The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08
raised terrified them; then weapons assailed them from every side; and,
the Etrurians closing, they also were compelled, hemmed in as they now
were by a compact body of soldiers, to contract their own circle within
a narrower compass; which circumstance rendered striking both their own
paucity of numbers, and the superior numbers of the enemy, the ranks
being crowded in a narrow space. Then the plan of fighting, which they
had directed equally against every part, being now relinquished, they
all incline their forces towards one point; in that direction straining
every effort both with their bodies and arms, they forced a passage by
forming a wedge. The way led to a hill of moderate acclivity; here they
first halted: presently, as soon as the higher ground afforded them time
to gain breath, and to recover from so great a panic, they repulsed them
as they advanced up; and the small band by the advantage of the ground
was gaining the victory, had not a party of the Veientians, sent round
the ridge of the hill, made their way to the summit; thus again the
enemy obtained the higher ground; all the Fabii were killed to a man,
and the fort was taken: it is agreed on all hands that the three hundred
and six were cut off; that one[98] only, who nearly attained the age of
puberty, was left as a stock for the Fabian race; and that he was
destined to prove the greatest support in the dangerous emergencies of
the Roman people both at home and in war.
[Footnote 98: This statement is rejected by Niebuhr entirely.]
51. At the time when this disaster was received, C. Horatius and T.
Menenius were consuls. Menenius was immediately sent against the
Etrurians, elated with victory. Then too an unsuccessful battle was
fought, and the enemy took possession of the Janiculum: and the city
would have been besieged, scarcity of provisions bearing hard upon them
in addition to the war, (for the Etrurians had passed the Tiber,) had
not the consul Horatius been recalled from the Volsci; and so closely
did that war approach the very walls, that the first battle was fought
near the temple of Hope with doubtful success, and a second time at the
Colline gate. There, although the Romans had the advantage in a slight
degree only, yet that contest rendered the soldiers better for future
battles by restoring to them their former courage. Aulus Virginius and
Sp. Servilius are created consuls. After the defeat sustained in the
last battle, the Veientians declined an engagement. Ravages were
committed, and they made incursions in every direction on the Roman
territory from the Janiculum as if from a fortress; no where were the
cattle or the husbandmen safe. They were afterwards entrapped by the
same stratagem as that by which they had entrapped the Fabii: having
pursued some cattle that had been driven on designedly for the purpose
of decoying them, they fell into an ambuscade; in proportion as they
were more numerous, the slaughter was greater. The violent resentment
resulting from this disaster was the cause and commencement of one still
greater: for having crossed the Tiber by night, they attempted to
assault the camp of the consul Servilius; being repulsed from thence
with great slaughter, they with difficulty made good their retreat into
the Janiculum. The consul himself also crosses the Tiber, fortifies his
camp at the foot of the Janiculum: at break of day on the following
morning, both from being somewhat elated by the success of the battle of
the day before, more however because the scarcity of corn forced him
into measures which, though dangerous, (he adopted) because they were
more expeditious, he rashly marched his army up the steep of the
Janiculum to the camp of the enemy, and being repulsed from thence with
more disgrace than he had repulsed them on the preceding day, he was
saved, both himself and his army, by the intervention of his colleague.
The Etrurians (hemmed in) between the two armies, when they presented
their rear to the one and the other by turns, were entirely cut off.
Thus the Veientian war was crushed by a fortunate act of temerity.
52. Together with the peace, provisions returned to the city in greater
abundance, both by reason of corn having been brought in from Campania,
and, as soon as the fear felt by each of future famine left them, that
corn being brought forward which had been hoarded up. Then their minds
once more became licentious from their present abundance and ease, and
their former subjects of complaint, now that there were none abroad,
they sought for at home; the tribunes began to excite the commons by
their poison, the agrarian law: they roused them against the senators
who opposed it, and not only against them as a body, but also against
particular individuals. Q. Considius and T. Genucius, the proposers of
the agrarian law, appoint a day of trial for T. Menenius: the loss of
the fort of Cremera, whilst the consul had his standing camp at no great
distance from thence, was the charge against him. They crushed him,
though both the senators had exerted themselves in his behalf with no
less earnestness than in behalf of Coriolanus, and the popularity of his
father Agrippa was not yet forgotten. The tribunes, however, went no
further than a fine: though they had arraigned him for a capital
offence, they imposed on him, when found guilty, a fine of two thousand
_asses_. This proved fatal. They say that he could not submit to the
disgrace, and to the anguish of mind (occasioned by it): that, in
consequence, he was taken off by disease. Another senator, Sp.
Servilius, being soon after arraigned, as soon as he went out of office,
a day of trial having been appointed for him by the tribunes, L.
Cædicius and T. Statius, at the very commencement of the year, in the
consulship of C. Nautius and P. Valerius, did not, like Menenius, meet
the attacks of the tribunes with supplications from himself and the
patricians, but with firm reliance on his own integrity, and his
personal influence. The battle with the Etrurians at the Janiculum was
the charge against him also: but being a man of an intrepid spirit, as
he had formerly acted in the case of public peril, so now in that which
was personal to himself, he dispelled the danger by boldly facing it, by
confuting not only the tribunes but the commons also, by a bold speech,
and upbraiding them with the condemnation and death of T. Menenius, by
the good offices of whose father the commons were formerly
re-established, and were now in possession of those laws and those
magistrates, by means of which they then exercised their insolence; his
colleague Virginius also, who was brought forward as a witness, aided
him by assigning to him a share of his own deserts; the condemnation of
Menenius however was of greater service to him (so much had they changed
their minds).
53. The contests at home were now concluded. A Veientian war broke out,
with whom the Sabines had united their forces. The consul P. Valerius,
after auxiliaries were sent for from the Latins and Hernicians, being
despatched to Veii with an army, immediately attacks the Sabine camp,
which had been pitched before the walls of their allies: and occasioned
such great consternation, that while, dispersed in different directions,
they sally forth to repel the assault of the enemy, the gate which the
Romans first attacked was taken; then within the rampart there was
rather a carnage than a battle. From the camp the alarm spreads into the
city; the Veientians run to arms in as great a panic as if Veii had been
taken: some come up to the support of the Sabines, others fall upon the
Romans, who had directed all their force against the camp. For a little
while they were disconcerted and thrown into confusion; then they too
forming two fronts make a stand: and the cavalry, being commanded by the
consul to charge, routs the Etrurians and puts them to flight; and in
the same hour two armies and two of the most influential and powerful of
the neighbouring states were vanquished. Whilst these transactions are
going on at Veii, the Volsci and Æqui had pitched their camp in the
Latin territory, and laid waste their frontiers. The Latins, by their
own exertions, being joined by the Hernicians, without either a Roman
general or Roman auxiliaries, stripped them of their camp. Besides
recovering their own effects, they obtained immense booty. The consul C.
Nautius, however, was sent against the Volsci from Rome. The custom, I
suppose, was not pleasing for allies to carry on wars with their own
forces and under their own direction without a Roman general and troops.
There was no kind of injury or indignity that was not practised against
the Volsci; nor could they be prevailed on however to come to an
engagement in the field.
54. Lucius Furius and Caius Manlius were the next consuls. The
Veientians fell to Manlius as his province. War however did not take
place: a truce for forty years was granted them at their request, corn
and pay for the soldiers being demanded of them. Disturbance at home
immediately succeeds to peace abroad: the commons were goaded by the
tribunes with the excitement of the agrarian law. The consuls, nothing
intimidated by the condemnation of Menenius, nor by the danger of
Servilius, resist with their utmost might; Cn. Genucius, a tribune of
the people, arraigned the consuls on their going out of office. Lucius
Æmilius and Opiter Virginius enter on the consulate. Instead of
Virginius I find Vopiscus Julius consul in some annals. In this year
(whatever consuls it had) Furius and Manlius, being summoned to trial
before the people, go about in suppliant garb not more to the commons
than to the younger patricians; they advise, they caution them "to keep
themselves from honours and the administration of public affairs, and
that they would consider the consular fasces, the prætexta and curule
chair, as nothing else than the decorations of a funeral; that when
covered with these fine insignia, as with fillets, they were doomed to
death. But if the charms of the consulate were so great, they should
rest satisfied that the consulate was held in captivity and crushed by
the tribunitian power; that every thing was to be done at the nod and
command of the tribune by the consul, as if he were a tribune's beadle.
If he stir, if he have reference to the patricians, if he should think
for a moment that there existed any other party in the state but the
commons, let him place before his eyes the banishment of Caius Marcius,
the condemnation and death of Menenius." Fired by these discourses, the
patricians from that time held their consultations not in public, but in
private, and withdrawn from the knowledge of the many; where when this
one point was agreed on, that the accused must be rescued whether by
just or unjust means, every proposition that was most desperate was most
approved; nor was an actor wanted for any deed however daring.
Accordingly on the day of trial, when the people stood in the forum in
anxious expectation, they at first began to feel surprised that the
tribune did not come down; then when the delay was now becoming more
suspicious, they considered that he was deterred by the nobles, and they
complained that the public cause was abandoned and betrayed. At length
those who had been waiting before the gate of the tribune's residence,
bring word that he was found dead in his house. As soon as rumour spread
this through the whole assembly, just as an army disperses on the fall
of its general, so did they separate in different directions. The
principal panic seized the tribunes, now warned by their colleague's
death what little aid the devoting laws afforded them. Nor did the
patricians bear their joy with sufficient moderation; and so far was any