The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08
and Æquans came to the camp, certain that the Romans would depart during
the night, if they should perceive them. Accordingly about the third
watch they come to attack the camp. Quintius having allayed the
confusion which the sudden panic had occasioned, after ordering the
soldiers to remain quiet in their tents, leads out a cohort of the
Hernicians for an advance guard: the trumpeters and horneteers he mounts
on horseback, and commands them to sound their trumpets before the
rampart, and to keep the enemy in suspense till daylight: during the
rest of the night every thing was so quiet in the camp, that the Romans
had even the advantage of sleep. The sight of the armed infantry, whom
they both considered to be more numerous than they were, and to be
Romans, the bustle and neighing of the horses, which became restless,
both from the strange riders placed on them, and moreover from the sound
of the trumpets frightening them, kept the Volscians intently awaiting
an attack of the enemy.
65. When day dawned, the Romans, invigorated and refreshed with sleep,
on being marched out to battle, at the first onset overpowered the
Volscians, wearied from standing and want of rest; though the enemy
rather retired than were routed, because in the rear there were hills to
which there was a secure retreat, the ranks behind the first line being
unbroken. The consul, when they came to the uneven ground, halts his
army; the soldiers were kept back with difficulty; they cried out and
demanded to be allowed to pursue the enemy now discomfited. The cavalry,
crowding around the general, proceed more violently: they cry out that
they would proceed before the first line. Whilst the consul hesitates,
relying on the valour of his men, yet having little confidence in the
place, they all cry out that they would proceed; and execution followed
the shout. Fixing their spears in the ground, in order that they may be
lighter to ascend the steeps, they run upwards. The Volscians, having
discharged their missile weapons at the first onset, fling the stones
lying at their feet on them as they advanced upwards, and having thrown
them into confusion by incessant blows, they drove them from the higher
ground: thus the left wing of the Romans was nearly overborne, had not
the consul dispelled their fear by exciting a sense of shame as they
were just retreating, chiding at the same time their temerity and their
cowardice. At first they stood their ground with determined firmness;
then, according as their strength carried them against those in
possession of the ground, they venture to advance themselves; and by
renewing the shout they encourage the whole body to move on; then again
making a new effort, they force their way up and surmount the
disadvantage of the ground. They were on the point of gaining the summit
of the eminence, when the enemy turned their backs, and the pursued and
pursuers with precipitate speed rushed into the camp almost in a body.
In this consternation the camp is taken; such of the Volscians as were
able to make their escape, take the road to Antium. The Roman army also
was led to Antium; after being invested for a few days it surrenders
without any additional force of the besiegers,[104] but because their
spirits had sunk ever since the unsuccessful battle and the loss of
their camp.
[Footnote 104: _Additional force of the_, &c. Crovier understands this
to signify that the Romans did not employ a greater force for besieging
Antium, than they had employed the preceding year, and which at that
time seemed insufficient for the purpose. Others understand the words to
signify that they surrendered without waiting for the Romans to make any
additional efforts to take the town.]
BOOK III
_Disturbances about the agrarian laws. The Capitol surprised by
exiles and slaves. Quintius Cincinnatus called from the cultivation
of his farm in the country, made dictator, and appointed to conduct
the war against the Æquans. He conquers the enemy, and makes them
pass under the yoke. The number of the tribunes increased to ten.
Decemvirs, appointed for the purpose of digesting and publishing a
body of laws. These having promulgated a code of laws contained in
ten tables, obtain a continuation of their authority for another
year, during which they add two more to the former ten tables.
Refusing to resign their office, they retain it a third year. Their
conduct at first equitable and just; afterwards arbitrary and
tyrannical. The commons, in consequence of the base attempt of
Appius Claudius, one of them, to debauch the daughter of Virginius,
seize on the Aventine mount, and oblige them to resign. Appius and
Oppius, two of the most obnoxious, are thrown into prison, where
they put an end to their own lives; the rest are driven into exile.
War with the Sabines, Volscians, and Æquans.--Unfair decision of
the Roman people, who being chosen arbitrators between the people
of Ardea and Aricia concerning some disputed lands, adjudge them to
themselves._
1. After the taking of Antium, Titus Æmilius and Quintus Fabius are
elected consuls. This was the Fabius Quintus who alone had survived the
family cut off at Cremera. Already, in his former consulate, Æmilius had
been an adviser of giving land to the people. Accordingly in his second
consulate also both the abettors of the agrarian law had raised
themselves to the hope of carrying the measure, and the tribunes,
supposing that a matter frequently attempted in opposition to both
consuls might be obtained with the assistance at least of one consul,
take it up, and the consul remained stedfast in his sentiments. The
possessors and a considerable part of the patricians complaining that a
person at the head of the state was recommending himself by his
tribunitial proceedings, and that he was making himself popular by
giving away other persons' property, had transferred the odium of the
entire affair from the tribunes to the consul. A violent contest was at
hand, had not Fabius set the matter straight, by an expedient
disagreeable to neither party, "that under the conduct and auspices of
Titus Quintius, there was a considerable tract of land taken the
preceding year from the Volscians; that a colony might be sent to
Antium, a neighbouring, convenient, and maritime city; that the commons
might come in for lands without any complaints of the present occupiers,
that the state might remain in quiet." This proposition was accepted. He
appoints as triumvirs for distributing the land, Titus Quintius, Aulus
Virginius, and Publius Furius: those who wished to obtain land were
ordered to give in their names. The gratification of their aim begat
disgust, as usually happens; so few gave in their names that Volscian
colonists were added to fill up the number: the rest of the people
preferred clamouring for land in Rome, rather than receive it elsewhere.
The Æquans sued for peace from Quintus Fabius, (he was sent thither with
an army,) and they themselves broke it by a sudden incursion into the
Latin territory.
2. In the following year Quintus Servilius, (for he was consul with
Spurius Posthumius,) being sent against the Æquans, fixed his camp in
the Latin territory: inaction necessarily kept the army within the camp,
involved as they were in a distemper. The war was protracted to the
third year, Quintus Fabius and Titus Quintius being consuls. To Fabius,
because he, as conqueror, had granted[105] peace to the Æquans, that
province was assigned by an extraordinary commission: who, setting out
with certain hope that the fame of his name would reduce the Æquans to
submission, sent ambassadors to the council of the nation, and ordered
them to say "that Quintus Fabius, the consul, stated that he had brought
peace to Rome from the Æquans, that from Rome he now brought war to the
Æquans, that same right hand being armed, which he had formerly given to
them in amity; that the gods were now witnesses, and would presently be
avengers of those by whose perfidy and perjury that was brought to pass.
That he, however, be matters as they might, would even now prefer that
the Æquans should repent of their own accord than be subject to the
vengeance of an enemy. If they repent, that there would be a safe
retreat in that clemency already experienced; but if they still
delighted in perjury, they would wage war with the angry gods rather
than with enemies." This statement had so little effect on any of them,
that the ambassadors were near being ill-treated, and an army was sent
to Algidum against the Romans. When these tidings were brought to Rome,
the indignity of the affair, rather than the danger, called out the
other consul from the city; thus two consular armies advanced against
the enemy in order of battle, so that they might at once engage. But as
it so happened that much of the day did not now remain, a person from
the advanced guard of the enemy cries out, "This is making a display of
war, Romans, not waging it; you draw up your army in line of battle,
when night is at hand; we require a greater length of day-light for the
contest which is to come on. To-morrow by sun-rise return to the field:
you shall have an opportunity of fighting, never fear." The soldiers,
stung by these threats, are marched back into the camp till the
following day; thinking that the approaching night was tedious, which
would cause delay to the contest. Then indeed they refresh their bodies
with food and sleep: on the following day, when it was light, the Roman
army took their post considerably sooner. At length the Æquans also came
forward. The battle was obstinate on both sides, because both the Romans
fought under the influence of resentment and hatred; and a consciousness
of danger brought on by misconduct, and despair of obtaining future
confidence afterwards, obliged the Æquans to exert and have recourse to
the most desperate efforts. The Æquans however did not withstand the
Roman troops, and when on being beaten they had betaken themselves to
their own territories, the outrageous multitude, with dispositions not
at all more disposed to peace, began to chide their leaders: "that their
interest was committed to the hazard of a pitched battle, in which mode
of fighting the Romans were superior. That the Æquans were better fitted
for depredations and incursions, and that several parties acting in
different directions conducted wars more successfully than the unwieldy
mass of one single army."
[Footnote 105: _Dederat_. The _oratio obliqua_ would require _dederit_
here, but such instances of the indicative being used for the
subjunctive are by no means infrequent.]
3. Having left therefore a guard on the camp, they marched out and
attacked the Roman frontiers with such fury, as to carry terror even to
the city: the unexpected nature of the thing also caused more alarm,
because nothing could be less apprehended, than that an enemy,
vanquished and almost besieged in their camp, should entertain a thought
of depredation: and the peasants, in a panic pouring in at the gates,
cried out, that it was not mere plundering, nor small parties of
depredators, but, exaggerating every thing through groundless fear, that
whole armies and legions of the enemy were advancing, and that they were
pushing forward to the city determined for an assault. Those who were
nearest (the gates) carried to others the accounts heard from these,
uncertain as they were, and therefore the more groundless; and the hurry
and confused clamour of those calling to arms bore no distant
resemblance to the panic of a city taken by storm. It so happened that
the consul Quintius had returned to Rome from Algidum; this was some