The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08
recovered Bolæ, and sent a colony thither, strengthened the town with
additional fortifications, the military tribunes with consular power at
Rome being Cneius Cornelius Cossus, Lucius Valerius Potitus, Quintus
Fabius Vibulanus a second time, Marcus Postumius Regillensis. The war
against the Æquans was intrusted to the latter, a man of depraved mind,
which victory manifested more effectually than war. For having with
great activity levied an army and marched it to Bolæ, after breaking
down the spirits of the Æquans in slight engagements, he at length
forced his way into the town. He then turned the contest from the enemy
to his countrymen; and when during the assault he had proclaimed, that
the plunder should belong to the soldiers, after the town was taken he
broke his word. I am more inclined to believe that this was the cause of
the displeasure of the army, than that in a city lately sacked and in a
colony still young there was less booty found than the tribune had
represented. An expression of his heard in the assembly, which was very
silly and almost insane, after he returned into the city on being sent
for on account of some tribunitian disturbances, increased this bad
feeling; on Sextus, a tribune of the commons, proposing an agrarian law,
and at the same time declaring that he would also propose that colonists
should be sent to Bolæ; for that those who had taken them by their arms
were deserving that the city and lands of Bolæ should belong to them, he
exclaimed, "Woe to my soldiers, if they are not quiet;" which words,
when heard, gave not greater offence to the assembly, than they did soon
after to the patricians. And the plebeian tribune being a sharp man and
by no means devoid of eloquence, having found among his adversaries this
haughty temper and unbridled tongue, which by irritating and exciting he
could urge into such expressions as might prove a source of odium not
only to himself, but to his cause and to the entire body, he strove to
draw Postumius into discussion more frequently than any of the college
of military tribunes. Then indeed, after so brutal and inhuman an
expression, "Romans," says he, "do ye hear him threatening woe to his
soldiers as to slaves? Yet this brute will appear to you more deserving
of so high an honour than those who send you into colonies, after having
granted to you cities and lands; who provide a settlement for your old
age, who fight against such cruel and arrogant adversaries in defence
of your interests. Begin then to wonder why few persons now undertake
your cause. What are they to expect from you? is it honours which you
give to your adversaries rather than to the champions of the Roman
people. You felt indignant just now, on hearing an expression of this
man? What matters that, if you will prefer this man who threatens woe to
you, to those who are desirous to secure for you lands, settlements, and
property?"
50. This expression of Postumius being conveyed to the soldiers, excited
in the camp much greater indignation. "Did the embezzler of the spoils
and the defrauder threaten woe also to the soldiers?" Accordingly, when
the murmur of indignation now became avowed, and the quæstor, Publius
Sestius, thought that the mutiny might be quashed by the same violence
by which it had been excited; on his sending a lictor to one of the
soldiers who was clamorous, when a tumult and scuffle arose from the
circumstance, being struck with a stone he retired from the crowd; the
person who had given the blow, further observing with a sneer, "That the
quæstor got what the general had threatened to the soldiers." Postumius
being sent for in consequence of the disturbance, exasperated every
thing by the severity of his inquiries and the cruelty of his
punishment. At last, when he set no bounds to his resentment, a crowd
collecting at the cries of those whom he had ordered to be put to death
under a hurdle, he himself madly ran down from his tribunal to those who
were interrupting the execution. There, when the lictors, endeavouring
to disperse them, as also the centurions, irritated the crowd, their
indignation burst forth to such a degree, that the military tribune was
overwhelmed with stones by his own army. When an account was brought to
Rome of so heinous a deed, the military tribunes endeavouring to procure
a decree of the senate for an inquiry into the death of their colleague,
the tribunes of the people entered their protest. But that contention
branched out of another subject of dispute; because the patricians had
become uneasy lest the commons, through dread of the inquiries and
through resentment, might elect military tribunes from their own body:
and they strove with all their might that consuls should be elected.
When the plebeian tribunes did not suffer the decree of the senate to
pass, and when they also protested against the election of consuls, the
affair was brought to an interregnum. The victory was then on the side
of the patricians.
51. Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, interrex, presiding in the assembly, Aulus
Cornelius Cossus, Lucius Furius Medullinus were elected consuls. During
their office, at the commencement of the year, a decree of the senate
was passed that the tribunes should, at the earliest opportunity,
propose to the commons an inquiry into the murder of Postumius, and that
the commons should appoint whomsoever they thought proper to conduct the
inquiry. The office is intrusted to the consuls by the commons with the
consent of the people at large, who, after having executed the task with
the utmost moderation and lenity by punishing only a few, who there are
sufficient grounds for believing put a period to their own lives, still
could not succeed so as to prevent the people from feeling the utmost
displeasure. "That constitutions, which were enacted for their
advantages, lay so long unexecuted; while a law passed in the mean time
regarding their blood and punishment was instantly put into execution
and possessed full force." This was a most seasonable time, after the
punishment of the mutiny, that the division of the territory of Bolæ
should be presented as a soother to their minds; by which proceeding
they would have diminished their eagerness for an agrarian law, which
tended to expel the patricians from the public land unjustly possessed
by them. Then this very indignity exasperated their minds, that the
nobility persisted not only in retaining the public lands, which they
got possession of by force, but would not even distribute to the commons
the unoccupied land lately taken from the enemy, and which would, like
the rest, soon become the prey of a few. The same year the legions were
led out by the consul Furius against the Volscians, who were ravaging
the country of the Hernicians, and finding no enemy there, they took
Ferentinum, whither a great multitude of the Volscians had betaken
themselves. There was less plunder than they had expected; because the
Volscians, seeing small hopes of keeping it, carried off their effects
and abandoned the town. It was taken on the following day, being nearly
deserted. The land itself was given to the Hernicians.
52. The year, tranquil through the moderation of the tribunes, was
succeeded by one in which Lucius Icilius was plebeian tribune, Quintus
Fabius Ambustus, Caius Furius Pacilus being consuls. When this man, at
the very commencement of the year, began to excite disturbances by the
publication of agrarian laws, as if such was the task of his name and
family, a pestilence broke out, more alarming however than deadly, which
diverted men's thoughts from the forum and political disputes to their
domestic concerns and the care of their personal health; and persons
think that it was less mischievous than the disturbance would have
proved. The state being freed from this (which was attended) with a very
general spread of illness, though very few deaths, the year of
pestilence was followed by a scarcity of grain, the cultivation of the
land having been neglected, as usually happens, Marcus Papirius
Atratinus, Caius Nautius Rutilus being consuls. The famine would now
have proved more dismal than the pestilence, had not the scarcity been
relieved by sending envoys around all the states, which border on the
Tuscan Sea and the Tiber, to purchase the corn. The envoys were
prevented from trading in an insolent manner by the Samnitians, who were
in possession of Capua and Cumæ; on the contrary, they were kindly
assisted by the tyrants of Sicily. The Tiber brought down the greatest
supplies, through the very active zeal of the Etrurians. In consequence
of the sickness, the consuls laboured under a paucity of hands in
conducting the government; when not finding more than one senator for
each embassy, they were obliged to attach to it two knights. Except from
the pestilence and the scarcity, there was no internal or external
annoyance during those two years. But as soon as these causes of anxiety
disappeared, all those evils by which the state had hitherto been
distressed, started up, discord at home, war abroad.
53. In the consulship of Mamercus Æmilius and Caius Valerius Potitus,
the Æquans made preparations for war; the Volscians, though not by
public authority, taking up arms, and entering the service as volunteers
for pay. When on the report of these enemies having started up, (for
they had now passed into the Latin and Hernican land,) Marcus Mænius, a
proposer of an agrarian law, would obstruct Valerius the consul when
holding a levy, and when no one took the military oath against his own
will under the protection of the tribune; an account is suddenly brought
that the citadel of Carventa had been seized by the enemy. The disgrace
incurred by this event was both a source of odium to Mænius in the hands
of the fathers, and it moreover afforded to the other tribunes, already
pre-engaged as protestors against an agrarian law, a more justifiable
pretext for resisting their colleague. Wherefore after the matter had
been protracted for a long time by wrangling, the consuls calling gods
and men to witness, that whatever disgrace or loss had either been
already sustained or hung over them from the enemy, the blame of it
would be imputed to Mænius, who hindered the levy; Mænius, on the other
hand, exclaiming "that if the unjust occupiers would yield up possession
of the public land, he would cause no delay to the levy:" the nine
tribunes interposing a decree, put an end to the contest; and they
proclaimed as the determination of their college, "that they would, for
the purposes of the levy, in opposition to the protest of their
colleague, afford their aid to Caius Valerius the consul in inflicting
fines and other penalties on those who refused to enlist." When the
consul, armed with this decree, ordered into prison a few who appealed
to the tribune, the rest took the military oath from fear. The army was
marched to the citadel of Carventa, and though hated by and disliking
the consul, they on their first arrival recovered the citadel in a
spirited manner, having dislodged those who were protecting it; some in
quest of plunder having straggled away through carelessness from the
garrison, afforded an opportunity for attacking them. There was
considerable booty from the constant devastations, because all had been
collected into a safe place. This the consul ordered the quæstors to
sell by auction and carry it into the treasury, declaring that the army
should then participate in the booty, when they had not declined the
service. The exasperation of the commons and soldiers against the consul
was then augmented. Accordingly, when by a decree of the senate the
consul entered the city in an ovation, rude verses in couplets were
thrown out with military licence; in which the consul was severely