that you withdraw from the war, having persuaded the Volscians to be moderate about the reconciliation and to make the peace fair and fitting for both nations. And this would come about, if you should now set the army in motion and lead it off, making a year's truce, and in the meantime, sending and receiving envoys, should work true friendship and

48.3. sure reconciliation. And know well: the Romans, in all that neither the impossible nor any other disgrace befalling them will hinder, will endure to do everything, persuaded by reason and exhortation; but compelled, as you now think fit, they would never grant you anything, great or small—as you may learn both from many other instances and most recently from what they conceded to the Latins when they withdrew from arms; but the Volscians have much arrogance, which befalls those who have greatly prospered.

48.4. "But if you teach them that all peace is better than all war, and that an agreement of friends made willingly is more sure than what is conceded under necessity, and that it is the part of temperate men, when they seem to prosper, to husband their fortunes, and, when they come into low and mean estate, to endure nothing ignoble—and the other alluring lessons of speech found for gentleness and fairness, which you who manage civic affairs know best—know that they will of their own accord come down from the boasting they are now in and will give you the power of doing whatever you suppose will profit them.

48.5. "But if they oppose you and do not receive your words, lifted up by the fortunes that have come to them through you and your leadership, as though these would last forever, withdraw openly from the command, and become neither a traitor to those who trusted you nor an enemy to those nearest to you; for each is impious. These things I have come begging of you to do for me, Marcius my child—neither impossible, as you say, nor, all of them, free of every unjust and impious complicity."

49.1. "Come, but you fear you will get a shameful reputation, if you do what I urge, as one who will be convicted of ingratitude toward his benefactors—who, having received you, an enemy, gave you a share of all the goods that belong to natural-born citizens; for these are the things you always magnify in your speeches.

49.2. "Have you not, then, rendered them many fine returns, and surpassed by some boundless greatness and multitude of favours the benefits from them? Whom, thinking it a thing to be content with and the greatest of all goods if they dwell in free countries, you have not only made securely masters of themselves, but have already brought to consider whether it is better for them to overthrow the empire of the Romans, or to share in it

49.3. on equal terms, having established a common polity. For I forbear to say with how many spoils from the war you have adorned their cities, and how great wealth you have bestowed on those who campaigned with you. Do you think, then, that men who have become so great through you and have set foot on so great prosperity will be content with the goods they have, but will not be angry at you and indignant, if you do not pour out upon their hands the very blood of your country? For my part I think not.

49.4. "One argument still remains to me, strong if you judge it by reckoning, weak if in anger—the one about the country unjustly hated by you. For it was not while sound and governed by the ancestral order that it brought out the unjust judgment against you, but while sick and tossed in much storm; nor did all of it hold the same opinion then, but the worse part in it, using wicked leaders.

49.5. "But even if it had seemed good not to the worst alone, but to all the rest too, and even if you were driven out by them as one not governing for the best, not even so did it befit you to bear rancour against your own country. For to many others, too, of those governing from the best motive, the like has befallen to suffer; and rare indeed are those against whose seeming valour unjust

49.6. envy from their fellow citizens has not blown. But humanely, Marcius, and moderately do all noble men bear their misfortunes, and they take other cities, in which, dwelling, they grieve their countries in nothing—as Tarquinius surnamed Collatinus did; one example, and a domestic one, suffices—who, having helped free the citizens from the tyrants, then, being slandered to them as helping again to bring back the tyrants, and on this account driven out himself from his country, did not bear rancour against those who cast him out, nor march against the city bringing the tyrants, nor make his deeds proofs of the slanders, but, going off to our mother city Lavinium, lived there all the rest of his time, well-disposed toward his country and a friend.

50.1. "But let it be so, nevertheless, and let it be granted to those who have suffered dreadful things not to distinguish whether the thing that did them harm was friendly or alien, but to hold equal anger toward all; have you not, then, exacted sufficient penalties from those who insulted you, having made their best land a pasture for sheep, and sacked their allied cities, which it had won with many toils and held, and now this third year shut them up in much want of necessaries? Nay, you carry your raging and

50.2. maddened anger even to the very edge of enslaving and razing their city; and you did not turn even toward the envoys sent by the senate, who came bringing you remission of the charges and a return to your home, good and friendly men; nor toward the priests, whom last the city sent, holding the sacred fillets of the gods and offering them, aged men—but these too you drove away, giving arrogant and despotic answers as to men conquered.

50.3. "For my part I know not how I should praise these hard and overbearing claims that have overstepped mortal nature, seeing that there have been found for all men refuges and means of begging off for the wrongs they do one another—suppliant boughs and prayers and the fleeing of the wrongdoer, humbled, to those wronged—the gods having established these customs for us; by which all anger is withered, and instead of hating the enemy one pities him; while those who use arrogance and outrage the prayers of suppliants are all visited with the indignation of the gods and end in misfortunes, unhappy.

50.4. "For the gods themselves first, who established these things and handed them to us, are forgiving of human errors and easily reconciled, and many already who erred greatly against them have appeased their wrath by prayers and sacrifices—unless you, Marcius, think fit that the angers of the gods be mortal, but those of men immortal. You will do, then, what is just and befitting both yourself and your country, if you remit the charges, since it repents and is reconciled and gives you back now all that it took before.

51.1. "But if indeed you are irreconcilable toward her, give me this honour and favour, my child, from whom you have not the things of least worth, nor those which another too might lay claim to, but the greatest and most honoured, by which you possess all the rest—your body and your soul. For these are loans of mine, and no one will take them from me, neither place nor occasion; nor have the benefits and favours of the Volscians and of all the rest of men together such strength, even were they heaven-high, as to wipe out and overpass the rights of nature; but mine you will be all the time, and to me first of all you will owe the thanks of your life, and what I need you will perform without pretext.

51.2. "For this the law of nature has appointed as just for all who share in perception and reason, trusting in which, Marcius my child, I too beg you not to bring war upon your country, and I set myself in your way as you force it. Either, then, having sacrificed first to the Furies me, your opposing mother, by your own hand, then set hand to the war against your country, or, revering the curse of matricide, yield to your own

51.3. mother and give the favour willingly, my child. This law, then, which no time will ever abolish, having as avenger and ally, I do not think fit, Marcius, alone to be without share, from you, of the honours which it gives me; but as for reminders of kind deeds, that I may let go the law, consider again how many and great: I, who, when you were left an orphan by your father, took you, an infant, and remained for your sake a widow, and drained out the toils of rearing a child, having become to you not only mother, but father and nurse and sister and all that is dearest.

51.4. "And when you came to manhood, though it was then in my power to be rid of cares, marrying another and rearing other children and leaving myself many hopes of being nourished in old age, I would not, but remained at the same hearth and was content with the same life, placing in you alone all my pleasures and benefits—of which you cheated me, partly unwillingly, partly willingly, and made me the most unfortunate of all mothers. For what time, since I brought you to manhood, have I passed without grief or fear, or when did I have a cheerful soul over you, seeing you set out on wars after wars and undertake battles after battles and receive wounds upon wounds?

52.1. "But since you entered public life and managed affairs, did I, your mother, reap any pleasure through you? Then most of all I was unfortunate, seeing you lying in the midst of civic strife. For in the very policies in which you seemed to flourish, and in which you breathed much, opposing the commoners on behalf of the aristocracy, these were full of fear for me, reflecting on human life, how it is poised on a small balance, and having learned from many reports and sufferings that against distinguished men some divine retribution sets itself or some human envy makes war; and I was a true prophet, as I would I never had been, of what would come about. At all events civic envy, rushing upon you in force, overcame you and snatched you from your country; and my life after this—if indeed it must be called a life—since you left me desolate over these children and departed, has been spent in this squalor and in these mourning rags.

52.2. "In return for all which I ask you this favour, never having been burdensome to you nor about to be for the time to come, while I live—to be reconciled at last with your own fellow citizens and to cease keeping unappeasable wrath against your country; asking a common good for us both, and not my own alone.

52.3. "For to you, if you are persuaded and work nothing irreparable, it will fall to have a soul clean and undefiled from all wrath and divine disturbance; and to me the honour from the citizens, men and women, attending my life while I live, will make it happy, and, rendered after my death, as is likely, will bring immortal renown.

52.4. "And if indeed any place will receive human souls released from the body, it is not the subterranean and lightless one that will receive mine, in which they say the wretched dwell, nor the so-called plain of Lethe, but the high and pure ether, in which it is said those sprung from gods dwell, having a happy and blessed life; to whom, proclaiming your piety and the favours with which you adorned me, I shall ever ask of the gods some fair returns for you.

53.1. "But if you insult your own mother and dismiss her dishonoured, what it will befall you yourself to suffer for this, I cannot say, but I prophesy nothing fortunate. But that, even if you prosper in all else—for let it be so—the grief that will attend you on my account and on account of my misfortunes, and never let your soul rest, will make your life unprofitable of all goods, I well know.

53.2. "For Veturia will not endure, insulted with so dreadful and irreparable an insult before so many witnesses, to live the least time, but in the very eyes of all of you, friends and enemies alike, I will make away with myself, leaving behind me, in place of myself, a heavy curse and dreadful Furies to avenge me upon you.

53.3. "But may none of these things be needed, O gods who guard the empire of the Romans, but may you grant Marcius pious and fair counsels; and as just now, when I approached, he laid aside the axes and lowered the fasces and set the chair down from the tribunal on the ground, and of all the other things with which it is lawful for autocratic offices to be adorned, some he lessened, some he put wholly away, wishing to make plain to all that it befitted him to rule the rest but to be ruled by his mother—so now too make me honoured and admired, and, granting the common country, render me, in place of the most ill-fortuned, the most fortunate of all women.

53.4. "And if it is holy and lawful for a mother to roll before her son's knees, this too and every other humble posture and service I will endure for the sake of the country's safety."

54.1. Having said this, she flung herself on the ground and, clasping with both hands the feet of Marcius, kissed them. When she fell, the women all cried out together a shrill and long wail, and the Volscians present in the council could not endure the strangeness of the sight, but turned away. Marcius himself, leaping up from the chair and falling upon his mother, raises her from the ground, scarcely breathing, and, embracing her and shedding many tears, said: "You conquer, mother, a victory neither fortunate for yourself nor for me; for you have saved your country, but me, your pious and loving son, you have destroyed."

54.2. Having said this, he went off to his tent, ordering his mother and wife and children to follow, where he spent the rest of the day with them, considering what must be done. And what they resolved was this: that about his return neither the senate should bring any decision before the people, nor the people ratify it, until the matters of friendship and the dissolution of the war should be settled for the Volscians; that he himself, setting the army in motion, should lead it off as through a friendly land; and that, having rendered account of his command and displayed his benefits, he should ask those who had entrusted him with the army, most of all to receive the enemy in friendship and make just agreements, entrusting to him the fairness and the not falling short in the terms.

54.3. But if, filled with arrogance at their successes, they should not accept the reconciliation, that he should resign the command to them. For either they would not endure to choose any other general, for want of a good leader, or, having risked entrusting the forces to anyone whatever, they would be taught with great harm the choice of the advantageous. These things deliberated by them, and judged just and holy, and likely to obtain a good name—for which the man was most eager—with all, were of this sort.

54.4. But a kind of suspicion troubled him, holding fear, lest at some time the senseless crowd, being already in hope of having conquered their adversary, should take the failure in unmixed anger, and then, as a traitor, not even giving him a hearing, should forestall him and destroy him by force of hands. It seemed best to them, then, to endure this and whatever other more dreadful danger there might be, keeping their faith with valour. When it was now about sunset, having embraced one another, they went out from the tent; then

54.5. the women departed to the city, while Marcius, in an assembly rendering to those present the causes for which he was about to dissolve the war, and much begging the soldiers to forgive him and, when they came home, remembering the good they had suffered, to become his fellow-combatants in his suffering nothing irreparable from the rest, and discoursing many other alluring things, ordered them to make ready as men who would break camp the following night.

55.1. The Romans, when they learned that their danger was dissolved—for rumour, outrunning the women's coming, had got there first—with much joy, leaving the city, ran out and met the women with greetings and paeans and all that men do and say out of joy when they pass from great dangers to unhoped-for good fortune, some in a body,

55.2. others each displaying it singly. That night, then, they spent in feastings and rejoicings; and on the following day the senate, convened by the consuls, declared their opinion about Marcius—to put off to other more fitting occasions the honours that should be given him; but to the women they voted that praise be rendered for their eagerness, by an ancient public record bearing eternal memory from those who should come after, and a reward, whatever it might be most pleasant and honoured for them to receive; and the people ratified this.

55.3. The women, having deliberated, resolved to ask for no envied gift, but to think fit that the senate permit them to found a temple to the Fortune of Women, in the place where they made their entreaties about the city, and to perform sacrifices to it each year, gathering on the day on which they dissolved the war. The senate and the people, however, voted from the common funds that a precinct be bought and consecrated to the goddess, and in it a temple and altar be built, as the keepers of the sacred records should direct, and that public sacrifices be offered, with a woman beginning the rites whom they themselves should appoint as ministrant of the rites.

55.4. The senate having voted these things, there was appointed priestess by the women, then for the first time, Valeria, who had suggested to them the opinion about the embassy and persuaded the mother of Marcius to join in the venture. And the women offered the first sacrifice on behalf of the people, Valeria beginning the rites at the altar built in the precinct, before the temple and the image were set up, in the month of December of the following year, on the new moon—which the Greeks call noumenia, the Romans the Kalends; for this was the day on which they dissolved the war. And a year later, after the first sacrifice, the temple built from the public funds was completed and consecrated about the seventh of the month Quintilis according to the moon;

55.5. this is, by the Roman reckoning, the day before the Nones of Quintilis. He who consecrated it was Proclus Verginius, one of the consuls.

56.1. It would befit the form of history, and for the correction of those who think that the gods neither rejoice at the honours from men nor are indignant at impious and unjust deeds, to set forth the epiphany of the goddess that occurred at that time—not once, but twice, as the writings of the priests record—that for the more scrupulous about preserving the opinions about the divinity which they received from their forefathers, such a choice may remain without repentance and sure, but for those who disregard the ancestral customs and make the divinity master of none of human reckonings, this opinion may best be put away, or, if they are incurable, become still more hateful to them and more ill-fortuned.

56.2. It is recorded, then, that, the senate having voted that all the expenses for the temple and the image be supplied from the public funds, and the women having made another statue from the money they themselves contributed, and both being dedicated together on the first day of the consecration, one of the images, which the women had made, spoke, with many present, in the Latin tongue a clear and audible voice; of which voice the meaning, interpreted into the Greek dialect, was this: "By a holy

56.3. law of the city, wedded women, you have given me." As is wont to happen about paradoxical voices and sights, much disbelief fell upon those present, lest perhaps it was not the image that spoke, but some human voice—especially those who happened at the time to have their minds on something else, and had not seen the thing that spoke, whatever it was; these had this disbelief toward those who had seen it. Then again, the temple being full and the greatest silence having come about by divine influence, the same image spoke in a louder voice the same words, so that there was no longer any doubt. The senate, when

56.4. it learned this, voted other sacrifices and worships, whatever the interpreters of the sacred rites should hand down to be performed each year. And the women established it as a custom, using the opinion of the priestess, that on this image neither garlands be set nor hands be laid by women who had made trial of a second marriage, but that all the honour and service of it be rendered to the newly wed. But about these things it was neither well to pass over the native history, nor to make more words about it. I return to where I digressed into this account.

57.1. After the women's departure from the camp, Marcius, about dawn, setting the army in motion, led it off as through a friendly land; and when he was in the Volscian country, having given the soldiers all that he had taken from the spoils, and reserving nothing whatever for himself, he dismissed them to their homes. The army that had shared his contests, having come home heavy with wealth, received the respite from war not unpleasantly and held the man in goodwill, and thought him worthy of pardon if he had not put an end to the war, moved

57.2. by a mother's tears and entreaties. But the youth that had remained in the cities, envying those who had been in the camp their many spoils, and having failed of what they hoped—if the spirit of the Romans should be brought down by the capture of the city—grew harsh toward the leader and were very bitter; and at last, when they got as leaders of their hatred the most powerful men in the nation, they grew savage and did an impious deed.

57.3. It was Tullus Attius who whetted their angers, having about him a club from every city, no small one. To him it had been resolved still earlier, being unable to contain his envy, that, if Marcius should prosper and, having destroyed the city of the Romans, come to the Volscians, to make away with him secretly and by guile; but if, having failed of the attempt, he should return without accomplishing the work, to kill him as a traitor, handing him over to the club about him—

57.4. which he was now doing; and, having gathered no small band, he accused the man, conjecturing false things from true and likening what would not come about to what had come about; and he ordered him, having laid down the command, to render account of his generalship. He was the commander of the army remaining in the cities, as I have said before, master both of convening an assembly and of summoning whomever he wished to trial.

58.1. Marcius thought fit to oppose neither of these things, but disputed about their order, thinking he ought to render account first of what had been done by him in the war, then, if it should seem good to all the Volscians, to lay down the command. And of these he thought not one city ought to be master, in which the greater part had been corrupted by Tullus, but the whole nation, gathered into the lawful assembly, to which it was their custom, when they were about to deliberate about the greatest matters, to send delegates from every city.

58.2. Tullus opposed these things, knowing well that the man, clever at speaking and rendering account of many fine deeds while remaining in his commanding dignity, would persuade the multitude, and would so far fall short of undergoing the punishment of traitors that he would be still more brilliant and more honoured by them, and would become master of dissolving the war however he wished, all consenting.

58.3. And for a long while there was much contest, speeches and counter-conflicts going on against one another each day in the assemblies and in the marketplace; for in deed it was not possible for either to force the other, each being secured by the dignity of an equal office.

58.4. When no end of the rivalry came about, Tullus, proclaiming a day on which he ordered Marcius to come and lay down his command and undergo trial for treason, and having stirred up the boldest men by hope of benefits to be the authors of an impious deed, came to the appointed assembly and, going up to the tribunal, used much accusation of Marcius, and exhorted the people, if he should not be willing to lay down his command of his own accord, to stop him with all their power.

59.1. When the man went up to make his defence, much shout hindering his words arose from the club about Tullus; and after this, crying "Strike" and "Pelt," the boldest stand round him and, dashing him with stones, kill him. As he lay cast on the ground in the marketplace, both those present at the calamity and those who came afterward, when he was already a corpse, bewailed the man's fortune, as having received no fair returns from them, recounting all the good he had done the commonwealth; and they longed to take those who had done the murder, as men who had begun a lawless deed unprofitable to the cities, to kill anyone without trial by force of hands,

59.2. and that a leader. Most of all were indignant those who had been present at his campaigns; and, since they had not been able while he lived to hinder his fate, they resolved to render the honours owed after his death, bringing into the marketplace whatever good men needed for fitting honour.

59.3. When all was ready, having laid him on a bier furnished with most splendid adornment, wearing the autocratic robe, and ordered to be carried before his couch the spoils and prizes and crowns and memorials of the cities he had taken, the most brilliant of the young men in the deeds of war raised the bier; and carrying it to the suburb that was most conspicuous, they set it on the prepared pyre, the whole city escorting the body with wailing and

59.4. tears. Then, slaughtering for him many cattle and making first-offerings of all the other things which men offer to kings or leaders of armies on pyres, those who most cherished the man remained until the flame died down, and then, gathering the remains, buried them in the same place, having made a notable monument by a high mound wrought with many hands.

60.1. Marcius, then, met with such an end—a man both best of those of his age in war, and master of all the pleasures that rule the young, and rendering justice not from the necessity of law more, through fear of punishments, unwillingly, but willingly and being well-natured toward it, and not even reckoning the doing of no wrong in the lot of virtue, eager not only himself to be pure from all vice, but thinking fit to compel the others too;

60.2. magnanimous and bountiful and most ready to set right whatever any of his friends needed, whenever he learned it, and at conducting civic affairs inferior to none of the aristocrats; and, had not the strife of the city stood in the way of his policies, the city of the Romans would have got the greatest increase toward empire from his policies. But it was not possible for all the virtues to be in a human nature at once, nor will any man be born from mortal and perishable seeds good in all things.

61.1. On him, then, the divinity, having bestowed these virtues, fastened other unfortunate banes and ruins. For the gentle and cheerful was not in his ways, nor the attentive toward those near in greetings and addresses, nor the conciliatory and moderate, whenever he was angry at anyone, nor the grace that adorns all human things; but he was

61.2. ever bitter and harsh. These things, then, harmed him in many ways, and most of all the unmixed and unpersuadable severity about justice and the keeping of the laws, which gave nothing to fairness; and it seems to be true what is said by the ancient philosophers, that the virtues of character are means, not extremes—and most of all justice. For not only when it falls short of the mean is it by nature harmful, but also when it exceeds; and it is not advantageous to its possessors, but is sometimes the cause of great calamities, ending in pitiable deaths and irreparable

61.3. maimings. For Marcius it was nothing else that drove him from his country and made the other goods unprofitable to him than the precise and extreme justice. For, when he ought to have yielded moderate things to the commoners and granted something to their desires and won the first place among them, he would not, but, opposing all things not just, he raised hatred and was driven out by them; and when, as soon as he had dissolved the war, it was in his power to depart from the Volscian command and remove his dwelling somewhere else, until his return should be given him by his country, and not offer himself a mark for the plots of enemies and the follies of crowds, he did not think fit, but, thinking he ought to render his person answerable to those who had entrusted him with the command, and, having given account of what he did in his leadership, to undergo, if he should appear to wrong them in anything, the lawful penalty—he received no fair wages of his extreme justice.

62.1. If, then, along with the dissolution of bodies the soul too, whatever that is, is dissolved with them, and there is no longer anything anywhere, I know not how I should reckon blessed those who reaped no good from their valour, but perished for this very thing. But if our souls are imperishable for all time, as some think, or remain a while after their release from the bodies—the longest those of good men, the shortest those of the bad—a sufficient honour would seem to be, for those who practise virtue but are opposed by fortune, the praise from the living and the memory remaining for the longest time;

62.2. which befell that man too. For not only did the Volscians mourn his death and hold him in honour as one of the best, but the Romans too, when the calamity was known, reckoning it a great misfortune of the city, made mourning privately and publicly; and their women, what is lawful for them to do at their own and necessary funerals, laying aside gold and purple and all the other adornment and using black raiment, mourned for him the customary year's time.

62.3. And though about five hundred years have already passed since the calamity to this time, the man's memory has not become extinct, but is sung and celebrated by all as a pious and just man. The danger, then, that gripped the Romans from the campaign of the Volscians and Aequians which took Marcius as leader—the greatest of those before it, and falling little short of destroying the whole city from its foundations—met with such an end.

63.1. A few days later the Romans, going out into the open with a large army, both consuls leading, and advancing as far as the borders of their territory, encamped on two hills, each of the consuls setting his own camp on the strongest places. Yet they did nothing, great or small, but returned without accomplishment, although the enemy gave them fair occasions to do some noble deed.

63.2. For still earlier than these the Volscians and Aequians had led an army against the Romans' land, having resolved not to let slip the occasion, but, while their adversaries still seemed dismayed, to advance against them, as men who would surrender willingly through fear. But, falling into strife over the command, they took up arms against one another and, clashing, fought, neither in order nor by command, but pell-mell and confusedly, so that there was much slaughter on both sides; and had not the sun set first, all their forces would have been destroyed. The night dissolving the quarrel, yielding unwillingly, they parted from one another and withdrew to their own camps; and at daybreak, setting their forces in motion, each departed to

63.3. his own. The consuls, hearing from deserters and prisoners who had run away during the very deed what frenzy and god-stricken madness had gripped the enemy, neither fell upon the occasion given them according to their prayer, being distant not more than thirty stades, nor pursued them as they departed—when, fresh themselves and following in order, they would easily have destroyed utterly men weary and wounded and few out of many and marching in disorder.

63.4. Breaking up their own camps too, they departed to the city—whether content with the good given them by fortune, or not trusting their own untrained army, or making much of not losing even a few of their own. Coming to the city, they were in much disgrace, bearing a reputation for cowardice over the affair; and, making no further expedition, they handed over the office to the consuls after them.

64.1. In the following year Gaius Aquillius and Titus Siccius, men experienced in wars, had taken up the consulship. The senate, the consuls proposing a speech about the war, first voted to send an embassy to the Hernicans to ask, as from friends and allies, lawful justice; for the city had been wronged by them during the campaign of the Volscians and Aequians by robberies and incursions of the land bordering on them; and, until they should receive their answers, that the consuls enrol as large an army as they could and summon the allies by sending embassies, and prepare grain and arms and money and the other things the war needed, with many hands and quickly.

64.2. When the envoys, returning, reported the answers they had received from the Hernicans—that they said there were no treaties at all made in common between them and the Romans, and that the agreements with King Tarquinius they alleged to have been dissolved both by his being deprived of power and by his dying in a foreign land; and if there were any plunderings and incursions of the country by robber-bands, they said these came about not by common counsel, but were the wrongs of private men prosecuting their own quarrels, and that they could not even hand over those who had done these things for trial, saying that they themselves had suffered other such things and countering with charges,

64.3. and that they gladly accepted the war—the senate, learning this, voted to divide the army enrolled from the younger men into three; of these one Gaius Aquillius the consul should lead to come to grips with the Hernican army (for they too were now in arms); the second Titus Siccius, the other of the consuls, should lead against the Volscians; and the remaining third part Spurius Larcius, who had been appointed prefect by the consuls, should take to guard the country nearest the city; and those above the military levy, as many as still had strength to bear arms, posted under standards, should guard the citadels of the city and the walls, lest there be some sudden attack of enemies, the youth having marched out in a body; and that this force should be led by Aulus Sempronius Atratinus, a man of consular rank. And these things came about before long.

65.1. Aquillius, then, one of the consuls, finding the Hernican army waiting in the territory of Praeneste, encamped opposite as near as he could, distant from Rome a little more than two hundred stades; and on the third day from his encamping, the Hernicans coming forth from their camp into the plain in rank and raising the signals of battle, he too led out the force in order and by divisions.

65.2. When they came near one another, they ran together with a war-cry, first the light-armed, fighting with casts of javelins and arrows and stones from the sling, and they dealt one another many wounds; then the cavalry clash with the cavalry, charging by squadrons, and the foot with the foot, fighting by companies. There was a fine contest, both sides fighting with spirit, and for a long while neither yielded to the other the ground on which they were posted. Then the Roman phalanx began to flag, as being then for the first time, after a long interval, forced to engage in war.

65.3. Perceiving this, Aquillius ordered the still-fresh men, kept in reserve for this very purpose, to come up under the flagging parts of the phalanx, and the wounded and the worn out to withdraw behind the phalanx. The Hernicans, when they saw their companies in motion, supposed the Romans were beginning to flee, and, exhorting one another, fall with dense companies upon the moving parts of the enemy; and the fresh Romans receive them as they came on; and again from the start there was a fierce battle, both sides fighting with spirit; for the companies of the Hernicans too were filled up with fresh men sent in by their commanders to the flagging parts.

65.4. When it was now toward late evening, the consul, having exhorted the cavalry now indeed to prove themselves brave men, charges the enemy on the right wing, himself leading the squadron. They, receiving him a little while, give way, and there is much slaughter there. The right wing of the Hernicans, then, was already in distress and abandoning its rank, while the left still held out and had the advantage over the Roman right; a little later, however, this too gave way.

65.5. For Aquillius, bringing the best of the young men, came to the rescue there too, encouraging and calling by name those accustomed to distinguish themselves in former battles, and snatching from the standard-bearers the standards of the companies that seemed not to defend themselves stoutly, he flung them into the midst of the enemy, that the fear of the lawful punishment, if they should not recover the standards, might force them to be brave men; and he himself ever came to the rescue of the flagging part, until he thrust the other wing too from its position. The wings being stripped, the centre did not hold either.

65.6. A flight of the Hernicans, then, followed toward their camp, disordered and unseemly, and the Romans followed them, killing. So great eagerness fell upon the Roman army during that contest, that some even attempted to mount the enemy's camp, as men who would take it at the first assault; whose eagerness, seeing it neither safe nor turning to advantage, the consul, ordering the recall to be sounded, brought down from the strongholds those who, against their will, were coming to grips, fearing lest, pelted from higher ground, they should be forced with disgrace and great harm to withdraw, and then obliterate the glory from the former victory. Then, for it was now about sunset, the Romans, rejoicing and singing the paean, encamped.

66.1. On the following night much noise was heard from the camp of the Hernicans, and shouting, and many gleams of torches appeared. For, despairing of holding out any longer in another battle, they resolved of their own accord to abandon the camp; and this was what caused their disorder and shouting. For each, as he had strength and speed, fled, calling to one another and being called; and of those left behind through wounds or sickness

66.2. they made no account of their wailings and entreaties. The Romans, ignorant of this, but having learned beforehand from the prisoners that another force of Hernicans was about to come to help their own, and thinking the shouting and tumult had come about at their arrival, took up their arms and, ringing the camp lest some attack come upon them by night, now made a clash of arms in a body, now, as if setting out to battle, frequently raised the war-shout. And these things too gave the Hernicans great fear, and, as men pursued by the enemy, they ran scattered, some by one road, some by another.

66.3. When day came, after the horsemen sent to scout reported to them that no other allied force was approaching the enemy, and that those who had drawn up for battle the day before had fled, Aquillius, leading out the force, takes the enemy's camp, full of beasts of burden and provisions and arms, and takes their wounded, who were not fewer than the fugitives; and sending out the cavalry against those scattered along the roads and through the woods, he becomes master of many persons; and for the rest he now overran the land of the Hernicans, plundering without fear, no one any longer enduring to come to grips. These things, then, Aquillius did.

67.1. The other of the consuls, Titus Siccius, who had been sent against the Volscians, taking the best part of the force, invaded the territory of the Veliterni. For there was Tullus Attius, the leader of the Volscians, having got together the most vigorous army, intending first to harm the allies of the Romans, as Marcius had done when he began the war, supposing the Romans still to remain in the same fear and to send no help to those endangering themselves on their behalf. When the forces were seen and saw one another, no longer delaying they came together.

67.2. The ground between the camps, in which the battle was to be, was a rocky hill broken in many places, where the cavalry would be useful to neither side. Learning this, the Roman cavalry, and reckoning it a disgrace if, being present at the contest, they should be of no use, came to the consul in a body and begged him to allow them, dismounting from their horses, to fight on foot, if this seemed to him best.

67.3. And he, praising them much, brought them down from their horses, and kept them drawn up with himself, to be overseers and rectifiers of the flagging part; and they became the cause to the Romans of the victory then, which was very brilliant. For the infantry of both sides was as much alike as possible in the number of men and in armament, and similar in the order of formation and the experience of battle, in advances and withdrawals, in blows and guards.

67.4. For the Volscians had learned all matters of war anew, from the time they got Marcius as leader, and had come over to the customs of the Romans. The phalanxes, then, continued fighting for the greatest part of the day on even terms, and the nature of the ground, being uneven, afforded both sides much advantage over one another. But the Roman cavalry, dividing themselves in two, charge, the one part against the flanks of the enemy from the right wing, the other, going round through the hill, fall upon those in the rear.

67.5. Then some, casting their lances, others striking with their cavalry swords, which were longer, those who came to grips, upon the arms and bringing them down at the bends of the elbow, cut off the hands of many—the hands that defended or covered the body—shields and weapons and all, and threw many half-dead from a firm footing with deep blows on the knees and ankles.

67.6. The terror surrounded the Volscians on every side; for from the front the infantry pressed upon them, and from the flanks and rear the cavalry, so that, having proved brave beyond their strength and displayed many deeds of daring and experience, nearly all who held the right wing were cut down. Those posted in the centre of the phalanx and on the other wing, when they saw the right broken and the Roman cavalry attacking them in the same manner, wheeling their companies, withdrew at a walk to the camp, and the Roman

67.7. cavalry followed in order. When they were at the rampart, another battle of the cavalry arose, mounting the palisades at many parts of the camp, sharp and shifting back and forth. The Romans being hard pressed, the consul, ordering the infantry to bring up timber and fill in the ditches, was the first to advance by the assailable point, having the best of the cavalry, against the strongest gates of the camp; and, driving back those fighting before them and cutting through the bars of the gates, he got within the strongholds and received his own infantry as they came on.

67.8. Tullus Attius, with the strongest and boldest of the Volscians, comes to grips with him and, having displayed many noble deeds—for he was a very stout fighter in wars, though not competent to be a general—worn down by toil and the multitude of his wounds, he dies. Of the other Volscians, when the camp was being taken, some, fighting, were cut down; others, throwing away their arms, turned to supplication of the conquerors; and a few, fleeing to their homes, were saved.

67.9. When messengers came to Rome, whom the consuls had sent, the greatest joy held the people, and at once they voted thank-offering sacrifices to the gods and added to the consuls the honour of triumphs—not, however, the same to both; but to Siccius, since he seemed to have freed the city from the greater fear, having destroyed the insolent army of the Volscians and killed their leader, they voted the greater procession; and the man rode in leading the spoils and the prisoners and the force that had fought with him, mounted on a chariot of gold-bridled horses, clad in the kingly robe, as is the custom in the greater triumphs. To Aquillius they granted the lesser triumph, which they themselves call ovation; and I have shown in the former books what difference this has from the greater;

67.10. and the man entered on foot, bringing the rest of the procession. And this year came to an end.

68.1. The consuls who took over the consulship from these, Publius Verginius and Spurius Cassius—then appointed consul for the third time—taking up the citizen and allied forces, led them out into the open, Verginius against the cities of the Aequians, Cassius against those of the Hernicans and Volscians, having drawn lots for the expeditions. The Aequians, then, fortifying their cities and carrying off from the fields the most valuable things, looked on while their land was ravaged and their steadings burned; so that with much ease Verginius, having cut down and ravaged as much of their land as he could, since no one came out to fight for it, led off the army.

68.2. The Volscians and Hernicans, against whom Cassius marched, resolved to look on while their country was ravaged, and fled together into their cities; yet they did not remain in their resolution, their good land being cut down, which they did not hope easily to recover, moved by pity, and distrusting their strongholds, which were not very strong, into which they had fled for refuge; but they sent envoys to the consul to beg for the dissolution of the war—the Volscians first, and these the sooner obtained peace, giving the silver the consul ordered and supplying all the other things the army needed; and these agreed to be subjects of the Romans, laying claim to none of the equal rights any longer.

68.3. The Hernicans later, when they saw themselves left alone, treated with the consul about peace and friendship. Cassius, laying out much accusation against their envoys, said they must first do the things of conquered men and subjects, and then treat of friendship; and when the envoys said they would do what was possible and moderate, he ordered them to give the silver which it was customary to give the soldiers for six months' pay per man, and to bring monthly provisions.

68.4. And until they should provide these, fixing a number of days, he gave them a truce of the war. The Hernicans having supplied them everything quickly and with eagerness, and again sent men to treat of friendship, Cassius, praising them, referred them to the senate. The councillors, having deliberated much, resolved to receive the men into friendship, but that the terms on which the treaties with them should be just, Cassius the consul should decide and fix, and whatever should seem good to him, this should be valid for them.

69.1. The senate having voted these things, Cassius, returning to the city, thought fit to lead home a triumph a second time, as having subdued the greatest of the nations—snatching the honour by favour rather than taking it by justice, who neither, having taken cities by storm of their walls, nor, having routed an enemy army in a pitched battle, was about to lead home prisoners and spoils, with which a triumph is adorned. Therefore this deed first brought him the reputation of arrogance and of no longer thinking the same things as the others.

69.2. Having accomplished the granting of the triumph to himself, he brought out the agreements with the Hernicans; and these were copies of those made with the Latins, at which the eldest and most honoured were very vexed, and held him in suspicion, not thinking fit that the foreign Hernicans should obtain equal honour with the kindred Latins, nor that those who had shown no deed of goodwill should share in the same kindnesses as those who had shown many; and being vexed at the arrogance of the man who, honoured by the senate, did not honour it in return with equal honours, nor with common counsel of the councillors, but, having written the agreements as he himself thought fit, brought them out.

69.3. It was, then, a slippery and disadvantageous thing for a man to prosper in many things; for it becomes, unawares, the cause of senseless boasting to many, and the author of desires that overstep human nature; which befell that man too. For, honoured by the city with three consulships and two triumphs, alone of the men of that time, he carried himself more haughtily and conceived a longing for monarchic power; and reflecting that for those who aim at kingship or tyranny the easiest and safest of all roads is the one that wins over the multitude by certain benefits and accustoms them to be fed from the hand of the giver out of the public funds, he turned to this; and at once, having told no one—for there was a large public land, neglected and held by the wealthiest—he resolved to distribute this to the people.

69.4. And if, coming this far, he had been content, perhaps the work would have gone for him according to his mind; but, reaching after more, he raised no small strife, from which a not fortunate end befell him. For he thought fit to include the Latins too in the distribution of the land, and the Hernicans lately taken into the citizenship, having made the nations his own.

70.1. Having resolved on these things, on the day after the triumph he summoned the multitude to an assembly; and going up to the tribunal, as it is the custom for those who have triumphed to do, first he rendered the account of what had been done by him, of which these were the chief points:

70.2. that, having obtained his first consulship, he conquered in battle the Sabine nation, which laid claim to the leadership, and forced it to become subject to the Romans; appointed consul the second time, he ended the civil strife of the city and brought the people back to their country, and the Latins, who, though kindred of the Roman city, were ever envious of its leadership and glory, he brought into friendship by sharing equal citizenship, so that they no longer reckoned Rome a rival but a country.

70.3. Established the third time in the same office, he forced the Volscians to become friends instead of enemies, and won over willingly the nation of the Hernicans, great and warlike and lying near them and most able to harm and benefit in the greatest things.

70.4. Having gone through these and the like, he thought fit that the people give heed to him, as one who had forethought of the commonwealth beyond all the others and would have it for the time to come. And at the end of his speech he said he would do the people so many and so great goods as to surpass all who were praised for loving and preserving the commoners; and he said he would do these things before long.

70.5. Dissolving the assembly and leaving not even a moment's interval, on the following day he summoned the senate to the council-house, which was upright and full of fear at the words he had spoken; and before beginning any other speech he brought out the opinion kept secret in the assembly, thinking fit that the senators, since the people had been useful to the city in many things, helping both toward freedom and toward ruling others, take forethought of it, distributing to it the land which, conquered in war, was in word public, but in deed held by the most shameless of the patricians and with no justice; and that the prices of the corn-gift sent them by Gelon the tyrant of Sicily—which all the citizens ought to have received free, but the poor took for a price—be repaid to those who had bought it, from the money the commonwealth had.

71.1. At once, then, while he was still speaking, there was much tumult, all being vexed and not enduring the speech. And when he ceased, his colleague Verginius made much accusation of him as introducing strife, and the eldest and most honoured of the other senators, and most of all Appius Claudius; and for a long while these continued, exasperated and saying the most shameful reproaches against one another.

71.2. On the following days Cassius, holding continual assemblies, led the multitude on by demagoguery, and brought in the speeches about the land-distribution, and was lengthy in his accusations of those who opposed him. Verginius, gathering the senate daily, with the common counsel of the patricians prepared lawful guards and hindrances against it.

71.3. And there was a great band on each side of those who followed and provided guard for his person—the destitute and squalid and ready to dare anything ranged under Cassius, the most well-born and purest under Verginius.

71.4. [Cassius, finding the senate and his colleague firm against him, sought to win the people wholly to himself by enlarging his proposals;]

71.5. [and he thought fit to include the allies, the Latins and Hernicans, in the distribution, that he might have their support.]

71.6. [But this very thing turned the people against him, for they grudged sharing their own land with foreigners.]

72.1. While Cassius was thus frequently winning over the crowd in the assemblies by these speeches, one of the tribunes, Gaius Rabuleius, a man not without sense, came forward and promised both to end the dissension of the consuls before long and to make plain to the people what they ought to do. Great approval being given him, and after this silence, he said: "Are not these, Cassius, and you too, Verginius, the chief heads of the law? One, whether the public land ought to be distributed man by man; the other, whether the Latins and Hernicans ought to receive a share of it and hold it?" They agreeing,

72.2. "Well, then," he said, "you, Cassius, think fit that the people ratify both these; but you, by the gods, Verginius, tell us whether you make void the one part of Cassius's opinion, the part about the allies, not thinking the Hernicans and Latins ought to be made equal sharers with us, or whether you make void the other part too, thinking fit that the common land not be distributed even among ourselves? Answer me these things, hiding nothing."

72.3. When Verginius said he opposed the equal share of the Latins and Hernicans, but conceded the distribution among the citizens, if it should seem good to all, the tribune, turning to the crowd, said: "Since, then, the one part of the opinion both consuls approve, but the other is opposed by the one, and both are of equal honour, and it is not possible for the one to force the other—what is granted by both let us now take, but what they dispute about let us

72.4. put off." The multitude approving, as of one who had suggested the best thing, and thinking fit to abolish from the law the part that caused dissension, Cassius, at a loss what to do, and choosing neither to withdraw his opinion nor able to abide by it with the tribunes opposing, then dissolved the assembly; and on the following days, pretending illness, he no longer came down into the marketplace, but, remaining within, contrived to ratify the law by force and force of hands; and he sent for as many of the Latins and Hernicans as he could for the voting.

72.5. They came together in a body, and in a little while the city was full of strangers. Learning this, Verginius ordered it proclaimed through the streets that those not dwelling in the city should depart, fixing a short time. But Cassius ordered the contrary to be proclaimed, that those who shared the equal citizenship should remain until the law be ratified.

73.1. When no end came of it, the patricians, fearing lest there be snatchings of votes and layings-on of hands and the other violent things that are wont to happen in factious assemblies when a law is brought in, came together into the senate to deliberate once for all about everything.

73.2. Appius, then, first asked his opinion, would not allow the distribution to be conceded to the people, teaching that an idle crowd accustomed to greed for the public goods would be a harsh and unprofitable fellow-dweller, and would never let any of the common possessions or money remain common; and he said it was a thing worthy of shame, if, accusing Cassius of governing wickedly and unprofitably and corrupting the people, they should then themselves by common counsel ratify these very things as just and advantageous; and he thought fit that they reflect that not even the favour from the poor would belong to those who conceded and ratified the distribution of the common land, but to the one man, Cassius, who had proposed the opinion and would seem to have forced the senate to ratify it against its will.

73.3. Having said this and other like things beforehand, he ended by giving this counsel: to choose ten men from the most honoured senators, who, going over the public land, should bound it, and, if any private men, stealing or by force, distribute or work any of it, should, having so adjudged, restore it to the public. The land bounded by them, divided into lots however many and marked off with seemly pillars, part he advised should be sold—especially that about which there was any dispute with private men, so that the buyers might have no lawsuits with those who would lay claim to it—and part leased for five years; and the silver coming in from the leases be spent on the pay of those serving in the army and on the leases the wars need for their provisioning.

73.4. "For now," he said, "the envy of the poor toward the rich, who, having appropriated the common land, hold it, is just; and it is no marvel if they think fit that the common land be distributed among all rather than held by a few most shameless men; but if they see those who now reap it withdrawing from it, and the common land becoming truly common, they will cease envying us, and will relax their desire for the man-by-man distribution of the fields, learning that the common possession with all will be more profitable than the small

73.5. share to each. For let us teach them," he said, "how great the difference is, and that each one of the poor, getting a small plot, and if it happen having troublesome neighbours, will neither himself be able to farm it through poverty, nor find a tenant except the neighbour; but that if large lots, having various and notable kinds of cultivation, be leased by the public to farmers, they will bring in much revenue; and that it is better for them, when they go out to the wars, to receive their provisions and pay from the public treasury, than for each to contribute to the treasury from his own household, their livelihoods being sometimes hard pressed and still more burdened in raising the money."

74.1. Appius having proposed this opinion and seeming greatly to win approval, the second asked, Aulus Sempronius Atratinus, said: "It is not now first that I have to praise Appius, as most able to foresee the future far in advance and to declare the fairest and most useful opinions, and steadfast and unmoved in his decisions, neither yielding to fear nor bowing to favours. For I continue ever praising and admiring him both for his prudence and for the nobility he has in dangers. And I declare no other opinion, but I too this same one, adding to it a little that Appius seemed to me to have left out.

74.2. "As for the Hernicans and Latins, to whom we have lately given equal citizenship, I do not myself think they ought to have a share of our land. For it is not since they came into friendship with us that we acquired and hold this land, but earlier still, by our own dangers, no other helping, having taken it from our enemies. Let us answer them, then, that the possessions we had before, as many as each of us had when we made the friendship, must remain private and inalienable to each; but of whatever, from the time we made the treaties, campaigning in common, we become masters by war, of these the apportioned lot shall belong to each.

74.3. "For these things will neither give the allies just grounds of anger as men wronged, nor the people fear lest it seem to choose the more profitable before the more seemly. And with the choice of the men whom Appius thought fit to be the bounders of the public land I quite agree. For this will bring us much frankness toward the commoners, since now they are vexed on both counts—both that they themselves enjoy none of the public possessions, and that some of us reap them unjustly. But if they see them made public and the revenues from them spent on common and necessary uses, they will suppose it makes no difference to them whether they share in the land or in its produce.

74.4. "For I forbear to say that some of the poor are more gladdened by others' losses than by their own gains. Yet I do not think it enough to write either of these things in the decree, but I think the people ought to be won over and recovered by some other moderate attention besides—which I shall tell in a little while, first showing you the cause, or rather the necessity, on account of which this too must be done by us.

75.1. "You know, doubtless, the words spoken in the assembly by the tribune, when he asked the one of the consuls, this Verginius, what opinion he had about the land-distribution—whether he conceded to the citizens to distribute the public land but did not allow it to the allies, or did not concede that we too should have a share of our common land. And this man acknowledged that, so far as we were concerned, he did not hinder the distribution, if it should seem best to all; and this concession both made the tribunes our fellow-combatants and the people more equitable.

75.2. "What, then, have we learned, that we should now take back what we then conceded? Or what more shall we gain by governing with noble and fair policies worthy of the leadership, if we do not persuade those who will use them? And we shall not persuade—and this none of you is ignorant of. For those cheated of their hope and not receiving what was agreed would pay back harsher things than those who got nothing. The man who governs to please will carry them off again, and not even one of the tribunes will any longer stand with us.

75.3. "What, then, do I advise you to do, and what do I add to the opinion of Appius? Learn—but do not rise up beforehand nor make tumult before you hear all I say. To those who shall be chosen for the examination of the land and its bounding, whether ten men or however many, entrust to determine what part of it and how much ought to be common to all and, leased every five years, to increase the revenues of the treasury; and how much again, and what, ought to be divided among our commoners; and whatever land they shall mark out for distribution, do you, having determined whether to all, or to those who no longer have a lot, or to those who have the least assessment, or however you wish, apportion it; and the men who are to bound it, and the decree which you will bring out about the distribution, and all else that must be done, since the time left to the consuls of their office is short, let the incoming consuls, as it shall seem best to them, complete.

75.4. "For neither do affairs so great need few days, nor would the now-factious magistracy learn the advantageous more prudently than the one to be appointed after it, if that, as we hope, be of one mind. And a useful thing in many matters, and least dangerous, is postponement, and time changes many things in a single day; and the not-being-in-strife among those who govern public affairs is the cause of all goods in cities. This, then, is the opinion I declare; but if anyone proposes another better, let him speak."

76.1. When he had ceased, there was much praise from those present, and none of those asked after him declared another opinion; and there is written after this the decree of the senate, of this sort: that ten men of the eldest be chosen from the consulars, who, having bounded the public land, should declare how much of it must be leased and how much divided among the people;

76.2. and that for the fellow citizens and allies, if they should later acquire any land campaigning in common, the apportioned share according to the agreements should belong to each; but that the choice of the men and the distribution of the lots and the other things that must be done the incoming consuls complete. This decree, brought before the people, both stopped Cassius from his demagoguery and did not let the strife rekindling among the poor advance further.

77.1. In the following year, the seventy-fourth Olympiad being current, in which Astylus of Syracuse won the foot-race, and Leostratus being archon at Athens, Quintus Fabius and Servius Cornelius having taken up the consulship, two men of the patricians, still young in age but most distinguished of the rest in the dignity of their ancestors, and through their clubs and wealth very powerful, and, though young, at conducting civic affairs inferior to none in their prime—Caeso Fabius, brother of the consul then in office, and Lucius Valerius Publicola, brother of the man who overthrew the kings—holding the quaestorian power at the same time, and on this account being masters of convening an assembly, brought before the people Spurius Cassius, who had been consul the year before and had dared to introduce the laws about the distribution, on a charge of tyranny; and, proclaiming a fixed day, summoned him as one who would make defence of the suit before the people.

77.2. A very great crowd having gathered on the appointed day, summoning the multitude to an assembly, they went through the manifest deeds of the man as done for no good end: that to the Latins first—to whom it was enough to be thought worthy of common citizenship, reckoning it great good fortune if they should obtain even this—he, being consul, not only granted the citizenship they asked, but voted besides that of the spoils from the war, if it should be a common campaign, the third part be given them; then that the Hernicans, whom, conquered in war, it had befitted to be content if they were not even punished by some loss of their own land, he made friends instead of subjects and citizens instead of tributaries, and appointed them to take the second third of the land and booty which they should acquire from any source.

77.3. So that, the spoils being divided into three lots, the subjects and immigrants took two portions, and the native-born and the leaders the third. From this they showed that one of two most absurd things would befall them, if they should choose to honour any others, for many great benefits, with the same gifts with which they honoured the Latins and the Hernicans who had shown no good service whatever. For, one third part being left to them, either they would not have a portion to give those others, or, voting the like, they would leave nothing for themselves.

78.1. Besides this, they went through how, having undertaken to confiscate the common land of the city, neither the senate voting it nor his colleague approving, he meant to ratify the law by force—a law which was unprofitable and unjust not in this one respect only, that, when the council ought to make a preliminary decree, and, if it seemed good to it, the kindness be common to all the magistrates, he made the favour that of one man;

78.2. but also in that most monstrous thing of all, that in word it was a gift to the citizens of the public land, but in deed a robbery, the Romans who had acquired it receiving one portion, and the Hernicans and Latins, who had no share in it, the two; and that he had not even been persuaded by the tribunes, who opposed him and thought fit to remove from the law the one part, about the equal share of the immigrants, but continued acting contrary to tribunes and colleague and senate and all who deliberated the best for the commonwealth.

78.3. Having gone through these things and made all the citizens witnesses of them, after this they now produced the secret proofs of the tyranny too: how the Latins and Hernicans had contributed money to him and prepared arms and the boldest of the young men in the cities came together to him, making secret councils and rendering many other such services; and they produced witnesses of these things, many townsmen and many from the other allied cities, neither mean nor

78.4. obscure. The people trusted these, and, neither led on any further by the words which the man had composed with much preparation and delivered, nor yielding to pity—three sons of his affording great help toward compassion, and many other kinsmen and comrades lamenting with him—nor taking any sparing thought of his deeds in war, through which he came to the highest honour, condemned him in the suit.

78.5. And so bitter was it toward the name of tyranny, that not even in the assessment of the penalty did it use moderate anger toward him, but assessed death. For fear came over it, lest, driven an exile from his country, a man most terrible of those then living at conducting wars, he should do the like to Marcius, slandering the friendly and combining the hostile, and bring an unappeasable war upon his country. The trial having this end, the quaestors, leading the man to the cliff overhanging the marketplace, in the sight of all flung him down from the rock. For this was, among the Romans of that time, the native punishment of those convicted on a capital charge.

79.1. The more credible, then, of the accounts handed down about the man is of this sort; but I must not pass over the less credible one either, since it too has been believed by many and is borne in trustworthy records. It is said by some that, while the tyranny he was preparing was still hidden from all, Cassius's father, first suspecting it and examining the matter by the most exact inquiry, came to the senate; then, ordering his son to come, became his informer and accuser; and, the senate too condemning, leading him to his house, killed him.

79.2. The bitterness and inexorability of the anger of fathers toward wrongdoing sons—especially among the Romans of that time—does not reject even this pretext; since before too Brutus, who expelled the kings, judged both his sons to die by the law of malefactors, and their necks were struck off with axes, because they seemed to be helping the kings to their return. And after this Manlius, commanding in the Gallic war, his son who distinguished himself in the war he adorned with crowns of valour for his courage, but, charging him with disobedience because he did not remain in the fort to which he was posted, but went out against the leader's command to fight, killed him as a deserter.

79.3. And many other fathers, some on greater charges, some on lesser, had neither sparing nor pity toward their children. As far as this, then, I do not think, as I said, the account should be rejected as incredible; but the following things draw me the other way, being proofs neither least nor incredible, and lead me to the other agreement: that after the death of Cassius both his house was razed, and to this day the place of it is left open to the sky, except for the temple of Earth which the city built in later times in a part of it along the road leading to the Carinae, and the commonwealth took over his money; from which it dedicated first-fruits in other temples, and indeed to Demeter the bronze statues making plain by inscriptions

79.4. from what money they are first-fruits. But if the father had been informer and accuser and chastiser of him, neither would his house have been razed nor his property confiscated. For among the Romans there is no possession of one's own while the fathers are still living, but both the money and the persons of the children, to dispose of as they wish, are granted to the fathers. So that the city would surely not have thought fit to take away and confiscate the property of the father who informed of the tyranny on account of the son's wrongs. For these reasons, then, I rather agree with the former account; but I have set down both, that it may be possible for those who shall read to give heed to whichever of the accounts they wish.

80.1. Some attempting to kill the sons of Cassius too, the custom seemed to the senate dreadful and unprofitable; and, assembling, it voted that the youths be released from punishment and live in full impunity, punished neither by exile nor by loss of rights nor by any other calamity. And from that time this custom became native to the Romans, preserved to our own age, that the children be released from all punishment for whatever their fathers wrong, whether they happen to be sons of tyrants, or of parricides, or of traitors—which is

80.2. the greatest wrong among them. And those who attempted to abolish this custom in our times, after the conclusion of the Marsic and civil war, and took from the children of the fathers proscribed under Sulla the right of seeking the ancestral offices and of sharing in the senate during the time they themselves held power, seemed to have done a deed envied by men and visited with indignation by the gods. Therefore a not unworthy avenging justice attended them in time, through which they were brought down from the greatest boast to the lowest fall, and not even the race from them, except in the female line, is any longer left.

80.3. But the custom the man who overthrew these restored to its original order. Among some of the Greeks the law is not so, but the children of tyrants some think fit to be killed along with their fathers, others punish with perpetual exile, as though nature did not admit of good children being born from wicked fathers, or bad from good. But concerning these things—whether the law among the Greeks is better or the custom of the Romans the stronger—I leave it to whoever wishes to consider; and I return to what follows.

81.1. For after the death of Cassius those who magnified the aristocracy had become bolder and more contemptuous of the commoners; while those who were carried in obscurity of repute and were reduced to lowliness of life, as men who had lost the best guardian of the commoner party, accused themselves of much folly over the condemnation. The cause of this was that the consuls did not do what the senate had voted about the land-distribution, when they ought both to have appointed ten men to bound the land and to introduce an opinion how much of it and

81.2. to whom it should be distributed. And many gathered in bands, discoursing each time about the deceit, and held the former tribunes to blame as having betrayed the commonwealth; and continual assemblies were held by the tribunes of that time, and demands for the fulfilment of the promise. Perceiving this, the consuls resolved, under pretext of wars, to put down the disturbed and tumultuous part of the city; for it chanced at the same time that the land was being harmed by robber-bands from the neighbouring cities and by certain incursions.

81.3. For the punishment, then, of the wrongdoers they set up the signals of war, and enrolled the city's forces; but, the poor not coming to the levy, being unable to apply to the disobedient the compulsion from the laws—for the tribunes stood at the head of the multitude and were about to hinder, if anyone attempted either to lead off the persons of those who avoided the campaign or to carry off their goods—using many threats, as men who would not permit those who stirred up the multitude, they left a lurking suspicion that they would appoint a dictator, who, having abolished the other offices, would alone have the tyrannic and irresponsible power.

81.4. When the commoners took this suspicion, fearing lest they should appoint Appius, who was bitter and harsh, they endured to suffer everything rather than this.

82.1. When the armies had been enrolled, the consuls, taking the forces, led them out against the enemy. Cornelius, then, invading the country of the Veientes, drove off the booty caught in it, and after this, the Veientes sending an embassy, released their prisoners for money and made a year's truce of the war. Fabius, with the other force, invaded the land of the Aequians; then thence into that of the Volscians.

82.2. For some short time, then, the Volscians endured their fields being plundered and cut down; then, despising the Romans as present with no large force, they came out to the rescue from the country of the Antiates, snatching up their arms in a body, having deliberated more quickly than safely. Now had they got there appearing unexpectedly upon the scattered Romans, they would have wrought a great rout of them; but as it was, the consul, perceiving their attack beforehand through those sent to scout, with a quick recall took up those scattered in the foraging and gave them the formation fitting for battle.

82.3. The Volscians, advancing with contempt and confidence, when, contrary to their expectation, the whole force of the enemy appeared drawn up in order, fear fell upon them at the unlooked-for sight, and there was no thought of the common safety, but forethought in each for his own preservation. Turning, then, each as he had speed, they fled, some by one road, some by another; and the greater part got safe to the city, but a small body, which was best ordered, ran up to a certain mountain-top and, laying down their arms there, remained the coming night; and on the following days, the consul setting a guard round the hill and barring all the exits with arms, forced by famine it became subject and

82.4. surrendered its arms. The consul, ordering the booty he had taken and the spoils and the prisoners to be sold by the quaestors, brought the money to the city. And not long after, setting the force in motion, he led it home from the enemy's land, the year being now at its end. The elections coming on, it seemed best to the patricians, seeing the people provoked and repenting of the condemnation of Cassius, to keep it under watch, lest it should again make some disturbance, led on by hope of bribery and a distribution of lots through a man able to play the demagogue who had got the dignity of the consulship. And it seemed to them that one reaching after any of these things would most easily be hindered, if a man least popular should become consul.

82.5. Having resolved this, they bid one of the accusers of Cassius, Caeso Fabius, brother of Quintus then in office, seek the consulship, and from the other patricians Lucius Aemilius, an aristocratic man. While these sought the office, the commoners were unable to hinder it, but, abandoning the elections, departed from the plain.

82.6. For the power of the centuriate assembly in the voting lay with the most distinguished and those having the first property assessments, and it was a rare thing that those in the middle ratified; while the last century, in which the largest and poorest part of the commons voted, was master, as I have said before, of a single vote, the last.

83.1. There took up the consulship, then, in the two hundred and seventieth year from the founding of Rome, Lucius Aemilius, son of Mamercus, and Caeso Fabius, son of Caeso, Nicodemus being archon at Athens. To these it fell according to their prayer that the city was in nothing troubled by civic dissension, foreign wars surrounding it.

83.2. Now in all nations and places, of Greeks and barbarians, the respites from external evils are wont to rouse civil and domestic wars; and most of all do those suffer this who choose a warlike and toilsome life through longing for freedom and empire. For natures that have learned to reach after more are harsh, debarred from their accustomed works, to endure; and on this account the most prudent of leaders ever rekindle some enmities from foreign nations, reckoning foreign wars better than domestic ones.

83.3. Then, indeed, as I said, by divine ordering the uprisings of the subjects fell out for the consuls. For the Volscians—whether trusting in the civic disturbance of the Romans, as though the commons were at war with those in office; or stung with shame at their former defeat, which had come about without a battle; or thinking much of their own forces, which were many;

83.4. or for all these reasons—resolved to make war on the Romans; and, gathering the youth from every city, with some part of the force they marched against the cities of the Hernicans and Latins, and with the rest, which was the largest and best, they meant to receive those who should come against their cities. Learning this, the Romans resolved to divide their forces in two, and with one to keep guard over the Hernicans and Latins, and with the other to plunder the country of the Volscians.

84.1. The consuls having drawn lots for the forces, as is their custom, the army that was to aid the allies Caeso Fabius took, while Lucius, with the other, led against the city of the Antiates. Coming near the borders and seeing the enemy's forces, then he encamped opposite on a hill; and on the following days, the enemy frequently coming out into the plain and challenging to battle, when he supposed he had the fitting occasion, he led out the forces; and, before coming to grips, using much exhortation and encouragement, he ordered the war-signal to be sounded; and the soldiers, raising their accustomed war-cry, came together in a body by companies and centuries.

84.2. When they had spent their lances and javelins and all their missiles, drawing their swords they clash with one another, both sides using equal daring and eagerness for the contest; and the manner of the contest was, as I said before, much alike for them, and neither the skill and experience of the Romans in battle, by which they mostly prevailed, nor the steadfastness and endurance in toils trained through many contests prevailed; for the same things were on the enemy's side too, from the time they got Marcius, no obscure general, as leader of the Romans; but each side held its ground, where it first stood, not yielding.

84.3. Then little by little the Volscians withdrew, in order and array, receiving the Romans. And this was a stratagem, that they might break apart their ranks and get to higher ground.

85.1. The Romans, supposing them to be beginning flight, followed—at a walk, while they withdrew at a walk, themselves following in order; but when they saw them going at a run toward their camp, using a quick and disordered pursuit themselves. And the last and rearguard companies were stripping the dead, as men already victorious over the enemy, and turned to plundering the country.

85.2. The Volscians, learning this—both those who had given the appearance of flight, when they drew near the strongholds of their camp, wheeled and stood, and those left in the camp, throwing open the gates, ran out in a body at many points; and the battle turned back upon the Romans; for the pursuers fled, and the fleeing pursued. There many brave Romans die, as was likely, thrust down a sloping place and, being few, encircled by many.

85.3. And kindred to these things did those suffer who, turned to spoils and plunder, were deprived of withdrawing in order and array; for these too, caught by the enemy, some were slaughtered, others taken prisoners. As many of these and of those dislodged from the mountain as got safe—the cavalry coming to their aid late in the day—withdrew to the camp. And it seemed to help toward their not being utterly destroyed that a great storm broke from heaven and a darkness, such as comes in deep mists, which gave the enemy hesitation about pursuing further, being unable to see far off.

85.4. On the following night the consul, setting the army in motion, led it off in silence and in order, taking forethought to escape the enemy's notice; and he encamped beside a city called Longula about late evening, having chosen a hill sufficient to keep off assailants. There, waiting, he recovered with treatment those weakened by wounds, and consoled and took up those distressed at the unexpected disgrace of the calamity.

86.1. The Romans, then, were in this state; but the Volscians, when day came and they learned that the enemy had abandoned the camp, advancing, encamped. Having stripped the enemy's dead and taken up the half-dead, for whom there was hope of safety, and made burial of their own dead, they removed to the nearest city, Antium; where, singing the paean for the victory and sacrificing in all the temples, they turned in the following days to revelries and pleasures.

86.2. Had they, then, remained at the victory then and wrought nothing further, the contest would have had a fair end for them. For the Romans would no longer have endured to come forth from the camp for war, but would have been content if they got away from the enemy's land, reckoning inglorious flight better than manifest death. But as it was, reaching after more, they cast away the glory from the former victory too.

86.3. For hearing from scouts and from those who had run away from the camp that the Romans saved were quite few, and of these the most wounded, they conceived much contempt of them, and at once, snatching up their arms, ran against them. And much unarmed crowd too followed them from the city, to view the contest and at the same time for plunder and profit.

86.4. When, attacking the hill, they surrounded the camp and attempted to tear apart the palisades, first the Roman cavalry, fighting on foot because of the nature of the place, ran out against them, then behind these the so-called triarii, having densened their companies; these are the eldest of those serving, to whom they entrust the guarding of the camps when they go out to battle, and to whom last, when there is a wholesale destruction of those in their prime, in want of other help they flee for refuge of necessity. The Volscians

86.5. at first received their onset and for a long while continued fighting with spirit; then, through the nature of the place being at a disadvantage, they withdrew, and at last, having wrought few and not noteworthy harms to the enemy, but themselves suffering more evils, withdrew into the plain. There, encamping, on the following days they drew up the force and challenged the Romans to battle; but they did not come out against them.

86.6. When the Volscians saw this and despised them, they summoned forces from the cities and prepared to take the fort by force of numbers; and they would easily have accomplished a great deed against a consul and a Roman force, either prevailing by force or by terms—for the place was no longer well supplied with necessaries; but help came to the Romans first, by which the Volscians were hindered from setting the fairest end to the war.

86.7. For the other consul, Caeso Fabius, learning in what fortunes the force arrayed against the Volscians was, wished to lead his whole force at once with all speed against those besieging the fort. But when, as he sacrificed and used omens, the rites were not fair for him, but the divinity opposed his going forth, he himself remained, but, choosing out the best companies, sent them to his colleague.

86.8. These, making their march for the most part secretly through mountains and by night, entered the camp unobserved by the enemy. Aemilius, then, had become bolder at the arrival of the allies; and the enemy, vainly trusting in their numbers and lifted up by the Romans' not coming out to battle, mounted the hill, having densened their companies; and the Romans, letting them mount at leisure and toil much about the palisade, when the signals of battle were raised, tearing apart the camp at many points, fall upon them; and some, coming to close quarters, fought with their swords, while others from the strongholds pelted the assailants with stones and javelins and lances, and no missile was without aim, many being packed in a small space.

86.9. The Volscians, then, are dislodged from the hill, having lost many of their own, and, taking to flight, with difficulty get safe to their own camp. The Romans, as being now in safety, came down to their fields, from which they took provisions and the other things of which there was scarcity in the camp.

87.1. When the time of the elections came, Aemilius remained at the camp, taking it as a disgrace to enter the city after no seemly misfortunes, having lost the best of the army. His colleague, leaving the commanders under him at the camp, went off to Rome; and, summoning the crowd to the elections, he did not propose the vote for those men to whom the people wished the consulship given, from among the consulars—since they too did not willingly seek the office—but for those who sought it he called the centuries and gave out the votes.

87.2. These were they whom the senate had chosen and bidden to seek the office, men not much pleasing to the people. And there were appointed consuls for the coming year both the younger brother of the consul who proposed the elections, Marcus Fabius, son of Caeso, and Lucius Valerius, son of Marcus, the man who had tried the thrice-consul Cassius for tyranny and

87.3. killed him. These, having taken up the office, thought fit to enrol others in place of the soldiers who had died in the war against the Antiates, that the deficiency of the centuries might be filled up. And, having made a decree of the senate, they proclaimed a day on which those of military age must present themselves. After this there was much tumult through the city, and seditious speeches of the poorest, who thought fit neither to obey the decrees of the senate nor to be subject to the power of the consuls, because they had falsified the promises about the land-distribution to them; and, gathering in a body against the tribunes, they reproached them with treachery and cried out, invoking their alliance.

87.4. To the others, then, it did not seem a fitting time, a foreign war being on foot, to rekindle the civic enmities; but one of them, Gaius Maenius, said he would not betray the commoners, nor permit the consuls to enrol an army, unless they should first appoint the men to bound the public land and write and bring out before the people the decree about the distribution. The consuls opposing this and making the war in hand a pretext for conceding him nothing of what he asked, he said he would give them no heed, but

87.5. would hinder the levy with all his power. And he did this; yet he did not prevail to the end. For the consuls, coming forth outside the city into the adjoining plain, set up the general's chairs; there they made the military levy, and those who would not obey the laws, since they were unable to lead them off, they punished in money—those who had farms, cutting these down and demolishing their steadings; and those whose livelihood was farming on others' possessions, carrying off and driving away the ox-teams and cattle and beasts of burden prepared for the work and all manner of implements by which the land is worked and the crops gathered.

87.6. And the tribune hindering the levy was no longer able to do anything. For those holding the tribunician power are masters of nothing outside the city; for their power is circumscribed by the walls, and it is not lawful for them even to spend a night away from the city, save for one occasion, on which all the magistrates of the city, going up to the Alban Mount, perform a common sacrifice to Jupiter on behalf of the Latin nation.

87.7. This custom remains to our times, that the tribunes are masters of nothing outside the city; and indeed of the civil war of the Romans in my own age, which was the greatest of the wars before it, the moving pretext—seeming, among many others, to be the greater and alone sufficient to divide the city—was this: that certain of the tribunes, charging that they had been driven from the city by force by the one then holding the affairs in Italy, that they might be masters of nothing, fled for refuge, as having nowhere to turn, to the one holding the armies in Gaul.

87.8. And he, using this pretext, as one piously and justly aiding a most sacred magistracy of the people deprived of its power against the oaths of the forefathers, himself came with arms into the city and restored the men to their office.

88.1. Then, indeed, the commoners, enjoying nothing of the tribunician power, gave up their boldness and, coming to those appointed over the levy, swore the sacred oath and were enrolled under the standards. When the deficiency of the centuries was filled up, the consuls drew lots for the commands of the armies; and Fabius took over the force sent to aid the allies, while Valerius led the one encamped among the Volscians, leading those newly enrolled.

88.2. When the enemy learned of his arrival, they resolved both to send for another army and to make their camp in a stronger place and no longer, out of contempt of them, to endure any rash venture as before. These things came about quickly, and to both commanders of the forces came the like opinion about the war—to guard their own strongholds if anyone should attack, but not to attempt the enemy's, as men who would be mastered by force.

88.3. And the interval was no short one, worn away through fear of attacks; yet they were not able to abide in their resolutions to the end. For whenever some part of the army was sent out for provisioning or for some of the other necessaries which both needed, there were clashes and blows of them, and the winning did not always remain with the same; and often, as they came to grips with one another, not a few died and more were wounded.

88.4. For the Romans no help from anywhere filled up what was spent of the army, while the camp of the Volscians, with others coming up after others, took much increase; and, lifted up by this, the commanders led out the force from the camp as if to battle.

89.1. The Romans too coming out and drawing up, a fierce battle takes place, both cavalry and infantry and light-armed all using equal eagerness and experience, and each placing the winning in himself alone.

89.2. When many of them on both sides lay fallen in the place where they were posted, and the half-dead were still more than the dead, and those still holding out amid the contest and the perils were few, and not even these able to do the deeds of war—their left hands weighed down by their shields through the multitude of weapons fixed in them, and not allowing them to withstand the assaults; their daggers' edges turned, and some wholly broken, with which they could do nothing further; the toil, which through fighting the whole day had become great for them, loosening their sinews and making their blows feeble; and sweat and thirst and gasping, such as are wont to befall those fighting a long time in the stifling season of the year, occurring on both sides—the battle reached no noteworthy end, but both sides, gladly, the generals recalling them, departed to their own camps; and no longer after this did either come out to battle, but, sitting opposite, they watched one another's sorties made for the sake of provisions.

89.3. It seemed, however—and there was much talk of it in Rome—that the Roman force, though able then to conquer, willingly did nothing brilliant, through hatred of the consul and the anger it held toward the patricians over the deceit about the land-distribution. And the soldiers themselves blamed the consul as unfit to be general, each sending letters to his own friends. Such were the things happening in the camp; and in Rome itself many divine signs appeared, indicative of divine wrath, both in voices and in strange sights.

89.4. And all tended to this, as the seers and the interpreters of the sacred rites, bringing together their experience, declared—that certain of the gods were angry because they did not receive their lawful honours, the rites being performed for them neither purely nor piously. Much inquiry, then, was made by all after this, and in time information is given to the hierophants that one of the maidens who guard the sacred fire, Opimia by name, having lost her virginity, was defiling the rites.

89.5. They, learning from tortures and the other proofs that the wrong informed of was true, took the fillets from her head and, having led her in procession through the marketplace within the wall, buried her alive; and the two men convicted of accomplishing the corruption they scourged in public and at once killed; and after this the rites and the divinations became fair, as the gods had laid aside their wrath toward them.

90.1. When the time of the elections came, the consuls coming, there was much zeal and arraying of the people against the patricians about the men who should take over the leadership. For the latter wished to advance to the consulship the energetic and least popular of the younger men; and the son of Appius Claudius, who was thought to be most hostile to the people, was bidden by them to seek the office—a man full of arrogance and boldness, and most powerful of all of his age in comrades and clients; while the people, naming the elder men and those who had already given proof of their fairness, thought fit to make consuls those who would take forethought of the common advantage. And the magistracies were at variance and undid one another's powers.

90.2. For whenever the consuls called the multitude as men about to appoint the candidates consuls, the tribunes, being masters of hindering, dissolved the elections; and whenever again the consuls called the people to elect, the consuls would not permit it, having the power of summoning the centuries and giving out the votes. And there were accusations of one another and continual skirmishes, men banding in clubs, so that they even gave one another blows in anger, and the strife came not far from arms.

90.3. Learning this, the senate considered a long while what to do with affairs, neither able to force the people nor willing to yield. And the more arrogant opinion was to choose a dictator for the sake of the elections, whomever they thought best; and that he, having taken the power, should remove from the city those who caused the sickness, and set right any wrong done by the former magistrates, and, having established the order of the polity he wished, hand over the offices to the best men.

90.4. But the more equitable opinion was to choose interreges, the eldest and most honoured men, whose care it would be to take forethought of the offices, how they should be the best, in the same manner as was done under the kings who had passed away. The majority attaching themselves to this opinion, there is appointed by them interrex Aulus Sempronius Atratinus;

90.5. and the other offices were dissolved. He, having governed the city free from strife for as many days as was permitted, appointed another, as was their custom, Spurius Larcius. And he, summoning the centuriate assembly and giving out the votes by property assessments, by the approval of both parties appointed consuls Gaius Julius, surnamed Iulus, from among the popular men, and Quintus Fabius, son of Caeso, for the second time, from among the aristocrats.

90.6. And the people, having suffered nothing from his former consulship, allowed him to obtain this power a second time, hating Appius and being very glad that he seemed to be slighted; while to those in office it seemed that the affairs of the dissension had gone according to their mind, an energetic man who would yield nothing soft to the people having come to the consulship.

91.1. In the term of these, the Aequians, invading the country of the Latins, drove off many slaves and cattle, using a robber-band's incursion; and the Veientes among the Tyrrhenians wronged much of the Roman land by their forays. The senate putting off the war against the Aequians to another time, but voting to demand justice from the Veientes, the Aequians, since their first attempts had gone according to their mind, and no one appeared to hinder the rest, lifted up by senseless boldness, resolved no longer to make a robber's campaign, but, marching with a heavy force against the city of Ortona, take it by storm; and, having plundered what was in the country and in the city, they departed bringing much abundance.

91.2. The Veientes, answering those who came from Rome that it was not from them that those who foraged the country had come, but from the other Tyrrhenians, dismissed the men, having done nothing just; and the envoys fell in with the Veientes driving booty from their own country. Learning this from them, the senate voted both to make war on the Veientes and that both consuls lead out the army.

91.3. There was, then, dispute about the decree, and there were many who would not allow the war to be declared, both reminding the commoners of the land-distribution—voted now five years before by the senate, in which, trusting an empty hope, they had been deceived—and declaring it a common war, if all Tyrrhenia should use a common counsel, aiding

91.4. its kinsmen. Yet the words of the factious did not prevail, but the people too ratified the decree of the senate, using the opinion and exhortation of Spurius Larcius. And after this the consuls led out the forces; and, having encamped apart from one another not far from the city and remained many days, since the enemy did not come out against them, having foraged as much of their land as they could, they led the army home. And nothing else worthy of mention was done in the consulship of these men.