Book 16

1.1. As the Romans were marching out to the last war against the Samnites, a thunderbolt fell upon the most conspicuous part of the camp, killing five soldiers, destroying two standards, and of the many arms it consumed some and stained others. The thunderbolts that came down bore in their effects a name true to their nature; for they are a kind of ravaging and a turning of things from their established state into their opposites, overthrowing the fortunes of men.

1.2. For the lightning-fire is first compelled to change its own nature, whether it be of the upper air or borne aloft, when it is carried downward; since it is not lawful for it by its own nature to weigh down toward the earth, but rather to soar up on high from the earth, for the springs of the divine fire are in the aether.

1.3. This is shown also by the fire that is among us, whether it be the gift of Prometheus or of Hephaestus, when it has loosed the bonds in which it has been compelled to remain: it is carried up through the air toward that kindred element which encircles in a ring the whole nature of the universe. That divine fire, then, separated from corruptible matter and borne through the air, whenever it is brought down to the earth, constrained by some powerful necessity, prophesies changes and

1.4. reversals to the contrary. At any rate, when some such portent had occurred at that time as well, the Romans, holding it in contempt, were shut up by Pontius the Samnite in defiles that gave no way out, and being already on the point of perishing by famine, they surrendered themselves to the enemy, some forty thousand in number; and leaving behind both their arms and their goods, they all passed beneath the yoke, this being the sign of men who have come into another's power. Not long afterward Pontius too suffered the same at the hands of the Romans, and he himself and those with him passed beneath the yoke.

2.1. This one thing we ask of you, now that we lie prostrate and are reduced to nothing: that you add no outrage of ours to our calamities, nor with a heavy foot trample upon our wretched fortunes.

2.2. Do you not know that many of our own have lost sons in the wars, many brothers, and many friends? In all of these how unmixed do you suppose the gall will bloom upon their vitals, if someone forbids them to honor with so many lives of the enemy those who lie beneath the earth—honors which alone seem to belong to the departed?

2.3. Come now, even if, persuaded or compelled or having undergone some experience or other, they should yield and allow them to live, do you still think they will permit them to keep their possessions as well, and, having met with no indignity, to depart whenever it pleases them, like certain heroes appearing for the good of this land—and not rather, as wild beasts pouring round them, to tear them in pieces, since I had set myself to say these things?

2.4. Do you not see that even the hunting hounds beset their masters the huntsmen, when a beast has been caught and shut in by them in the nets, demanding their proper share of the quarry; and if they do not at once get a portion of blood or entrails, they snarl as they follow and tear at the huntsman, and are neither driven off by being chased nor by being struck?

3.1. Throughout the whole day they kept up the contest and endured the toils; but when darkness took away the recognition of friends and foes alike, they withdrew to their own ramparts. Appius Claudius, having committed some transgression in the sacrifices, was struck blind and was surnamed Caecus; for so the Romans call the blind.

3.2. The wall-paintings were very exact in their lines and pleasing in their mixtures of color, having a freshness free of all that is called trumpery. The Romans call the new moons Kalends, the half-moons Nones, and the full moons Ides.

3.3. Upon those contending in the center of the phalanx, which was loose-woven and slack, those drawn up there fell and thrust them from their position. The war at home, sprung from heaven, was wasting away the prime of the city. Men who escorted the sacred things and were honored with the bearing of holy objects. A man full of reckless impulse and possessed of a maddened daring, acting on his own private judgment and bringing under his own control all the conduct of the war.

3.4. Then do you dare to accuse Fortune of having dealt badly with affairs, when you yourself seated her upon a capsized boat? So clumsy was he. Limbs, some still in need of treatment, others but newly drawing over their scars.

4.1. Dionysius says: I shall yet make mention of one act of statesmanship worthy to be praised by all men, from which it will be made plain to the Greeks how great was the hatred of baseness in Rome at that time, and how implacable the city was toward those who transgressed the common laws of human nature.

4.2. Gaius Laetorius, surnamed Mergus, distinguished by birth and not ignoble in his deeds of war, having been appointed tribune of one of the legions in the Samnite war, for a time tried to persuade a certain youth, one of his tent-companions and surpassing others in beauty, to grant him the bloom of his body willingly. But when the lad was won over neither by gifts nor by any other kindness, being unable to restrain his desire he set about to use force.

4.3. When the man's lewdness became notorious to all in the camp, the tribunes of the people, considering it a public wrong against the state, brought a public indictment against him; and the people by all their votes condemned the man, fixing death as the penalty of the suit, holding it unfit that those in honors and offices should inflict upon free persons—and upon one fighting in defense of the freedom of others—the irreparable outrages contrary to nature done to males.

5.1. But they did something still more wonderful than this not many years before, although in this case the outrage was committed against the person of a slave. For the son of one of the tribunes who had surrendered the camp to the Samnites and had passed beneath the yoke, a man named Publilius, having been left in great poverty, was compelled to take a loan for his father's burial, expecting to be supported by a contribution from his kinsmen. But being disappointed of this hope, he was hauled off for the debt when the appointed term had passed, being quite young and comely in appearance.

5.2. He endured to perform all the other services that law required slaves to render their masters; but when ordered to grant the bloom of his body, he grew indignant and fought it off to the very end. Having on this account received many strokes of the lash, he ran out into the forum and, standing upon some elevated spot where he would have many as witnesses of the outrage, he related the licentiousness of the moneylender and displayed the welts of the scourging.

5.3. The people being indignant and judging the matter worthy of public wrath, when the tribunes brought forward the accusation he was condemned to a sentence of death. And because of that suffering all the Romans who had been enslaved for debts recovered their ancient freedom by a law enacted.

6.1. Petitioning the senate on behalf of the destitute and the debt-burdened. The freshly slaughtered flesh of victims continues for a time trembling and quivering, until the kindred breath confined within it, forcing its way through the passages, is wholly used up.

6.2. This becomes a cause of earthquakes also at Rome; for the whole city, being undermined with great and continuous trenches through which the water is channeled, and having many vents and mouths, releases through these the breath confined within it. And this is what shakes it and tears at its surface, whenever much violent breath, caught and held within, is shut in.