The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08
stated publicly on the tables, that the intention entertained of
rescinding the decision might escape the knowledge of the commons and
tribunes. But they had agreed that, a much greater number of Rutulian
colonists being enrolled than of Romans, no land should be distributed,
except that which had been intercepted by the infamous decision; and
that not a sod of it should be assigned to any Roman, until all the
Rutulians had had their share. In this way the land returned to the
Ardeans. The commissioners appointed to transplant the colony to Ardea
were Agrippa Menenius, Titus Clælius Siculus, and Marcus Æbutius Elva.
When they, in the discharge of their by no means popular office, had
given offence to the commons by assigning to the allies the land which
the Roman people had decided to be their own, and were not even much
supported by the patricians, because they had not deferred in any way to
the influence of any one, a day having been appointed for them by the
tribunes to appear before the people, they escaped all vexatious
annoyance by enrolling themselves as settlers and remaining in the
colony, which they now had as a testimony of their integrity and
justice.
12. There was peace at home and abroad both this and the following year,
Caius Furius Pacilus and Marcus Papirius Crassus being consuls. The
games which had been vowed by the decemvirs, in pursuance of a decree of
the senate on occasion of the secession of the commons from the
patricians, were performed this year. An occasion for sedition was
sought in vain by Pætelius, who, having been made a tribune of the
commons a second time, by denouncing these same threats, could neither
prevail on the consuls to submit to the senate the questions concerning
the division of the lands among the people; and when, after a hard
struggle, he had succeeded so far that the patricians should be
consulted as to whether it was their pleasure that an election should be
held of consuls or of tribunes, consuls were ordered to be elected; and
the menaces of the tribune were now laughed at, when he threatened that
he would stop the levy, inasmuch as the neighbouring states being now
quiet, there was no occasion either for war or for preparations for war.
This tranquil state of things is followed by a year, in which Proculus
Geganius Macerinus, Lucius Menenius Lanatus were consuls, remarkable for
a variety of disasters and dangers, also for disturbances, famine, for
their having almost submitted their necks to the yoke of arbitrary power
through the allurement of largesses. Foreign war alone was wanting, by
which if matters had been aggravated, they could scarcely have stood out
against them by the aid of all the gods. Their misfortunes began with
famine; whether it was that the season was unfavourable to the crops, or
that the cultivation of the land was relinquished for the allurements of
the city, and of public harangues; for both causes are assigned. And the
patricians accused the commons as being idle; the tribunes of the
commons complained sometimes of the fraud, at other times of the
negligence of the consuls. At length the commons prevailed, without
opposition on the part of the senate, that Lucius Minutius should be
appointed president of the market; doomed to be more successful in that
office in preserving liberty than in the discharge of his own peculiar
province: although in the end he bore away the well-earned gratitude of
the people as well as the glory of having lowered the price of
provisions. When he had made but slight advance in relieving the markets
by sending embassies around the neighbouring states by land and sea to
no purpose, except that an inconsiderable quantity of corn was imported
from Etruria, and applying himself to the careful dispensations of their
scanty stock, by obliging persons to show their supply, and to sell
whatever was over and above a month's provision, and by depriving the
slaves of one half of their daily allowance; then by censuring and
holding up to the resentment of the people the corn-hoarders, he rather
discovered the great scarcity of grain than relieved it by this rigorous
inquisition. Many of the commons, all hope being lost, rather than be
tortured by dragging out existence, muffled up their heads and
precipitated themselves into the Tiber.
13. Then Spurius Mælius, of the equestrian order, extremely rich
considering these times, set about a project useful in itself, but
having a most pernicious tendency, and a still more pernicious motive.
For having, by the assistance of his friends and clients, bought up corn
from Etruria at his private expense, (which very circumstance, I think,
had been an impediment in the endeavour to reduce the price of corn by
the exertions of the state,) he set about giving out largesses of corn:
and having won over the commons by this munificence, he drew them with
him wherever he went, conspicuous and consequential beyond the rank of a
private citizen, insuring to him as undoubted the consulship by the
favour (they manifested towards him) and the hopes (they excited in
him.) He himself, as the mind of man is not to be satiated with that
which fortune holds out the hope of, began to aspire to things still
higher, and altogether unwarrantable; and since even the consulship
would have to be taken from the patricians against their will, he began
to set his mind on kingly power;--that that would be the only prize
worthy of such grand designs and of the struggle which would have to be
endured. The consular elections were now coming on, which circumstance
destroyed him completely, his plans being not yet arranged or
sufficiently matured. Titus Quintius Capitolinus was elected consul for
the sixth time, a man by no means well suited to answer the views of one
meditating political innovations: Agrippa Menenius is attached to him as
colleague, who bore the cognomen of Lanatus: and Lucius Minutius as
president of the markets, whether he was re-elected, or created for an
indefinite period, as long as circumstances should require; for there is
nothing certain in the matter, except this, his name was entered as
president in the linen books among the magistrates for both years. Here
Minucius, conducting the same office in a public capacity which Mælius
had undertaken to conduct in a private character, the same class of
persons frequenting the houses of both, having ascertained the matter,
lays it before the senate, "that arms were collecting in the house of
Mælius, and that he held assemblies in his house: and that his designs
were unquestionably bent on regal dominion: that the time for the
execution of the project was not yet fixed: that all other matters were
settled; and that the tribunes were bought over for hire to betray the
public liberty, and that the several parts were assigned to the leaders
of the multitude. That he laid these things before them almost later
than was consistent with safety, lest he might be the reporter of any
thing uncertain or ill-grounded." When these things were heard, the
chiefs of the patricians both rebuked the consuls of the former year,
for having suffered those largesses and meetings of the people to go on
in a private house, as well as the new consuls for having waited until a
matter of such importance should be reported to the senate by the
president of the markets, which required the consul to be not only the
reporter, but the punisher also; then Titus Quintius said, "that the
consuls were unfairly censured, who being fettered by the laws
concerning appeal, enacted to weaken their authority, by no means
possessed as much power in their office as will, to punish that
proceeding according to its atrocity. That there was wanting a man not
only determined in himself, but one who was unshackled and freed from
the fetters of those laws. That he would therefore appoint Lucius
Quintius dictator; that in him there would be a determination suitable
to so great a power." Whilst all approved, Quintius at first refused;
and asked them what they meant, in exposing him in the extremity of age
to such a contest. Then when they all said that in that aged mind there
was not only more wisdom, but more energy also, than in all the rest,
and went on loading him with deserved praises, whilst the consul relaxed
not in his original determination; Cincinnatus at length having prayed
to the immortal gods, that his old age might not prove a detriment or
disgrace to the republic at so dangerous a juncture, is appointed
dictator by the consul: he himself then appoints Caius Servilius Ahala
his master of the horse.
14. On the next day, having stationed proper guards, when he had gone
down to the forum, and the attention of the commons was attracted to him
by the strangeness and extraordinary nature of the thing, and Mælius's
friends and himself their leader perceived that the power of such high
authority was directly aimed at them; when, moreover, those who were not
aware of the designs on regal power, went on asking, "what tumult, what
sudden war, had called for either the dictatorial authority, or
Quintius, after his eightieth year, administrator of affairs,"
Servilius, master of the horse, being sent by the dictator to Mælius,
says, "The dictator summons you." When he, being alarmed, asked what he
meant, and Servilius stated that "he must stand a trial," and answer the
charge brought against him before the senate by Minucius, Mælius drew
back into the band of his adherents, and at first, looking around him,
he began to skulk off: at length when the beadle, by order of the master
of the horse, was bringing him off, being rescued by those present, and
running away, he implored the protection of the Roman people, and
alleged that he was persecuted by a conspiracy of the patricians because
he had acted kindly towards the people: he besought them that they would
assist him in this critical emergency, and not suffer him to be
butchered before their eyes. Ahala Servilius overtook and slew him
whilst exclaiming in this manner; and smeared with the blood of the
person so slain, and surrounded by a body of young nobles, he carries
back word to the dictator that Mælius having been summoned to him, and
commencing to excite the multitude after he had repulsed the beadle, had
received condign punishment. "Thou hast acted nobly, Caius Servilius,"
said the dictator, "in having saved the republic."
15. He then ordered the multitude, who were much agitated, not knowing
what judgment to form of the deed, to be called to an assembly: and he
openly declared, "that Mælius had been justly put to death, even though
he may have been innocent of the charge of aiming at regal power, who,
when summoned to attend the dictator by the master of the horse, had not
come. That he himself had taken his seat to examine into the case; that,
after it had been investigated, Mælius should have met a result
corresponding to his deserts; that when employing force, in order that
he might not commit himself to a trial, he had been checked by force.
Nor should they proceed with him as with a citizen, who, born in a free
state amid laws and rights, in a city from which he knew that kings had
been expelled, and on the same year the sons of the king's sister and
the children of the consul, the liberator of his country, had been put
to death by their father, on a plot for readmitting the royal family
into the city having been discovered, from which Collatinus Tarquinius
the consul, through a hatred of his name, was ordered to resign his
office and go into exile; in which capital punishment was inflicted on
Spurius Cassius several years after for forming designs to assume the
sovereignty; in which the decemvirs were recently punished with
confiscation, exile, and death, in consequence of regal tyranny in that