Book 11

1.1. In the eighty-third Olympiad, that in which Crison of Himera won the foot-race, when Philiscus was archon at Athens, the Romans abolished the rule of the Ten, who had administered the public affairs for three years. In what manner they undertook to root out a despotism already firmly established, under what men's leadership the cause of liberty was led, and through what causes and pretexts this came to pass — these things I shall attempt to relate from the beginning, taking them up in order, for I hold such studies to be both necessary and admirable for all men, one may say, but above all for those who occupy themselves with philosophic inquiry and with the conduct of public affairs.

1.2. For most men are not content to learn from history this alone — that in the Persian War (to take that as my example) the Athenians and Lacedaemonians conquered the barbarian, who brought three million men against them, in two sea-battles and one battle on land, though they themselves together with their allies numbered no more than a hundred and ten thousand; rather, they wish to learn from history the very places where these deeds were done, to hear the causes by which men accomplished works so marvellous and beyond expectation, to inquire who were the commanders of the armies, both the barbarian and the Greek, and to remain ignorant, so to speak, of nothing pertaining to those struggles.

1.3. For the mind of every man delights to be led by the narrative to the deeds themselves, and not merely to hear what is told but also to behold what was done. Nor, when men hear of political affairs, are they satisfied to learn only the sum and the outcome of events — that the Athenians, for instance, granted the Lacedaemonians leave to tear down the walls of their city, to break up their ships, to bring a garrison into the citadel, and to set up an oligarchy as master of the commonwealth in place of their ancestral democracy, without so much as raising a struggle against them; on the contrary, they at once demand to be told also what were the constraints that gripped the city, on account of which it submitted to these dreadful and grievous things, what the arguments were that persuaded the people, by what men they were spoken, and everything else that attends upon such events.

1.4. But for men of public affairs — among whom I count also those philosophers who hold philosophy to be the practice not of words but of noble deeds — the pleasure to be had in the complete contemplation of all that attends upon events belongs to them in common with the rest of mankind; yet beyond this pleasure there is the further advantage of being able, at critical moments, to render great service to cities out of such experience, and to lead them willingly, by means of reason, toward what is to their profit.

1.5. For men learn most easily what helps and what harms them when they see these things illustrated by many examples, and they bear witness to much practical wisdom and much sagacity in those who summon them to such studies. For these reasons, then, I resolved to set forth with exactness all that came to pass concerning the overthrow of the oligarchy,

1.6. such of it, at least, as I judge worthy of record. And I shall make my account of these matters beginning not from the final events — which most men suppose to have been the sole causes of the recovery of liberty, I mean the wrongs committed by Appius against the maiden through his lust; for that was but an addition, and the last cause of the people's anger, ten thousand others having gone before — but from those things in which the city first began to be outraged by the rule of the Ten. These I shall relate first, and shall go through in order all the lawless acts committed during that régime.

2.1. Now the first pretext for the hatred felt against the oligarchy was thought to be this: that they had woven their second magistracy onto the first, disdaining the people and despising the senate; next, that of the most reputable Romans, those who were not pleased with their conduct, some they drove from the city by bringing false and dreadful charges against them, and some they put to death, sending suborned accusers against them from among their own partisans and themselves judging these cases; and most of all, that they gave licence to the most insolent of the young men, whom each of them kept about himself, to carry off and plunder the goods of those who opposed the régime.

2.2. These men, as though their native land had been taken by storm in war, not only stripped of their property those who had acquired it lawfully, but also did violence to their comely wives and outraged their marriageable daughters, and gave blows, as though to slaves, to such as showed indignation. And they brought it about that all to whom what was happening seemed insupportable abandoned their fatherland and removed, with their wives and children, to the neighbouring cities — the Latins receiving them out of weakness, the Hernicans because of the equal citizenship lately granted them by the Romans. So that, as was to be expected, in the end there were left behind only the friends of tyranny and those who had no care for the common good.

2.3. For neither did the patricians remain in the city, since they would not deign to flatter the rulers and yet were unable to oppose what was being done; nor did those enrolled in the senatorial council, who were obliged to attend upon the magistrates; rather, the greater part even of these packed up their whole households, left their houses deserted, and lived in the country.

2.4. To the oligarchs the banishments of the most eminent men were a source of pleasure, for many reasons, but chiefly because much wantonness accrued to the licentious among the young men, who could not now so much as set eyes upon those before whom they were likely, in committing any shameless act, to feel shame.

3.1. Now while the city was being emptied of its better element and was losing all its free population, those who had been conquered in war by her, supposing this the best occasion both to avenge the outrages they had suffered and to recover what they had lost — since the city was sick because of the oligarchy and would no longer be able to unite, to be of one mind, or to take in hand the common defence — made ready for war and marched against her with great armies.

3.2. And at the same time the Sabines, having invaded the bordering territory and made themselves masters of much booty and wrought great slaughter among the farming population, encamped at Eretum, a city which lies a hundred and forty stades from Rome, near the river Tiber.

3.3. The Aequians, invading the territory of the people of Tusculum, which bordered upon their own, and ravaging much of it, pitched their camp at the town of Algidum. When the Ten heard of the enemy's advance, in confusion they summoned their political clubs and with them considered what was to be done.

3.4. That they ought to send an army beyond the borders and not wait until the enemy's forces came against the city itself seemed good to all. But it caused them much perplexity, first, whether they must call to arms all the Romans, even those hostile to the régime; and next, what sort of levy of soldiers they should make — whether a harsh and unsparing one, such as the kings and the consuls had been wont to make, or a humane and moderate one.

3.5. It seemed to them also no small matter for inquiry what body should have authority to ratify the decision concerning the war and to vote the levy — whether the council of the senate, or the assembly of the people, or neither of these, since each was an object of suspicion to them, but the Ten themselves on their own authority. At length, after much deliberation, they resolved to convoke the senate and to contrive that it should vote them the war and entrust to them the levying of the army.

3.6. For if each of these should be ratified by the senate, they supposed, first, that all men would be obedient, especially now that the tribunician power was abolished, by which alone it was lawful to oppose the orders of the powerful; and next, that they themselves, seeming to serve the senate and to act upon what it had ratified, would have taken up the authority of the war in accordance with the laws.

4.1. Having so deliberated, and having prepared from among their own partisans and kinsmen those who should speak in the council for the measures expedient to themselves and oppose any who chose otherwise, they came forth into the Forum and, setting the herald beside them, ordered him to summon the senators by name.

4.2. But of the moderate men not one obeyed. And as the herald kept calling repeatedly and none came forward save the flatterers of the oligarchy, among whom was the basest part of the oligarchy itself, those then present in the Forum marvelled that the Ten, who had never yet convoked the senate about anything, now for the first time recognized that there was among the Romans a council of good men whose office it was to deliberate concerning the common weal.

4.3. The Ten, seeing this, undertook to bring the senators from their houses; but learning that most of these had been left deserted, they postponed the matter to the following day. In the meantime they sent into the country and summoned the senators thence. When the council was full, Appius, the leader of the decemvirate, came forward and announced that war was being brought upon Rome from two quarters, by the Aequians and the Sabines; and he delivered a speech composed with great care, the upshot of which was that they should vote a levy of the army and make the expedition with all speed, since the crisis allowed no delay.

4.4. While he was speaking thus, there rose up Lucius Valerius, surnamed Potitus, a man who took great pride in his ancestors; for his father was that Valerius who had reduced by siege the Sabine Herdonius when he held the Capitol, and who, having recovered the citadel, himself fell in the battle; and his grandfather on his father's side was Publicola, who expelled the kings and established the aristocracy.

4.5. But as he was still coming forward, Appius, perceiving him and expecting that he would say something against himself, said: 'This is not your place, Valerius, nor is it fitting for you to speak now; rather, when these elder and more honoured men than yourself have declared their opinions, then you too, being called upon, shall say what seems good to you. For the present, be silent and sit down.' 'But it is not concerning these matters,' said Valerius, 'that I have risen to speak, but concerning others greater and more pressing, about which I think the senate ought first to hear.'

4.6. 'And from what they hear they will know whether these things, for which you have summoned them, are the more pressing for the commonwealth, or what I shall say. But do not deprive me of speech, who am a senator and a Valerius and wish to speak concerning the safety of the city. But if you keep up the insolence you are accustomed to show toward all men — what tribunes shall I call upon? For the succour of citizens overborne has been abolished by you.'

4.7. 'And yet, of how many evils is this the equal — that I, being a Valerius and a Potitus, have no more right than one of the meanest, but stand in need of the tribunician power? Nevertheless, since we have been deprived of that office, I call upon you all who together with this man have taken over both its authority and the power of that magistracy and now lord it over the city — not, indeed, in ignorance that I do this in vain, but because I wish to make plain to all your conspiracy: that you have thrown the city's affairs into confusion and are all of one mind. Or rather, I call upon you alone, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, you who are adorned with three consulships, if you still have the same mind as before. Come, then, rise and succour those who are overborne; for it is to you that the council looks.'

5.1. When he had said this, Fabius sat in shame, making no reply; but Appius and the rest of the Ten all leapt up and tried to prevent him from speaking. Great uproar took hold of the council, most of the members showing indignation, while those of their faction held that they spoke rightly. Then there rose up Marcus Horatius, surnamed Barbatus, a descendant of that Horatius who had been colleague in the consulship with Publius Valerius Publicola after the expulsion of the kings — a man both formidable in war and not without eloquence, and an old friend of Valerius — who, no longer restraining his anger, said:

5.2. 'You will the sooner force me, Appius, to break the bridle, you who no longer act with moderation but are putting on the very person of that Tarquin, you who will not so much as suffer those who wish to speak for the common safety to obtain a hearing. Has it slipped from your minds that there survive the descendants of the Valerii who drove out the tyranny, and that there remains a succession of the house of the Horatii, to whom it is ancestral to come to grips with those who enslave their country — both along with others and, if need be, alone?'

5.3. 'Or have you condemned both us and the rest of the Romans for such cowardice that we shall be content if anyone permit us to live in any fashion whatever, but in the cause of liberty and free speech shall neither say nor do anything? Or are you drunk with the greatness of your power? Will you strip the toga from Valerius, or from any other of the senators — being who you are, or holding what lawful office? Were you not appointed to be guardians of the common weal for a year? Has not the term of your magistracy expired? Have you not, by the law, become private men? These things you are minded to carry before the people.'

5.4. 'For what will there be to hinder any of us who wishes from convoking the assembly and arraigning the power which you hold contrary to the laws? Give the citizens a vote upon this very point — whether your decemvirate ought to remain, or the ancestral magistracies be reappointed. And if the people, in its madness, should suffer this, then keep the same régime once more and prevent men from saying whatever they wish on behalf of their country. For we should deserve to suffer these things, and worse than these, if we put ourselves in your power and defiled with a shameful life the virtues both of ourselves and of our ancestors.'

6.1. While he was still speaking, the Ten stood round him shouting, brandishing their tribunician power and threatening to hurl him from the rock if he would not be silent. At this all cried out that their liberty was being abolished, and the council was full of indignation and tumult.

6.2. The Ten, however, at once repented both of having prevented his speech and of the threat, when they saw the senate roused by the matter. Then one of them, Appius, came forward and, having begged those who were in tumult to hold off for a little while, when he had quieted their disturbance, said:

6.3. 'We deprive none of you of speech, senators, who speaks at the proper time; but those who push themselves forward and rise before they are called, these we restrain. Be not, then, indignant; for to Horatius and Valerius and to every other man we shall grant leave to declare his opinion in his own place, according to the ancient custom and order, provided that they speak concerning the matters for the sake of which you have assembled to deliberate, and nothing beside.'

6.4. 'But if they play the demagogue with you and stir the city to faction, haranguing about things irrelevant to the matter in hand, then it is otherwise. The authority to restrain those who behave disorderly, Marcus Horatius, we hold by gift of the people, when they voted us both the office of consuls and that of tribunes; and the term of it has not yet expired, as you suppose.'

6.5. 'For we were not appointed for a year, nor for any other fixed time, but until we should establish the whole body of legislation. When, therefore, we have completed all that we have in mind and ratified the remaining laws, then we shall lay down the office and render an account of what we have done to such of you as wish it. But meanwhile we shall in no way diminish either the consular power or'

6.6. 'the tribunician. As to the war — in what manner we ought most speedily and most honourably to repel the enemy — I bid you come forward and declare your opinions: first, as is your custom and as befits you, the elder men; then those of middle age; and last the youngest.'

7.1. Having said this, he called first upon his own uncle, Gaius Claudius. He, rising, delivered a harangue of this sort: 'Since Appius bids me, senators, be the first to declare my opinion, honouring me on account of our kinship, as is fitting for him, and since I must say what I think concerning the war against the Aequians and Sabines, before I declare my own judgment I should wish you to examine this: by what hopes the Aequians and Sabines were emboldened to dare to bring war upon us and to overrun and plunder our country — they who hitherto were content, and gave great thanks to the gods, if anyone permitted them to hold their own in security. For if you learn this, you will also learn what manner of riddance from the war against them will be the best.'

7.2. 'They, then, hearing that our ancestral constitution has long been shaken and is sick, and that neither the people nor the patricians are well disposed toward those who govern the commonwealth — and hearing this not in vain, for so the truth stands, though there is no need for me to tell the causes to you who know them — supposed that, if some war from without should grip us along with the evils within the walls, and the magistrates should resolve to lead out a force to defend the land, neither would all the citizens come readily to the military oath as before, being hostilely disposed toward the magistrates, nor would the commanders dare to use the punishments prescribed by the laws against those who failed to appear, for fear of bringing about some greater evil; and that those who did obey and take up arms would either desert the standards or, remaining, would play the coward in the engagements.'

7.3. 'In none of which did they hope beyond reason. For whenever a city of one mind takes up a war, and the same interest appears to all, both rulers and ruled, all advance with eagerness to face dangers, and shrink from no toil and no peril.'

7.4. 'But when a city sick within itself, before composing its domestic affairs, goes to grips with an enemy in the field, and there comes to the multitude the reckoning that they suffer hardship not for their own goods but that others may rule them the more securely, and to the commanders the reckoning that they have an enemy at home no less than their adversary — then the whole is sick, and any sufficient force is able to overcome and destroy such armies.'

8.1. 'This, senators, is the reasoning of the Sabines and Aequians, in reliance upon which they have invaded our territory. If, then, indignant at being despised by men whom they have emboldened, we vote in our present temper to lead out a force against them, I fear that these very things which they have anticipated may befall us —'

8.2. 'nay, I am well assured they will befall us. But if we first set in order the first and most necessary things — and these are the good order of the multitude and that the same things should appear advantageous to all — having driven out of the city the insolence and greed now prevailing, and having restored the ancient form to the constitution, then those who are now bold will cower, and will throw down their arms and come to us before long, . . . making good the damage and treating of terms; and there will be ours what all sensible men would pray for, to have brought the war against them to its end without arms.'

8.3. 'Reckoning these things, I think we ought to let the deliberation about the war stand for the present, since our affairs within the walls are in disorder, and to bring before whoever wishes to speak the question of concord and of civic order. For it was not in our power, before the war came to this pass, when we were summoned by this magistracy, to inquire into the affairs of the city — whether anything that was being done was amiss.'

8.4. 'For a man would have deserved much censure if, letting that occasion pass, he had thought fit to speak about these matters at the present one; nor could anyone say with assurance that, having passed over the present occasion as unsuitable, we shall be able to obtain another more suitable. For if one is willing to conjecture from what has happened what is likely to come, long will be the time after this in which we shall not assemble to deliberate about any public matter.'

9.1. 'But I ask you, Appius — you who are set over the city and ought to look to the common advantage and not to your own private gain — if I say anything of the truth with frankness and not to your pleasure, not to hate me on that account, considering that I shall make my speech not for the reviling and insulting of your office, but in order that, having shown in what a tempest the affairs of the city are tossed, I may declare what their salvation and recovery shall be.'

9.2. 'For to all, perhaps, who . . . to the fatherland, discourse about the common interest is necessary, but most of all to me. First, because I have been honoured with the privilege of speaking first; and it would be shame and great folly, having risen first, not to speak first of what must first be set right. Next, because, being uncle on the father's side to Appius, the head of the decemvirate, it falls to me to rejoice above all things when the commonwealth is well administered by them, and to grieve more than at anything else when it is not.'

9.3. 'And besides this, because I have received this principle of statesmanship from my ancestors — to choose the common advantage before private profit and to reckon no private danger of account — which principle of life I would not willingly betray, nor would I bring shame upon the virtues of those men.'

9.4. 'Now, concerning the present constitution — that it stands ill with us, and that nearly all men are displeased with it — let this be the greatest proof to you, you who manage the common affairs, a thing which it is not even possible for you to be ignorant of: that the most reputable of the commons are fleeing the city day by day, leaving their ancestral hearths, some removing their dwellings with wives and children to the neighbouring cities, some to the farms farthest from the city; and not even many of the patricians make their abode in town as before, but the greater part of these too pass their lives in the country.'

9.5. 'And why need I speak of the rest, when even of the senators only a few — those connected with you by kinship or friendship — remain within the walls, while the others count solitude more to be desired than their fatherland? When, at least, it was needful for you to summon the senate, they came together called one by one out of the country — men whose ancestral duty it was, together with the magistrates, to keep their country under guard and'

9.6. 'to be absent from none of the public business. Do you suppose, then, that men leave their own fatherlands fleeing from goods, or from evils? For my part, I think from evils. And of how many evils to a city — and that the city of the Romans, which has need of many citizens of its own if it is to hold securely its dominion over its neighbours — do you think it less, to be abandoned by the commons and emptied of the patricians, when no war has gripped it, nor pestilence, nor any other heaven-sent calamity?'

10.1. 'Do you wish, then, to hear what the causes are that constrain men to abandon temples and the tombs of their ancestors, to leave desolate their hearths and the possessions of their fathers, and to hold every land more necessary than their fatherland? For these things are not so without a cause. I will tell you, then, and will conceal nothing.'

10.2. 'Accusations are made against your government, Appius, many and by many. Whether they are true or false I need not inquire at present; yet they are made nonetheless. And no one, one may say, save your own partisans, is content with the present state of things. For the good men of good stock, to whom it belonged to hold priesthoods and offices and to enjoy the other honours which their fathers enjoyed, are vexed at being driven from these, having lost through you their ancestral dignities.'

10.3. 'Those who hold the middle rank in the city and pursue a quiet, untroubled life charge you with unjust seizures of property, and bewail the insults offered to their wedded wives and the drunken outrages against their marriageable daughters, and'

10.4. 'many other grievous insults besides. And the poorest portion of the commons, no longer having any voice in the elections nor in the votings, no longer summoned to the assemblies nor sharing in any other civic privilege — for all this they hate you utterly, and call your government a tyranny.'

11.1. 'How, then, will you set these things right and cease to be accused among the citizens? For this it remains to tell. If, having made a preliminary decree of the senate, you should give it to the people to decide whether they wish again to appoint consuls and tribunes and the other ancestral magistracies, or to remain under the present constitution —'

11.2. 'for if all the Romans are content to be governed by an oligarchy and vote that you remain in the same power, you will hold your office by law and not by force; but if they wish again to choose consuls and the other magistracies as before, you will lay down your power by law and will not seem to rule equals against their will. For the former is the part of a tyranny, but to receive office from willing men is the part of an aristocracy.'

11.3. 'And of this measure I think you, Appius, ought first to take the lead, and to put an end to the oligarchy that was established by you — once, indeed, advantageous to us, but now oppressive. And hear what you will gain by being persuaded by me and laying down this invidious power.'

11.4. 'If your whole college continues of the same purpose, all men will suppose that, through you who led the way, these others too became honest; but if these cling to their lawless dominion, all will be grateful to you, because you alone were willing to do what was just, while those who are unwilling they will depose from office with shame and great loss.'

11.5. 'And if you have given one another any secret compacts and pledges, making the gods sureties — for perhaps some such thing has been done by you — consider that, if kept, they are impious, as being against citizens and country, but, if dissolved, are pious. For the gods are wont to be called to witness over honourable and just agreements, not over shameful and unjust ones.'

12.1. 'But if through fear of enemies you hesitate to lay down your office, lest some dangers be brought upon you from them and you be forced to render account for what you have done, you fear wrongly. For the Roman people will not be so petty-minded nor so ungrateful as to remember your faults and forget your services; rather, weighing your present benefits against your former evils, it will judge those worthy of pardon and these of praise.'

12.2. 'And you will be able to remind the people of your many noble deeds before the oligarchy, and to demand, in return for these, their aid and protection, and to use many defences against the accusations: this one, that you yourself did not commit the wrong, but one of the others, without your knowledge; that one, that you were not strong enough to restrain the doer, being his equal in office; another, that for the sake of some other useful work you were forced to submit to something against your will.'

12.3. 'For the discourse would be long, were I minded to enumerate all the defences. And those who have no plea, neither just nor reasonable, by confessing and entreating soften the anger of the wronged — some taking refuge in the folly of their years, some in the company of wicked men, some in the greatness of office, and some in fortune, which leads astray all human reckonings.'

12.4. 'I promise you, if you withdraw from office, that there shall be an amnesty for all that has been done amiss, and a reconciliation with the people as seemly as may be amid evils.'

13.1. 'But I fear that the danger is no true reason for your not yielding up the office — for ten thousand men, at least, have laid down tyrannies and suffered no harm from the citizens — and that the true causes are an empty ambition, pursuing the image of the fair semblance of glory, and a longing for the ruinous pleasures which tyrannical lives bring.'

13.2. 'But if you are willing not to pursue the phantoms and shadows of honours and prosperities, but to enjoy the true honours themselves, restore the aristocracy to your country, and receive honours from your equals, and win the emulation of those who come after, and leave to your descendants an immortal glory in place of your mortal body. For these are sure and true honours, and not to be taken away, and most delightful'

13.3. 'and unattended by repentance. Nourish your soul, rejoicing in the good fortunes of your country, of which you will be thought to have been no small part, having taken from her a heavy despotism. And make models of these things by calling to mind your ancestors — that not one of those men desired despotic power, nor was a slave to the shameful pleasures of the body. Therefore it was theirs both to be honoured while they lived and, when they had died, to be praised by those who came after.'

13.4. 'For it is witnessed of them by all that they became the surest guardians of the aristocracy which the city established when it had cast out our kings. And forget none of your own most splendid words and deeds. For fair were the first foundations of your political career, and they nourished in us great hopes of your virtue, in keeping with which we all think it right that you should do the rest also.'

13.5. 'Return, then, again to your own nature, Appius my son, and in your political principles become not tyrannical but aristocratic, and flee those who consort with you to your pleasure, through whom you have departed from honest pursuits and been led astray from the straight road. For it stands not to reason that those by whom a man has been made bad out of good should again make him good out of base.'

14.1. 'These things I often wished to lay before you, coming to speech with you alone and in private, and to teach you some matters as one ignorant of them, and to admonish you in others as erring. And I came to your house not once; but your servants drove me from the door, saying that you had no leisure but were busy about other, more pressing matters — if, indeed, anything was more pressing for you than piety toward your kin.'

14.2. 'But perhaps it was not at your bidding that the servants shut me out from entrance, but of their own judgment; and I would that the truth were so. This matter, then, has compelled me to discourse with you in the council about what I wished, since to do so alone with you alone was not in my power. And it is better, Appius, that what is honourable and advantageous should be spoken among men anywhere, rather than'

14.3. 'nowhere at all. Having, then, discharged the debts of kinship, I call to witness the gods, whose temples and altars we who are heirs of the line of Appius honour with common sacrifices, and the spirits of our ancestors, to whom, after the gods, we render second honours and common thanks, and above all these the earth, which holds your father and my brother, that I have offered you my soul and my own voice, counselling the best, and, correcting your errors to the utmost of my power, I beg you not to heal evils with evils, nor, grasping after more, to lose also what you have, nor, in order to rule equals and betters, to be ruled by inferiors and worse men.'

14.4. 'Though I wish to say much more, and about many things, I forbear. For if the god leads you to better counsels, even what I have said is more than enough; but if to worse, the rest also will be said in vain. You have, senators, and you who are set over the city, my opinion both concerning the ending of the war and concerning the correction of the disorders in the city. But if anyone shall speak better than these things, let the best counsel prevail.'

15.1. When Claudius had spoken thus and had given the council great hope that the Ten would lay down their office, Appius thought fit to say nothing in reply; but from among the other oligarchs came forward Marcus Cornelius, and said: 'We, Claudius, shall ourselves decide concerning our own interests, having no need of your counsel. For we are of the most prudent age, so as to be ignorant of nothing that matters, and we lack not friends whom, if there be any need,'

15.2. 'we shall use as advisers. Cease, then, doing an unseasonable thing — an older man declaring opinions to those who ask no counsel. If you wish to admonish Appius, or to revile him — for that is the truer word — you shall revile him when you have left the council. But now, concerning the war against the Aequians and Sabines, about which you have been called to declare your opinion, say what seems good to you, and cease babbling things outside the matter.'

15.3. After this Claudius rose again, downcast and with eyes full of tears, and said: 'Appius, senators, thinks me not even worthy of an answer — me, his own uncle, before your face; but as he shut his private house against me, so he makes this very council untrodden, as it were, on his own account. And if the truth must be told,'

15.4. 'I am being driven out also from the city. For I could no longer look upon him with straight eyes, having become unworthy of his ancestors and emulous of tyrannical lawlessness; rather, packing up all that is mine and taking my household, I shall depart to the Sabines, to dwell in the city of Regillum, whence our family springs, and there I shall remain for the rest of my time, so long as these men hold this fair office. But when such things befall the decemvirate as I prophesy — and they will befall before long —'

15.5. 'then I shall return. So much for myself. But concerning the war I declare to you, senators, this opinion: to vote nothing about any matter until new magistrates have been appointed.' Having said this, and having stirred much praise from the council for the nobility and love of liberty of his opinion, he sat down. After him rose Lucius Quinctius, called Cincinnatus, and Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, and Lucius Lucretius, and all the foremost men of the council in turn, and added their assent to the opinion of Claudius.

16.1. At this Appius and his party, much disturbed, resolved no longer to call as advisers men according to age and senatorial rank, but according to intimacy and partisanship toward themselves. And Marcus Cornelius came forward and called up his brother Lucius Cornelius, who had been colleague in the consulship with Quintus Fabius Vibulanus when the latter was consul for the third time — an energetic man, and not unable to deliver political speeches.

16.2. This man, rising, spoke as follows: 'Marvellous indeed was this, senators — that men of such an age as theirs should have, those who before me declared their opinions and claim to be foremost among the senators, an implacable hatred, arising from political collisions, against those who are set over the city; men whom they ought to keep such as is fitting, and ought to admonish the young to wage their contests for the noble cause in the best manner, and to count those who strive with them concerning the common goods not enemies but friends.'

16.3. 'But far more marvellous than this is it, if they transfer their private hatreds to the common affairs of the city, and wish to perish together with their own enemies rather than to be saved together with all their friends. For an excess of folly, and not far from heaven-stricken madness, have the presidents of our senate exhibited.'

16.4. 'For these men, indignant that, when they were canvassing for that very office of the Ten which they now denounce, the Ten defeated them in the elections, having appeared the more suitable, ever wage against them an implacable war, and have come to such a pitch of simplicity — or rather of madness — that, in order to slander these men before you, they are willing to overturn the whole fatherland;'

16.5. 'they who, though they see our country laid waste by the enemy, and see that the enemy will presently come even against the city — for the space between is not great — instead of summoning and urging on the young to the struggle for their country, and themselves giving aid with all eagerness and zeal, such strength at least as is in men of their age, now think fit to have you consider the ordering of the constitution and to appoint new magistrates and to do anything rather than harm the enemy; and they cannot even perceive this — that they bring forward unprofitable opinions, or rather hold impossible prayers.'

17.1. 'For consider thus. A preliminary decree of the senate shall be made about the elections; then the Ten will bring what has been decreed before the people, appointing the third market-day from this. For how could anything voted by the people truly take effect, unless it be done according to the laws? Then, when the tribes have given their vote, the new magistrates will take over the city,'

17.2. 'and will lay before you the consideration of the war. But in the intervals of the elections, long as they are, if the enemy come against our city and bring up their forces to the walls, what shall we do, Claudius? Shall we say to them, by Zeus: "Wait until we appoint other magistrates"? For Claudius has persuaded us to deliberate about no other matter, nor to bring anything before the people, nor to enrol forces, until we have settled the question of'

17.3. 'the magistracies as we wish. Depart, then; and when you hear that consuls and the other magistrates have been appointed by the city, and that all things have been made ready by us for the struggle, then come and make your speeches about terms, since you began to do us harm having suffered nothing first at our hands; and all the losses you inflicted on us in your invasions, reckoned in money,'

17.4. 'pay off in full justly. But the destruction of our farmers we shall not reckon against you, nor if any free women suffered the outrage and drunken violence of soldiers, nor any other of the irreparable wrongs.' And they, when we invite them so, will moderate themselves, and, having permitted the city to appoint new magistrates and make ready for the war, will then come bearing suppliant boughs in place of arms and surrendering themselves to us!'

18.1. 'O the great folly of these men, into whose minds it comes to babble such things; and the great insensibility of ours, if, when they say such things, we are not indignant, but endure to hear them — as though deliberating on behalf of the enemy, and not on behalf of ourselves and the fatherland!'

18.2. 'Shall we not put these babblers out of the way? Shall we not vote speedy succour to the ravaged land? Shall we not arm all the flower of the city? Shall we not ourselves march against their cities? Or, remaining at home and reviling the Ten and appointing new magistrates and considering the ordering of the constitution, as though in peace, shall we suffer everything in the country to fall under the enemy, and in the end run the risk of enslavement and the razing of the city, having let the war come up to the walls?'

18.3. 'These are not the counsels of men in their right minds, fathers, nor of a political foresight that counts the common interest more necessary than private hatreds; but of unseasonable contentiousness and ill-advised malice and ill-starred envy, which suffers not those who have it to be sober. But let the contentiousness of these men go hang; and what things, by voting them, you will both have provided for the safety of the city and have deliberated fittingly for yourselves, and made fearful to the enemy, I shall try to tell.'

18.4. 'For the present, ratify the war against the Aequians and Sabines, and with the greatest eagerness and zeal enrol the forces that are to march against both. But when the war has reached its best end for us, and the forces return to the city, peace being made, then consider also the ordering of the constitution, and demand an account from the Ten of all that they did in office, and vote in new magistrates, and set up courts, and honour those worthy of each of these things — when both these matters are in your power; having learned that occasions are not the slaves of affairs, but affairs the slaves of occasions.'

18.5. When Cornelius had declared this opinion, those who rose after him, save a few, were of the same purpose — some supposing these measures necessary and suited to the present occasion, others crouching and courting the Ten through fear of their power. For there was a part, not the smallest, of the senators that cowered before that authority.

19.1. When the greater number of opinions had been declared, and those who confirmed the war seemed by far to prevail over the others, then among the very last they called upon Lucius Valerius, whom I said had been prevented by them at the very beginning when he wished to speak. He, rising, delivered a discourse of this sort:

19.2. 'You see, fathers, the design of the Ten, who at the outset did not permit me to say to you all that I purposed, and now have given me leave to speak among the last, considering, as was natural, that, if I add my voice to the opinion of Claudius, I shall do no good to the commonwealth, since few have spoken with it; and that if I declare another opinion than those already given, even should I propose the best counsels, I shall have chanted in vain.'

19.3. 'For easily counted are those who will rise after me, whom, even if I find them all of one mind with me, what more shall I gain, having not so much as a fraction of the number of those who spoke in support of Cornelius? Yet I, though I suspect these things, will not shrink from saying my own opinion. For when you have heard all, it will be in your power to choose the best.'

19.4. 'Now, concerning the decemvirate — in what manner it administers the common affairs — all that the most excellent Claudius said, consider as said also by me; and that new magistrates must be appointed before the decree concerning the war is passed; for these things too were said by the man'

19.5. 'in the best spirit. But since Cornelius tried to lead the opinion off into the realm of the impossible, declaring that the intervals of time would be too long for the political arrangements while the war is in hand, and undertook to mock matters not fit for mockery, by which he deceived you, the many, and carried his point — I shall discourse to you about this too, that the opinion of Claudius is not impossible. For that it is inexpedient not even one of those who tore it to pieces dared to say. And I shall show how the country may be made safe, and how those who dared to do it harm may pay the penalty, and how we may recover our ancestral aristocracy, and how these things may all be done at once, with all in the city joining in the struggle and none thinking fit to act against — displaying to you no cleverness of my own, but bringing forward as examples the very things done by yourselves. For where experience teaches the advantageous course, what need is there there of guesses?'

20.1. 'You remember that from these same peoples, just as now, forces invaded — the one our land, the other that of our allies — both at the same time, when Gaius Nautius and Lucius Minucius held the consulship: in the ninth or tenth year before this, I think.'

20.2. 'Then, when you had sent out much good youth against both peoples, to the one of the consuls, forced to shut up his camp in difficult ground, it fell out to accomplish nothing, but to be besieged within his rampart and to be in danger of being taken through want of provisions; while Nautius, encamped against the Sabines, was compelled to fight continual battles against the same men, and was unable to succour his own when they were hard pressed. And it was not unclear that, if the army among the Aequians should be cut off, neither would that warring against the Sabines hold out, when the enemy on both sides had joined in one.'

20.3. 'When such dangers, then, beset the city, and not even those within the walls were of one mind, what succour did you find, assembling in the senate-house about midnight? That which, by general confession, set right all affairs and raised up the city as it was being borne to an unhappy fall: you appointed a single magistracy with sole authority over war and peace, having abolished all the others; and before day broke, the most excellent Lucius Quinctius had been appointed dictator,'

20.4. 'though he was not even then in the city, but in the country. You know, doubtless, the man's subsequent deeds — that he both made ready forces fit for the task, and delivered the endangered army, and punished the enemy, and took their general prisoner; and having accomplished all this in fourteen days only, and having set right whatever else was unsound in the constitution, he laid down the rods. And nothing hindered a new magistracy from being ratified in a single day, since you wished it. This precedent, then, I think we ought to imitate, since we can do nothing else, and choose a dictator before we depart hence. For if we let this occasion pass, the Ten will no more assemble us to deliberate about anything;'

20.5. 'and in order that the proclamation of the dictator may be made according to the laws, let us choose an interrex, selecting the most suitable of the citizens — which it is your custom to do whenever you have neither kings nor consuls nor any other lawful magistracy, as now you have none. For the term of office of these men has passed,'

20.6. 'and the law has taken away their rods. These are the things I counsel you to do, fathers, both expedient and possible. But the opinion which Cornelius introduces is the confessed dissolution of your aristocracy. For if once the Ten become masters of arms upon this pretext of the war, I fear they may use them against ourselves. For those who will not lay down the rods, will they, forsooth, lay down their arms? Reckoning these things, then, guard yourselves against the men, and foresee every deceit of theirs. For foresight is better than repentance, and not to trust the wicked is more prudent than to accuse them after trusting.'

21.1. When Valerius had declared this opinion, pleasing to the greater number, as it was easy to guess from their cry, and those who rose after him — they were the young part of the senate that remained — held these things best, save a few; then, since all had declared their opinions and the deliberations had to reach their conclusion, Valerius demanded that the Ten put the opinions to a comparative vote, calling all the senators again from the beginning; and to many of the members who wished to revise their former declarations he was persuasive in saying this.

21.2. But Cornelius, who counselled entrusting the command of the war to the Ten, fought stoutly against it, saying that the matter had already been decided and had reached its lawful conclusion, all having voted, and demanded that the opinions be counted and that nothing further be done anew.

21.3. While these things were being said by each with much rivalry and clamour, and the council was divided toward each — those who wished to correct the disorder of the constitution joining with Valerius, and those who chose the worse course, and all to whom some danger was suspected to be likely from the change, speaking in support of Cornelius — the Ten, taking the council's confusion as occasion to do whatever seemed good to them, sided with the opinion of Cornelius. And one of them, Appius, came forward and said:

21.4. 'Concerning the war against the Aequians and Sabines we summoned you, senators, to decide; and we gave leave of speech to all who wished, from the first to the youngest, calling each in his proper place. And when three had declared differing opinions — Claudius and Cornelius and Valerius last — you, the rest, decided concerning them, and each, coming forward, declared in the hearing of all to which opinion he adhered.'

21.5. 'All things, then, having been done according to law, since to the greater number of you Cornelius seemed to have proposed the best counsels, we declare him the victor, and, having written out the opinion declared by him, we publish it. But let Valerius and those who stand with him, whenever they themselves obtain consular authority, declare lawsuits already concluded to be subject to retrial, if it please them, and render decrees decided by all of you null and void.'

21.6. Having said this, and having bidden the secretary read out the preliminary decree, in which it was ordained that the Ten should take over the levying of the army and the command of the war, he dismissed the assembly.

22.1. After this, the partisans of the oligarchic faction went about haughty and bold, as having got the better of the others and as having brought it about that their dominion should no longer be dissolved, once they should become masters of arms and

22.2. of an army; while those who had the best interests of the commonwealth at heart, sorely distressed and full of fear, as though they should never again be masters of any public matter, were divided into many parts. The baser in nature were forced to yield in all things to the rulers and to enroll themselves among the oligarchic clubs; the less timorous withdrew from concern for the common weal and shaped their lives to one of inaction; but as many as had much nobility in their characters formed clubs of their own and conspired together both for the protection of one another and for the changing of the constitution.

22.3. The leaders of these clubs were the first who dared to speak in the council for the dissolution of the decemvirate — Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius — who fenced their houses with arms and kept a strong guard of servants and clients about them, so as to suffer nothing either by violence or by treachery.

22.4. But as many as were unwilling either to court the power of the rulers, or to take no heed of public affairs, nor thought it honourable to live in idle quiet, while open war was not easy — since it seemed senseless to think to pull down so great a dominion — abandoned the city. The leader of these was an illustrious man, Gaius Claudius, the uncle of Appius, the very head of the decemvirate, making good the promises which he had made to his nephew before the senate, when, urging him to lay down the office, he had failed to persuade him. There followed him a great throng of partisans,

22.5. and a great throng of clients. And when he had begun, the rest of the populace too, no longer secretly and in small numbers but openly and in a body, left their fatherland, taking children and wives with them. Appius and his party, indignant at what was happening, attempted to prevent it, shutting the gates and seizing certain men; then — for fear came upon them lest those who were hindered should turn to resistance, and a right reckoning that it was better for them that their enemies should be out of the way than that, remaining, they should be a trouble — they opened the gates and let go all who wished to depart; but their houses and allotments and whatever else was left, being impossible to carry off in flight, they confiscated nominally, charging them with desertion, but in truth they made a gift of them to their own partisans, as though purchased from

22.6. the people. These charges, then, added to the former ones, made both the patricians and the commons far more hostile to the decemvirate. Now if they had committed no further offence beyond what has been told, they would, it seems to me, have remained long in the same power; for the faction that preserved their dominion still continued in the city, grown great from many causes and over many years,

22.7. through which each part rejoiced in the misfortunes of the other: the commons, seeing the spirit of the patricians humbled and the senate no longer master of any public matter; and the patricians, seeing the people robbed of its liberty and possessing not the least strength, ever since the Ten took away from it the tribunician power. But the Ten, using great arrogance toward both parties, and neither showing moderation in the camp nor sobriety in the city, forced all to be of one mind and to dissolve their rule, once they had become masters of arms through the war.

22.8. Their last offences, and those on account of which they were overthrown by the people — for it was the people especially whom they goaded to fury by their insults — were these.

23.1. When they had ratified the decree concerning the war, having speedily levied the forces and divided them into three parts, they left two legions in the city to guard those within the walls; and of these two legions Appius Claudius, the head of the oligarchy, was in command, and with him Spurius Oppius. Three legions Quintus Fabius led out against the Sabines, and

23.2. Quintus Poetelius and Manius Rabuleius. The remaining five legions Marcus Cornelius and Lucius Minucius and Marcus Sergius and Titus Antonius and, last, Caeso Duillius took over and came to the war against the Aequians; and there marched with them an auxiliary force of Latins and other allies no less than the citizen multitude. But nothing went according to their mind, though they brought so great a force of their own and so great an alliance.

23.3. For the enemy, despising them because the men in service were newly levied, encamped over against them near at hand, and cut off the convoys of provisions by lying in ambush along the roads, and fell upon those who went out to forage; and whenever horse came to grips with horse and foot with foot, fighting in line, they everywhere withdrew with the advantage, since not a few played the coward in the encounters and neither obeyed their commanders nor were willing to come to grips with the enemy.

23.4. Now those who marched against the Sabines, brought to their senses by the lesser evils, resolved of their own accord to abandon the camp; and about midnight, rousing the army, they led it from the enemy's country into their own, making their withdrawal much like a flight, until they reached the city of Crustumerium, which is not far from Rome. But those in Algidum, in the country of the Aequians, having pitched their camp there, and themselves receiving many blows from the enemy, and thinking it right to remain amid their dangers in the hope of repairing their losses, suffered the most pitiable fate.

23.5. For the enemy, having pushed against them and struck down those who withstood them before the rampart, mounted the defences; and having seized the camp, they slew a few who defended themselves, but destroyed the greater part in the pursuit. Those who were saved out of the rout, most of them wounded and nearly all having lost their arms, came to the city of Tusculum; but their tents and beasts of burden and money and servants and the rest of their war-equipment the enemy plundered.

23.6. When this was reported to those in the city, all who were enemies of the oligarchy, and those who had hitherto concealed their hatred, then made themselves manifest, rejoicing at the misfortunes of the generals; and there was already a strong body of men about Horatius and Valerius, whom I said were the leaders of the aristocratic clubs.

24.1. Appius and his party furnished their colleagues in the camp with arms and money and grain and the other things they needed, taking both public and private goods with great arrogance; and in place of the men who had perished they levied from every tribe those able to bear arms and sent them out, so that the companies were filled up. And they kept careful watch over the city, seizing the most strategic places with garrisons, lest the party associated with Valerius should secretly make some disturbance.

24.2. And they secretly enjoined upon their colleagues in the camp to destroy those who opposed them — the eminent ones covertly, but those of whom less account was made, even openly, always bringing forward some pretexts, that they might seem to die justly. And this was done; for some who were sent out by them to forage, some to escort convoys of provisions, and some to perform other military services, having gone outside the rampart, were nowhere afterward seen.

24.3. And the meanest, accused of beginning flight, or of carrying secrets to the enemy, or of not keeping their post, were destroyed in the open, for the terror of the rest. And destruction came upon the soldiers from two quarters: those friendly to the oligarchy perishing in the encounters with the enemy, and those who longed for the aristocratic constitution being destroyed by the generals.

25.1. Many such things were done in the city too by Appius and his party. Now of the rest, though many were slain, the multitude made less account; but the cruel and impious death of one man, the most illustrious of the commons and one who had displayed the greatest valour in deeds of war, accomplished in the one of the two camps where the three generals were, made all who were there ready for revolt.

25.2. He who was murdered was Siccius, the man who had fought a hundred and twenty battles and from all of them had won the prizes of valour, who, as I said, though already released from service by reason of his age, had voluntarily joined in the war against the Aequians, bringing through goodwill toward himself a band of eight hundred men who had already completed their lawful terms of service; with whom, sent by the one of the consuls against the enemy's camp to manifest destruction, as it seemed to all, he both took the rampart and was the cause of the consuls' complete victory.

25.3. This man, then, who delivered many speeches in the city against the generals in the camp, as cowardly and inexperienced in war, Appius and his party, eager to put him out of the way, invited to friendly conversations, and thought fit to share their perplexities with him concerning the affairs of the camp, and called upon him to say how the errors of the generals might be set right, and at last persuaded him to go out to the camp at Crustumerium, holding the authority of a legate. Now the legate is, among the Romans, the most sacred and most honoured of all officials, having the authority and power of a magistrate, but the inviolability and reverence of a priest.

25.4. When he arrived, the commanders there made him welcome and begged him to remain and share the command, and gave him certain gifts already and promised others; and being deceived by wicked men, and not perceiving, through the witchery of their words, that it was done out of treachery — for he was a soldierly man and simple in his ways — he obeyed them in other matters which he supposed advantageous, and first of all advised them to move the camp into the enemy's country from their own, recounting the harms then being done and reckoning the advantages they would have if they shifted their camp.

26.1. They, feigning gladly to accept his counsels, said: 'Why, then, do you not yourself become leader of the removal, having first reconnoitred a suitable place? For you have experience enough of the country through your many campaigns. We will give you a company of picked young men lightly armed; and let a horse be at your service, on account of your age, and armour befitting men of your years.'

26.2. When Siccius had accepted, and had asked for a hundred picked light-armed men, they delayed no time but sent him out while it was still night, and with him the hundred men, having chosen from their own partisans the most reckless, whom they charged to kill the man, promising great rewards for the murder. And when, having advanced far from the camp, they came to a hilly, narrow, and rugged place, hard for a horse to traverse save by going up at a walk, because of the roughness of the heights, they gave one another a signal and formed a band, intending to fall upon him all together. But a certain armour-bearer of Siccius, a good soldier, having guessed their design, became informer to his master.

26.3. And he, when he perceived that he was being shut up in difficult ground, where it was not possible to drive the horse at speed, leapt down and, taking his stand on the height, that he might not be encircled by them, with his armour-bearer alone awaited his assailants. And when they all rushed upon him at once, many as they were, he slew about fifteen and wounded twice as many. And it seemed that he would have destroyed all the rest in fighting, had they come to close quarters.

26.4. But they, perceiving that he was a thing not to be fought with, and that they would not take him hand to hand, held off from the close combat and, standing farther off, cast at him — some with javelins, some with stones, some with billets of wood; and certain of them, coming up the side of the height and getting above his head, rolled down huge rocks from above, until, by the multitude of missiles cast from in front and the weight of those hurled down from above, they destroyed him. Such, then, was the end that befell Siccius.

27.1. Those who had accomplished the murder came to the camp bringing their wounded, and spread the story that a band of the enemy had appeared to them and killed Siccius and the other men whom they first encountered, and that they themselves, having received many wounds, had barely escaped them. And they seemed to all to speak credibly. Yet their deed did not escape detection; but although the murder had been done in solitude and had no informer, by the fate of the man himself and by the Justice that watches over all mortal affairs they were convicted by indisputable proofs.

27.2. For those in the camp, holding the man worthy of public burial and of honours beyond the rest — for many reasons, but chiefly because, being an old man and released by his age from the contests of war, he had given himself voluntarily to danger for the common good — assembled and voted that from the three legions men should go out as one body to recover the body, that it might be brought to the camp with all safety and honour. And the commanders, out of caution, lest they should afford any suspicion of treachery in the matter, gave their consent to so fair and fitting a deed;

27.3. and the men, taking up their arms, went forth. Coming to the place, when they saw neither thickets nor ravines nor any other ground where it is customary to set ambushes, but a bare, conspicuous, narrow height, they at once held what had been done in suspicion; then, approaching the corpses, when they beheld Siccius himself cast there unspoiled, and all the others, they were in amazement that enemies, having mastered their foes, had neither

27.4. stripped off their arms nor taken away their clothing. And searching all around, when they found neither track of horses nor any footprint of men except along the road, they supposed it a thing impossible that enemies should appear to their own men unseen, like winged creatures, or fallen from the sky. But above all these things and the rest, the greatest proof appeared to them that the man had perished not at the hands of enemies but by friends,

27.5. the fact that not one of the enemy was found dead. For they did not think that Siccius would have died without a struggle — a man irresistible both in strength and in spirit — nor his armour-bearer, nor the others who fell with him, especially as the battle had been hand to hand. And they inferred this from the wounds. For Siccius himself had many blows, some from stones, some from javelins, some from swords, and so had the armour-bearer; but those slain by them had all been killed by swords or stones or javelins, and not one by an arrow.

27.6. Indignation, then, arose after this among all, and outcry and much lamentation; and when they had bewailed the calamity, and had taken up and brought the corpse to the camp, they raised a great clamour against the generals, and especially thought it right to put the murderers to death according to the military law; or, failing that, to grant them a court forthwith. And there were many ready to accuse them.

27.7. But when the generals would give no heed to them, but hid the men away and put off the trials, saying that they would render account at Rome to whoever wished to accuse them, then, learning that the design was the generals', they buried Siccius, making a most splendid funeral and heaping up a huge pyre and offering of the other things, according to their means, which it is the law to bring for brave men to their last honour; and they were all estranged from the decemvirate, and were minded to revolt. So the army at Crustumerium and Fidenae, on account of the death of Siccius the legate, was hostile to those who were set over affairs.

28.1. But the army stationed in Algidum, in the country of the Aequians, and the whole multitude in the city, were set at war against them through these causes. A man from the commons, Lucius Verginius, second to none in war, holding the command of a company among the five legions, was posted with those who marched against the Aequians.

28.2. He had a daughter, the fairest of the maidens in Rome, bearing her father's name, whom Lucius, one of those who had been tribunes, son of Icilius — the man who first established the tribunician power and first held it —

28.3. had betrothed. This girl, now of marriageable age, Appius Claudius, the head of the decemvirate, beheld reading at the schoolmaster's — for the schools of the children were then about the Forum — and was at once captivated by the maiden's beauty, and still more was driven out of his senses, being often forced to pass by the school, already mastered by his passion.

28.4. But when he could not take her in marriage, seeing her betrothed to another and himself having a wedded wife, and at the same time not thinking it right to contract a marriage from a plebeian family, through disdain of her fortune and contrary to the law which he himself had written in the Twelve Tables, he first attempted to corrupt the girl with money, and kept sending women to her nurses — for the girl was an orphan of her mother — giving much and promising still more than he gave. And those who made the attempt were charged not to tell the nurses who it was that loved the girl, but only that it was one of those able to do good, or harm, to whomsoever he wished.

28.5. But when they could not persuade them, and he saw the girl deemed worthy of a stronger guard than before, inflamed by his passion, he resolved to walk a more reckless road. Sending, then, for one of his own clients, Marcus Claudius, a daring man and ready for any service, he related to him his passion, and, having taught him all that he wished him to do and say, dispatched him, taking with him many

28.6. of the most shameless men. And he, coming to the school, laid hold of the maiden and wished to lead her openly through the Forum. But when an outcry arose and a great crowd ran together, being hindered from leading the girl whither he purposed, he came with her to the magistrate. Appius was then sitting alone upon the tribunal, transacting business and giving judgment to those who had need. And when he wished to speak, there was outcry and indignation from the surrounding crowd, all thinking it right to wait until the kinsmen of the girl should come; and

28.7. Appius ordered it so to be done. And when a little time had passed, there came the maiden's uncle on her mother's side, Publius Numitorius, bringing many friends and kinsmen — a man eminent among the commons — and shortly after Lucius, who had been betrothed to the girl by her father, having about him a strong band of plebeian youths. And when he came to the tribunal, still panting and short of breath, he demanded to be told who it was that had dared to lay hands upon a freeborn girl, and with what intent.

29.1. When silence was made, Marcus Claudius, who had laid hold of the girl, delivered a speech of this sort: 'Nothing rash or violent has been done by me concerning the girl, Appius Claudius; but being her master by the laws, I lead her away. And in what manner she is mine, learn.'

29.2. 'There was a maidservant of my father's house who served very many years. This woman, being with child, the wife of Verginius — who was a familiar and frequenter of the house — persuaded, if she should bear a child, to give the infant to her. And she, keeping her promise, when this daughter was born to her, pretended to us that she had borne a dead child, but gave the infant to Numitoria; and she, taking it, supposititiously reared it, being the mother of no children, neither male nor female.'

29.3. 'These things, then, were hidden from me before; but now, having learned of them through information, and having many good witnesses, and having examined the maidservant, I take refuge in the common law of all men, which adjudges children to belong not to those who falsely claim them but to their mothers — free children if the mothers be free, slaves if the mothers be slaves, having the same masters'

29.4. 'as their mothers have. According to this law I claim to lead away the daughter of my maidservant, and am willing to abide trial, if anyone disputes the claim, by setting up sufficient sureties to bring her to the trial. But if anyone wishes the inquiry to be speedy, I am ready to plead the case before you this very moment, and not to give bail for the person nor to bring delays upon the matter. Whichever of these courses they wish, let them choose.'

30.1. When Claudius had spoken thus, and had added much entreaty that he be in no way worsted by his adversaries because he was a client and of low estate, the girl's uncle took up the word and said only what was fitting to be said to the magistrate: that the father of the girl was Verginius, of the commons, who was abroad serving in war on behalf of the city; that her mother had been Numitoria, his own sister, a chaste and good woman, who had died not many years before; that the maiden, reared as became one free and a citizen, had been betrothed according to law to Icilius, and the marriage would have been completed,

30.2. had not the war against the Aequians arisen too soon. And in the meantime, no fewer than fifteen years having passed, Claudius had attempted to say no such thing against them; but now that the girl had reached the age for marriage and seemed to surpass in beauty, he had come in love, having fabricated a shameless calumny — not of his own devising, but framed by a man who thought he must by every means gratify all his desires.

30.3. Now the trial concerning the daughter, he said, the father himself would plead, coming from the army; but the claim to her person, which had to be made according to the laws, he himself would make, being the girl's uncle, and would abide the just decision, asking nothing strange, nor anything not granted as just to the other Romans, even if not to all mankind: that when a person is being led from freedom into slavery, not he who takes away the freedom but he who preserves it should be master until trial.

30.4. And he said that for many reasons it belonged to Appius to keep this just principle: first, because he had written this law along with the others in the Twelve Tables; next, because he was the head of the decemvirate; and besides this, because, together with the consular authority, he had taken over also the tribuneship, whose noblest function it was to succour the weak and friendless among the citizens.

30.5. And he begged him to pity the maiden who had taken refuge with him — bereft of her mother long since, and now in this present time without her father, in danger of being robbed not of ancestral property, but of husband and country and what seems the greatest of all human goods, the freedom of her person. And having bewailed the outrage to which the girl was about to be delivered, and having stirred much pity in those present, he said at last, concerning the time of the trial:

30.6. 'Since Claudius — who says he has suffered no wrong in fifteen years — wishes her trial to be speedy, another man, contending for matters so great, would have said that he was suffering dreadful things, and would have been indignant, as is natural, that the trial should be pleaded only when peace comes and all who are now in the camp return — then, when there will be abundance of witnesses and friends and judges for both the litigants — bringing forward considerations civil and moderate, and familiar to the Roman constitution.'

30.7. 'But we,' he said, 'have no need of speeches, nor of peace, nor of a crowd of friends and judges, nor do we put the matter off to the days appointed for trials; rather, even in war, and in scarcity of friends, and before judges not impartial, and forthwith, we submit to plead our case — asking from you only so much time, Appius, as shall suffice for the girl's father to come from the camp, to bewail his own fortunes, and through himself to plead the case.'

31.1. When Numitorius had said such things, and the surrounding crowd had signified with a great shout that he made just demands, Appius, having held off a little while, said: 'I am not, indeed, ignorant of the law laid down concerning the giving of bail for those led into slavery, which suffers not the person to remain with those who claim him until trial; nor would I willingly abolish a law which I myself wrote. This, however, I hold just: that, there being two claimants, master and father, if both were present, the father should have the person until trial.'

31.2. 'But since he is absent, the master shall lead her away, giving sufficient sureties that he will produce her before the magistrate whenever her father shall arrive. And concerning the sureties and the valuation and that you be in no way worsted at the trial, I will take much forethought, Numitorius.'

31.3. 'But now, hand over the girl.' When Appius had pronounced this conclusion, there was much lamentation and wailing from the maiden and the women about her, and much outcry and indignation from the crowd that stood around the tribunal. And Icilius, who was to have married the girl, clung to her and said: 'Not while I live, Appius, shall any man lead her away.'

31.4. 'But if you are resolved to abolish the laws, to confound justice, and to take away our liberty, no longer deny the tyranny with which you are reproached, but, having cut off my neck, lead away both her, whither you please, and the other maidens and women, that the Romans may learn at last that they have become slaves instead of free men, and may no longer think themselves above their fortune.'

31.5. 'Why, then, do you still delay, and not pour out my blood before the tribunal, in the eyes of all? Know well, however, that my death will be the beginning either of great evils for the Romans, or of great goods.'

32.1. While he still wished to speak, the lictors, ordered by the authority, kept them off from the tribunal and bade them obey what had been decided; but Claudius laid hold of the girl and wished to lead her away as she clung to her uncle and her betrothed. And the bystanders, seeing a piteous grief, all cried out together and, counting as nothing the authority of the ruler, pressed against those who used violence, so that Claudius, fearing their onset, let the girl go and took refuge

32.2. at the feet of the magistrate. Appius at first fell into great confusion, seeing all enraged, and was long at a loss what he ought to do; then, calling Claudius up to the tribunal and conversing briefly with him as he saw fit, and signing to the bystanders to grant silence, he spoke as follows:

32.3. 'I, men of the commons, since I see you exasperated at the decision, waive the strict right concerning the giving of bail for the person; and, wishing to gratify you, I have persuaded my own client to permit the kinsmen of the maiden to give bail for her until her

32.4. father shall arrive. Take, then, Numitorius, the girl away, and agree to give bail for her by tomorrow. For this time suffices for you both to send word to Verginius today and to bring him here from the camp in three or four hours tomorrow.' But when they asked for more time, he made no further reply, but rose and ordered his chair to be taken up.

33.1. When he had departed from the Forum, distraught and maddened by his passion, he resolved no longer to let the girl go to her kinsmen, but, when she should be brought for the giving of bail, to carry her off by force; and he both set a larger guard about himself, that he might suffer no violence from the crowds, and beforehand occupied the space around the tribunal with a throng of partisans and clients.

33.2. But that he might do this under a specious pretext of justice — namely, that the father had not come for the giving of bail — he gave letters to his most trusted horsemen and sent them to the camp, to Antonius the commander of the legion under whom Verginius served, asking him to keep the man in close guard, lest, learning what concerned his daughter, he should secretly slip away and escape from the camp.

33.3. But the kinsmen of the girl forestalled him: a son of Numitorius and a brother of Icilius, sent ahead by the others while the proceedings were still beginning — youths full of spirit — having ridden their horses with loose rein and the whip, completed the journey first, and made plain to Verginius

33.4. what had been done. He, concealing the true reason from Antonius, but pretending that he had learned of the death of some necessary kinsman, whose conveyance and burial he was bound by law to perform, was released, and about the lighting of the lamps drove off with the young men by other roads, fearing pursuit both from the camp and from the city; which indeed came to pass.

33.5. For Antonius, having received the letters about the first watch, sent off a troop of horse after him; and others, sent from the city, kept guard all night over the road that led from the camp. But when someone reported to Appius that Verginius had come, contrary to expectation, he, beside himself, came with a great band to the tribunal and ordered the kinsmen of the girl to be brought forward.

33.6. When they had come forward, Claudius, having gone again through the same speeches, demanded that Appius become judge of the matter without any delay, saying that the informer and the witnesses were present, and delivering up the maidservant herself; and over all this there was much feigned complaint, that he would not obtain the same justice as the others, as before, because he was Appius' client; and an appeal that they should succour not those who spoke the more piteous things, but those who claimed the more just.

34.1. But the girl's father and the rest of her kinsmen made their defence concerning the supposititious birth, saying many things just and true: that the sister of Numitorius and wife of Verginius — a maiden married to a young man, and bearing not many years after the marriage — had no reasonable motive for a supposititious child; and that, even if she had most of all wished to bring an alien stock into her own house, she would rather have taken the child of some other free woman connected with her by birth or friendship, from whom she would hold faithfully and surely what she received, than the child of an alien slave;

34.2. and that, having the power to take whichever she wished, she would rather have chosen a male child than a female. For one who bears children is compelled to love and rear, of necessity, whatever nature brings forth; but one who is fostering a supposititious child would naturally take the better in place of the worse.

34.3. And against the informer and the witnesses, whom Claudius said he would produce many and trustworthy, they offered the argument from probability: that Numitoria would never have done openly, and in the presence of free witnesses, a thing that needed silence and could have been managed through a single person, in order that the girl, reared by the masters, might be taken from her mother.

34.4. And they said that the time too was no small proof that the accuser said nothing sound; for neither the informer nor the witnesses would have kept the supposititious birth secret for fifteen years, but would have spoken of it earlier.

34.5. And, discrediting the proofs of the accusers as neither true nor probable, they thought fit to set against them their own, naming many women, and those not obscure, who, they said, knew that Numitoria had been pregnant, from the swelling about her womb. And besides these, they pointed to the women who had been present at the birth and the lying-in, on account of their kinship, and had seen the child as it was born, and asked that they be examined.

34.6. But that which was the clearest proof of all, attested by many men and women, not only free but also slaves, they said last: that the child had been reared on its mother's milk; and that it is impossible for a woman who has not borne a child to have her breasts filled with milk.

35.1. While they offered these things, and many like them, strong and admitting no contrary argument, and poured forth much pity over the girl's misfortunes, all the others who heard the speeches took compassion on her beauty

35.2. whenever they looked upon the maiden. For even in squalid garb, and gazing downcast, and wasting away the loveliness of her eyes, she caught the eyes of all, so superhuman was the bloom and grace about her; and they bewailed the strangeness of fortune — into what outrages and insults she would come, from what good things.

35.3. And there entered into them the reckoning that, if the law concerning liberty were abolished, there would be nothing to hinder their own wives and daughters from suffering the same things as she. Reckoning these and many like things, and talking them over to one another, they wept.

35.4. But Appius — being a man not sound in nature and corrupted by the greatness of his power, his soul swollen and his inward parts seething with love of the girl — gave no heed to the words of those who pleaded, nor was he softened by her tears, but took the compassion of the bystanders with anger, as though he himself were the more worthy of pity, and had suffered more dreadful things from the beauty that had enslaved him.

35.5. For all these reasons, then, frenzied, he brought himself to utter a shameless speech, from which it became plain to those who suspected it that he himself had framed the calumny against the girl and had dared to do a tyrannical and cruel deed.

36.1. For while they were still speaking, he ordered silence; and when silence was made, and all the crowd in the Forum was on the alert, drawn on by desire to know what would be said by him, he turned his face this way and that many times, and counted with his eyes the bands of his partisans, with whom he had occupied the Forum,

36.2. and spoke thus: 'I, concerning this matter, Verginius, and you who are present with him, have heard not now for the first time, but earlier still, before I took over this office. And in what manner I learned of it, hear. The father of this Marcus Claudius, when dying, asked me to be guardian of his son, who was left a child; and they are clients of our house from our ancestors.'

36.3. 'And in the time of the guardianship information came to me concerning the girl — that Numitoria had taken her, supposititious, from the slave of Claudius; and, having examined the matter, I learned that it was so. Now it was open to me to take it in hand myself; but I thought it better to leave the authority to him, when he should become a man, whether he wished to lead the girl away, or to come to terms with those who reared her, being paid or showing favour.'

36.4. 'And in the meantime I, becoming involved in public affairs, had no more thought of the affairs of Claudius. But to him, as it seems, examining his own estate, the information concerning the girl was given, as it was to me before; and he asks nothing unjust, wishing to lead away the child born of his own maidservant.'

36.5. 'If, then, they had persuaded one another, it would have been well; but since the matter has come to dispute, I bear him this witness, and I judge that this man is master of the girl.'

37.1. When they heard this, all who were uncorrupted and supporters of those who spoke for justice lifted their hands to heaven and cried out a shout mingled of lamentation and indignation; but the flatterers of the oligarchy raised the cry that encourages and can put courage into rulers. And when the Forum was excited and full of all manner of words and passions, Appius, having ordered silence, said:

37.2. 'If you will not cease to throw the city into faction and to make war against us — you turbulent men, useful in no way either in peace or in war — you shall yield, brought to your senses by necessity. Do not suppose that these guards upon the Capitol and the citadel have been made ready by us against the enemy from without alone, while you who lurk within and rot all the affairs of the city we shall let alone.'

37.3. 'Take, then, a better mind than you now have, and depart, those of you who have no business; and attend to your own affairs, if you are wise. But you, Claudius, take the girl and lead her away, fearing no man, through the Forum;'

37.4. 'for the twelve axes of Appius shall escort you.' When he had said this, the rest, groaning and beating their foreheads and unable to restrain their tears, gave way out of the Forum; but Claudius led off the girl as she clung to her father and kissed him and called upon him with the sweetest words. In such evils Verginius, casting about, conceived a deed — to a father wretched and bitter, but to a free man

37.5. and high-minded fitting. For having asked leave to embrace his daughter, the last embraces, with permission, and to speak with her alone, alone, as much as he wished, before she should be led from the Forum, the general having consented and the adversaries having withdrawn a little, he caught her up as she swooned and was sinking down, and held her, and for a while called upon her and kissed her and wiped away the streaming tears; then, drawing her little by little, when he was near a butcher's stall, he snatched a knife from the table and struck his daughter through the vitals, saying only this:

37.6. 'Free and honourable, my child, I send you to your ancestors beneath the earth; for living, you could not have both these things, because of the tyrant.' When an outcry arose, holding the bloody blade and himself become covered with blood, with which the slaughter of the girl had bespattered him, he ran through the city like a madman, calling the citizens

37.7. to liberty. And having forced his way through the gates, he mounted the horse that had been made ready for him and pressed on to the camp, Icilius and Numitorius — the young men who had brought him from the camp — then escorting him. And there followed them also another throng of plebeians, not small, so that the whole company became about four hundred.

38.1. Appius, when he learned of the calamity concerning the girl, leapt up from his chair and wished to pursue Verginius, saying and doing many unseemly things. But his friends, standing round him and begging him to commit no folly, he departed, indignant at all.

38.2. And when he was already at his house, certain of his partisans reported to him that, about the body of the girl, Icilius the betrothed and Numitorius the uncle, with the rest of their partisans and kinsmen, were standing and uttering things speakable and unspeakable against him, and summoning the people to liberty.

38.3. And he, out of anger, as he was, sent some of the lictors with orders to drag off to prison those who were crying out, and to remove the body from the Forum — doing a most senseless thing, and least suited to the occasion. For whereas he ought to have soothed the crowd, which had taken a just pretext for anger — yielding for the moment, and afterward partly defending himself, partly entreating, partly recovering the people by other services — being carried to greater violence, he forced them to turn to desperation.

38.4. For they did not endure those who attempted to drag off the dead girl or to lead the men away to prison, but, shouting to one another, with thrusting and blows, they drove the constables out of the Forum. So that Appius, hearing this, was forced to go to the Forum with many partisans and clients, ordering them to strike and to drive out of the way those in the alleys. But, learning his purpose in coming out, Valerius and

38.5. Horatius, whom I said were the foremost leaders of those who laid claim to liberty, leading much good youth about them, took their stand before the corpse; and when Appius and his party drew near them, first they went over to galling and insulting words against their authority, and then they offered deeds like to their words, striking and overturning those who came to grips with them.

39.1. Appius, distressed at the unexpected check to his vengeance and not knowing what to do with the men, resolved to walk the most ruinous road. For while the multitude was still loyal to him, having mounted upon the temple of Hephaestus, he summoned the people to assembly and tried to accuse the men of lawlessness and outrage, elated by his tribunician authority and by a light hope that the people, sharing his indignation,

39.2. would permit him to hurl the men from the rock. But Valerius and his party, having occupied another part of the Forum and set the corpse of the maiden where it would be seen by all, gathered another assembly and made much accusation against Appius and the other oligarchs.

39.3. And it was likely, as was natural, that some — through the worth of the men, some through pity for the girl, who had suffered things dreadful and beyond dreadful through her ill-fated beauty, and some through the very longing for the ancient constitution — being called to this assembly, would gather there more numerous than the others; so that only a few were left about Appius, namely the oligarchs themselves, among whom were some who no longer gave ear to their oligarchic counsels, for many reasons, but who, if the cause of their adversaries should grow strong, would gladly go over to

39.4. them. Appius, then, seeing himself being deserted, was forced to change his mind and to depart from the Forum — which indeed profited him most. For, set upon by the plebeian multitude, he would have paid a fitting penalty.

39.5. After this, Valerius and his party, having obtained as much licence as they wished, glutted themselves with speeches against the oligarchy and drew over to themselves those who still wavered. And the kinsmen of the girl estranged the populace still more, when they brought a bier into the Forum and prepared the rest of the funeral adornment as costly as they could, and made the carrying-out of the body through the most conspicuous streets of the city, where it would be seen by the greatest number.

39.6. For women and maidens ran out from the houses bewailing the calamity — some casting flowers and garlands upon the bier, some fillets or headbands, some maidenly ornaments of the hair, and some even cutting off and laying down locks of their tresses.

39.7. And many men, taking from the neighbouring workshops, some by purchase, some as a free gift, joined in adorning the funeral procession with suitable offerings, so that the obsequies became famous throughout the city, and eagerness for the overthrow of the oligarchy seized all. But those who held with the oligarchy, having arms, caused them great fear, and Valerius and his party did not think it right to decide the quarrel with the blood of citizens.

40.1. Such, then, were the disorders in the city. But Verginius — who, as I said, had become the slayer of his own daughter — driving his horse at full rein, arrived about the lighting of the lamps at the camp near Algidum, just as he had run from the city, all bespattered with blood and holding the butcher's

40.2. knife in his hand. Those who kept watch before the camp, seeing him, were at a loss to guess what had befallen him, and followed as though to hear some great and terrible matter. He for a while went on weeping and signing to those who met him to follow; and from the tents he passed they ran out, all in a body, in the midst of their supper, holding torches and lamps, full of distress and tumult, gathering

40.3. about him and following. And when he came to the open space of the camp, taking his stand on a rising ground, so as to be seen by all, he related the misfortunes that had befallen him, bringing forward as witnesses of his words those present with him from the city. And when he perceived that many were lamenting and weeping, he turned to supplications and entreaties of them, not to overlook either himself unavenged or his country insulted. And as he spoke these things, there was much eagerness among all to hear and to bid him speak on.

40.4. Therefore he now laid hold of the oligarchy still more boldly, recounting how the Ten had taken away the property of many, and outraged the bodies of many with stripes, and forced very many to flee their country though they had done no wrong; and reckoning up the outrages upon women and the seizures of marriageable maidens and the insults to free children and the rest of their lawless acts and cruelties;

40.5. 'and these things,' he said, 'they do to insult us — men who hold their power neither by law nor by vote of senate or grant of people; for the year's term of their office, after which they ought to have given over the commonwealth to others, has passed — but by the most violent of means, having condemned us of much cowardice and softness, as though we were women.'

40.6. 'Let, then, the reckoning enter into each of you, both of what you yourself have suffered and of what you know others to have suffered; and if any of you, baited by them with certain pleasures or favours, has not feared the oligarchy nor dreaded lest the dreadful things come even upon him in time — having learned that to tyrants nothing is faithful, nor are the favours of rulers given to any out of goodwill — and'

40.7. 'all things like to these — let him change his mind; and, using one resolve, all of you, set free your country from the tyrants, in which the temples of the gods are established for you and the tombs of your ancestors are, whom you honour after the gods, and aged fathers demanding the much and worthy requital of their toils, and wives betrothed according to the laws, and marriageable daughters needing no small care from those who have them, and the begetting of male children, to whom are owed the'

40.8. 'just rights of nature from their ancestors. For of houses and allotments and money, acquired with much toil by your fathers and yourselves, I say nothing; of which it is not in your power to hold anything securely, so long as you are tyrannized over by the Ten.'

41.1. 'It is the part neither of prudent nor of noble men to win what belongs to others by valour, and to look on while their own perishes through softness; nor to wage long and ceaseless wars against the Aequians and Volscians and Sabines and all the rest of the neighbours, for the sake of empire and dominion, and yet, against those who rule over you unlawfully, to be unwilling to take up arms for safety and freedom.'

41.2. 'Will you not recover the spirit of your country? Will there not come to you a reckoning worthy of the virtue of your parents — who, on account of the outrage to one woman, outraged by one of the sons of Tarquin, and who through that calamity made away with herself, were so indignant at the deed and so provoked, and counted the outrage common to all, that they not only drove Tarquin from the city but also abolished the kingly government, and forbade henceforth that any Roman should hold for life the irresponsible office; and themselves swore the greatest oaths, and laid curses upon their descendants'

41.3. 'if they should do anything contrary to these things? Then those men did not endure the tyrannical outrage of one licentious youth done upon one free body; but will you endure a many-headed tyranny, using every lawlessness and wantonness, and likely to use still more,'

41.4. 'if you now suffer it? Not to me alone was born a daughter excelling others in beauty, whom Appius openly undertook to outrage and insult; but among you too there are many — some with daughters, some with wives, some with comely young sons — what shall hinder them from suffering the same things at the hands of some other of the Ten tyrants, or of Appius himself? Unless, indeed, some one of the gods is surety that, if you leave these my misfortunes unavenged, the like dreadful things will not come upon many among you, but the tyrant's lust, having gone as far as my daughter, will stop, and will show moderation toward the rest — the persons of boys and maidens alike. Be well assured that it is much folly and stupidity to say that the things now feared will not come to pass.'

41.5. 'For the desires of tyrants are, in the nature of things, unbounded, inasmuch as they have neither law to restrain them nor fear. Achieving, then, for me a just vengeance, and providing safety for yourselves, that you suffer not the same things, break at last the bridle, you wretched men;'

41.6. 'look up with straight eyes toward liberty. For at what other pretext would you be more indignant than at this — when the tyrants lead away the daughters of citizens as slaves and conduct them to the bridal with whips? At what occasion will you recover your free spirit, if you let pass the present, in which you have arms upon your bodies?'

42.1. While he was still speaking, the multitude cried out, promising to take vengeance, and called the commanders of the companies by name, demanding that they set to work; and many, coming forward openly, took courage to tell if they had suffered any dreadful thing.

42.2. When the five men, whom I said commanded the legions, learned what was happening, fearing lest some onset of the crowds should be made against them, they all ran together to the general's quarters and with their friends considered how they might stop the disturbance, having set their own troops in arms about them.

42.3. But when they learned that the men had gone off to their tents and that the tumult had ceased and abated, not knowing that it had been resolved by most of the centurions, through secret conspiracies, to bring about a revolt and to join in freeing their country, they decided that, as soon as day should come, they would seize Verginius, who was stirring up the crowds, and hold him in custody, and would rouse the forces from the camp and lead them against the enemy, and, encamping among them, would ravage the best of their country — no longer allowing their own men to busy themselves about what was being done in the city, partly because of the plunder, partly because of the contests that would always arise on its account.

42.4. But nothing of their reckoning came to pass. For the captains would not let Verginius, when summoned, go off to the general's quarters, suspecting lest he suffer some harm; and they reproached them with the design that had become known, that they wished to lead the companies against the enemy, saying: 'Finely indeed have you generalled us before, that now too, taking up hopes, we should follow you — you who, leading an army out of the city itself such as none of the former Roman commanders ever led, and gathering one from the allies, neither won any victory nor did any harm to the enemy, but through cowardice and inexperience showed yourselves such, encamping ill, and made us, as though our own country had been ravaged by the enemy, beggars and destitute of all — we who, prevailing in arms over our adversaries, used to conquer in battle, when our generals were better than you; and they set up trophies over us, and have our tents and slaves and arms and money, which they have plundered.'

43.1. But Verginius, out of anger and from no longer fearing the commanders, laid hold of them more boldly, calling them destroyers and ruiners of their country, and counselling all the captains to take up the standards and lead the army home.

43.2. While most still shrank from moving the sacred standards, and from afterward abandoning the commanders and generals — thinking it neither pious nor safe — for the military oath, which the Romans observe above all things, bids the soldiers follow their generals wherever they may lead, and the law gave the commanders authority to put to death those who disobeyed,

43.3. or who abandoned the standards, without trial — Verginius, seeing them holding back through caution, taught them that the law had released them from their oath, since the general who is to command the forces must have been appointed by law, whereas the authority of the Ten was unlawful, having overrun the year's term for which it was appointed; and that to do the bidding of those who rule not according to law is not obedience and piety, but

43.4. folly and madness. Hearing this, and thinking it rightly said, and exhorting one another, and taking some courage too from the divine power, they took up the standards and led forth out of the camp. There were likely to be — as was natural among characters of various kinds, not all minded for the best — some who remained with the oligarchs, both soldiers and captains, save that they were not so many in

43.5. number, but far fewer than the others. Those who had gone out of the camp, having marched all day, arrived at the city as evening fell, none having announced their approach, and threw those within into no small confusion, supposing an enemy army had entered; and there was outcry and disorderly running through the city. The disturbance, however, did not last long, so as to cause any harm by it. For going through the alleys they cried out that they were friends and had entered for the good of the city, and offered deeds like to their words, doing wrong to none.

43.6. And coming to the hill called the Aventine — which is the most suitable of the hills enclosed within Rome for encamping — they laid down their arms about the temple of Artemis; and on the following day, having strengthened their camp and appointed ten tribunes as masters of the common affairs, of whom the leader was Marcus Oppius, they remained quiet.

44.1. And there came to them as allies not long after, from the army at Fidenae, the best of the captains of the three legions, bringing a great force — men long since ill-disposed toward the generals there, ever since they killed Siccius the legate, as I said, but who had feared to be the first to begin the revolt, supposing the five legions at Algidum to be loyal to the decemvirate, and now, when they learned of their revolt, gladly accepting what fortune had brought.

44.2. The leaders of these legions too were ten tribunes appointed on the march, of whom the most illustrious was Sextus Malius. When they had joined one another, having laid down their arms, they entrusted to the twenty tribunes all speaking and acting on behalf of the common cause. And of the twenty they appointed the two most illustrious as chief deliberators, Marcus Oppius and Sextus Malius; these, having established a council out of all the captains,

44.3. continued to transact everything together with them. And while their purpose was still unknown to most, Appius — as being conscious to himself of having been the cause of the present disturbance and of the evils expected to come from it — no longer thought fit to do any public business, but remained at home; but Spurius Oppius, who was set over the city with him, disturbed at first himself, as though the enemy would presently fall upon them and had come for this purpose, when he learned that they had made no further disturbance, abating his fear, summoned the senate to the council-house, sending for them man by man from their houses.

44.4. While they were still assembling, the commanders from the army at Fidenae came, indignant that both camps had been deserted by the soldiers, and persuading the senate to take an anger against them worthy of the deed. When each had to declare his opinion, Lucius Cornelius said that those posted on the Aventine must depart that very day to their own camps, and must perform what was ordered by the generals, being liable to no charge for what had happened, save only the authors of the revolt;

44.5. and to these the generals must add penalties. But if they should not do this, the council should deliberate concerning them as men who had deserted the post to which they had been appointed by the commanders, and had sinned against the military oath. But Lucius Valerius . . . [text corrupt] . . . but concerning the Roman laws, which we found inscribed in the Twelve Tables, it was neither fitting to make no account of them, so venerable as they are and possessing so great a difference from the Greek codes of law, nor to advance further than is needful, lengthening out the history concerning them.

45.1. Now those who, after the dissolution of the decemvirate, were the first to receive the consular office from the people in the centuriate assembly, as I said — Lucius Valerius Potitus and Marcus Horatius Barbatus — being themselves of plebeian sympathies by nature, and having inherited this policy from their ancestors, keeping the promises which they had made to the commons when they persuaded them to lay down their arms, that they would conduct all things to the people's advantage, ratified laws in the centuriate assemblies — the patricians being displeased, but ashamed to oppose — among them certain others which I need not record, and that one which ordained that the laws passed by the people in the tribal assemblies should be binding upon all the Romans equally, having the same force as those that should be passed in the centuriate assemblies. And penalties were appended for those who should abolish or transgress the law,

45.2. if convicted, namely death and confiscation of property. This law did away with the disputes which the patricians had formerly made against the commons, when they refused to obey the laws passed by them, and would not at all hold the common decrees ratified in the tribal assemblies to be those of the whole city, but proper to those alone; while whatever the centuriate assembly decreed they held to be ordained both for themselves and for the rest of the citizens.

45.3. It has been said before, too, that in the tribal assemblies the commons and the poor prevailed over the patricians, but in the centuriate assemblies the patricians, though far fewer than the rest, got the better of the commons.

46.1. When this law had been ratified by the consuls, together with certain others, as I said, of a popular kind, straightway the tribunes, thinking a suitable occasion had come in which they might take vengeance on Appius and his party, thought they should bring impeachments against them — not arraigning them all together, lest they should help one another, but one by one; for thus they supposed they would be the more easily managed.

46.2. And considering with whom they should most fitly begin, they resolved to bring Appius first to account, both because he was hated by the people for his other wrongs, and because of the lawless acts lately committed concerning the maiden. For having convicted him, they thought, they would easily prevail over the others; whereas if they should begin with the meaner sort, they supposed the citizens' anger toward the most eminent men, tried last, would be the softer, being keener in the earlier contests — which has often

46.3. happened. Having so resolved, they held the men in custody, and appointed Verginius, without the lot, to accuse Appius. Appius, then, was impeached before the people, accused by Verginius in the assembly, and asked for time to make his defence. Led off to prison, that he might be kept until trial — for bail was not granted him — before the appointed day of judgment came, he died in his bonds: as the opinion of the many held, by order of the tribunes; but as those who wished to clear themselves of the charge gave out, having hanged himself with a noose.

46.4. After him Spurius Oppius, brought before the people by another of the tribunes, Publius Numitorius, and having obtained a hearing, was convicted by all the votes, and, delivered to prison, died the same day. The rest of the Ten, before they were impeached, punished themselves with exile. And the properties of those who had been put to death and of the . . . the quaestors of the city took into the public treasury.

46.5. There was impeached also Marcus Claudius, who had attempted to lead away the maiden as a slave, by her betrothed Icilius; and referring the blame to Appius, who had ordered him to act lawlessly, he was acquitted of death, but punished with perpetual exile. Of the others who had performed any lawless service for the oligarchs, none had a public trial, but immunity was granted to all. He who proposed this measure was Marcus Duillius the tribune, the citizens being now weary and expecting the enemy to come.

47.1. When the disturbances in the city had ceased, the consuls, having assembled the senate, ratified a decree to lead the army against the enemy with all speed. And the people having confirmed what was voted by the senate, Valerius, the one of the consuls, taking the half part of the army, led it out against the Aequians and Volscians; for both peoples had joined together.

47.2. And knowing that the Aequians, from their former successes, had taken on much pride and had come to great contempt of the Roman power, he wished still more to lift them up and make them more presumptuous, by giving a false impression that he dreaded to come to grips with them, and did everything as one afraid.

47.3. For he chose for his camp a high and inaccessible place, and threw round it a deep trench and raised high ramparts. And when the enemy challenged him often to battle and reproached his cowardice, he held off, remaining quiet. But when he learned that the strongest force of the enemy had gone out to forage in the country of the Hernicans and Latins, and that in the camp the guard left was neither numerous nor good, thinking this the suitable occasion, he led out his army marshalled and drew it up as for battle.

47.4. And when none came out against him, that day he held off; but on the next he led against their baggage, which was not very strongly defended. Learning that the camp was besieged, those who had gone out beforehand to forage came quickly, but not all together nor in order, scattered and in small numbers as each chanced; and those in the camp, when they saw their own men approaching, having become bolder, came out in a body.

47.5. And there was a great struggle and much slaughter on both sides, in which the Romans, conquering, routed those who fought hand to hand, and pursuing the fugitives, some they slew, some they took prisoner; and, having mastered their camp, they got round much money and abundant booty. Valerius, then, having accomplished this, now fearlessly went over the enemy's land and ravaged it.

48.1. Marcus Horatius, against the war with the Sabines, when he learned how matters stood with his colleague, having himself led his forces from the camp, advanced the more quickly with his whole power against the Sabines, no fewer in number and most experienced in war; for they showed great spirit and daring, from their former successes, against their adversaries, both all in common and individually their leader; for he was not only a good general but also

48.2. a noble warrior in his own person; and the cavalry having shown great eagerness, he won a most brilliant victory, having killed many of the enemy, and taken still many more prisoners, and mastered their camp left empty, in which he found much baggage of the enemy and all the booty which they had plundered from the Roman land, and recovered very many prisoners of his own. For the Sabines had not, through contempt, packed up their spoils in time.

48.3. Now the enemy's money he permitted the soldiers to take as booty, having first set apart from the spoils whatever he intended to consecrate to the gods; but the booty he restored to those from whom it had been taken.

49.1. Having accomplished this, he led back his forces to Rome; and about the same time Valerius came, and there was for both, who took great pride in their victories, a hope of bringing back conspicuous triumphs.

49.2. But the matter did not turn out for them according to hope. For the senate, assembled against them while they were encamped outside the city in what is called the Field of Mars, and having learned what had been done by both, did not permit the triumphal sacrifice to be made — many others openly opposing them, but most of all Gaius Claudius;

49.3. and he was uncle, as I said, to that Appius who established the oligarchy and had lately been put to death by the tribunes; and he brought forward the laws ratified by them, by which they diminished the power of the senate, and all the other measures which these men carried through their administration; and last the affair of the Ten men, whom they had given up to the tribunes — the death of some, the confiscation of others — as being contrary to the oaths and the covenants,

49.4. while he went through these things. For the things agreed upon at the altars by the patricians toward the commons were that there should be impunity for all and amnesty of the former wrongs; and the death of Appius, he said, had not come about by his own hand, but treacherously, by the tribunes, before trial, that he might obtain neither speech nor pity in his judgment; since, if the man had at least come to trial, he would have escaped, bringing forward the dignity of his family, and having done the commonwealth much good, calling upon the oaths and pledges by which men, trusting them, come together to reconciliations, and bringing his children and kindred and his very lowly garb and many other things that draw the multitude to compassion.

49.5. When Gaius Claudius had poured forth all these accusations against the consuls, and all present, it seemed good that they should be content if they were not made to pay penalties; but of the celebration of triumphs, or of any such concessions, that they should not be in the least worthy to obtain it.

50.1. When the senate had voted against the triumph, Valerius and his colleague, indignant and supposing themselves outrageously insulted, summoned the multitude to assembly; and having made much accusation against the senate, with the tribunes speaking in support of them and proposing a law, they obtained from the people the granting of the triumph, being the first of all the Romans to introduce this custom.

50.2. From this the commons again fell into accusations and quarrels against the patricians; and the tribunes provoked them, holding assemblies daily and saying many things against the senate. And what most irritated the many was the suspicion which they contrived to make strong, increased by ownerless rumours and no few conjectures, that the patricians intended to abolish the laws which Valerius and his colleague had ratified as consuls; and a strong opinion, not far from being a conviction, held the many. And such were the things done in the time of these consuls.

51.1. Those who held the consulship the following year were Larus Herminius and Titus Verginius; and those who received the office from them, Marcus Geganius . . . . . .

52.1. When they made no answer, but showed indignation, Scaptius again came forward to the tribunal and said: 'You have it conceded, fellow citizens, by the very disputants themselves, that they lay claim to our land, which belongs in no way to them; in view of this, looking to what is just and to what your oath requires, cast your votes.'

52.2. When Scaptius said this, shame came upon the consuls, considering that the trial would reach neither a just nor a seemly end, if the Roman people, chosen as judge of a land disputed by others and never having laid claim to it, should adjudge it to itself, taking it from the disputants; and very many speeches were made by the consuls and the leaders of the senate to turn the matter aside, but in vain.

52.3. For those who had taken the votes, saying it was great folly to look on while others held their property, and supposing they would bring it to no pious end if they should declare the Aricians or the Ardeates masters of the disputed land, having sworn to adjudge it to those they should find it to belong to; and being angry at the litigants, because they had thought fit to take as judges those who were being deprived of it, that it might not even afterward be in their power to recover their own possession, which they themselves, having judged on oath, had recognized to be another's —

52.4. reckoning these things and being indignant, they ordered a third urn to be set up, on behalf of the city of the Romans, for each tribe, into which they should cast their votes; and the Roman people became, by all the votes, master of the disputed land. These things, then, were done in the time of these consuls.

53.1. When Marcus Genucius and Gaius Quinctius had taken over the office, the civil disputes arose again, the commons demanding that it be permitted to all the Romans to receive the consular office — for hitherto the patricians alone had canvassed for it, being appointed in the centuriate assemblies — and the tribunes of that year, having drafted a law concerning the consular elections, brought it in, all the rest save one, Gaius Furnius, agreeing together, in which they made the people master of the decision, year by year, whether it wished patricians to seek the consulship, or plebeians.

53.2. At this the members of the senatorial council were indignant, seeing their own dominion being dissolved, and thought they ought to endure anything sooner than suffer the law to take effect; and there were continual angers and accusations and counter-workings, both in private gatherings and at the common meetings, all the patricians being estranged from all the commons.

53.3. And many speeches were made, some in the senate, some in the assemblies, by the leaders of the aristocracy — the milder by those who supposed the commons were erring through ignorance of their interest, the harsher by those who held the matter to be framed out of design and out of envy toward them.

54.1. While the time was being dragged out to no purpose, there came to the city from the allies messengers saying that the Aequians and Volscians were about to march against them with a great army, and begging that succour be sent to them speedily, as lying in the path of the war.

54.2. It was said also that the Etruscans called the Veientines were preparing for revolt, and that the Ardeates were no longer subject to them, being angry over the disputed land which the Roman people, chosen as judge, had adjudged to itself in the past year.

54.3. The senate, learning this, voted to levy an army and that both the consuls should lead out forces. But those who were bringing in the law opposed what had been decreed by them — and the tribunes have the power to oppose the consuls, taking away those who are being led by them to the military oath, and not permitting any punishment to be inflicted on the disobedient.

54.4. And though the senate often demanded that they lay aside their contentiousness for the present time, and that, when the wars should reach their end, then they should bring forward the law concerning the elections, these men were so far from yielding to the occasions that they said they would oppose the senate's decrees in other matters too, and would suffer no decree to be ratified about any matter, unless it should first pass a preliminary vote upon the law

54.5. they were introducing. And not only in the senate were they brought to threaten the consuls thus, but also in the assembly, swearing oaths — which are the greatest among them — against their own faith, that it might not be lawful, even should they be persuaded, to abolish anything that had been resolved by them.

55.1. Against these threats, then, the eldest and foremost of the leaders of the aristocracy considered what was to be done, being assembled in a private gathering by the consuls, by

55.2. themselves. Gaius Claudius, then, being least of all popular and having inherited this principle of policy from his ancestors, brought in a more arrogant opinion: to yield to the people neither the consulship nor any other office whatever; and to restrain by arms those who attempted the contrary, if they would not be persuaded by words, sparing neither private man nor magistrate. For all who attempted to disturb the ancestral customs and to corrupt the ancient order of the constitution were, he said, aliens and enemies of the city.

55.3. But Titus Quinctius would not have the opposing party coerced by force, nor have them go against the commons by arms and by the blood of fellow citizens, especially as the tribunes would oppose them, whom our fathers voted to be sacred and inviolable, having made the gods and divinities sureties of the covenants, and having sworn the greatest oaths to the destruction of themselves and their descendants, if they should transgress anything of what was agreed.

56.1. When the others too who had been called to the council had assented to this opinion, Claudius took up the word: 'I am not ignorant,' he said, 'of how great a foundation of calamities will be laid for us all, if we permit the people to take a vote upon the law; but not knowing what to do, nor being able, single-handed, to gainsay so many, I yield to your wishes.'

56.2. 'For it is just that each declare what he thinks will profit the commonwealth, but obey what is decided by the greater number. This, however, I am able to counsel you, as in difficult and unwished-for circumstances: to yield the consulship neither now nor hereafter to any save the patricians, to whom alone it is holy and

56.3. lawful to obtain it; but when you are shut up into necessity, as now, to share with the rest of the citizens too the greatest power and office, appoint military tribunes in place of the consuls, having fixed their number at whatever you please — for to me eight or six seems sufficient — and among these men let the patricians be not fewer in number than the plebeians. For doing thus, you will neither cast down the consular office to lowly and unworthy men, nor will you seem to be contriving unjust dominions for yourselves, by sharing no office with the commons.'

56.4. When all had praised the opinion and none said the contrary, 'Hear,' he said, 'what I have to counsel you consuls also. Having proclaimed a day on which you will ratify the preliminary decree and what the senate has decided, give leave of speech to those who would plead for the law and to those who accuse it; and when the speeches have been made, when it is time to ask the opinions, begin neither from me nor from this Quinctius nor from any other of the elders, but from the most pro-popular of the senators, Lucius Valerius, and after him ask Horatius if he wishes to say anything. And when you have examined the opinions of these, then bid us, the elders, speak.'

56.5. 'I, then, will declare the opinion opposing the tribunes, using all frankness — for this profits the commonwealth — but the measure concerning the military tribunes, if it is agreeable, let Titus Genucius here introduce; for the opinion would be most becoming, and would afford least suspicion, if this man, your

56.6. brother, Marcus Genucius, should speak it.' It seemed that he counselled these things rightly too, and they departed from the gathering; but fear fell upon the tribunes at the secret meeting of the men, as having been held for some great evil to the people, since they had taken counsel privately and not in the open, and had taken none of the leaders of the people into partnership of their deliberations; and after this they themselves, again gathering a council from the most pro-popular men, contrived defences and safeguards against the plots which they suspected would come upon them from the patricians.

57.1. When the time came at which the preliminary decree had to be made, the consuls, having summoned the senate and made many exhortations to concord and good order, gave leave first to the tribunes who had introduced the law to speak.

57.2. And one of them, Gaius Canuleius, came forward and neither taught nor mentioned anything about the law's being just or expedient; but he said he marvelled at the consuls, that, having already deliberated and decided among themselves what must be done, they had attempted to bring it into the senate as a matter untested and needing deliberation, and had given leave of speech about it to whoever chose — introducing an irony unsuited to their years and unbefitting the greatness of their office.

57.3. And he said they were introducing the beginnings of wicked measures, gathering secret councils in private houses, and not even calling all the senators to these, but those most suited to themselves. Now of the other senators excluded from the household council he said he marvelled less; but at the disdain of inviting Marcus Horatius and Lucius Valerius — those who had abolished the oligarchy, consular men and second to none in fitness to deliberate the common affairs — into the council he was astonished, and could not conjecture by what just reasoning; but he guessed at one cause: that, being about to introduce wicked and inexpedient opinions against the commons, they did not wish to summon to these councils the most pro-popular men, who would obviously be indignant and would not overlook any unjust measure being framed against the people.

58.1. When Gaius Canuleius said such things with much complaint, and the senators not taken into the council received the matter with anger, Genucius, the other of the consuls, came forward and tried to defend himself and to soften their angers, teaching that they had taken in their friends not in order to contrive anything against the people, but in order to deliberate with their nearest, in doing what they would seem to lessen neither of the alternatives — whether they should give the senate a speedy decision about the law, or a

58.2. more leisurely one. And that they had not taken Horatius and Valerius into the council for no other reason than that there might be no suspicion concerning them, beyond their desert, among the commons, as though they had changed their political principles, if they should come to be of the other opinion — that which thought fit to put off the decision about the law to another, more suitable occasion. And since to all who had been taken in the briefer decision seemed better than the slower, they acted as seemed good to them.

58.3. Having said this, and having sworn by the gods that he spoke the truth, he said that those of the senators who had been called in would clear themselves of all calumny not by words

58.4. but by deeds. For when those who wished to accuse and to defend the law had gone through their pleas, they would, in asking the opinion, count first not the eldest and most honoured of the senators, to whom from ancestral custom this privilege too had been granted, nor those held in suspicion among the commons as neither saying nor thinking anything good on their behalf, but from among the younger men those reputed most pro-popular.

59.1. Having promised this, and given leave to those who wished to speak, since none came forward either to accuse or to defend the law, he came forward again and asked first Valerius what was advantageous to the commonwealth, and what he counselled the senators to pass in their preliminary decree.

59.2. He, rising, and going through many words concerning himself and his ancestors, how they had stood forth on behalf of the popular party for the advantage of the city, and reckoning up from the beginning all the dangers that had beset the city from those who pursued the contrary policy, and showing that hatred of the commons had proved unprofitable to all who had been hostilely disposed toward it, and making much praise of the people, as having been the chief cause to the city not only of its liberty but also of its dominion — when he had gone through these things and the like, he said at last that a city could not be free from which one should take away equality;

59.3. and he said it seemed to him that the law was just which thought fit that all the Romans should have a share in the consular office — those, at least, who had led a blameless life and shown deeds worthy of this honour — but that the occasion was unsuitable for the decision about it, while the city was in the disturbances of war;

59.4. and he counselled the tribunes to allow the levy of soldiers to be made and not to hinder the going-out of those enrolled, and the consuls, when they should have set the best end to the war, first of all to bring before the people the preliminary decree concerning the law. And he proposed that these things be both written down at once and agreed upon by both parties.

59.5. When Valerius had declared this opinion, and after him Horatius — for to him second they gave leave to speak — the same experience befell all present. For those who wished to do away with the law, gladly hearing of the postponement of the decision about it, received with difficulty the clause that after the war they should be obliged to pass the preliminary decree about it; while those who chose that it be ratified by the senate gladly heard the admission that the law was just, but took with anger the clause that the preliminary decree should fall to other times.

60.1. When tumult, as was natural, arose over the opinion, because it pleased not both parties in all its parts, the consul came forward and asked third Gaius Claudius, who was thought the most arrogant and the most powerful of the leaders of the other order, the one opposed to the commons.

60.2. This man, with preparation, delivered a speech against the commons, recalling all that had ever seemed contrary to the fair and ancestral customs, the sum of which, to which his opinion pointed, was that the consuls should give the senate no decision about the law, neither in the present time nor hereafter, as being introduced for the abolition of the aristocracy and likely to confound the whole order of the constitution.

60.3. When still more tumult arose over the opinion, the fourth, Titus Genucius, the brother of one of the consuls, was called and rose; and having discoursed briefly about the occasions then gripping the city — that of necessity one of two most grievous things must befall it, either through the political strifes and ambitions to make the enemy's affairs strong, or, wishing to repel those attacking from without, to dissolve ill the domestic and civil war —

60.4. he said that, there being two evils, one of which they must unwillingly endure, this seemed to him the more profitable: to allow the senate to concede to the people some part of the order of the ancestral constitution, rather than to make the city a laughing-stock to aliens and enemies.

60.5. Having said this, he introduced the opinion approved by those present at the household council, which Claudius, as I said, had proposed: that in place of consuls military tribunes be appointed, three from the patricians and three from the commons, holding consular authority; and that, when these should complete their office and it was time to appoint new magistrates, the senate and people, again assembling, should decide whether they wished consuls or tribunes to take over the office. And whatever should seem good to all when they cast their votes, that should be binding. And that the preliminary decree should be carried out year by year.

61.1. When Genucius had declared this opinion, there was much praise from all, and those who rose after him nearly all agreed that these things were best. The preliminary decree, then, was written by the consuls; and the tribunes, having received it with much joy, came forth into the Forum. Then, having called the multitude to assembly, they bestowed many praises on the senate, and bade such of the commons as wished to canvass for the office along with the patricians.

61.2. So light a thing, then, is desire that arises without reason and quickly shifts to the other side — and most of all that of crowds — that those who had hitherto made everything of sharing in the office, and, if it were not given them by the patricians, were ready either to abandon the city as before, or to take it by arms, when they got the concession, at once abandoned the desire and turned their zeal to the opposite course.

61.3. For though many plebeians canvassed for the military tribunate and made earnest entreaties, they supposed none worthy of this honour, but, having become masters of the vote, appointed as tribunes the illustrious men from the patricians who sought it — Aulus Sempronius Atratinus and Lucius Atilius Luscus and Titus Cloelius Siculus.

62.1. These were the first to take over the office in place of the consuls, in the third year of the eighty-fourth Olympiad, when Diphilus was archon at Athens. Having held it only seventy-three days, they laid it down of their own accord, according to the ancient custom, certain heaven-sent signs forbidding them

62.2. to transact the public business. When these had renounced the authority, the senate, assembling, appointed interreges. And they, having proclaimed elections and giving the people the decision, whether it wished to appoint tribunes or consuls, since it decided to remain by the original customs, gave it to those of the patricians who wished to seek the consular office; and there became consuls again from the patricians Lucius Papirius Mugillanus and Lucius Sempronius Atratinus, brother of one

62.3. of those who had laid down the tribunate. These two magistracies, possessing the greatest power among the Romans, arose in the same year; save that not in all the Roman chronicles are both recorded, but in some the tribunes only, in some the consuls, and in not many both — to which we, not without reckoning, give our assent, trusting to the testimonies from the sacred and secret books.

62.4. Now nothing else worthy of history, either military or civil, was done during the office of these men, but a treaty was made with the city of the Ardeates concerning friendship and alliance; for they sent envoys, laying aside their complaints about the land, inviting that they should become friends and allies of the Romans. This treaty the consular magistracy ratified.

63.1. In the following year, the people having again voted that consuls be appointed, Marcus Geganius Macerinus for the second time and Titus Quinctius Capitolinus for the fifth time took over the consular office on the fifteenth of the month of December.

63.2. These, having instructed the senate that many other matters had been neglected and left undone through the continual campaigns of the consuls, but that of all the most necessary was the institution concerning the assessments of property — from which both the number of those of military age was known and the amount of money from which each had to pay his contributions for the war — no assessment having been made within seventeen years, from the consulship of Lucius Cornelius and Quintus Fabius; so that the most wicked and licentious of the Romans had abandoned [it], and gone to occupy a place in which it is open to them to live as they have chosen.