The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08
them into execution, they, renewing the shout and following him, make a
push in that quarter where Postumius Alba had opposed his troops to
them: and they made the victor give ground, until the dictator came up,
as his own men were now retreating. To that quarter the whole weight of
the battle was now turned. On Messius alone the fortune of the enemy
depends. Many wounds and great slaughter now took place on both sides.
By this time not even the Roman generals themselves fight without
receiving wounds, one of them, Postumius, retired from the field having
his skull fractured by a stroke of a stone; neither the dictator could
be removed by a wound in the shoulder, nor Fabius by having his thigh
almost pinned to his horse, nor the consul by his arm being cut off,
from the perilous conflict.
29. Messius, with a band of the bravest youths, by a furious charge
through heaps of slaughtered foes, was carried on to the camp of the
Volscians, which had not yet been taken: the same route the entire body
of the army followed. The consul, pursuing them in their disordered
flight to the very rampart, attacks both the camp and the rampart; in
the same direction the dictator also brings up his forces on the other
side. The assault was conducted with no less intrepidity than the battle
had been. They say that the consul even threw a standard within the
rampart, in order that the soldiers might push on the more briskly, and
that the first impression was made in recovering the standard. The
dictator also, having levelled the rampart, had now carried the fight
into the camp. Then the enemy began in every direction to throw down
their arms and to surrender: and their camp also being taken, all the
enemy were set up to sale, except the senators.[156] Part of the plunder
was restored to the Latins and Hernicians, when they demanded their
property; the remainder the dictator sold by auction: and the consul,
being invested with the command of the camp, he himself, entering the
city in triumph, resigned his dictatorship. Some writers cast a gloom on
the memory of this glorious dictatorship, when they state that his son,
though victorious, was beheaded by Aulus Postumius, because, tempted by
a favourable opportunity of fighting to advantage, he had left his post
without orders. We are disposed to refuse our belief; and we are
warranted by the variety of opinions on the matter. And it is an
argument against it, that such orders have been entitled "Manlian," not
"Postumian," since the person who first set on foot so barbarous a
precedent, was likely to obtain the signal title of cruelty. Besides,
the cognomen of "Imperiosus" was affixed to Manlius: Postumius has not
been marked by any hateful brand. Caius Julius the consul, in the
absence of his colleague, without casting lots, dedicated the temple of
Apollo: Quintius resenting this, when, after disbanding his army, he
returned into the city, made a complaint of it in the senate to no
purpose.
To the year marked by great achievements is added an event which seemed
to have no relation to the interest of Rome, viz. that the
Carthaginians, destined to be such formidable enemies, then, for the
first times on the occasion of some disturbances among the Sicilians,
transported an army into Sicily in aid of one of the parties.
[Footnote 156: _Senators._ Niebuhr, ii. note 995, seems to doubt whether
these belonged to single cities or were the senators of the entire
Volscian nation.]
30. In the city efforts were made by the tribunes of the people that
military tribunes with consular power should be elected; nor could the
point be carried. Lucius Papirius Crassus and Lucius Junius were made
consuls. When the ambassadors of the Æquans solicited a treaty from the
senate, and instead of a treaty a surrender was pointed out to them,
they obtained a truce for eight years. The affairs of the Volscians, in
addition to the disaster sustained at Algidum, were involved in strifes
and seditions by an obstinate contention between the advocates for peace
and those for war. The Romans enjoyed tranquillity on all sides. The
consuls, having ascertained through the information of one of the
college, that a law regarding the appraising of the fines,[157] which
was very acceptable to the people, was about to be introduced by the
tribunes, took the lead themselves in proposing it. The new consuls were
Lucius Sergius Fidenas a second time, and Hostus Lucretius Tricipitinus.
During their consulate nothing worth mentioning occurred. The consuls
who followed them were Aulus Cornelius Cossus and Titus Quintius Pennus
a second time. The Veientians made excursions into the Roman territory.
A report existed that some of the youth of the Fidenatians had been
participators in that depredation; and the cognizance of that matter was
left to Lucius Sergius, and Quintus Servilius and Mamercus Æmilius. Some
of them were sent into banishment to Ostia, because it did not appear
sufficiently clear why during these days they had been absent from
Fidenæ. A number of new settlers was added, and the land of those who
had fallen in war was assigned to them. There was very great distress
that year in consequence of drought; there was not only a deficiency of
rain; but the earth also destitute of its natural moisture, scarcely
enabled the rivers to flow. In some places the want of water occasioned
heaps of cattle, which had died of thirst, around the springs and
rivulets which were dried up; others were carried off by the mange; and
the distempers spread by infection to the human subject, and first
assailed the husbandmen and slaves; soon after the city becomes filled
with them; and not only were men's bodies afflicted by the contagion,
but superstitions of various kinds, and most of them of foreign growth,
took possession of their minds; persons, to whom minds enslaved by
superstition were a source of gain, introducing by pretending to
divination new modes of sacrificing; until a sense of public shame now
reached the leading men of the state, seeing in all the streets and
chapels extraneous and unaccustomed ceremonies of expiation for the
purpose of obtaining the favour of the gods. A charge was then given to
the ædiles, that they should see that no other than Roman gods should be
worshipped, nor in any other manner, save that of the country. Their
resentment against the Veientians was deferred till the following year,
Caius Servilius Ahala and Lucius Papirius Mugillanus being consuls. Then
also superstitious influences prevented the immediate declaration of war
or the armies being sent; they deemed it necessary that heralds should
be first sent to demand restitution. There had been battles fought
lately with the Veientians at Nomentum and Fidenæ; and after that a
truce, not a peace, had been concluded; of which both the time had
expired and they had renewed hostilities before the expiration. Heralds
however were sent; and when, according to ancient usage, they were sworn
and demanded restitution, their application was not listened to. Then
arose a dispute whether a war should be declared by order of the people,
or whether a decree of the senate would be sufficient. The tribunes, by
threatening that they would stop the levy, so far prevailed that the
consuls should take the sense of the people concerning the war. All the
centuries voted for it. In this particular also the commons showed a
superiority by gaining this point, that consuls should not be elected
for the next year.
[Footnote 157: _Fines_. The fines imposed in early times were certain
numbers of sheep or oxen; afterwards it was ordered by law that these
fines should be appraised and the value paid in money. Another law fixed
a certain rate at which the cattle should be estimated, 100 asses for an
ox, 10 for a sheep.]
31. Four military tribunes with consular authority were elected--Titus
Quintius Pennus, from the consulship, Caius Furius, Marcus Postumius,
and Aulus Cornelius Cossus. Of these Cossus held the command in the
city. The other three, after the levy was held, set out to Veii, and
were an instance how mischievous in military affairs is a plurality of
commanders. By insisting each on his own plans, whilst they severally
entertained different views, they left an opportunity open to the enemy
to take them at advantage. For the Veientians, taking an opportunity,
attacked their line whilst still uncertain as to their movements, some
ordering the signal to be given, others a retreat to be sounded: their
camp, which was nigh at hand, received them in their confusion and
turning their backs. There was more disgrace therefore than loss. The
state, unaccustomed to defeat, was become melancholy; they hated the
tribunes, they insisted on a dictator, the hopes of the state now seemed
to rest on him. When a religious scruple interfered here also, lest a
dictator could not be appointed except by a consul, the augurs on being
consulted removed that scruple. Aulus Cornelius nominated Mamercus
Æmilius, and he himself was nominated by him master of the horse. So
little did censorial animadversion avail, so as to prevent them from
seeking a regulator of their affairs from a family unmeritedly censured,
as soon as the condition of the state stood in need of genuine merit.
The Veientians elated with their success, having sent ambassadors around
the states of Etruria, boasting that three Roman generals had been
beaten by them in an engagement, though they could not effect a public
co-operation in their designs, procured volunteers from all quarters
allured by the hope of plunder. The state of the Fidenatians alone
determined on renewing hostilities; and as if it would be an impiety to
commence war unless with guilt, after staining their arms with the blood
of the new settlers there, as they had on a former occasion with that of
the ambassadors, they join the Veientians. After this the leading men of
the two states consulted whether they should select Veii or Fidenæ as
the seat of war. Fidenæ appeared the more convenient. Accordingly,
having crossed the Tiber, the Veientians transferred the war thither.
There was great consternation at Rome. The army being recalled from
Veii, and that same army dispirited in consequence of their defeat, the
camp is pitched before the Colline gate, and armed soldiers are posted
along the walls, and a suspension of all civil business is proclaimed in
the forum, and the shops were closed; and every place becomes more like
to a camp than a city.
32. Then the dictator, having sent criers through the streets, and
having summoned the alarmed citizens to an assembly, began to chide them
"that they allowed their minds to depend on such slight impulses of
fortune, that, on the receipt of a trifling loss, which itself was
sustained not by the bravery of the enemy, nor by the cowardice of the
Roman army, but by the disagreement of the generals, they now dreaded
the Veientian enemy, six times vanquished, and Fidenæ, which was almost
taken oftener than attacked. That both the Romans and the enemies were
the same as they were for so many ages: that they retained the same
spirits, the same bodily strength, the same arms. That he himself,
Mamercus Æmilius, was also the same dictator, who formerly defeated the
armies of the Veientians and Fidenatians, with the additional support of
the Faliscians, at Nomentum. That his master of the horse, Aulus
Cornelius, would be the same in the field, he who, as military tribune
in a former war, slew Lar Tolumnius, king of the Veientians, in the
sight of both armies, and brought the _spolia opima_ into the temple of
Jupiter Feretrius. Wherefore that they should take up arms, mindful that
with them were triumphs, with them spoils, with them victory; with the