Book 10

1.1. After these came the eightieth Olympiad, in which Torymbas the Thessalian won the stadium-race, Phrasicles being archon at Athens; and there were designated consuls at Rome Publius Volumnius and Servius Sulpicius Camerinus. These led out no army, neither to exact vengeance from those who wronged themselves and their allies, nor to keep their own territory under guard; but they took thought for the evils within the walls, lest the people, banding together against the senate, should accomplish some dreadful thing.

1.2. For it was again being stirred up, taught by the tribunes that the best of constitutions for free men is equality of speech, and it demanded that both private and public affairs be administered according to laws. For there was not yet at that time among the Romans either equality before the law or equality of speech, nor were all rights set down in writing; but in old times their kings dispensed justice to those who sought it, and

1.3. what was adjudged by them, this was law. When they ceased to be ruled by monarchs, to the consuls who held office yearly were assigned, among the other functions of the kings, the determination of justice; and for those disputing with one another about anything, these were the men who decided what was just.

1.4. Most of these matters were settled in accordance with the characters of the magistrates appointed to office for their merit; only a very few were laid up in sacred books, which had the force of laws, and the knowledge of which the patricians alone possessed, owing to their sojourn in the city, while the masses, engaged in trade and farming and coming down to the city for the markets only after many days, were still inexperienced in them.

1.5. This measure Gaius Terentius, when tribune, first attempted to introduce in the past year, but was forced to leave it unfinished, the multitude being on campaign and the consuls deliberately keeping their forces in the enemy's country until the time of their office should pass.

2.1. Then the tribunes about Aulus Verginius, taking it up, wished to bring it to completion; but that this should not happen, nor they be compelled to govern by laws, the consuls and the senate and those of the other citizens of greatest power in the city kept contriving everything against it; many councils and continual assemblies were held, and all manner of attempts by the magistracies against one another, from which it was clear to all that some great and irremediable calamity would arise for the city out of that contention.

2.2. There were added to human calculations also divine terrors that came upon them, some of which were found neither in the public records nor preserved in any other memory.

2.3. For as to all the flashes of light borne through the heavens and the kindlings of fire remaining fixed in one spot, and the bellowings and continual tremblings of the earth, and the shapes of phantoms of one kind and another borne through the air, and voices troubling the minds of men, and all that happened like to these—these were found to have occurred long before too, in greater and lesser degree; but that of which they were still inexperienced and which they had not heard of, and at which they were most troubled, was this: a heavy fall came down from heaven to earth, not bringing snow, but fragments of flesh, smaller and larger.

2.4. Of these the greater part, while still aloft, the flocks of birds, as many as there are, snatched up with their beaks; but those borne to the ground, both in the city itself and throughout the fields, lay for a long time, neither changing colour, such as aging flesh acquires, nor dissolving into corruption, and there came from them no foul smell.

2.5. This portent the native soothsayers were unable to interpret; but in the Sibylline oracles it was found that, when enemies of a foreign race had passed within the wall, a struggle over enslavement would seize the city; and that of the war against the foreigners civil faction would be the beginning, which they must, at its onset, drive out of the city, and, propitiating the gods with sacrifices and prayers, avert the dreadful things; and

2.6. that they would prove superior to their enemies. When these things were reported to the multitude, first those to whom the care of such matters belonged sacrificed victims to the gods who heal and avert evil; then the senators, gathering in the senate-house, with the tribunes also present, considered the safety and preservation of the city.

3.1. Now, as to settling their mutual charges and using a single mind concerning the common interest, as the oracles enjoined, all agreed; but how this should come about, and from whom beginning to yield to the others the difference should cease to be a matter of faction, this caused them no

3.2. small perplexity. For the consuls and the leaders of the senate declared that the cause of the disturbance was the tribunes who were bringing in new measures and thinking fit to dissolve the ancestral order of the constitution. But the tribunes said that they themselves were doing nothing unworthy or unjust or unprofitable in wishing to introduce good laws and equality of speech, and that it was the consuls and the patricians who would be the cause of the faction, increasing lawlessness and greed and

3.3. emulating the ways of tyrants. These and many like things were said by each side for many days, and the time advanced to no purpose, during which neither public nor private business in the city was carried out. When nothing of any avail was being done, the tribunes desisted from those speeches and accusations they were making against the senate; and gathering the multitude into the assembly, they promised the people to bring in a law concerning the things they demanded.

3.4. When the multitude approved the proposal, delaying no longer they read out the law they had prepared; and its main points were these: that ten men be chosen by the people in a lawful assembly, the eldest and most prudent, who have the greatest regard for honour and good repute; that these, having drawn up the laws concerning all matters, both common and private, bring them before the people; and that the laws to be drawn up by them lie in the forum, to be for the magistrates designated each year, and for private persons, the bounds of their mutual rights.

3.5. Having proposed this law, they gave permission to whoever wished to oppose it, appointing the third market-day. There were many, and not the meanest of the senate, both older and younger, who opposed the law, going through speeches made with much care and preparation; and

3.6. this went on for many days. Then the tribunes, vexed at the waste of time, no longer set any speech before those opposing the law, but, appointing a day on which they meant to ratify it, exhorted the plebeians to be present at it in throngs, as no longer to be troubled by long harangues, but to cast their vote upon it by tribes. So, having promised this, they dissolved the assembly.

4.1. After this the consuls and those of the patricians of greatest power, approaching them now more harshly, laid hold of them, saying that they would not permit them to introduce laws, and these without preliminary deliberation. For laws, they said, were the common compacts of cities, not of a part of those dwelling in the cities. And they declared it the beginning of the most wicked, irremediable, and not even decent ruin for cities and households when the

4.2. worst legislates for the best. And what authority, they said, tribunes, have you to introduce or abolish laws? Did you not receive this office from the senate on stated terms, and did you not ask for the tribunes to aid the poor who were wronged or oppressed, but to meddle in nothing else? But if indeed you had even before some power, which you got from us not justly but by force, the senate yielding to each encroachment, have you not now lost even this by the change in the elections?

4.3. For neither does a decree of the senate any longer appoint you to office, nor do the curiae cast the vote on your behalf, nor are sacrifices offered to the gods before the elections, which by law ought to be performed, nor does any other of the acts pious toward the gods or holy toward men take place under your office. What share, then, have you any longer in the sacred and venerable things—of which the law too was one—when you have renounced all the customary observances?

4.4. These things, then, the elders of them said to the tribunes; and the younger ones, going about the city in their companies, both won over the more reasonable of the plebeians with pleasing converse, and terrified the disobedient and troublesome with threats of dangers if they would not come to their senses; and some of the very poor and abandoned, who had no concern for any common interest beside their private gains, they drove out of the forum, striking them like slaves.

5.1. He who had most companions about him and was of greatest power among the young men of that time was Caeso Quintius, son of Lucius Quintius surnamed Cincinnatus, a man of illustrious birth and of a life second to none, the fairest of the young men to look upon and the most brilliant of all in war, and by nature gifted with a good way with words; who at that time poured forth abundantly against the plebeians, sparing neither speeches grievous for free men to hear, nor abstaining from deeds consistent with the speeches. The patricians, then, held him in honour for this and thought fit that he remain amid the dangers, promising themselves to provide for his safety; but those of the people hated him more than all men.

5.2. This man the tribunes resolved first to put out of the way, so as to terrify the rest of the young men and compel them to be prudent. Having so resolved and prepared speeches and many witnesses, they bring him to trial for a public crime, assessing the trial at death. Having ordered him to appear before the people, when the time they had appointed for the trial came, gathering an assembly they made long speeches against him, recounting all the violence he had wrought against the plebeians, of which they brought the very sufferers as witnesses.

5.3. When they gave over the speech, the young man himself did not answer the summons to make his defence, but demanded to stand trial according to the law for the things they charged before the private persons themselves who had suffered, the case being heard before the consuls; but his father, seeing the plebeians taking the young man's arrogance hard, made his defence, showing most of the charges against the youth to be false and concocted out of design;

5.4. and as for those that could not be denied, saying they were small and trifling and not worthy of public anger, and showing that even these had come about not from design or insolence, but from youthful ambition, through which it had befallen him both to do many unintended things in scuffles, and perhaps to suffer many too, being neither at the best of his age nor

5.5. at the purest of his judgment. And he thought fit that the plebeians not only feel no anger for the wrongs he had done to a few, but even feel gratitude for the benefits he had continually done to all in the wars, winning freedom for private men, dominion for his country, and for himself, if ever he erred, kindness and aid from the many. And he went through all his campaigns and all his contests, from which he had won prizes of valour and crowns from the generals, and how many citizens he had shielded in battle, and

5.6. how many times he had been first to mount the walls of the enemy. At the last he descended to laments and entreaties, in return for his own fairness toward all and for a life which was attested to be clear of every slander, asking one favour of the people, to preserve his son for him.

6.1. The people, then, were greatly pleased by the speeches and eager to grant the young man to his father. But Verginius, seeing that, unless he paid the penalty, the boldness of the arrogant young men would be unbearable, rises and says:

6.2. Of you, Quintius, all your other virtue is attested, and your goodwill toward the plebeians, in return for which honour is your due. But the harshness of the young man and his arrogance toward us all admit of no excuse or pardon; for he, reared under your ways, so popular and moderate as we all know them to be, disdained your pursuits, and embraced a tyrannical arrogance and the insolence of barbarian men, and brought into our city a zeal for wicked deeds.

6.3. If, then, his being such escaped you, now that you have learned it you would be right to be indignant on our behalf; but if you knew and took part in the things by which he insulted the lot of the poor citizens, then you too were base, and your reputation for goodness has not come to you justly. But because you were ignorant that he was unworthy of your virtue, this I can testify for you. Yet, while acquitting you of wronging us along with him then, I blame you for

6.4. not now sharing our indignation. But that you may better learn how great an evil you were unwittingly rearing for the city—how savage and tyrannical and not even clear of a citizen's blood—hear an ambitious deed of his, and set against it his prizes of valour in the wars; and as many of you as just now felt pity for the man as he lamented, consider whether it is well for you to spare such a citizen.

7.1. So saying, he calls up from among his colleagues Marcus Volscius and bids him tell what he knows of the young man. When silence fell and great expectation arose from all, Volscius, after a brief pause, said:

7.2. I should most of all have wished, fellow citizens, to take the private satisfaction which the law gives me from this man, having suffered dreadful things and worse than dreadful; but prevented from obtaining this by poverty and weakness and being one of the many, now at least, when I may take the role of witness, since not that of accuser, I will take it. What I have

7.3. suffered, how savage and irremediable, hear from me. I had a brother, Lucius, whom I loved more than all men. He was dining with me at a friend's house, and after this, rising, we went off the next night. As we crossed the forum, this Caeso here met us, reveling with other wanton young men. And these at first jested and behaved insolently toward us, as drunken and arrogant young men might toward the lowly and poor; but when we grew indignant with them, my brother spoke a free word against this man. Thinking it dreadful to hear anything he did not wish, this Caeso here, running at him, striking and kicking and displaying every other savagery and outrage, kills him.

7.4. When I cried out and defended myself as much as I could, leaving him now lying a corpse, he turned again to strike me, and did not cease before he saw me thrown down motionless and voiceless, thinking I was dead. After this he went off rejoicing as over a fine deed; and those who came up afterward took us, smeared with blood, and carried us off to the house—my brother a corpse, as I said, and me half-dead and with little hope of life.

7.5. These things happened when Publius Servilius and Lucius Aebutius held the consulship, when the great sickness seized the city, of which we both had our share. Then, indeed, it was not possible for me to take satisfaction from him, both consuls being dead; and when Lucius Lucretius and Titus Veturius had taken up

7.6. the office, though I wished to bring him to trial, I was prevented by the war, both consuls having left the city. When they returned from the campaign, often as I summoned him to the magistracy, as often as I approached—and many of the citizens know this—I received blows from him. These are the things I have suffered, plebeians, told to you with all truth.

8.1. When he had said this, an outcry arose from those present and an impulse of many toward summary justice. But the consuls stood in the way, and most of the tribunes, thinking it not right to introduce a wicked custom into the city. And the purest part of the people too did not wish to deprive of a speech those contending for the greatest stakes.

8.2. Then, the forethought for justice checked the impulse of the bolder, and the trial got a postponement, no small contention and inquiry arising over the body—whether it must meanwhile be kept under bond, or whether sureties for his appearance should be given, as the father too demanded; and the senate, assembling, voted that, the body being bailed with money, it be free until the trial.

8.3. On the following day the tribunes, gathering the multitude, since the young man had abandoned the trial, ratified the vote against him, and exacted from his sureties, who were ten, the money agreed upon for the restoration of his person.

8.4. Caeso, then, having fallen into such a plot, the tribunes having contrived everything and Volscius having borne false witness, as became clear in time, fled and went off into Tyrrhenia; and his father, having sold off most of his property and paid the money agreed by the sureties, leaving himself one small plot across the Tiber river, on which was a lowly hut, farming there with a few slaves, lived a laborious and wretched life out of grief and poverty, neither seeing the city nor greeting friends nor keeping festival nor giving himself any other joy. To the tribunes, however, much of their hope proved contrary. For so far from the ambition of the young men ceasing, chastened by Caeso's misfortune, it became much harsher and greater, contending against the law by deeds and words; so that nothing further could be accomplished by them, the time of their office being spent on these things. The people, however, again appointed them magistrates for the coming year.

9.1. When Publius Valerius Publicola and Gaius Claudius Sabinus had taken up the consular power, a danger such as had never yet befallen seized Rome from a war of a foreign race, which the civic faction brought within the walls, as the Sibylline oracles had foretold and the things that appeared from the divine power had prophesied the past year. I will relate both the cause from which the war came and what was done by the consuls in that struggle.

9.2. Those who had taken up the tribuneship a second time in the hope of ratifying the law, seeing that one of the consuls, Gaius Claudius, had an inbred hatred of the plebeians through his ancestors and was prepared by every device to hinder what was being done, and that the most powerful of the young men had advanced to manifest desperation, whom it was not possible to overcome by force, and most of all that the greater part of the people, yielding to the attentions of the patricians, no longer showed the same zeal for the law, resolved to take a bolder road to their ends, by which they would terrify the people and put off the consul.

9.3. First they contrived that all manner of rumours be spread throughout the city; then, from early morning, sitting through the whole day, they held council in public, sharing with none outside either plan or word. When a fit occasion seemed to them to have come to do what they had planned, having forged letters and arranged for them to be handed to them by an unknown man as they sat in the forum, when they had read them through, beating their foreheads and

9.4. making their faces downcast, they rose. When a great crowd ran together and divined that some great evil was written in the letters, having proclaimed silence, they said: The commons are in the utmost danger, fellow citizens; and unless some goodwill of the gods had foreseen for those about to suffer unjustly, we should all have come to dreadful calamities. We ask you to wait a short time, until we make known to the senate what has been reported and, with common counsel, do what is

9.5. needful. So saying, they went off to the consuls. While the senate was being convened, many speeches of every kind arose throughout the forum, some by design saying in groups what was enjoined them by the tribunes, others saying what they most feared might happen as though it had been reported to the tribunes.

9.6. One said that the Aequians and Volscians, having received Caeso Quintius who had been condemned by the people, had chosen him general with full power over the nations, and that, having gathered many forces, he was about to march on Rome; another, that by the common counsel of the patricians the man was being brought back with foreign forces, so that the protection of the plebeians might be dissolved now and for the future; another said that not all the patricians had planned this,

9.7. but only the young men. Some dared to say that the man was even hiding within the city and was about to seize the most strategic places. The whole city quaking at the expectation of dreadful things, and all holding one another in suspicion and watchfulness, the consuls summoned the senate, and the tribunes, coming forward, set forth what was being reported. He who made the speeches for them was Aulus Verginius, and he spoke as follows:

10.1. So long as nothing exact appeared to us of the reported dangers, but only rumours in the air, and there was nothing to confirm them, we shrank, senate, from bringing speeches about them into the open, both suspecting that great disturbances would arise, as is likely at dreadful reports, and being cautious lest we should seem to you to have deliberated more hastily than wisely.

10.2. Yet we did not let them go in neglect, but, so far as was in our power, made careful inquiry after the truth. But since the providence of the divine power, by which we are ever kept safe in common, doing well, brings to light the hidden counsels and the unholy attempts of those hateful to the gods, and there are letters in our hands which we have lately received from strangers showing goodwill to us, whom you shall hear of later, and the things disclosed from here agree and accord with what is sent from outside, and the matter, being in hand, no longer admits of delay or postponement—before bringing it to the people, we have resolved to report it first to you, as is just.

10.3. Know, then, that a conspiracy has been formed against the people by men not obscure, among whom is said to be some small part even of the elder members gathered into this council, but the greater part of the knights outside the senate, whom it is not yet the time to tell you who they are.

10.4. They mean, then, as we learn, having watched for a dark night, to attack us as we sleep, when we are unable, each by himself, to foresee or guard against any of what is happening; and falling upon the houses, to slaughter us the tribunes and others of the plebeians who once opposed them concerning freedom or will oppose them in the future. And when they have put us out of the way, then at last, in much security, they think to bring about that the rest of the agreements made with you toward the people be annulled by a common decree.

10.5. Seeing that they need a foreign hand secretly prepared for the affair, and that no small one, they have taken into this enterprise a leader from among your exiles, Caeso Quintius, whom, convicted of murders of citizens and of dividing the city, certain men here contrived should not pay the penalty but depart from the city unpunished; and they have promised to procure his return and hold out to him magistracies and honours and other rewards for his service.

10.6. And he has promised to lead them an auxiliary army of Aequians and Volscians, as large as they need; and he will come before long, himself bringing the boldest, introducing them secretly in small bands and scattered; and the rest of the force, when we the leaders of the people have been destroyed, will move against the rest of the multitude of the poor, in case some indeed still cling to freedom.

10.7. These are the things they have planned in darkness and mean to do, senate—dreadful and unholy deeds, fearing neither divine wrath nor revering human retribution.

11.1. Tossed in so great a danger, we become your suppliants, fathers, adjuring the gods and divinities to whom we sacrifice in common, and reminding you of the wars, many and great, which we have waged with you, not to look on while we suffer savage and unholy things from our enemies, but to defend us and share our indignation, helping us exact the fitting penalties from those who have planned this—from all of them most of all, but if not, then from those who began the unlawful conspiracy.

11.2. And first of all we ask you, senate, to vote a thing which is most just, that the inquiry into what is reported be made by us the tribunes. For apart from justice, the inquiries which those in danger make for themselves are bound to be the most exact.

11.3. But if any of you are of such a sort as not to be reasonable in a single point, but to set themselves against all who speak for the people, I should gladly learn from them at what they take offence in our demands, and what they mean to persuade you. Is it to make no inquiry at all, but to overlook so great and foul a deed being formed against the people? And who would say that those who say this are sound of mind, and not rather corrupted along with the rest and partners in the conspiracy, and then, fearing for themselves lest they become known, eager to avert the examination of the truth? To whom you would not justly give heed.

11.4. Or will they think fit that we should not be sovereign of the determination of the reported matters, but the senate and the consuls? What, then, will prevent the leaders of the people from saying this same thing, if certain of the plebeians, banding together against the consuls and the senate, were to work the dissolution of the council—that it is just that the examination concerning the plebeians be made by those who have taken up the protection of the people? What, then, will result from this? That no inquiry should ever be made about any secret matter.

11.5. But neither would we think fit to demand this—for the ambition is suspect; nor would you act rightly in giving heed to those who make like demands against us, but you would regard them as common enemies of the city. Yet, senate, nothing is so needed by the matter as speed. For the danger is sharp, and delay of safety is untimely amid dangers that are not delaying. So, laying aside contentiousness and the going through of long speeches, vote at once whatever seems for the common good.

12.1. When he had said this, much consternation and helplessness seized the council; and they reckoned and conversed with one another how hard each course was—both to concede to the tribunes that they make inquiries by themselves about a common and great matter, and not to concede. Suspecting their mind, one of the consuls, Gaius Claudius, rose and

12.2. spoke as follows: I do not fear, Verginius, that these men will suppose me a partner in the conspiracy which you say is being formed against you and the people, or that I have risen to speak against you either out of fear for myself or because some of mine is liable to the charges; for my life clears me of all such suspicion. But what I think profitable both to the senate and to the people I will say from the best motive and without all caution.

12.3. Greatly—nay, wholly—does Verginius seem to me to err, if he has supposed that any of us will say either that a matter so great and pressing ought to be let go unexamined, or that those who have taken up the office of the people ought not to take part in or be present at the inquiry. None is so foolish or so ill-disposed toward the people as to say this.

12.4. What, then—if one should ask me—has happened to me, that I rose to oppose these men in things I concede and call just, and what does my speech mean? I, by Zeus, will tell you. I think, senate, that in every matter the right-minded should examine exactly the beginnings and the first premises; for whatever sort these chance to be, of such sort the discussions of them too are bound to become.

12.5. Come, then, hear from me what the premise of this matter is and what the plan of the tribunes is. It was not possible for these men to accomplish now any of the things which they undertook the past year and were prevented from doing, you opposing them as before and the people no longer contending alongside them as before. Seeing this, they considered how you might be compelled to yield to them against your judgment, and the people to join in everything

12.6. they should demand. Now no true and just premise could they find by which either of these would be theirs; but trying many plans and turning the matter up and down, at last they came to some such reckoning as this: Let us charge that certain of the distinguished are combining for the overthrow of the people, and have resolved to slaughter those who provide it security.

12.7. And having long prepared these things to be spoken throughout the city, when they seem credible to the many—and they will seem so through fear—let us contrive that letters be handed to us, with many present, by an unknown man; then, coming to the council, let us be indignant and complain bitterly and ask the power to inquire into what is reported.

12.8. For if the patricians oppose us, we shall take this as a starting-point to slander them before the people, and thus all the plebeians, enraged against them, will be at hand for us for what we wish; and if they concede, let us drive out the noblest of them and those who have most opposed us, both old and young, as having found them liable to the charges.

12.9. And they, indeed, fearing condemnation, will either come to terms with us, so as no longer to oppose us, or will be forced to leave the city. And from this we shall make much desolation of the opposing party.

13.1. These were their plans, senate, and during the time when you saw them holding council, this guile was being woven by them against the best of you, and this net was being plaited against the noblest of the knights. And that these things are

13.2. true, I need very few words. Come, tell me, Verginius—you who are to suffer dreadful things—from what strangers did you receive the letters? Dwelling where, or knowing you from where, or how knowing what is here held in council? Why do you delay and promise to tell who they are afterward, instead of saying it long since? And who is the man who brought you the letters? Why do you not produce him into our midst, that from him first we may begin to inquire, whether these things are true, or, as I say, are fabrications of yours?

13.3. And the disclosures from here that agree with the foreign letters—who are they, and made by whom? Why do you hide the proofs, instead of bringing them into the open? But I think it impossible to find proof of things that neither happened nor will happen.

13.4. These, senate, are disclosures not of a conspiracy against these men, but of guile and a wicked design against you, which these men have used in secret; for the facts themselves cry out. And you are to blame, who first gave them leave and armed the folly of the office with great power, when you allowed Caeso Quintius the past year to be tried on false charges, and overlooked so great a guardian of the aristocracy being snatched away by them. Therefore they are no longer moderate, nor do they clip off the well-born one by one, but, throwing their net around the good in throngs, they now drive them from the city;

13.5. and, besides the other evils, they think fit that none of you contradict them, but, bringing him into suspicions and slanders as one sharing the secrets, they terrify him, and at once call him a hater of the people, and proclaim that he come before the people to pay the penalty for what is said here.

13.6. But of these things there will be another, fitter occasion for speech; now I will cut short my speech and cease from contending further. I advise you to guard against these men as those who confound the city and bring forth the beginnings of great evils. And I do not say these things here only, to conceal them from the people, but there too I will use just frankness, teaching that nothing dreadful hangs over them, except wicked and crafty leaders who work the deeds of enemies under the pretence of friends.

13.7. When the consul had said this, an outcry and much praise arose from those present, and, no longer giving the tribunes a hearing, they dissolved the gathering. Then Verginius, gathering an assembly, accused both the senate and the consuls, and Claudius made his defence, going through the same speeches he had spoken before the senate. The more reasonable of the plebeians suspected the fear was empty; the more simple, trusting the rumours, thought it true; and as many as were malicious among them and always desiring change took no thought to examine the true or false, but sought a starting-point for division and tumult.

14.1. While the city was in such confusion, a certain man of the Sabine nation, of no obscure family and powerful in wealth, Appius Herdonius by name, undertook to overthrow the dominion of the Romans, whether setting up a tyranny for himself, or working empire and power for the Sabine nation, or wishing to be thought worthy of a great name. Having communicated to many of his friends the intent he had and set forth the manner of the attempt, since they too approved, he gathered his clients and the boldest of the servants he had; and in a short time, having mustered a force of about four thousand men, and made ready arms and provisions and all else that war needs,

14.2. he embarked them on river-boats. Sailing through the Tiber river, he put in at Rome at that place where the Capitol is, not a whole stade distant from the river. It was then about midnight, and there was much quiet throughout the whole city, which, taking as an ally, he landed his men in haste and through the open gates—for there are certain sacred gates of the Capitol left open by some oracle, which they call Carmental; bringing his force up, he held the fortress. From there, thrusting on to the citadel—which is

14.3. adjacent to the Capitol—he became master of that too. His plan, after seizing the most strategic places, was to receive the exiles, summon the slaves to freedom, promise the poor remission of debts, and make the rest of the citizens, who, faring lowly, regarded the eminent with envy and hatred and would gladly grasp at change, partners in the gains. And the hope that drew him to take courage and led him astray, as though he should fail of none of his expectations, was the civic faction, on account of which he supposed neither friendship nor any partnership would ever again come about between the people and the patricians.

14.4. But if indeed none of these things went according to his mind, then he had resolved to summon the Sabines with all their forces and the Volscians and as many of the other neighbours as wished to be rid of the Romans' envied dominion.

15.1. It befell him to fail of all that he hoped, no slaves deserting to him, no exiles returning, no dishonoured and debt-ridden men exchanging their private gain for the common good, and the help from outside not getting time enough for the preparation of the war; for in three or four of the first days the affair came to an end, having caused the Romans great fear and much disturbance.

15.2. For when the fortresses were taken, an outcry suddenly arising and a flight of those dwelling about those places, as many as were not slaughtered on the spot, the multitude, ignorant of what the dreadful thing was, snatching up their arms, ran together—some to the heights of the city, others to its open spaces, which were very many, others to the adjoining plains; and as many as were past their prime in age and weak in bodily strength held the roofs of the houses together with the women, to fight from these against those who had entered; for everything seemed to them full of war.

15.3. When day came, and it was known which fortresses of the city had been taken and who the man holding the places was, the consuls, coming forth into the forum, called the citizens to arms; and the tribunes, summoning the people to assembly, said that they thought fit to do nothing contrary to the city's interest, but held it just that the people, about to undergo so great a struggle, should advance to the hazard on certain stated and defined

15.4. terms. If, then, they said, the patricians promise you and are willing to give pledges before the gods that, when this war is ended, they will permit you to appoint legislators and for the future to govern in equality of speech, let us free the country along with them; but if they think fit to do nothing moderate, why do we risk and throw away our lives for them, when we are to enjoy no good?

15.5. As they said this and the people were persuaded and would not endure even to hear the voice of those advising anything else, Claudius thought fit not to need such alliance as is not voluntary, but wishes to aid the country for hire, and that not a moderate one; but he said the patricians themselves, arming with their own bodies and those of the clients with them, and taking any other volunteer multitude that would join them in the war, should besiege the fortresses with these; and if even thus the force seemed not sufficient, they should call upon the Latins and Hernicans, and, if need be, even promise freedom to slaves and call upon all rather than those who at such times bear them malice.

15.6. The other consul, Valerius, spoke against this, thinking it not right to make the irritated plebeians wholly hostile to the patricians; and he advised yielding to the occasion, and against the enemies from outside to set what was just, but toward the civic disputes what was moderate and reasonable.

15.7. Since the more part of the council thought he spoke the best, coming forth into the assembly and going through a fitting speech, at the end of the harangue he swore that, if the people zealously joined in the war and the city's affairs were settled, he would permit the tribunes to set before the multitude the decision concerning the law which they were bringing in for equality, and would strive that under his own office what the people resolved be brought to completion. But it was not fated for him to fulfil any of what was agreed, the lot of death being near.

16.1. The assembly being dissolved toward late evening, each ran together to the appointed places, registering their names with the commanders and swearing the military oath. That day, then, and the following night entire, they were about these things; and on the next day centurions were assigned by the consuls and posted to the sacred standards, the throng abiding in the fields streaming in as well.

16.2. All being quickly made ready, the consuls, dividing the forces, allotted the commands by lot. To Claudius, then, the lot assigned the guarding of the area before the walls, lest some army come from outside to aid those within; for suspicion held all of a very great movement, and they feared lest all the opposing force should attack them together. To Valerius the deity assigned the besieging of the fortresses.

16.3. Commanders were also posted at the other strongholds to hold whatever was within the city, and along the roads leading up to the Capitol were others, to hinder the slaves and poor who would desert to the enemy, whom they feared most of all. No auxiliary force from the allies reached them in time, except only from the Tusculans, who in a single night both heard and made ready, whom Lucius Mamilius led, an energetic man holding then the highest office in the city; and these alone shared the danger with Valerius and helped him take the fortresses, displaying all goodwill and zeal.

16.4. The assault upon the fortresses was made from every side. Some, from the nearby houses, fitting to slings jars of asphalt and burning pitch, cast them over the hill; others, heaping faggots of brushwood and raising high pyres by the steep places of the rock, kindled them, giving the flames to a wind that bore them on. As many as were bravest, closing up their companies, advanced upward by the

16.5. man-made paths. But there was no profit to them either of the multitude, in which they far exceeded their adversaries, ascending by a narrow road full of missiles dashed down from above, where the few were bound to be equalized with the many; nor of the endurance amid dangers which they had got in many wars—no use of it to men forcing their way up against steep heights. For they had to display their boldness and steadfastness not fighting hand to hand, but using long-range battles.

16.6. The blows of those throwing from below to the heights were slow and weak, even if they hit, as is likely; but those of the ones hurling down from above were sharp and strong, the missiles' own weights aiding the throws. Yet those assaulting the strongholds did not grow weary, but held out, forcing down the dreadful things, resting from their toils neither by day nor by night. At last, then, the missiles of the besieged failing and their bodies giving out, on the third day they took the fortresses by siege.

16.7. In this battle the Romans lost many brave men, and the best, as was agreed by all—the consul; who, having received not a few wounds, even so did not desist from the dangers, until a stone of enormous size, dashed down upon him as he mounted the surrounding wall, robbed him at once of the victory and of his life. When the fortresses were being taken, Herdonius—for he was both extraordinary in bodily strength and noble in the use of his hand—having made an incredible heap of the dead about himself, dies under the multitude of missiles; and of those who had seized the fortresses with him, a few were taken alive, but the more part perished, either slaying themselves or thrusting themselves down from the cliffs.

17.1. This brigand-war having come to such an end, the tribunes again fanned the civic faction, thinking fit to receive from the surviving consul the promises which Valerius, who had died in the battle, made to them concerning the bringing in of the law. But Claudius for a while drew out the time, now performing purifications of the city, now rendering thank-offerings to the gods, now reviving the multitude into good cheer with games and shows.

17.2. When all his pretexts were used up, at last he said that another must be appointed in the place of the dead consul; for the things done by himself alone would be neither lawful nor secure, but those by both lawful and valid. Putting them off with this pretext, he proclaimed a day for elections, on which he meant to designate his colleague. In the interval, by secret counsels, the leaders of the council agreed among themselves to whom they would hand over the office.

17.3. When the time of the elections came, and the herald called the first class, the eighteen centuries of the knights and the eighty of the foot of the highest census, entering the appointed place, designate Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus consul—whose son Caeso Quintius the tribunes, by bringing him to a trial for life, had forced to leave the city; and, no further class being called to the vote—for the centuries that had cast the vote were by three more than those remaining—the people departed, holding it a grievous calamity that a man who hated them would be master of consular power, while the senate sent men to receive the consul and lead him to the office.

17.4. It chanced then that Quintius was working a certain field for sowing, himself following the oxen that cleft the fallow, without a tunic, wearing a loincloth and a cap on his head. Seeing a multitude of men entering the field, he stopped the plough and was for a long time at a loss who they might be and for what need they came to him; then, one running up and bidding him make himself more decent, going into the hut and

17.5. clothing himself, he came forth. Those present to receive him all greeted him not by name, but as consul, and put on him the purple-bordered robe, and, setting before him the axes and the other insignia of office, asked him to follow into the city. And he, after a short pause and shedding tears, said only this: My field, then, will go unsown this year, and we shall be in danger of having nothing to live on. Then, greeting his wife and bidding her care for things at home, he went off to the city.

17.6. These things I have been led to tell for no other reason than that it may be plain to all what sort of men were then the leaders of the city of the Romans—how they tilled their own soil and were temperate and not burdened by just poverty and did not pursue royal powers, but even refused them when offered; for those now will appear not even slightly like those men, but pursuing all the contrary things, save a very few, through whom the dignity of the city still stands and the likeness to those men is preserved. But of these things enough.

18.1. Quintius, having taken up the consulship, first stopped the tribunes from their new measures and their zeal for the law, proclaiming that, if they would not cease troubling the city, he would lead all the Romans out of the city on a campaign against

18.2. the Volscians. When the tribunes said they would prevent him from making a levy of the army, gathering the multitude into assembly he said that all had sworn the military oath, to follow the consuls to whatever wars they were called, and neither to abandon the standards nor do anything else contrary to the law; and, having taken up the consular power, he held them all bound by their oaths.

18.3. Saying this and swearing he would use the law against the disobedient, he ordered the standards brought down from the sanctuaries; and that, he said, you may despair of all demagoguery under my consulship, I will not lead the army back from the enemy's country before the whole time of my office has passed. So, as men about to winter in the open, make ready the things needful for that season.

18.4. Having struck them with terror by these words, when he saw them grown more orderly and begging to be released from the campaign, on these terms he said he would grant the respite from wars: that they no longer make disturbances, but allow him to complete his office as he wished, and that they give and receive justice from one another.

19.1. The tumult settled, he restored courts to those who needed them, long delayed; and most of the suits he himself decided fairly and justly, sitting through the whole day on the tribunal, showing himself accessible and gentle and kind to those coming for justice, and made the constitution appear so aristocratic that neither did those oppressed by their betters through poverty or low birth or some other lowliness need tribunes, nor had those wishing to govern in equality of speech any longing for new legislation, but all loved and rejoiced in the good order then prevailing in the city.

19.2. These deeds of the man were praised by the people, and, when he had completed the appointed time of his office, also his not accepting the consulship offered a second time, nor

19.3. being content to take so great an honour. For the senate sought to keep him in the consular power, offering many entreaties, since the tribunes for the third time managed not to lay down their office, that he might oppose them and stop their new measures, partly through respect, partly through fear; and seeing the people not unwilling to be ruled by a good man. But he said he neither praised in the tribunes their refusal to yield up power, nor would himself come into a like slander with them.

19.4. Gathering the people into assembly and making a long accusation of those who do not lay down their offices, and swearing strong oaths not to take the consulship again before laying down the former office, he proclaimed a day for elections; on which, having appointed consuls, he went off again to that little hut and lived the husbandman's life as before.

20.1. When Quintus Fabius Vibulanus had taken up the consulship for the third time, and Lucius Cornelius, and they were celebrating ancestral games, picked men of the Aequians, to the number of about six thousand, equipped in light armour and making their sortie by night while it was still dark, come to the city of the Tusculans, which is of the Latin nation, and distant from Rome not less than a hundred stades.

20.2. Finding, as in peace, the gates unbarred and the wall unguarded, they take the city at the first onset, bearing a grudge against the Tusculans because they continued to aid the city of the Romans zealously in other things, and in the siege of the Capitol alone joined in the

20.3. war. They destroyed not very many men in the capture, for those within had already, just as the city was being taken, thrust them out through the gates, except such as through sickness or age were unable to flee; but the women and children and their servants they enslaved, and plundered the property.

20.4. When the dreadful thing was reported to Rome by those who fled from the capture, the consuls thought they ought to aid the fugitives quickly and restore the city to them; but the tribunes opposed, not allowing an army to be enrolled until the vote concerning the laws should be decided. While the senate was indignant and the campaign was being delayed, others came, sent from the Latin nation, who reported that the city of the Antiates had openly revolted, the old Volscian inhabitants of the city and the Roman colonists who had come to them and divided the land using one mind. And messengers of the Hernicans came at the same time, making plain that a large force of Volscians and Aequians had marched out and was already in their land.

20.5. These being reported at once, it seemed to the council to make no further delay, but to aid with all their forces and for both consuls to march out; and if any of the Romans or of the allies should be left out of the

20.6. campaign, to treat them as enemies. The tribunes too yielding, the consuls, having enrolled all of military age and sent for the forces from the allies, marched out in haste, leaving as a guard for the city a third part of the native army. Fabius, then, led his army quickly against the Aequians in Tusculum.

20.7. Of these the greater part had already departed, having plundered the city, but a few remained guarding the citadel; and it is very strong and needs no great guard. Some, then, say that the garrison of the citadel, seeing the army coming out of Rome—for the intervening country is all in clear view from a height—departed willingly; others, that, besieged out by Fabius, they handed over the fort by agreement, having asked safety for their persons and submitted to the yoke.

21.1. Having restored the city to the Tusculans, Fabius toward late evening roused the army. And with all speed he marched against the enemy, hearing that about the city Algidus the forces of the Volscians and Aequians were gathered. Making a forced march through the whole night, just at dawn he appeared upon the enemy, encamped in a plain and surrounded neither by ditch nor rampart, as in their own land and in contempt of their adversary.

21.2. Having exhorted those about him to prove themselves brave men, he rides first with the horsemen into the enemy's camp, and the foot, raising the war-cry, followed; of the enemy, some, still sleeping, were slaughtered, others, having just risen and attempting to turn to defence, and the greater part, fleeing, were scattered.

21.3. The camp being taken with much ease, granting the soldiers to profit by the property and the persons, except such as were Tusculan, and spending no long time there, he led his force against the city of the Echetrans, which was then the most distinguished of the Volscian nation and lay in the strongest position.

21.4. Encamping near the city for many days, in hope that those within would come forth to battle, when no army came out, he ravaged their land, which was full of men and cattle. For they had not had time to gather what was in the fields, the onset having come upon them suddenly. Granting these too to the soldiers to plunder, and spending many days in the foray, Fabius led his force home.

21.5. The other consul, Cornelius, marching against the Romans and Volscians in Antium, met an army receiving him before the borders. Drawing up against them and slaying many and routing the rest, he encamped near the city. The men of the city no longer daring to come to battle, first he cut down their land, then trenched and palisaded the city about. Then again, forced, they came out of the city with all their force, a large and disordered throng, and joining battle, having fought still worse, they are shut up a second time in the city, fleeing shamefully and unmanfully.

21.6. The consul, giving them no further respite, brought ladders to the walls and battered the gates with rams. Those within fighting back laboriously and wretchedly, with no great effort he takes the city by storm. The property of theirs, all the gold and silver and bronze that was in it, he ordered carried to the public treasury; the slaves and the rest of the spoils he had the quaestors take over and sell; and to the soldiers he granted to profit by clothing and provisions and whatever else of the kind they could.

21.7. Then, picking out from among both the colonists and the old Antiates the most distinguished and the authors of the revolt—and there were many—he flogged them with rods for a long while and ordered their necks struck off. Having done this, he too led his force home.

21.8. The senate met these consuls as they approached and voted both to lead in triumphs; and toward the Aequians, who had sent envoys for peace, made a treaty for ending the war, in which it was written that the Aequians, holding the cities and lands they had when the truce was made, be subjects of the Romans, paying nothing else, but sending in the wars an auxiliary force of whatever size, like the other allies. And this year came to an end.

22.1. In the following year Gaius Nautius, chosen for the second time, and Lucius Minucius, having taken up the consular office, for a while waged a war within the walls over the civic rights against the tribunes about Verginius, who now for the fourth year held the same office.

22.2. But when a war from the neighbouring nations came upon the city, and there was fear lest they be stripped of their office, gladly receiving what befell from fortune, they made the military levy; and dividing into three both their own and the allied forces, they left one part in the city, led by Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, and themselves, taking the rest, marched out quickly—Nautius against the Sabines, Minucius against

22.3. the Aequians. For both these nations had at the same time revolted from the Roman dominion, the Sabines openly, and had ridden up to the city of Fidenae, which the Romans held—the stades between the cities being forty—and the Aequians, in word keeping the rights of the lately made alliance, but in deed doing the work of enemies.

22.4. For they made war upon the Latins, the Romans' allies, on the ground that no agreements of friendship had been made between them and the Latins. The army was led by Gracchus Cloelius, an energetic man adorned with full authority, which he carried out in too kingly a fashion. Riding as far as the city of Tusculum, which the Aequians the year before had seized and plundered and from which they had been driven by the Romans, he carried off many men from the fields and what cattle he found, and destroyed the crops of the land, which were at their height.

22.5. When an embassy arrived, which the Roman senate had sent, thinking fit to learn what had befallen the Aequians that they made war on the Romans' allies, friendship having lately been sworn with them and no offence having occurred in the interval between the nations, and advising Cloelius to release the prisoners he held, lead off his army, and submit to justice for the wrongs and damage he had done the Tusculans, Gracchus wasted much time, not even coming to speech with the envoys, as though occupied with

22.6. some business. But when at last he thought fit to admit the envoys, and they went through the words enjoined by the senate, I marvel, he says, at you, Romans, why ever you yourselves regard all men as enemies, even those from whom you have suffered no harm, for the sake of empire and tyranny, but do not allow the Aequians to exact justice from these Tusculans who are enemies, when nothing was agreed to us about them

22.7. when we made the treaty with you. If, then, you say you are wronged or harmed in anything of your own by us, we will submit to justice with you according to the agreements; but if you have come to exact justice for the Tusculans, there is no word for you to me about these things, but speak to this oak-tree—showing them one growing nearby.

23.1. The Romans, thus insulted by the man, did not at once give way to anger and lead out the army, but sent a second embassy to him and dispatched the priests called the Fetiales, calling gods and divinities to witness that, unable to obtain justice, they would be forced to wage a holy war; and after this they sent the consul.

23.2. Gracchus, when he learned that the Romans were approaching, roused his force and withdrew farther, the enemy following hard, wishing to draw them on to such places where he would have the advantage; which indeed came about. For watching for a defile enclosed by mountains, when the Romans, pursuing him, entered it, he turned about and encamped on the road leading out of the defile.

23.3. From this it befell the Romans not to choose the spot they wished for their camp, but the one the occasion gave them, where neither was it easy for the horses to get fodder, the place being enclosed by bare and difficult mountains, nor for themselves to bring provisions from the enemy's country, since they had used up what they brought from home, nor to shift camp, the enemy sitting opposite and blocking the outlets. Resolving to force their way and advancing to battle, they were beaten back and, receiving many wounds, were shut up in the same camp. Cloelius, lifted up by this advantage, trenched and palisaded them about, and had great hopes that, pressed by famine, they would hand over their arms to him.

23.4. When a report of this came to Rome, Quintus Fabius, who had been left as prefect over the city, picking out from the army with him the freshest and best part, sent it as an ally to the consul. This force was led by Titus Quintius the quaestor, a man of consular rank.

23.5. To the other consul, Nautius, who was with the army among the Sabines, he sent letters, making plain what had befallen Minucius and asking him to come quickly. And he, entrusting the camp to the legates, himself with a few horsemen rides to Rome at a strenuous gallop; entering the city while it was still deep night, he deliberated with Fabius and the eldest of the other citizens what should be done. When all thought the occasion required a dictator, he appoints to this office Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus. And he himself, having done this, went off again to the camp.

24.1. The prefect of the city, Fabius, sent men to receive Quintius into the office. It chanced again that the man was doing some of his work in the field; seeing the throng approaching and suspecting that they came

24.2. to him, he took fairer clothing and went to meet them. When he was near, they brought him horses adorned with splendid trappings, and set beside him the twenty-four axes with the rods, and offered him the purple robe and the other insignia with which the office of the kings had formerly been adorned. He, when he learned that he had been appointed dictator of the city, so far from being content at obtaining so great an honour, said in indignation: This year's crop too will be lost through my engagements, and we shall all be in evil hunger.

24.3. After this, coming to the city, first he encouraged the citizens, going through a speech in the assembly able to raise their spirits with good hopes; then, gathering all in their prime, both those in the city and those from the fields, and sending for the auxiliaries from the allies, and appointing as master of horse Lucius Tarquinius, a man neglected through poverty but noble in war, he marched out with a well-drilled force; and finding the quaestor Titus Quintius awaiting his arrival, taking the force with him too, he came against the enemy.

24.4. When he had spied out the nature of the places where the camps were, he posted a part of the army on the heights, so that no other aid or provisions should reach the Aequians, and himself, leading the rest of the force, advanced drawn up as for battle. And Cloelius, not at all daunted—for the force about him was not small, and he himself was thought no coward in war—receives him as he came on, and

24.5. a stout battle takes place. After much time had passed, and the Romans, through their continual wars, were sustaining the toil, and the horsemen ever came to the aid of the foot at the hard-pressed part, Gracchus, defeated, is shut up again in his own camp. And after this Quintius, having trenched him about with a high rampart and surrounded him with close-set towers, when he learned that he was suffering from want of necessities, both made continual assaults himself upon the camp of the Aequians and ordered

24.6. Minucius to come out from the other side. So that the Aequians were forced, being in want of food and having despaired of allied aid and being besieged on many sides, taking up suppliant-boughs to send envoys to Quintius for friendship. He said that with the other Aequians he would make a truce and grant their persons safety, if they laid down their arms and passed one by one under the yoke, but that with Gracchus the enemy's commander and those who had planned the revolt with him he would deal as with enemies, and ordered them to bring the men to him in bonds.

24.7. The Aequians submitting to this, lastly he laid this command on them: since they had enslaved and plundered Tusculum, a city allied to the Romans, having suffered no harm from the Tusculans, to give him in return a city of their own, Corbio, to be treated likewise.

24.8. Having received these answers, the envoys of the Aequians went forth, and not long after were present bringing Gracchus and those with him in bonds; and they themselves, laying down their arms, abandoned the camp, passing, as the general ordered, through the Roman camp one by one under the yoke, and handed over Corbio according to the agreement, asking only that the free persons come out, for whom they had exchanged the Tusculan prisoners.

25.1. Quintius, having taken over the city, ordered the most distinguished of the spoils carried to Rome, and granted all the rest to be divided by companies among both the soldiers present with him and those previously sent with Quintius the quaestor. To those shut up with Minucius the consul in the camp he said he had given a great gift, rescuing their persons from death.

25.2. Having done this and forced Minucius to lay down his office, he returned to Rome and led in the most brilliant triumph of all commanders—in sixteen days in all from when he took up the office—having saved a friendly army, destroyed a flourishing force of enemies, sacked a city of theirs and left a garrison in it, and brought the leader of the war and the other distinguished men bound in chains.

25.3. And what is most of all worthy of admiration in him: having received so great an office for six months, he did not use the whole term of the law, but, gathering the people into assembly and giving an account of what he had done, abdicated the office; and though the senate begged him to take as much of the conquered land as he wished and to mend his poverty with slaves and money from the spoils—a just wealth, which he had got most nobly from enemies by his own toils—he thought it not right, and though friends and kinsmen offered great gifts and reckoned it the greatest of all goods to do that man kindness, praising them for their zeal, he took none of what was offered, but went off again to that little plot, and took up the husbandman's life in place of the royal one, prouder in his poverty

25.4. than others in their wealth. Not long after, Nautius too, the other consul, having defeated the Sabines in a pitched battle and overrun much of their country, led his forces home.

26.1. After these came the eighty-first Olympiad, in which Polymnastus of Cyrene won the stadium-race, Callias being archon at Athens, in whose year Gaius Horatius and Quintus Minucius took up the consular office at Rome. Under these the Sabines, again marching against the Romans, ravaged much of their country, and the fugitives from the fields came in throngs, saying that all between Crustumerium and Fidenae was held by them.

26.2. The Aequians too, lately subdued, were again under arms; and the freshest of them, marching by night against Corbio, the city which the year before they had handed over to the Romans, finding the garrison in it asleep, slaughtered all but a few who chanced to be away; and the rest, marching with a large force against the city Ortona of the Latin nation, take it by assault, and what they were unable to do to the Romans, this in anger they did to their allies.

26.3. For all in their prime they killed, except such as fled at once when the city was being taken; and their women and children and the aged among them they enslaved, and gathering in haste all the property they could carry off, before all the Latins came to the rescue, they returned.

26.4. These things being reported at once by the Latins and by those saved from the garrison, the senate voted to send out an army and for both consuls to march; but the tribunes about Verginius, now for the fifth year in the same power, prevented it, as they had done in former years too, setting themselves against the consuls' levies, thinking fit that the war within the walls be first dissolved, the decision concerning the law which they were bringing in for equality of speech being granted to the people; and the people aided them, going through many invidious speeches against the senate.

26.5. As the time dragged on and neither the consuls would deliberate beforehand and bring the law before the people, nor the tribunes consent to let the levy and the sortie of the army take place, and many speeches and accusations they made against one another both in the assemblies and before the senate were spent in vain, another measure introduced by the tribunes against the senate and outwitting the council both soothed the faction that then held it, and became the cause to the people of many other great advantages. I will relate also in what manner the people got this power.

27.1. As the land of the Romans and of the allies was being destroyed and plundered, and the enemy marched as through a desert, in hope that no force would come out against them because of the faction holding the city, the consuls convened the senate, as to deliberate this last on the whole situation.

27.2. Many speeches being made, first asked his opinion, Lucius Quintius, who had been dictator the past year, a man not only most able in war of those of his time, but thought to be most prudent also in civic affairs, declared this opinion: that they should most of all persuade the tribunes and the other citizens to put off the decision concerning the law, which pressed in nothing for the present, to other fitter occasions, and to take up with all zeal the war that was in hand and well-nigh upon the city, and not to overlook the dominion won with many toils being shamefully and unmanfully destroyed.

27.3. But if the people would not be persuaded, the patricians, with their clients armed, and taking with them those of the other citizens who would willingly join in the noblest of contests for their country, should advance zealously to the war, making the gods who guard the city of the Romans leaders of their sortie.

27.4. For it would befall them, of two fine and just deeds, one or the other: either to win a victory more brilliant than any they or their fathers had ever won, or, stoutly contending for the fair things in it, to die. From this fine trial, he said, he himself would not stay back, but, present, would contend on equal terms with the strongest, nor would any other of the elders to whom freedom and good repute are of account.

28.1. When this seemed good to all the rest too, and there was none who would speak against it, the consuls summoned the people to assembly. When all the throng in the city had gathered, as for novel announcements, coming forth one of the consuls, Gaius Horatius, tried to persuade the plebeians to undergo this campaign too willingly. The tribunes speaking against and the people giving heed to them, the consul came forward again and said:

28.2. A fine, marvellous deed, Verginius, you have wrought, tearing the people from the senate; and, so far as depends on you, we have lost all that we held, whether received from our forefathers or won by our own toils.

28.3. Yet we will not let go of them without a fight, but, taking up our arms, with those who wish to save the country we will advance to the contest, putting forward good hopes of the deeds; and if some god watches over fine and just contests, and the fortune that has long increased this city has not yet forsaken it, we shall prove superior to our enemies; but if some deity is set against us and opposes the city's safety, surely the goodwill and zeal in us at least will not perish, but we will choose the noblest of all deaths for our country.

28.4. But you, remaining here, keep house with the women, you fine and noble protectors of the city, having forsaken—nay, rather betrayed—us; for whom, neither if we conquer will life be fine, nor, if things go

28.5. otherwise with us, will it be safe—unless indeed you are lifted up by that cold hope, that when the patricians are destroyed the enemy will spare you, reckoning this a kindness, and grant you to enjoy your country and freedom and dominion and all the other goods you now have, of which you, when you were of your best mind, cut off much land and razed many cities, enslaving them, and set up many great trophies, not to be effaced by all eternity, as

28.6. memorials of your enmity. But why do I reproach the people with this, who never willingly became base, rather than you, Verginius, who pursue these fine measures? To us, then, who must think nothing lowly, it has been resolved, and nothing shall prevent us, to take up the contest for the country; but to you who forsake and betray the commonwealth there will come avenging justice not to be despised from the gods, if indeed you escape the punishment of men.

28.7. But neither will you escape this; and do not suppose I am trying to frighten you, but know well that those of us left here as guards of the city, if the enemy's fortunes prevail, will think what it becomes them to think. For it has not yet come into the minds of certain barbarians, when captured by their enemies, to spare neither women nor children nor cities, but to burn the cities and slaughter

28.8. the inhabitants, while the Romans, whose ancestral right it is to rule others, will not be brought to think this about themselves? They will not be so ignoble, but, beginning with you their bitterest foes, will then turn to friendly things. With these things in view, hold your assemblies and bring in your new laws.

29.1. Saying these and many like things, he brought forward the eldest of the patricians weeping, seeing whom many of the plebeians too could not restrain their own tears. When much sympathy arose toward the ages of the men and toward

29.2. their worth, the consul, after a short pause, said: Are you not ashamed, citizens, do you not sink into the earth, if these old men will take up arms on behalf of you the young, but you will endure to be left behind while these lead, whom you ever called fathers? Wretched men, not even worthy to be called citizens of this land, which those founded who carried their fathers on their shoulders, to whom both through arms and through fire the gods gave safe passage.

29.3. When Verginius perceived the people being led by the speeches, fearing lest, against his own judgment, they should consent to join in the war, he came forward and said: We neither forsake nor betray you, fathers, nor would we be left behind by you, just as before we never thought fit to be left out of any campaign, but we choose both to live with you and to suffer, whatever the deity may decree, with

29.4. you. Having been zealous for you on every occasion, we ask to obtain a moderate favour from you—that, as we share equally with you the common dangers, so we may have an equal share of rights, having established laws as guardians of freedom, which we shall all always use.

29.5. But if this is offensive to you, and you do not think fit to grant your fellow citizens this favour, but assess at death the giving of equality of speech to the people, we contend with you no more; but we will ask another favour of you, on obtaining which perhaps we should no longer need new laws either. But a caution comes upon us, lest we obtain not even this, from which there will be no harm to the senate, but to the people some honour and kindness.

30.1. When the consul said that, conceding this measure to the senate, they would fail of no other moderate thing, and bade him say what they wished, Verginius, after a little converse with his colleagues, said he

30.2. would speak before the senate. And after this, the consuls having convened the council, coming forward and bringing before the senate all the rights of the people, he asked that the office that presides over the people be doubled, and that, instead of five tribunes, ten be appointed each year. This the rest thought brought no harm to the commonwealth, but advised to grant it and not oppose, Lucius Quintius leading the opinion,

30.3. who then had the greatest power in the senate. One alone spoke against it, Gaius Claudius, son of Appius Claudius, who throughout all time had opposed the measures of the plebeians, if any were not lawful, having inherited his father's policies—and who, when he himself held the consulship, had prevented the inquiry concerning the knights slandered for the conspiracy being given to the tribunes—and going through a long speech, he taught that the people would be neither more moderate nor better for having its office doubled, but more foolish and more burdensome.

30.4. For those designated later would not take up the office on stated terms, so as to abide by what was established, but would again propose the matter of the land-allotment and that of equal honour, and all in succession would seek by what saying or doing they might increase the power of the people and dissolve the honours of the senate. And the speech greatly moved the many. Then Quintius brought them over, teaching

30.5. that it was in the senate's interest that the protectors of the people be many; for the more would be less likely to agree than the fewer, and there was one safeguard for the commonwealth, which Appius Claudius, Gaius' father, first saw—that the office be at faction with itself and not all of one mind.

30.6. So this seemed good, and a decree of the senate is made: that it be lawful for the people to appoint ten tribunes each year, but none of those then in office. This preliminary decree the men about Verginius took and brought forth, and ratifying the law drawn upon it, they designated ten tribunes for the coming year.

30.7. The faction having ceased, the consuls, enrolling the forces, drew lots for the sorties. To Minucius, then, the war against the Sabines was given, to Horatius that against the Aequians, and both marched out in haste. The Sabines, holding their cities under guard, overlooked everything in the fields being plundered and carried off; the Aequians sent out the force that would oppose the Romans.

30.8. Having fought brilliantly, they were unable to overcome the Roman force, but were forced to withdraw to their cities, losing the little town over which they were contending. Horatius, having routed the enemy and damaged much of their country, and pulled down the walls of Corbio and removed the dwellings from their foundations, led his force home.

31.1. In the following year, Marcus Valerius and Spurius Verginius holding the consulship, no army of the Romans went beyond the borders, but certain civic clashes of the tribunes against the consuls arose again, from which the tribunes got, by snatching away something of the consular power. For in former time the tribunes were masters of the assembly only, but to convene the senate or declare an opinion was not in their power, but this was the prerogative of the consuls.

31.2. But the tribunes of that time were the first to undertake to convene the senate, Icilius introducing the attempt, who led the office and was an energetic man and, as Roman things go, not incapable of speech. For he too brought in a certain new measure, thinking fit that there be marked off for the plebeians for the building of houses the place called the Aventine. It is a tolerably high hill, not less than twelve stades in circuit, enclosed within the city, which was not then all inhabited, but

31.3. was public and full of woodland. Bringing in this measure, the tribune approached the consuls and the senate of that time, asking that the law drawn upon it be deliberated beforehand and brought before the people. The consuls delaying and drawing out the time, sending his attendant to them, he ordered them to follow to the office and convene the senate. When one of the lictors drove off the attendant, ordered by the consuls, Icilius, indignant, and his colleagues, seized the lictor and led him off, as to throw him from the rock.

31.4. The consuls, to force the matter or rescue the man being led off, though they thought themselves dreadfully outraged, were powerless, but called upon the aid of the other tribunes. For none of the things done by that office may any other check or hinder, but this is

31.5. the power of another tribune. But it had been resolved by them all from the start that none should introduce any new measure of his own devising unless all thought the same, nor should any oppose what was being done if the greater number of opinions approved; and concerning these things, at once on taking up the office, sacrificing victims, they gave oaths to one another; thinking thus the power of the tribuneship would most of all be indissoluble, if the spirit of faction were removed from it.

31.6. Keeping this oath, they bade the guard of the consuls' office be led off, saying it was the common opinion of all; yet they did not persist in their anger, but at the entreaty of the eldest of the council they released the man, both suspecting the odium of the deed, that they would be the first to punish with death a man for doing what was ordered by the magistrates, and fearing lest from this pretext the patricians be forced to turn to desperation.

32.1. After this deed, the senate being convened, the consuls made a long accusation of the tribunes; but Icilius, taking up the speech, both defended his anger toward the attendant, citing the sacred laws by which it was permitted neither to magistrate nor to private person to do anything against a tribune, and taught concerning the convening of the senate that he had done nothing strange, having prepared many

32.2. and various speeches for this. When he had cleared himself of these charges, he brought in the law concerning the hill. It was as follows: whatever private persons held, having justly acquired it, these the owners should keep; but whatever any had built on land taken by force or theft, they should, receiving back the costs which the arbitrators judged, hand over to the people; and the rest, all that was public, the people should take over without purchase and divide.

32.3. And he taught that this measure would profit the city in many other ways, but most of all toward the poor no longer being at faction over the public land, which the patricians held. For they would be content, having got a part of the city, since the land was not to be had on account of those who had appropriated it, being many and powerful.

32.4. Such speeches being made by him, the one speaking against was Gaius Claudius alone, but those assenting were many, and it was resolved to give the place to the people. After this, the priests being present and the augurs and two of the sacrificers, and having made the customary prayers and imprecations in the centuriate assembly convened by the consuls, the law was ratified, which is written on a bronze pillar, which they set up on the Aventine,

32.5. having carried it into the temple of Artemis. The law being ratified, the plebeians gathered and allotted the building-plots and built, each taking over as much space as he could. There are some who, joining by twos and threes and yet more, built one house, some allotted the ground-floors, others the upper stories. So that year was spent on the building of dwellings.

33.1. The year after this, in which Titus Romilius and Gaius Veturius had taken up the consulship, and the tribunes were those about Lucius Icilius, chosen to rule a second time in succession, was not simple, but rather varied and full of great events. For the civic faction, now seeming to have withered away, was again stirred up by the tribunes, and certain wars from the foreign nations arose, which were able to work no evil to the city, but did no small benefit by removing the spirit of faction from it.

33.2. For this had become a cycle and a custom for the city—to be of one mind when at war, but to be at faction when keeping peace. Observing this, all who took up the consular offices accepted, as it were by prayer, if some war should rise from outside; but, the adversaries being quiet, they themselves contrived charges and pretexts for wars, seeing that through wars the city became great and prosperous, but through

33.3. factions lowly and weak. Resolving the like to these, the consuls of that time decided to lead out an army against the enemy, fearing lest, on account of the peace, idle and poor men should begin to make trouble—seeing this rightly, that one must draw off the throng to foreign wars, but what followed not rightly. For when they ought, as in a sick city, to use moderate levies, they turned to compelling the disobedient by force, granting neither excuse nor pardon to any, but bitterly using the punishments of the laws against both their bodies and their properties.

33.4. As they did this, the tribunes again got a starting-point for playing demagogue to the multitudes; and gathering them into assembly, they both cried out against the consuls in other matters, and that they had ordered many of the citizens led to prison who had called upon the tribunician aid, and said they themselves released them from the levy, having alone by the laws the power to do so. When they accomplished nothing, but saw the levies becoming still more strict,

33.5. they undertook to hinder by deeds. The consuls defending themselves and the power of their office, certain provocations arose and layings on of hands. There fought alongside the consuls the young men of the patricians, and alongside the tribunes the poor and idle throng.

33.6. That day, then, the consuls became far superior to the tribunes; but on the following days, as more throng streamed into the city from the fields, the tribunes, thinking they had got a force fit to fight, held continual assemblies and displayed their attendants in bad case from the blows, and said they would lay down their office, unless some aid came to them from the people.

34.1. The multitude sharing their indignation, they called the consuls before the people to give an account of what they had done. When these gave them no heed, they came to the senate—for it chanced to be in session about these very matters—and coming forward begged it neither to overlook themselves who had suffered the most shameful things, nor the people deprived of their aid, going through all they had suffered from the consuls and the conspiracy about them, having been outraged not only in their office but also in their

34.2. bodies. And they thought fit that the consuls do one of two things: if they denied having transgressed any of what the laws forbid against the persons of the tribunes, that, coming into the assembly, they swear an oath; but if they would not undergo the oath, that they come before the plebeians to give an account; for they would give out the vote concerning them to the tribes.

34.3. The consuls made defence against this, teaching that the tribunes had begun the outrage, using arrogance and daring to transgress against the persons of consuls—first ordering attendants and aediles to lead off to prison magistrates to whom is given the power over all, then themselves daring to come to grips along with the most reckless of the plebeians;

34.4. and teaching how greatly the offices differed from one another, the consular having the power of the kings, the tribunician having come for the aid of the oppressed, to which it was so far from being permitted to give out a vote against any of the consuls to the throngs, that not even against the meanest of the other patricians was this power given, unless the senate so voted. And they threatened that, when those gave out the vote to the plebeians, they themselves would put arms on the patricians.

34.5. Such speeches being made through the whole day, the senate brought forth no conclusion, that it might neither diminish the office of the consuls nor that of the tribunes, seeing each would be the cause of great dangers.

35.1. When the tribunes had been driven off from there too, having found no aid, they considered again what they should do on coming to the people. To some, then, and especially to the most turbulent, it seemed best that the plebeians depart again from the city, taking up their arms, to the Sacred Mount, where they had first encamped, and from there, setting out, make war on the patricians, since those had broken the agreements made with the people, openly dissolving the tribunician power.

35.2. To the more part it seemed best not to abandon the city nor make common charges of all, over which certain men privately had transgressed against the tribunes, if they got what the laws conceded, which command that those who outrage the persons of the tribunes either pay a penalty or die. But to the more reasonable neither of these seemed well—neither to abandon the city nor to carry out an untried slaughter, and that of consuls, to whom the greatest office was subject—but to transfer their anger to those who fought alongside them, and to take the punishments of the laws from those.

35.3. If, then, that day the tribunes, borne by anger, had been led to do something against the consuls or the senate, nothing would have prevented the city from being destroyed by itself; so ready were all for arms and the war against one another. But as it was, postponing matters and giving themselves time for better counsel, they themselves became more moderate and soothed the angers of the many.

35.4. Then on the following days, proclaiming the third market-day from that to come, on which they would gather the people and lay a money-fine on the consuls, they dissolved the assembly. When the time was near, they desisted from this imposition too, saying they granted the favour to the entreaty of the eldest and most honoured.

35.5. And after this, gathering the people, they said that the outrages against themselves they had let go, granting the favour to many good men who begged, whom it was not right to refuse; but of the wrongs done to the people they would be the preventers and avengers. For they would again bring in the law concerning the land-allotment, dragged out thirty years, and that concerning equality, which the tribunes before them had set forth but not put to the vote.

36.1. Having promised this and sworn it, they appointed days on which they would hold an assembly of the people and give out the votes concerning the laws; and the time coming, first they brought in the agrarian law, and going through many speeches, called for any of the plebeians who wished to speak in support of the law.

36.2. Many coming forward and bringing up their own deeds which they had performed in the wars and being indignant that, having cut off much land from the enemy, they themselves had got no share, but saw those powerful in money and friends appropriating the common property and reaping it most violently, and demanding that not only the dangers for the common good be common to the people, but also the pleasures and benefits from them, and

36.3. the multitude gladly hearing the speeches, he who most strengthened the people and brought it about that they would not even endure the voice of those speaking against was Lucius Siccius, surnamed Dentatus, going through very many great deeds of his own. The man was wonderful to look upon and at the best of his age, being fifty-eight years old, and able to think what was needful and to speak as a soldier not incapable. Coming forward, then, he said: I, plebeians, if I should wish to tell each deed of mine, the time of the day would fail me. The main heads themselves I will tell as briefly as my

36.4. power allows. This is the fortieth year since I began to serve my country in war, the thirtieth since I have continually held some military command, now leading a cohort, now a whole legion, beginning from the consuls Gaius Aquilius and Titus Siccius, to whom the senate voted the war against the Volscians. For I was then twenty-seven and was still ranked under a centurion.

36.5. When a stout battle and rout occurred, and the commander of the cohort had fallen and the standards were held by the enemy, I alone, taking on the danger for all, both saved the standards for the cohort and beat back the enemy, and was manifestly the cause that the centurions did not fall into everlasting shame, through which their remaining life would have been worse than death, as they themselves confessed, crowning me with a golden crown, and the consul Siccius bore witness, appointing me commander of the cohort.

36.6. And again when another contest befell us, in which it chanced that the camp-commander of our legion fell and the eagle came under the enemy, in the same way, contending for the whole legion, I both recovered the eagle and saved the camp-commander; who, repaying me the favour of that aid, would give up to me the command of the legion and the eagle, but I did not take it, thinking it not right to strip of his honours and the joys upon them the man whose life I had granted. At which the consul, admiring me, gave me the command of the first legion, which had lost its commander in the battle.

37.1. These, plebeians, are the noble deeds that made me known and advanced me to commands. But when I was now manifestly of brilliant name, I underwent all the remaining contests, ashamed to obscure the honours and favours for the former deeds. And I continued the whole intervening time serving and toiling and fearing no danger nor counting it; from all of which I got prizes of valour and spoils and crowns and the other honours from

37.2. the consuls. To say it in sum, in the forty years in which I continue to serve, I have fought about one hundred and twenty battles, and have received forty-five wounds, all in front, none in the back. And of these twelve are those it befell me to receive in a single day, when Herdonius the Sabine seized the citadel and the Capitol.

37.3. As prizes of valour from the contests I have carried off fourteen civic crowns, with which those saved by me in the battles bound me; three of siege, being first to mount and hold the enemy's walls; eight from pitched battle, with which I was honoured by the commanders-in-chief; and besides these, eighty-three golden twisted necklaces, one hundred and sixty golden armlets, eighteen spears, and twenty-five distinguished trappings, of which nine were of those I overcame, men who challenged some of us to single combat and whom, willingly standing forth, I defeated.

37.4. This Siccius, then, citizens—who has served so many years on your behalf, fought so many battles, been honoured with so many prizes of valour, who never shrank from any danger nor refused it, in pitched battles and in storming of walls, among foot and among horse, with all and with few and alone, and wounded over his whole body, who helped win for his country much good land, both that which you took from the Tyrrhenians and Sabines, and that which, mastering the Aequians and Volscians and Pometines, you hold—I have not the least share from it, nor any of you, plebeians, who endured the like hardships; but the most violent and shameless in the city hold the fairest of it and have reaped it many years, neither having got it as a gift from you, nor having bought it for money, nor being able to show any other just acquisition of it.

37.5. And if, having toiled equally with the rest of us when we were winning it, they thought fit to have more than we, even so it would not be just or politic for a few to appropriate the common property; yet the greed of the men would have some reason. But when, having nothing great and manly to show, in return for which they hold our things by force, they are shameless and, even when convicted, do not let go of them, who could endure it?

38.1. Come, by Zeus, if I lie in any of this, let one of these solemn men come forward and show you what distinguished and fine deeds he puts forward to claim more than I: whether having served more years, or fought more battles, or received more wounds, or surpassed me in crowns and trappings and spoils and the other adornments of victory, through whom the enemy have become weaker and the country more distinguished and greater? Nay, let him show the tenth part of what I have shown you.

38.2. But of these the more part could not bring forward even a fraction of mine; and some would not appear to have suffered hardships equal to even the meanest of the people. For their brilliance is not in arms but in words, nor their power against enemies but against friends; nor do they think they dwell in a common city, but in one of their own, as though not freed along with us from the tyranny by our hands, but having received us by inheritance from the tyrants; who—the other things, the insults small and great by which they continually outrage us, as you all know,

38.3. I pass over—have advanced to such arrogance that they think it not right for any of us to utter a free voice about the country or open his mouth, but Spurius Cassius, who spoke of the land-allotment—adorned with three consulships and two most brilliant triumphs, and having displayed such ability in generalship and in civic counsels as none of those of his time—this man they accused of attempting tyranny, and, overcoming him with false testimonies for no other reason than that he was a lover of the city and of the people,

38.4. thrust him from the cliff and destroyed him. And Gnaeus Genucius, our tribune, when, eleven years after, he revived this same measure and brought to trial those who had been consul the year before for neglecting the decrees of the senate which it voted concerning the land-distributors, since they could not destroy him openly, one day before the trial they secretly made away with.

38.5. Therefore great fear fell upon those after, and none any longer undertook this hazard, but for the thirtieth year now we have endured, as under a tyranny, having lost our power.

39.1. I pass over the rest; but your present magistrates, because they thought fit to aid the oppressed of the plebeians, whom you made sacred and inviolable by law, what dreadful things have they not suffered? Were they not, beaten and kicked and enduring every outrage, driven from the forum? And do you endure, suffering this, and not seek how you may take justice from them by your votes at least, in which alone it is possible for you to show your freedom?

39.2. But even now, plebeians, taking a free spirit, ratify the agrarian law as the tribunes bring it in, not enduring even the voice of those who demand the contrary.

39.3. And you, tribunes, need no exhortation to this work; for you have begun it and do not yield, doing well; but if from the young men arrogance and shamelessness become an obstacle to you, overturning the ballot-jars or snatching the votes or making any other disorder about the voting, show them what power the office has.

39.4. And since it is not possible to stop the consuls from their power, bringing to trial the private men whom they use as attendants for their violence, give out to the people the votes concerning them, charging that they use force against the sacred laws and dissolve your office.

40.1. When he had said such things, the multitude was so disposed to the speeches and showed such indignation toward the opposing party that, as I said at the beginning too, they would no longer endure even a speech from those who would speak against.

40.2. The tribune Icilius, however, rising, said that Siccius had spoken everything else rightly, and went through a long praise of the man; but not to grant a speech to those wishing to speak against he declared neither just nor politic, especially as the inquiry was about a law which was to make justice stronger than force. For those who perhaps thought nothing equal and just toward the many would use this as a starting-point to disturb again and divide

40.3. the interests of the city. Saying this and appointing the next day for the accusers of the law, he dissolved the assembly. The consuls, gathering a private council of the bravest patricians and those most flourishing in the city then, taught them that the law must be prevented by them—by words first, but, if they did not persuade the people, by deeds. And they bade all come at dawn to the forum with their companions and clients, as many as each could in greatest number.

40.4. Then those standing about the very tribunal and the place of assembly should remain, but the rest, gathering in many parts of the forum, should stand apart, so that the plebeians might be cut up and torn asunder and prevented by them from coming together into one. This seemed best, and before broad day most of the forum was held by the patricians.

41.1. After this the tribunes and the consuls came, and the herald bade whoever wished accuse the law to speak. Many good men coming forward, the speech of none was audible because of the tumult and disorder of those in assembly. For some cheered and encouraged the speakers, others cast them out and cried them down. And neither the praise of the supporters nor the tumult of the opponents prevailed.

41.2. The consuls being indignant and protesting that the people began the violence, thinking it not right to endure a speech, the tribunes made defence against this, that, hearing the same speeches now for the fifth year, they did nothing strange if they thought it not right to endure stale and worn-out counter-arguments.

41.3. When the greater part of the day was spent on these things and the people demanded the votes, no longer thinking the matter endurable, the youngest of the patricians both became an obstacle to the plebeians wishing to divide by tribes, and took away the ballot-jars from those holding them, and, striking and thrusting, cast out those of the attendants who would not give these up.

41.4. The tribunes crying out and thrusting themselves into the midst, to them they yielded and let them go where they wished without fear, but the rest of the people that followed them they did not let through; so that the aid of the magistrates was useless. At last, then, the patricians prevailed and did not allow the law to be ratified.

41.5. Those who seemed most zealously to have aided the consuls were of three houses—the Postumii and the Sempronii and, third, the Cloelii—most brilliant in dignity of birth and very powerful through their companies, distinguished in wealth and repute and the deeds of war; and these were agreed to have been most responsible for the law not being ratified.

42.1. On the following day the tribunes, taking the most distinguished of the plebeians, considered what they should do with the matter, having got this point common and agreed by all—not to bring the consuls to trial, but the private men who served them, by whose punishment there would be less account for the many of the citizens, as Siccius had suggested; but they made careful inquiry about the number of those to be brought under the charges, how many it should be, and about the name they would give the trial, and especially about the assessment, how great its magnitude should be.

42.2. The harsher in nature advised carrying all these to the greater and more fearful; the more reasonable, on the contrary, to the more moderate and humane; and the one leading this opinion and persuading them was Siccius, who had gone through the speeches about the land-allotment among the people.

42.3. It seemed best to them, then, to let the rest of the patricians go, but to bring before the people the Cloelii and Postumii and Sempronii to pay the penalty for what they had done; and to charge them that, when the sacred laws, which the senate and the people ratified concerning the tribunes, gave none authority to compel the tribunes to undergo anything against their will, as the other citizens, these had held them back and prevented them from bringing the decision concerning the law to completion.

42.4. As the assessment for the trials, it seemed best to fix neither death nor exile nor anything else invidious, that this not become a cause of their safety, but that their properties be sacred to Demeter, choosing the most moderate part of the law.

42.5. This was being done, and the time came in which the trials against the men had to be carried out. To the consuls and those of the other patricians taken into the council—and it chanced the strongest were summoned—it seemed best to permit the tribunes to carry out the trials, lest, prevented, they work some greater evil, and to allow the plebeians, in their savagery, to pour out their gall upon the men's money, that they might become tamer for the future, having taken some penalty from their enemies, especially since the money penalty had for the sufferers a calamity easy to mend;

42.6. which is just what happened. For when the men were convicted, the trials going by default, both the people ceased to be savage, and to the tribunes it seemed that some moderate and politic aid had been rendered; and the patricians, redeeming the men's properties from those who had bought them from the public at the same price, restored them. And the pressing dangers, the men having handled affairs in this way, were dissolved.

43.1. Not long after, the tribunes again bringing in the speech about the law, a sudden report of an attack of enemies upon the city of the Tusculans became a sufficient cause of hindrance. For the Tusculans coming in throngs to Rome and saying that the Aequians were upon them with a large force, and had already plundered their land, and would, unless some swift aid came, take the city within a few days, the senate voted the consuls to aid them both,

43.2. and the consuls, proclaiming a levy, called all the citizens to arms. There was, then, some faction even then, the tribunes opposing the enrolment and not allowing the punishments of the laws to be applied against the disobedient; but they accomplished nothing. For the senate, assembling, declared its opinion: that the patricians march out to the war with their clients, and of the other citizens, to those willing to take part in the campaign, which was for the country's safety, the things toward the gods be holy, but to those forsaking the consuls the contrary.

43.3. When the decree of the senate was read in the assembly, many of the people too willingly undertook the contest; the most reasonable through shame, if they should give no aid to an allied city ever harmed by the enemy through its goodwill toward them—among whom was also that Siccius who had accused before the people those who had appropriated the public land, bringing a cohort of eight hundred men, who were no longer of age to serve, as neither was he, nor did they fall under the compulsion of the laws, but, honouring the man for his many great benefactions, did not think it right to be left behind when he went out to the war.

43.4. And this part of the force that then went out was far better than the rest both in experience of contests and in boldness amid dangers. The many followed, drawn on by the favour and exhortation of the eldest. There was a part too which, for the sake of the benefits arising in the campaigns, was ready to undergo every danger. And in a short time a force went out, sufficient in number and using the most brilliant equipment.

43.5. The enemy, then, having heard beforehand that the Romans meant to lead an army against them, led their forces home. The consuls, marching in haste, find them encamped near the city of Antium on a high and steep place, and pitch their camp not far from theirs.

43.6. For a while both remained in their own camps; then the Aequians, despising the Romans for not attacking first and thinking them not sufficient in number, both went out and cut off their provisions, and beat back those sent out to forage or for fodder for the horses, and suddenly attacked those going down for water, and often challenged them to battle.

44.1. Seeing this, the consuls thought best no longer to protract the war. In those days the power of making war belonged to Romilius, and he who gave the watchword and set them in array and dispensed the time for beginning and ending battle was he; who, when he ordered the standards raised for battle and led the army out of the camp, posted the other horsemen and the foot by cohorts, each in the suitable places, but, calling Siccius, says:

44.2. We, Siccius, will fight the enemy here; but you, while we still delay and both make ready for the contest, go by that flank road to the mountain, where the enemy's camp is, and join battle against those in the camp, that either those fighting against us, fearing for the fort and eager to aid it, may turn their backs and become easy to deal with, as is likely in a swift retreat, all forcing their way into a single road, or, remaining there, may lose the camp.

44.3. For neither is the force guarding it a match in war, as one might guess, supposing all its safety to lie in the strength of the place; and the force with you would be sufficient—eight hundred men, athletes of many wars—to take, by an unexpected attack with daring, the confused guards of the camp.

44.4. And Siccius said: I am ready to do everything; yet the work is not easy as you suppose. For the rock on which the camp stands is high and steep, and I see no road leading to them except the one by which the enemy will come down to us, and a guard fit to fight is likely to be on it; and even if it chance to be very small and poor, against a much larger force than the one with me it will be able to hold out, and the place itself will provide the guard the security of not being taken.

44.5. But rather give up the plan—for the attempt is hazardous—or, if you are wholly resolved to set two battles at one time, post a sufficient force of picked men to follow me along with the elders. For not to steal the place, but to take it by force and openly, we shall go up.

45.1. While he still wished to say what followed, the consul, interrupting, said: There is no need of many words; but if you submit to do what is commanded, go quickly and do not play general; but if you draw back and run from the danger, I will use others for the work.

45.2. But you, who have fought a hundred and twenty battles and served forty years and are wounded over your whole body, since you came willingly, go off, neither having met enemies nor seen them, and in place of arms whet again your speeches, which you will use against the

45.3. envy of the patricians. Where now are those many prizes of valour of yours—the necklaces and the armlets and the spears and the trappings and the crowns from the consuls and the spoils from the single combats and all the rest of the weighty stuff which we then endured to hear you tell? For tested in this one work, where there was real danger, you have been shown for what you are—a braggart, practising courage in repute, not

45.4. in truth. And Siccius, vexed at the reproaches, says: I know, Romilius, that one of two things is set before you—either to make away with me alive and render no thanks, bearing the most shameful repute of cowardice, or to have me cut to pieces wretchedly and obscurely by the enemy, since I too seemed one of those who think it right to be free-spirited; for not into uncertain, but into known death you send me;

45.5. yet I will undergo this work too, and try, appearing no coward in spirit, either to master the camp, or, failing of the hope, to die nobly. And you, fellow soldiers, I ask to be my witnesses to the other citizens, if you learn of my death, that valour and the great freedom of my speeches destroyed me.

45.6. Having answered the consul thus and wept and greeted all his familiars, he went off leading the eight hundred men, downcast and in tears as men going to death; and all the rest of the army too took the matter with pity, as no longer to see the men.

46.1. But Siccius, turning to another road, not the one Romilius supposed, led them along the flank of the mountain. Then—for there was a thicket with deep wood—leading the men into this, he halts and says: By the commander we have been sent, as you see, to perish; for he thought we would go by the flank road, ascending which it was impossible not to be seen by the enemy. But I will lead you by a road unseen by the foe, and I have much hope of finding some paths which will lead us down upon the camp from above; and you have good hopes.

46.2. Saying this, he led through the thicket, and having gone a long way, he finds, by some providence, a man departing from a field somewhere, whom, ordering the youngest to seize, he makes guide of the road. And he, leading them around the mountain, after much time, sets them on the hill lying near the camp,

46.3. from which there was a swift and easy road down to it. While these things were happening, the forces of the Romans and Aequians came to grips and, standing, fought, being well-matched in number and arms and showing the same zeal; and they remained long evenly balanced, now advancing upon one another, now withdrawing, horse against horse and foot against foot, and on both sides distinguished men

46.4. fell. Then the war takes a decisive turn. For Siccius and those with him, when they came near the camp of the Aequians, finding that part of the camp unguarded—for to the other side, toward the parts turned to those fighting, the whole force guarding it had turned to watch the contest—falling upon it with much ease, come down upon the heads of the guards.

46.5. Then, raising the war-cry, they ran upon them; and these, thrown into confusion by the unexpected danger and thinking them not so many but the other consul come leading his force, hurled themselves out of the camp, most not even keeping their arms. Those about Siccius, slaying such as they caught, and mastering the camp, advanced upon those in the plain.

46.6. The Aequians, perceiving the capture of the camp from the flight and the outcry of their own, and seeing not long after the enemy coming upon them from behind, no longer showed any nobility, but, breaking their ranks, saved themselves, each by different roads; whereupon the greatest slaughter of them occurred. For the Romans did not relent until night, pursuing and killing those they caught.

46.7. He who destroyed most of them and performed the most brilliant deeds was Siccius, who, when he saw the enemy's affairs at an end, it being already dark, leading his cohort to the camp mastered by them, returned, full of great joy and much pride.

46.8. And those about him, all unscathed and unharmed, not only suffering none of what they expected, but also having won the most brilliant repute, naming him father and saviour and god and all the most honoured names, were insatiable of greetings of the man and other kindnesses. Meanwhile the rest of the Roman phalanx too, with the consuls, returned from the pursuit to its own camp.

47.1. It was now midnight, and Siccius, bearing a grudge against the consuls for the sending to death, conceives the design of robbing them of the glory of the success. Communicating to those about him the intent he had, when it seemed right to all, and there was none who did not admire the man's prudence and daring, taking up his arms and bidding the rest take theirs, first he cut down all the men of the Aequians whom he found in the camp, and the horses and the other beasts of burden; then he kindled the tents, full of arms and grain and clothing and the things needful for war and the other property, of which they had brought very much from the Tusculan booty.

47.2. When all had been effaced by the fire, about dawn he departed, carrying nothing but arms, and, accomplishing the road in haste, came to Rome. When men were seen armed and singing the paean and going in haste, smeared with much blood, there was running and much eagerness of those wishing both to see them and to hear what had been done.

47.3. They, coming as far as the forum, made plain to the tribunes what had happened, and these, gathering an assembly, bade them speak to all. A great throng gathering, Siccius, coming forward, made plain to them the victory and set forth the manner of the contest, and that through his own valour and that of the eight hundred elders with him, whom the consuls had sent to die, both the camp of the Aequians was taken and the force drawn up against the consuls was forced to flee;

47.4. and he thought fit that they feel gratitude for the victory to no other, and at the end he added this speech: We have come saving our lives and our arms, but carrying off nothing else of the conquered, neither greater nor lesser.

47.5. The people, hearing the speech, fell into pity and tears, seeing the ages of the men, considering their valour, and being indignant and angry at those who had undertaken to strip the city of such men. And it came about, as Siccius had foreseen, that hatred against the consuls arose from all the citizens.

47.6. Nor did the senate take the matter moderately, which neither voted them a triumphal procession nor anything else of the things done for fine contests. Siccius, however, the people, when the time of the elections came, designated tribune, rendering the honour of which it was master. And the most distinguished of the things then done were such as these.

48.1. In the year after these consuls Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Terminius take up the office; who continually courted the people in other ways and deliberated beforehand the decree concerning the tribunes, since they saw nothing more came to the patricians from hindering, but only envy and hatred, and private harms and calamities to those who contended most zealously for them.

48.2. But most of all the misfortune of those who had been consul the past year, lately come about, led them into fear—men who had suffered dreadful things from the people and found no aid from the senate. For Siccius, who had taken the Aequian army together with its camp, then designated tribune, as I said, on the first day of his office, having sacrificed the entrance-rites according to law, before doing any other public business, proclaimed in assembly that Titus Romilius come to make defence in a suit for a public crime before the people as judge, appointing the time of the trial.

48.3. And Lucius, then aedile, but tribune the year before, summoned the other of the past year's consuls, Gaius Veturius, to a like trial. Much zeal and exhortation arising on both sides in the interval of the contest, the defendants had great hopes in the senate and made light of the hazard, the elders and young men promising them not to allow the contest to be carried out.

48.4. But the tribunes, guarding everything long beforehand and reckoning neither entreaties nor threats nor any danger, when the time of the contest came, called the people. And there had earlier streamed in from the fields the day-labouring and self-working throng, and joining the city throng, it filled both the forum and the alleys leading to it.

49.1. First, then, the suit against Romilius came on. And Siccius, coming forward, accused the man both in other matters which, as consul, he was thought to have done by force against the tribunes, and at the end went through the plot against himself and his cohort by the general; and he produced as witnesses the most distinguished of those who had campaigned with him, not plebeians but even patricians; among whom was a young man not obscure either in dignity of birth or in his own virtue and very good in war—Spurius Verginius was his name.

49.2. He said that Marcus Icilius, son of one of Siccius' cohort, his own age-mate and friend, wishing to release him from the sortie, as going to death with his father, asked Aulus Verginius his own uncle, then a legate serving with them, to come to the consuls,

49.3. asking that this favour be granted to them; but the consuls opposing, tears came to himself as he bewailed beforehand the misfortune of his comrade; but the young man, on whose behalf he made the entreaty, learning this, came and, asking leave to speak, said that to those entreating he felt much gratitude, but that he himself would not be content to obtain a favour that would rob him of his piety toward his family, nor would he be left behind by his father, the more so as he was going to die, and all knew it; but, going out with him, do you aid him as much as you can, and he will share the same fortune as that man.

49.4. The youth having testified this, there was none who was not somewhat affected at the fortune of the men. And when they too, called to testify, came forward—both the father Icilius and the youth—and told their own part, the more part of the plebeians could no longer restrain their tears.

49.5. Romilius having made his defence and gone through a speech neither obsequious nor suited to the occasion, but lofty, and proud over the irresponsibility of his office, the citizens were doubly strengthened in their anger against him. And becoming masters of the votes, they condemned him for wrongdoing so that the man was convicted by all the votes of the tribes. The assessment of the trial was a money fine,

49.6. ten thousand asses. And this Siccius seems to me to have done not without forethought, but that both the patricians' zeal for the man might become less—and they might commit no error about the voting, considering that the convicted would be fined in money and nothing else—and the plebeians' impulse toward punishment might be more eager, depriving a consular man neither of life nor of country. Romilius being condemned, not many days after Veturius too was convicted; the assessment fixed for him was also a money one, half again as much as the other's.

50.1. Reckoning these things, the consuls in office were greatly afraid and took thought lest they suffer the same from the people after the consulship; so that, no longer concealing their opinions but openly pursuing the people's measures, they continued. First, then, in the centuriate assembly they ratified a law that it be lawful for all the magistrates to fine those who behaved disorderly or unlawfully toward their authority; for before this it was not lawful for all, but for the consuls alone.

50.2. The assessment, however, they did not leave to those imposing the fine, how great it should be, but themselves fixed the amount, declaring the greatest limit of the fine to be two oxen and thirty sheep. And this law remained long observed among the Romans.

50.3. Then, concerning the laws which the tribunes were zealous to write as common to all the Romans and to be observed for all time, they gave the decision to the senate. Many speeches, then, were made by the best men toward both conceding and hindering; but the opinion of Titus Romilius prevailed, which brought in the more popular before the oligarchic, contrary to the expectation of all, both

50.4. the patricians and the plebeians. For they supposed the man would think and say everything contrary to the plebeians, having lately been convicted in the trial before the people; but he, rising when it was his turn, asked his opinion according to his rank—he was among the middling in dignity and age—said:

51.1. What I have suffered from the people, senate, and that for no wrong, but for my goodwill toward you, I should be tedious telling among those who know it exactly; but I make mention of them for necessity's sake, that you may know that I will say what is profitable not from flattery of the plebeians, who are my enemy, but from the best motive. Let none marvel that, having often before, and when consul, held the other policy, I have now suddenly changed; nor suppose either of two things—that I then deliberated badly, or that I now retract what was resolved not rightly.

51.2. For I, senate, as long as I thought your affairs strong, as one ought, increasing the aristocracy, despised the plebeians; but since, chastened by my own ills with great penalties, I learned that your power is less than your will, and that you have already overlooked many who took up the contest for you snatched off by the people, yielding to necessity, I am no longer

51.3. of the same mind. I should most of all have wished that neither I nor my colleague had met with these things, for which you all feel for us. But since our affairs are at an end, and the rest may be amended and one may provide that others not suffer the same, both in common and each one privately I exhort you to settle the present well. For best is that city governed which adapts to circumstances, and the best counsellor is he who declares his opinion not toward private enmity or favour, but toward the common good; and they deliberate best about the future who make the past examples of what is to come.

51.4. For you, senate, as often as some dispute and contention arose against the people, it ever befell you to come off worse—now by being ill spoken of, now by being penalized with the deaths and outrages and banishments of distinguished men. And yet what greater misfortune could there be for a city than that the best of its men be cut off, and that not justly? Whom I advise you to spare, and neither, having thrown the present magistrates into manifest danger, then to repent forsaking them in their straits, nor any other

51.5. of whom there is even some small benefit to the commonwealth. The sum of what I advise you is to choose envoys, some to the Greek cities in Italy, others to Athens; who, asking of the Greeks the best laws and those most fitting to our lives, will bring them here. When they come, let the consuls then in office set before the senate the consideration what legislators it will be needful to choose, and what office they shall hold and for how long, and the rest, as may seem to it to be profitable; and let us no longer be at faction with the plebeians nor take on calamities one upon another, especially contending about laws, which, if nothing else, have at least a fair show of dignity.

52.1. When Romilius had said this, both consuls supported the opinion, going through many things composed by design, and many of the other senators; and those joining this opinion became the more part.

52.2. As the preliminary decree was about to be written, the tribune Siccius—who had brought the suit against Romilius—rose and went through a long speech on behalf of the man, praising the change of his opinion and that he did not let his private enmities become stronger than the common good, but, from an upright mind, declared what was profitable;

52.3. in return for which, he said, I give him this honour and favour: I release him from the fines for the trial and am reconciled for the future; for he conquers us by being good. The other tribunes too, coming forward, agreed to the same. Romilius, however, would not consent to take this favour, but, praising the tribunes for their zeal, said he would pay the fine; for it was now sacred to the gods, and he did neither just nor holy things in robbing the gods of what the law gives them;

52.4. and so he did. The preliminary decree being written, and after this the people ratifying it, there were appointed as envoys to obtain the laws from the Greeks Spurius Postumius and Servius Sulpicius and Aulus Manlius; for whom triremes were prepared from the public treasury and other adornment sufficient for the display of the dominion. And the year came to an end.

53.1. In the eighty-second Olympiad, in which Lycus the Thessalian from Larisa won the stadium-race, Chaerephanes being archon at Athens, three hundred years being completed from the founding of Rome, Publius Horatius and Sextus Quintilius having succeeded to the consular office, a pestilential sickness fell upon Rome, the greatest of those remembered from the former time; by which the slaves nearly all perished, and of the other citizens about half were destroyed, the physicians no longer sufficing to aid the sick,

53.2. nor kinsmen or friends rendering the necessary services. For those wishing to help others' calamities, by touching sick bodies and living with them, took on the same diseases as those, so that many households were left desolate for want of those to care for them. And not the least of the city's evils, and a cause of the sickness not quickly abating, was what happened about the casting out of the dead.

53.3. For at first, both from shame and from abundance of the things needful for burial, they burned the dead and gave them to the earth; but at last, some from neglect of decency, others not having the means, casting many of the deceased into the sewers of the alleys, threw them out, and far more they cast into the river; from which the greatest harm came about the banks and shores.

53.4. For as the bodies were washed ashore, a heavy and foul exhalation, falling upon even those still in health, brought swift changes upon their bodies; and the water brought from the river was no longer good to drink, both from the strangeness of the smell and from making the digestion of food bad.

53.5. And not only in the city were the dreadful things, but also in the fields; and not least the farming throng suffered, being filled with the sickness, the sheep and other four-footed beasts living together with them. As long, then, as the many had some hope that the god would help them, all turned to sacrifices and purifications; and many novelties not customary were introduced among the Romans concerning the honours of the gods, unseemly practices.

53.6. But when they perceived no regard or pity coming from the divine power, they desisted even from the service of the gods. In this calamity one of the consuls dies, Sextus Quintilius, and the one designated consul after him, Spurius Furius, and four of the tribunes,

53.7. and many good men of the senators. The Aequians, then, undertook, while the city was in the sickness, to lead an army against them, and sent embassies to the other nations that were hostile to the Romans, calling them to the war. They did not, however, get their force out of the cities in time. For while they were still preparing, the same sickness fell upon the cities.

53.8. And it passed through not only the Aequians', but also the Volscians' and Sabines' land, and greatly afflicted the people. From this it came about that the country too, left untilled, joined famine to the pestilence. Under these consuls, then, nothing was done by the Romans, neither in war nor in civic affairs, worthy to come into a historical account, on account of the sicknesses.

54.1. For the next year there were designated consuls Lucius Menenius and Publius Sestius; and the sickness wholly abated. And after this thank-offerings to the gods were performed publicly, and distinguished games furnished at very brilliant expense, and the city was in good cheer and festivity, as was likely; and all the winter time was spent on these things.

54.2. At the beginning of spring much grain was brought from many places, the greater part bought up publicly, but some also imported by private merchants. For the people suffered not least in the scarcity of food, the land being left fallow because of the sicknesses and the destruction of the farmers.

54.3. At the same time the envoys arrived from Athens and the Greek cities in Italy, bringing the laws. And after this the tribunes approached the consuls, thinking fit that they appoint the legislators according to the decree of the senate. But they, having no way to rid themselves of the men who sat by and entreated them, vexed at the matter and not thinking fit under their own office to dissolve the aristocracy, put forward a fair pretext, saying the time of the elections was at hand, and that the consuls themselves must first be designated,

54.4. and they would do this before long, and, the consuls being designated, would bring up with them the decision concerning the legislators to the council. The tribunes consenting, holding the elections much sooner than was the former custom, they designated as consuls Appius Claudius and Titus Genucius, and after this, laying aside all care for the common affairs, as though others now ought to consider them, they gave the tribunes no further heed, but planned to steal away the rest of the time of the consulship.

54.5. It chanced that one of them, Menenius, was seized by some chronic illness. Some, indeed, said that grief and despondency falling upon the man wrought a wasting disease hard to be rid of. Taking this for a pretext, Sestius, as being unable to do anything alone, rejected the tribunes' entreaties and bade them turn to the new magistrates.

54.6. They, having no way to act, were forced to take refuge again with those about Appius who had not yet taken up the power, partly entreating in the assemblies, partly meeting them privately; and at last they brought the men over, holding out great hopes to them, if they took up the people's affairs, of honour and power.

54.7. For a certain desire came upon Appius to invest himself with an extraordinary office and to establish laws for his country and to be the author of concord and peace and of all regarding the city as one to his fellow citizens. He did not, however, remain good when adorned with great office, but at last fell into an unyielding love of office, corrupted by the magnitude of the power, and came near driving on to tyranny. About which I will speak at the proper occasion.

55.1. Then, indeed, having deliberated these things from the best motive and persuaded his colleague, when the tribunes often called him to the assembly, coming forward he went through many kindly speeches; and the main heads of his harangue were these: that the laws be appointed and the citizens cease being at faction over equality seemed to him and his colleague of all things most desirable, and they declared their opinion plainly; but to appoint the legislators they themselves had no power, not yet having taken up the office, while they would not only not oppose the consuls about Menenius in doing what the senate resolved, but would even cooperate and feel much gratitude.

55.2. But if they drew back, putting forward as pretext the new magistracy, that it was not permitted them to appoint other magistrates who would take up consular power when we are already ratified as consuls, nothing on their own part would be an obstacle to them; for they would willingly stand aside from the consulship for those chosen in their place, if this too seemed good to the

55.3. senate. The people praising both the men's zeal and all pressing in throngs to the council, Sestius, forced to convene the senate alone—since Menenius was unable to be present through sickness—set before it to speak about the laws. Many speeches, then, were made even then by both sides—those advising to govern by laws, and those thinking fit to keep the ancestral customs.

55.4. But the opinion of those about to be consul next year prevailed, which Appius Claudius, asked first, declared: that ten men be chosen, the most distinguished from the senate; that these rule for a year from the day they should be designated, having authority over all the affairs of the city which the consuls had and before them the kings; that all the other magistracies be dissolved, until the

55.5. ten should have their office. And that these men, choosing from both the ancestral customs and the Greek laws which the envoys brought the best and fitting for the city of the Romans, should legislate. And that what was written by the ten men, if the senate should approve and the people ratify, be valid for all time, and that the magistrates, as many as should later be appointed, judge the private contracts and administer the public affairs according to these laws.

56.1. Taking this decree, the tribunes came forward into the assembly, and reading it among the people, went through much praise of the senate and of Appius who had proposed the opinion. When the time of the elections came, the tribunes, gathering an assembly, thought fit that the designated consuls come and make good to the people their promises, and they, coming forward, abdicated the consulships.

56.2. The people continued to praise and admire them, and, since the legislators had to be voted on first, chose them before the rest; and there were designated in the elections by the centuriate assembly Appius Claudius and Titus Genucius, who were to have held office the next year, and Publius Sestius who was consul that year, the three who had brought the laws from the Greeks, Spurius Postumius and Servius Sulpicius and Aulus Manlius, and one of those who had been consul the past year, Titus Romilius—the one convicted in the trial before the people when Siccius accused him, since he was thought to have begun a popular policy; and of the other senators Gaius Julius and Titus Veturius and Publius Horatius, all of consular rank. And the offices of the tribunes and aediles and quaestors, and any other ancestral offices the Romans had, were dissolved.

57.1. In the following year the legislators, taking up affairs, established such an order of constitution as this: one of them held the rods and the other insignia of consular power, who convened the senate, ratified decrees, and did all else that befitted a leader; the others, contracting toward the more popular the invidious part of the power, differed a little to look upon from the many; then again another of them was set over the power, and this happened in rotation by turns, each taking up the leadership for a year for an agreed number of days.

57.2. All, sitting from early morning, judged the private contracts and the public matters, as many charges arose toward subjects and allies and those who listened doubtfully to the city, examining each with all fairness and

57.3. justice. And the city of the Romans seemed in that year to be best administered by the decemvirate. And most of all in them was praised their forethought for the people and their resistance against all violence on behalf of the weaker; and it was said by many that the city would no longer need protectors of the people or the other offices, one prudent leadership administering all, of which Appius seemed to be the head.

57.4. And the praise for the whole decemvirate that man carried off from the people. For not only what he did with the others from the best motive brought him a reputation for goodness, but much more what he continually practised privately—in greetings and kindly addresses and the other courtesies to the poor.

57.5. These ten men, having drawn up laws from both the Greek laws and the unwritten customs among themselves, set them forth on ten tablets for whoever wished to examine, accepting every correction of private persons and directing what was written toward common satisfaction. And for a long time they continued sitting in council with the best men and making the most exact scrutiny of the legislation.

57.6. When what was written seemed to them to be sufficient, first, convening the senate, none any longer finding fault with the laws, they ratified a preliminary decree concerning them. Then, calling the people to the centuriate assembly, the keepers of the sacred records and the augurs and the other priests being present and interpreting the divine matters as is the custom, they gave out the votes to the centuries.

57.7. The people too having ratified the laws, engraving them on bronze pillars, they set them up in order in the forum, choosing the most conspicuous place. And since the time of their office remaining was short, gathering the senators, they set before them to consider what should be done about the elections.

58.1. Many things being said, the opinion of those advising to appoint a decemvirate again as sovereign of affairs prevailed. For the legislation seemed incomplete, as composed in a short time; and for what was already ratified, that men might willingly and unwillingly abide by it, some sovereign office seemed needed. And what most persuaded them to choose the decemvirate was the dissolution of the tribunes, which they wished most of all.

58.2. These things seemed best to them in common deliberation; but privately the leading men of the council were of opinion to seek the office again, fearing lest certain turbulent men, getting hold of so great a power, work some great evil. The people gladly receiving what the senate resolved and ratifying it with great zeal, the ten men themselves proclaimed the time of the elections, and the most honoured and eldest of the patricians sought the office.

58.3. There, indeed, the leader of the then decemvirate, Appius, was greatly praised by all, and all the plebeian throng thought fit to keep him in office, as none other would lead better. He pretended at first to refuse and asked to be released from a burdensome and invidious service. But at last, as all entreated him, he both undertook to seek the office, and, charging that the best of those seeking it with him were ill-disposed toward him through envy, openly contended for his own friends.

58.4. And he is designated again in the centuriate elections legislator for the second time; and with him Quintus Fabius surnamed Vibulanus, who had been thrice consul, a man up to this time blameless in every virtue; and of the other patricians whom that man favoured, Marcus Cornelius and Marcus Sergius and Lucius Minucius and Titus Antonius and Manius Rabuleius, men not very distinguished; and of the plebeians Quintus Poetelius and Caeso Duellius and Spurius Oppius; for these too were taken in by Appius for the sake of flattering the plebeians, teaching that it was just, when one office was designated over all, that there be some part of the people too in it.

58.5. Being well thought of in all these things and seeming to be the best of the kings and of those who had ruled the city yearly, he takes up the office again for the coming year. These things were done in that decemvirate by the Romans, and nothing else worth mentioning.

59.1. In the following year, the ten men about Appius Claudius having taken up the consular power on the Ides of May—they reckoned the months by the moon, and the full moon fell on the Ides—

59.2. first, cutting oaths secret from the multitude, they made compacts among themselves to oppose one another in nothing, but whatever one of them should adjudge, this all should regard as valid; and to hold the office for life, and to admit no other to affairs; and to be of equal honour all, and have the same power, using decrees of senate or people rarely and only for the necessary things, but doing most things on their own authority.

59.3. When the day came on which they had to take up the office, having sacrificed to the gods what is customary—and the Romans keep this day sacred and most of all are scrupulous neither to hear nor to see anything unpleasant on it—at dawn the ten went out at once, all bringing the insignia of royal power.

59.4. The people, when they learned that they no longer kept that popular and moderate guise of the leadership nor exchanged the insignia of royal office as before, came into much despondency and dejection.

59.5. And the axes attached to the bundles of rods, which the men preceding each of them, twelve in number, carried, struck them with fear, beating back the crowd from the alleys—which had been the case under the kings too before. For this custom was at once abolished after the expulsion of the monarchs by a popular man, Publius Valerius, who took over their power; whom all the consuls after him, thinking he had begun a fine thing, imitating, no longer attached the axes to the bundles of rods, except on campaigns and the other departures from the city.

59.6. But leading a war beyond the borders or going to inspect the affairs of subjects, then they added the axes to the rods, that the fearfulness of the sight, as being against enemies or slaves, might appear least burdensome to the citizens.

60.1. When all saw this, which was thought to be a sign of royal power, much fear fell upon them, as I said, thinking they had lost their freedom and chosen ten kings instead of one. Having struck the crowds with terror in this fashion, the ten men, knowing that they must rule them for the future by fear, each gathered a company, choosing the boldest of the young men and those most fit for themselves.

60.2. That from the poor and those lowly in fortune the more part should appear flatterers of a tyrannical power, exchanging the common good for their own benefits, was neither surprising nor unexpected; but that even from among the patricians many were found, having some grounds for pride both in wealth and in birth, who endured to help the decemvirs dissolve their country's freedom—this seemed to all marvellous. And they, flattering with all the pleasures that are wont to master men, ruled the city in much security, putting senate or people in no account, but themselves becoming legislators and judges of all, and killing many of the citizens and unjustly stripping many of their properties.

60.3. And that what was being done, lawless and dreadful as it was, might have a fair show as though done with justice, they appointed courts for each matter; and the accusers were sent in by those very men from among those helping to set up the tyranny, and the courts were appointed from their companions, who exchanged with one another, giving each other the verdicts as favours.

60.4. Many of the charges, and not the least worth, the ten judged by themselves; so that those getting the worse of justice were forced to attach themselves to the companies, since otherwise they could not have safety; and in time the corrupt and diseased part in the city became more than the healthy. For those to whom the doings of the decemvirs were grievous no longer thought fit even to remain within the walls, but withdrew to the fields, watching for the time of the elections, in the expectation that the ten men would lay down their powers when they had completed the year's time, and appoint other magistrates.

60.5. Those about Appius, having drawn up the rest of the laws on two tablets, added these too to those formerly published; among which was this law also, that it not be permitted to the patricians to contract marriages with the plebeians—for no other reason, as it seems to me, than that the orders might not come together into concord, blended by intermarriages and partnerships of kinship.

60.6. When the time of the elections came, bidding a long farewell both to the ancestral customs and to the newly written laws, neither making a decree of senate nor of people, they remained in the same office.