Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
three of her attendants made good her escape, whilst the rest were
dangerously hedged in by the soldiers; but Aruns, Porsenna's son, upon
tidings of it, hastened to their rescue, and, putting the enemy to
flight, delivered the Romans. When Porsenna saw the maidens returned,
demanding who was the author and adviser of the act, and understanding
Cloelia to be the person, he looked on her with a cheerful and benignant
countenance, and, commanding one of his horses to be brought,
sumptuously adorned, made her a present of it. This is produced as
evidence by those who affirm that only Cloelia passed the river or.
horseback; those who deny it call it only the honor the Tuscan did to
her courage; a figure, however, on horseback stands in the Via Sacra, as
you go to the Palatium, which some say is the statue of Cloelia, others
of Valeria. Porsenna, thus reconciled to the Romans, gave them a fresh
instance of his generosity, and commanded his soldiers to quit the camp
merely with their arms, leaving their tents, full of corn and other
stores, as a gift to the Romans. Hence, even down to our time, when
there is a public sale of goods, they cry Porsenna's first, by way of
perpetual commemoration of his kindness. There stood, also, by the
senate-house, a brazen statue of him, of plain and antique workmanship.
Afterwards, the Sabines making incursions upon the Romans, Marcus
Valerius, brother to Poplicola, was made consul, and with him Postumius
Tubertus. Marcus, through the management of affairs by the conduct and
direct assistance of Poplicola, obtained two great victories, in the
latter of which he slew thirteen thousand Sabines without the loss of
one Roman, and was honored, as all accession to his triumph, with an
house built in the Palatium at the public charge; and whereas the doors
of other houses opened inward into the house, they made this to open
outward into the street, to intimate their perpetual public recognition
of his merit by thus continually making way for him. The same fashion
in their doors the Greeks, they say, had of old universally, which
appears from their comedies, where those that are going out make a noise
at the door within, to give notice to those that pass by or stand near
the door, that the opening the door into the street might occasion no
surprisal.
The year after, Poplicola was made consul the fourth time, when a
confederacy of the Sabines and Latins threatened a war; a superstitious
fear also overran the city on the occasion of general miscarriages of
their women, no single birth coming to its due time. Poplicola, upon
consultation of the Sibylline books, sacrificing to Pluto, and renewing
certain games commanded by Apollo, restored the city to more cheerful
assurance in the gods, and then prepared against the menaces of men.
There were appearances of treat preparation, and of a formidable
confederacy. Amongst the Sabines there was one Appius Clausus, a man of
a great wealth and strength of body, but most eminent for his high
character and for his eloquence; yet, as is usually the fate of great
men, he could not escape the envy of others, which was much occasioned
by his dissuading the war, and seeming to promote the Roman interest,
with a view, it was thought, to obtaining absolute power in his own
country for himself. Knowing how welcome these reports would be to the
multitude, and how offensive to the army and the abettors of the war, he
was afraid to stand a trial, but, having a considerable body of friends
and allies to assist him, raised a tumult amongst the Sabines, which
delayed the war. Neither was Poplicola wanting, not only to understand
the grounds of the sedition, but to promote and increase it, and he
dispatched emissaries with instructions to Clausus, that Poplicola was
assured of his goodness and justice, and thought it indeed unworthy in
any man, however injured, to seek revenge upon his fellow-citizens; yet
if he pleased, for his own security, to leave his enemies and come to
Rome, he should be received, both in public and private, with the honor
his merit deserved, and their own glory required. Appius, seriously
weighing the matter, came to the conclusion that it was the best
resource which necessity left him, and advising with his friends; and
they inviting again others in the same manner, he came to Rome, bringing
five thousand families, with their wives and children; people of the
quietest and steadiest temper of all the Sabines. Poplicola, informed
of their approach, received them with all the kind offices of a friend,
and admitted them at once to the franchise, allotting to every one two
acres of land by the river Anio, but to Clausus twenty-five acres, and
gave him a place in the senate; a commencement of political power which
he used so wisely, that he rose to the highest reputation, was very
influential, and left the Claudian house behind him, inferior to none in
Rome.
The departure of these men rendered things quiet amongst the Sabines;
yet the chief of the community would not suffer them to settle into
peace, but resented that Clausus now, by turning deserter, should
disappoint that revenge upon the Romans, which, while at home, he had
unsuccessfully opposed. Coming with a great army, they sat down before
Fidenae, and placed an ambuscade of two thousand men near Rome, in
wooded and hollow spots, with a design that some few horsemen, as soon
as it was day, should go out and ravage the country, commanding them
upon their approach to the town so to retreat as to draw the enemy into
the ambush. Poplicola, however, soon advertised of these designs by
deserters, disposed his forces to their respective charges. Postumius
Balbus, his son-in-law, going out with three thousand men in the
evening, was ordered to take the hills, under which the ambush lay,
there to observe their motions; his colleague, Lucretius, attended with
a body of the lightest and boldest men, was appointed to meet the Sabine
horse; whilst he, with the rest of the army, encompassed the enemy. And
a thick mist rising accidentally, Postumius, early in the morning, with
shouts from the hills, assailed the ambuscade, Lucretius charged the
light-horse, and Poplicola besieged the camp; so that on all sides
defeat and ruin came upon the Sabines, and without any resistance the
Romans killed them in their flight, their very hopes leading them to
their death, for each division, presuming that the other was safe, gave
up all thought of fighting or keeping their ground; and these quitting
the camp to retire to the ambuscade, and the ambuscade flying; to the
camp, fugitives thus met fugitives, and found those from whom they
expected succor as much in need of succor from themselves. The
nearness, however, of the city Fidenae was the preservation of the
Sabines, especially those that fled from the camp; those that could not
gain the city either perished in the field, or were taken prisoners.
This victory, the Romans, though usually ascribing such success to some
god, attributed to the conduct of one captain; and it was observed to be
heard amongst the soldiers, that Poplicola had delivered their enemies
lame and blind, and only not in chains, to be dispatched by their
swords. From the spoil and prisoners great wealth accrued to the
people.
Poplicola, having completed his triumph, and bequeathed the city to the
care of the succeeding consuls, died; thus closing a life which, so far
as human life may be, had been full of all that is good and honorable.
The people, as though they had not duly rewarded his deserts when alive,
but still were in his debt, decreed him a public interment, every one
contributing his quadrans towards the charge; the women, besides, by
private consent, mourned a whole year, a signal mark of honor to his
memory. He was buried, by the people's desire, within the city, in the
part called Velia, where his posterity had likewise privilege of burial;
now, however, none of the family are interred there, but the body is
carried thither and set down, and someone places a burning torch under
it, and immediately takes it away, as an attestation of the deceased's
privilege, and his receding from his honor; after which the body is
removed.
COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON
There is something singular in the present parallel, which has not
occurred in any other of the lives; that the one should be the imitator
of the other, and the other his best evidence. Upon the survey of
Solon's sentence to Croesus in favor of Tellus's happiness, it seems
more applicable to Poplicola; for Tellus, whose virtuous life and dying
well had gained him the name of the happiest man, yet was never
celebrated in Solon's poems for a good man, nor have his children or any
magistracy of his deserved a memorial; but Poplicola's life was the most
eminent amongst the Romans, as well for the greatness of his virtue as
his power, and also since his death many amongst the distinguished
families, even in our days, the Poplicolae, Messalae, and Valerii, after
a lapse of six hundred years, acknowledge him as the fountain of their
honor. Besides, Tellus, though keeping his post and fighting like a
valiant soldier, was yet slain by his enemies; but Poplicola, the better
fortune, slew his, and saw his country victorious under his command.
And his honors and triumphs brought him, which was Solon's ambition, to
a happy end; the ejaculation which, in his verses against Mimnermus
about the continuance of man's life, he himself made,
Mourned let me die; and may I, when life ends,
Occasion sighs and sorrows to my friends,
is evidence to Poplicola's happiness; his death did not only draw tears
from his friends and acquaintance, but was the object of universal
regret and sorrow through the whole city; the women deplored his loss as
that of a son, brother, or common father. "Wealth I would have," said
Solon, "but wealth by wrong procure would not," because punishment would
follow. But Poplicola's riches were not only justly his, but he spent
them nobly in doing good to the distressed. So that if Solon was
reputed the wisest man, we must allow Poplicola to be the happiest; for
what Solon wished for as the greatest and most perfect good, this
Poplicola had, and used and enjoyed to his death.
And as Solon may thus be said to have contributed to Poplicola's glory,
so did also Poplicola to his, by his choice of him as his model in the
formation of republican institutions; in reducing, for example, the
excessive powers and assumption of the consulship. Several of his laws,
indeed, he actually transferred to Rome, as his empowering the people to
elect their officers, and allowing offenders the liberty of appealing to
the people, as Solon did to the jurors. He did not, indeed, create a
new senate, as Solon did, but augmented the old to almost double its
number. The appointment of treasurers again, the quaestors, has a like
origin; with the intent that the chief magistrate should not, if of good
character, be withdrawn from greater matters; or, if bad, have the
greater temptation to injustice, by holding both the government and
treasury in his hands. The aversion to tyranny was stronger in
Poplicola; any one who attempted usurpation could, by Solon's law, only
be punished upon conviction; but Poplicola made it death before a trial.
And though Solon justly gloried, that, when arbitrary power was
absolutely offered to him by circumstances, and when his countrymen
would have willingly seen him accept it, he yet declined it; still
Poplicola merited no less, who, receiving a despotic command, converted
it to a popular office, and did not employ the whole legal power which
he held. We must allow, indeed, that Solon was before Poplicola in
observing that
A people always minds its rulers best