Book 12

1.1. When a severe famine had arisen at Rome, a certain man of no obscure house and most powerful in money, Spurius Maelius — surnamed Eudaemon, "the Prosperous," on account of his great wealth — having lately received his father's estate, and being of an age and rank belonging to the knights, such that he neither held magistracies nor took any other public charge, brilliant in war if any man was and adorned with many prizes of valour, supposing this the best occasion for an attempt at tyranny, turned to courting the favour of the multitude — the easiest of the roads that lead to tyranny.

1.2. Having many partisans and clients, he sent them in different directions, giving them money from his own resources for the gathering of provisions, and himself went off into Etruria. And in a short time, having brought down by his own efforts and those of his partisans a great store of grain, he measured it out to the citizens, dealing out the measure for two drachmae instead of twelve; and to as many as he perceived to be wholly destitute and unable to lay out the price even for their daily food, he gave it as a free gift, without charge.

1.3. Having won over the people by this benevolence and gained a wonderful renown, he went off again to traffic for further supplies; and not long after he was at hand, bringing many river-boats quite full of provisions, and in the same manner measured it out to the citizens.

1.4. But the patricians, seeing him do these things, took him in suspicion, thinking no good would come of the man's excessive ambition, and, gathering in the Forum, considered in what more seemly manner, without danger, they might put an end to these political doings of his — at first meeting secretly and in small numbers and conferring with one another, then crying out even openly, since he was burdensome and insufferable, doing deeds full of arrogance and

1.5. delivering presumptuous speeches about himself. For first, seating himself upon a conspicuous tribunal, as is the custom for those who hold office, he transacted business throughout the day with those who came to him concerning the distribution of grain, having cast out from this honour the prefect appointed by the senate;

1.6. then, holding continual assemblies — though it was not the custom among the Romans for a private man to convene an assembly — he made many accusations against Minucius before the people, as one who bore the name of office only but had shown no deed advantageous to the poor, and made many slanders against the patricians before the people, as men who did such things as would render the people of little or no account, and who took no thought whatever for the destitute even in time of famine — neither all of them in common nor the powerful in private — when it was most of all needful for them to suffer hardship, with money and persons, as he himself did, and to import provisions for the city from every quarter.

1.7. And he thought fit to examine his own doings against the deeds of the other patricians, as differing wholly and altogether from one another. For they, he said, spending nothing of their own upon the common weal, and having besides appropriated the public land, were now reaping its fruits for a long time; whereas he himself, having nothing of the public goods, was further squandering his ancestral substance for the succour of the destitute, and, when he should have used up what he had, was contracting loans from friends, taking in exchange for such generosity nothing but the goodwill of the citizens, than which he counted not even the wealth of all mankind more precious.

1.8. And those who continually banded about him called him saviour and father and founder of the fatherland, and declared that the consular power, if it were given him, would be a smaller favour than the greatness of his deeds deserved, and thought fit to adorn him with some other, greater and more splendid honour,

1.9. which his offspring after him too should possess. And when, having made a third expedition to the coasts of Italy and brought back from Cumae and the harbours about Misenum many merchant-ships laden with grain, he sailed into Ostia, which is the port of Rome, and so relieved the city with provisions that it differed in no way from the ancient plenty, the whole people was ready, if it should become master of the vote in the elections, whether he sought the consulship or any other honour, to gratify him — none granting leave, but no law forbidding nor any man opposing.

1.10. Seeing these things, the leaders of the aristocracy, who thought it right neither to permit them nor had power to prevent them, were all in great despondency; and they were still more disturbed when, the tribunes and consuls forbidding him to convene assemblies and harangue, the people gathered and drove those magistrates out of the Forum, but to

1.11. Maelius afforded much licence and strength. While the city, then, was in such a state, the man appointed prefect of the corn-supply — vexed at the insults of the speeches with which Maelius continually outraged him in the assemblies, and fearing the man above all others lest, if he should lay hold of some office, he should make himself master of the aristocracy before — having stirred up the people against him — he should contrive some plot against him through the members of his faction; and being indignant on both these accounts and eager to be rid of one who held more than a private man's strength — made careful inquiry into the things said and done by him.

1.12. And since there were many whom the man used as accomplices in his secrets, men neither like in nature nor similar in judgment, it was likely, as was natural, that some one of them would prove no sure friend to him, either through fear or through private gain; and to him Minucius, having given pledges that he would tell no one who he was, learned the whole both of the design of Maelius and of his preparation.

1.13. And when he had taken indisputable proof, and knew the deed to be at hand, he spoke to the consuls; and they, not thinking it right to make on their own authority alone the inquiry into so great an enterprise, judged that they should bring the matter before the senate, and convoked the council straightway, as though to deliberate about some war beyond the borders.

1.14. When the council was speedily filled, one of them came forward and said that a design had been disclosed to them, framed against the city, requiring very great and speedy precaution because of the magnitude of the danger; and the informer of this, he said, was not any chance one of the citizens, but the man whom they themselves, on account of his virtue, had set over the greatest and most necessary service of the common weal, having proved both his fidelity and his zeal for the public good from the practices of his whole life. When the senate, then, was in suspense with expectation, he called upon Minucius, and he spoke . . . [seek in the section concerning harangues].

2.1. When the matter had been disclosed to the senate, they appointed a dictator; and he ordered the master of the horse to come to him with the cavalry about midnight, and the senators to assemble on the Capitol while it was still early dawn, and Minucius, bringing the informer and conveying the other proofs, to be present at the tribunal; and bade them all keep the deliberations secret from those outside the council, saying that there was one safeguard only — if Maelius should hear nothing of the things being said and

2.2. done concerning him. Having arranged the rest of what he needed, and having kept all in the senate-house until sunset, he dismissed the gathering when it was already dark; and when it was midnight, coming forth from his house . . . he went out about dawn, taking with him the picked men of both the consuls, and the consuls themselves.

2.3. These, then, having occupied the Capitol together with the senators at dawn, kept guard; but Maelius, having heard nothing of this, when day came, came forth into the Forum and transacted business with those who had need, seated upon the tribunal. And not long after the master of the horse, Servilius, was at hand, bringing to him the most vigorous of the cavalry, who had swords beneath their cloaks; and, standing near him, he said:

2.4. 'The dictator bids you, Maelius, come to him.' And he, taking up the word, said: 'What dictator bids me, Servilius, come to him — appointed where, and when?' And at the same time, disturbed, he looked round at those about the tribunal. And when speechlessness held them all, because none knew what had been done by the senate, Servilius said again: 'You were impeached yesterday before the senate, Maelius, for attempting revolutionary designs — perhaps untruly; for it is worth nothing to prejudge from the charge.'

2.5. 'The senate, choosing to examine this information, said that affairs needed a dictator, as running no slight of dangers, and appointed master of this authority Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, whom you surely know also yourself to be the most excellent of the patricians and to have discharged this office twice already blamelessly.'

2.6. 'This man, wishing to set a court for you and to grant you a hearing, has sent us — me the master of the horse together with these men — to bring you in safety to your defence. And if you are confident that you do no wrong, go and say what is just on your own behalf to a man who loves his city, who will wish to put you out of the way neither through the common envy nor through any other unjust pretext'

2.7. whatever. But when he heard this, he leapt up and cried out greatly: 'Men of the commons, help me, who am being seized for my goodwill toward you by the powerful; for I am not summoned by them to trial, but I am summoned to death.' When an outcry and much tumult arose about the tribunal, perceiving that those who were about to seize him were more numerous than those helping him, and that others not far off were lying in wait in arms, he leapt swiftly down from the tribunal and went through the Forum at a run, hastening to take refuge in his

2.8. house. But, being overtaken by the cavalry, he ran into a butcher's shop and, snatching a cleaver of the meat-cutters, struck the first who came at him. Then, when many fell upon him in a body, defending himself and holding out for a short time, his arm was cut off by someone, and he fell, and, hacked like a beast, died.

2.9. Maelius, then, who had reached for great things and had come very nearly to taking the dominion of the Romans, met so unenviable and bitter an end. And when the corpse had been carried into the Forum and made plain to all, there was running and outcry and tumult of all those in the Forum — some pitying, some indignant, and some

2.10. eager to come to grips with those who had done the deed. When such disturbance arose, the dictator, learning that the work commanded had been accomplished by the cavalry, came down from the citadel into the Forum, bringing all the senators with him and keeping about himself the cavalry, who showed their naked swords; and, having harangued the assembly, he dismissed the crowd.

3.1. . . . having about him men gathered out of every wickedness, whom he fed like wild beasts against his country. If, then, he had obeyed me and presented himself, remaining within the laws, this would have given him the greatest weight toward his defence, and would have been no slight proof that he had taken no counsel against his country; but as it is, driven by his conscience — which all suffer who have made impious designs against their nearest — he suffered this: he resolved to flee the test, and, striking with a butcher's cleaver the cavalry who came against him, drove them off . . .

4.1. Of the commons, those who had not counselled the overthrow of the constitution were indignant, and took the man's enterprise with anger; while those who had shared in the conspiracy, released from their fear, pretended to rejoice and praised the council for its deliberations; and a few of them, the most wicked, dared in the following days to spread the tale that Maelius had been done away with by the powerful, and attempted to throw the people into faction; whom the dictator, having made away with by a secret death, when he had quelled the tumult, laid down his office.

4.2. Those, then, who seem to me to write the most credible things about the death of Maelius have handed it down thus; but let there be told also the account that seems to me less credible, which Cincius and Calpurnius, native historians, have used; who say that neither was Quinctius appointed dictator by the senate, nor Servilius master of the horse by

4.3. Quinctius. But that, an information having been given by Minucius, those present in the council, believing the things said to be true, when one of the elders declared the opinion that the man should without trial be put to death forthwith, were persuaded; and that thus they appointed Servilius to this work, a young man and noble of hand.

4.4. And they say that he, having taken the dagger under his armpit, came to Maelius as he was going from the Forum, and, approaching, said that he wished to converse with him about a secret and great matter. And when Maelius bade those near him withdraw a little, as soon as he had got him alone, apart from his guard, he bared his sword and plunged it into his throat; and having done this, went at a run to the senate-house, the councillors still sitting together, holding the bloodied sword, crying out to his pursuers that, bidden by the senate, he had slain the tyrant.

4.5. And they say that those who had set out to strike and to throw at him, when they heard the name of the senate, turned aside and committed no lawless act against him. From this they say the surname Ahala was given him, because he came against the man with the sword under his armpit; for the Romans call the armpits alae.

4.6. When the man had been slain in this other manner, the senate, assembling, voted that his property should be public and that his house should be razed to the ground. This place was, even in my own time, in the midst of many surrounding houses, alone left vacant and desolate, called by the Romans Aequimaelium — as we should say, "the Level of Maelius." For aequus is called by the Romans that which has no eminence; a place, then, called from the first Aequus Maelius, but afterward, the names having coalesced with one another in a single utterance, they called Aequimaelium. And to Minucius, who had given the information against Maelius, the senate voted the setting up of a statue.

5.1. When the Etruscans and the people of Fidenae and Veii were making war upon the Romans, and Lars Tolumnius, king of the Etruscans, was doing them dreadful harm, a certain Roman military tribune, Aulus Cornelius surnamed Cossus, drove his horse against Tolumnius; and when he came near, they bore their spears against one another.

5.2. Now Tolumnius struck his horse through the breast, which, rearing, threw its rider; but Cornelius, driving the point through shield and breastplate into the ribs, hurled Tolumnius from his horse, and, as he was still rising, drove the sword through

5.3. his groin. Having killed him and stripped off the spoils, he not only checked the cavalry and infantry who came to grips, but also threw into despondency and fear those who were holding out on both wings.

6.1. In the second consulship of Aulus Cornelius Cossus and Titus Quinctius, the land, afflicted by a great drought, was in want of all waters, not only of rain but also of the running springs; and from this there was a complete failure of sheep and beasts of burden and oxen, and upon men fell many diseases, among them especially that called the mange, which causes dreadful pains to the skin through itchings and is made still wilder at the ulcerations — a piteous affliction among the most grievous, and a cause of the swiftest of destructions.

6.2. It did not seem good to the leaders of the senate to keep a deep peace and a long-lasting leisure, considering that sloth and luxury enter cities along with peace, and at the same time dreading civil disturbances. For these too, as soon as the wars beyond the borders were ended, kept rising up, grievous and continual, out of every pretext.

6.3. [It is] better to prevail over enemies by acts of kindness than by punishments, on account of which, if for no other reason, at least the hopes from the gods are sweeter to them.

6.4. When he learned that the enemy were advancing from the rear, he gave up turning back, being hemmed in by the enemy on every side, considering that all would run the risk of perishing most shamefully, having displayed no noble deed — few fighting against many, and heavy-armed against light-armed. But seeing a fairly high hill not far from him, he resolved to seize it. — Agrippa Menenius and Publius Lucretius and Servius Nautius, military tribunes [honoured?], detected a certain attempt made against the city by slaves.

6.5. Those who shared in the conspiracy intended, having set fire to the houses in many places at once by night — whenever they should learn that all had rushed to the aid of the burning — to seize the Capitol and the other strong places, and, having become masters of the strongholds of the city, to summon the rest of the slaves to liberty, and with them, having killed the masters, to take over the wives and possessions of the slain.

6.6. When the deed became manifest, the first who had framed the plot were arrested and, having been scourged, were led off to the crosses; and of those who informed against them, being two, each received liberty and a thousand drachmae from the treasury.

7.1. The Roman military tribune was eager to bring the war to its end in a few days, as though it were some easy matter that would be ready to his hand to make the enemy subject in a single battle.

7.2. But to the leader of the enemy, considering both the warlike experience of the Romans and their endurance amid dangers, it did not seem good to make against them a battle equal and open from the line of array, but to outgeneral the war by certain stratagems and wiles, and to watch whether they should afford some advantage against themselves. — Wounded, and having come very nearly to death.

8.1. At Rome, when a violent winter occurred, where the least snow fell it was no less than seven feet in depth. And it befell that some men were destroyed by the snowfall, and many sheep, and no small portion of the other cattle and beasts of burden — some perishing through the cold,

8.2. some through want of their accustomed pasture. And of the fruit-bearing trees, such as are not by nature able to endure excesses of snow, some were utterly withered, and some, scorched in their shoots, became fruitless for many years. And many of the houses too were thrown down, and some even overturned — especially those of stone — at the breaking-up and melting of the snow.

8.3. This affliction we have learned, neither from any earlier record in the writing of history concerning these regions, nor from any later down to our own time, that it ever befell — being moderately to the north of the middle, along the parallel drawn above Athens through the Hellespont. But then for the first time and alone did the nature of the climate about this land depart from its accustomed temperature.

9.1. The Romans were celebrating the festivals called in the native tongue lectisternia, being so bidden by the Sibylline oracles. For a certain pestilential disease, heaven-sent and incurable by human art, had led them to the consultation of the oracles.

9.2. And they adorned three couches, as the oracles bade, one for Apollo and Leto, another for Heracles and Artemis, and a third for Hermes and Poseidon; and they continued for seven days both sacrificing publicly and, in private, all making offerings to the gods according to their several means, holding most splendid feasts and

9.3. receiving as guests the strangers sojourning among them. And Piso the censorian, in his yearly records, adds this too: that, the servants whom the masters had formerly held in bonds being released, and the city being thronged with a crowd of strangers, the houses standing open day and night, and those who wished entering them without hindrance, yet no one complained of having lost any property nor of having been wronged by anyone — although the festive seasons are wont to bring many disorderly and lawless deeds because of the drunkenness.

10.1. When the Romans were besieging the people of Veii about the rising of the Dog-star, when most of all lakes fail and all rivers, save only the Egyptian Nile, a certain lake distant from Rome not less than a hundred and twenty stades, in the mountains called Alban — beside which in ancient times the mother-city of the Romans was inhabited — neither rains having occurred nor snows nor any other cause manifest to men, took so great an increase from the springs within it that it both flooded much of the mountain country, and threw down many farm-dwellings, and at last burst even the channel between the mountains and poured forth an enormous river over the plains lying below.

10.2. Learning this, the Romans at first, as though some divine power were wroth with the city, voted to propitiate by sacrifices the gods and spirits that held the place, and examined the native diviners, whether they had anything to say; but when neither did the lake resume its own order, nor the diviners say anything exact, but counselled them to consult the god, they sent envoys to the Delphic oracle.

11.1. In the meantime a certain man of Veii, skilled in the native art of divination through his ancestors, happened to be keeping guard upon the wall; and there had been, from of old, a certain one of the captains from Rome an acquaintance of his. This captain, having once come near the wall and given the man the customary greetings, said that he pitied him for the calamity that would befall him along with the rest, if the city should be taken.

11.2. And the Etruscan, having heard of the overflowing of the Alban lake and knowing beforehand the ancient oracles concerning it, laughed and said: 'What a good thing it is to foreknow the future! But you, through ignorance of what is to come, are draining off an unfinished war and unaccomplished toils, supposing you will overthrow the city of Veii. But if anyone had made plain to you that it is fated for this city to be taken then, when the lake by Alba, having become scant of its native springs, shall no longer mingle with the sea, you would have ceased both from wasting yourselves and from'

11.3. troubling us.' The Roman, learning this, was long in considering with himself, and then went off; but on the following day, having told the military tribunes beforehand what he intended, he came to the same place unarmed, so that the Etruscan should conceive no suspicion of a plot concerning him. And having used the customary greetings, first he discoursed about the perplexity gripping the Roman camp — other things, on which he supposed the Etruscan would be pleased — and then thought fit to have him become an interpreter to him of certain signs and portents lately occurring to the military tribunes.

11.4. The diviner was persuaded by the words, fearing no deceit, and, having bidden those who were with him withdraw, himself followed the captain alone. And the Roman, drawing him farther from the wall by the words devised for deception, when he came near the circumvallation, having seized him round the middle with both hands, lifted him up and carried him off to the Roman camp.

12.1. This man the military tribunes, both coaxing with words and frightening with threats of tortures, brought to declare all that he was concealing about the Alban lake; then they sent him up to the senate also. But to those of the council not the same opinion presented itself; rather, to some the Etruscan seemed to be some knave and cheat and to lie against the divine power in what concerned the oracle, while to others he seemed to have spoken with all truth.

12.2. While the senate was in such perplexity, those who had been sent beforehand to Delphi were at hand, bringing oracles agreeing with those previously announced by the Etruscan: that the gods and spirits to whom the city of Veii had fallen by lot pledged to keep unshaken for them the prosperity handed down from their ancestors only for so long as the springs of the lake at Alba should continue overflowing and flowing off to the sea;

12.3. but whenever those springs, abandoning their own nature and their ancient courses, should be turned aside into others, so as no longer to mingle with the sea, then their city too should be overthrown; and that this would be brought about before long by the Romans, if, by channels made in other places, they should turn aside the flood of the waters into the plains far from the sea. Learning this, the Romans straightway set the craftsmen to the work.

13.1. When the people of Veii heard this from a certain prisoner, they wished to send heralds to the besiegers concerning the ending of the war, before the city should be taken by storm, and the eldest men were appointed as envoys.

13.2. When the senate of the Romans had voted against the reconciliation, the rest of the envoys departed from the senate-house in silence; but the most eminent of them, and the most approved in the art of divination, taking his stand at the doors and looking round upon all present in the council, said: 'A fine decree, Romans, and a magnificent one, you have brought forth — you who claim to hold the leadership of your neighbours on account of your virtue — when you think it right not to hold subject a city neither small nor obscure, which lays down its arms and surrenders itself to you, but wish to destroy it root and branch, having feared neither the wrath from the divine power,'

13.3. nor stood in awe of the indignation from men. In requital for which, an avenging Justice will come upon you from the gods, punishing you with the like: for, having taken from the people of Veii their fatherland, not long after you will lose your own.'

13.4. And shortly after, the city being taken, some of the men, coming to grips with the enemy and proving themselves brave and having killed many, were cut down; some, having slain themselves by their own hand, perished; but as many as, through cowardice and lowness of soul, found all things more endurable than death, threw down their arms and surrendered themselves to the conquerors.

14.1. But the dictator Camillus, by whose generalship the city was taken, standing upon a height together with the most eminent of the Romans, whence the whole city was in view, first counted himself happy in his present good fortune, that it had been granted him to overthrow a great and prosperous city without toil — one which, when Etruria was then flourishing and most powerful of the peoples inhabiting Italy, was no small part of it; which, disputing with the Romans concerning the leadership and having endured many wars, had continued down to the tenth generation; and, from the time it began to wage war and to be continually besieged, had borne the siege for ten years, having made trial of every fortune.

14.2. Then, considering how upon a small turn of the scale the prosperity of men hangs, and how nothing of good things remains secure, he stretched his hands to heaven and prayed to Zeus and the other gods, that, most of all, the present prosperity might prove without envy both to himself and to his country; but if some common calamity, a counterweight to the present good things, was to overtake the city of the Romans or his own life, that it might prove the least and the most moderate.

15.1. The city of Veii was in no way inferior to Rome to dwell in, having much fertile land, part mountainous, part plain, and the air above it most pure and best for the health of men — since neither was there a marsh near, whence heavy and foul vapours are drawn, nor any river sending up cold breezes at dawn; and the waters were neither scarce nor brought from elsewhere, but native and abundant and most excellent to drink.

16.1. They say that Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Aphrodite, when he had come to Italy, purposing to sacrifice to some one of the gods, after the prayer, as he was about to begin the rite upon the victim prepared for the sacrifice, saw one of the Achaeans coming from afar — whether Odysseus, when he was about to consult the oracle by the Avernus, or Diomedes, when he came as ally to Daunus;

16.2. and being vexed at the coincidence, and wishing to avert as an evil omen the hostile sight that had appeared over the sacred rites, he covered his head and turned away; and after the departure of the enemy, having washed his hands again, he completed the sacrifice.

16.3. And the rites having proved favourable, he both rejoiced at the coincidence and observed the same custom at every prayer; and those descended from him too keep this, as one of the customs concerning the sacred rites.

16.4. Following, then, the ancestral usages, Camillus, when he had made his prayer and drawn his garment over his head, wished to turn round; but his footing slipping, and being unable to recover himself, he fell backward upon the ground.

16.5. This omen — needing neither divination nor doubt, but easy even for the dullest man to interpret, that it was wholly necessary for him to fall an unseemly fall — he supposed worthy neither of guarding against nor of expiation, but turned it to what was pleasing to himself, as though the gods had hearkened to his prayers and contrived that the evil should prove the least.