The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08
where the furtive possession of so enormous a treasure could be kept;
and when he deferred, and told them that he would inform them at the
proper time, all other objects being given up, the attention of all was
directed to this point; and it became evident that neither their
gratitude, if the information were true, nor their displeasure if it
proved false, would know any bounds.
15. Matters being in this state, the dictator, being summoned home from
the army, came into the city. A meeting of the senate being held on the
following day, when, having sufficiently sounded the inclinations of the
people, he forbade the senate to leave him, attended by that body, he
placed his throne in the comitium, and sent his sergeant to Marcus
Manlius; who on being summoned by the dictator's order, after he had
given intimation to his party that a contest was at hand, came to the
tribunal, attended by a numerous party. On the one side stood the
senate, on the other the people as if in battle-array, attentively
observing, each party, their respective leader. Then silence being made,
the dictator said, "I wish that I and the Roman patricians may agree
with the commons on all other matters, as I am confident we shall agree
on the business which regards you, and on that about which I am about to
interrogate you. I perceive that hopes have been raised by you in the
minds of the citizens, that, with safety to the public credit, their
debts may be paid off out of the Gallic treasures, which it is alleged
the leading patricians are secreting. To which proceeding so far am I
from being any obstruction, that on the contrary, Marcus Manlius, I
exhort you to free the Roman commons from the weight of interest; and to
tumble from their secreted spoil, those who lie now brooding on those
public treasures. If you refuse to do this, whether because you yourself
desire to be a sharer in the spoil, or because the information is
unfounded, I shall order you to be carried off to prison, nor will I any
longer suffer the multitude to be disquieted by you with delusive
hopes." To this Manlius replied, "That it had not escaped him, that it
was not against the Volscians, who were enemies as often as it suited
the interests of the patricians, nor against the Latins and Hernicians,
whom they were driving into hostilities by false charges, but against
him and the Roman commons, that he was appointed dictator. Now the war
being dropped, which was only feigned, that an attack was being made
against himself; that the dictator now professed to defend the usurers
against the commons; that now a charge and destruction was sought for
him out of the favour of the multitude. Does the crowd that surrounds my
person offend you," said he, "Aulus Cornelius, and you, conscript
fathers? Why then do you not draw it away from me, each of you by your
own acts of kindness? by becoming surety, by delivering your
fellow-citizens from the stocks, by preventing those cast in law-suits,
and assigned over to their creditors, from being dragged away to prison,
by sustaining the necessities of others out of your own superfluities?
But why do I exhort you to expend out of your own property? Fix some
capital; deduct from the principal what has been paid in interest; soon
will my crowd not be a whit more remarkable than that of any other
person. But [I may be asked] why do I alone thus interest myself in
behalf of my fellow-citizens? I have no other answer to give, than if
you were to ask me, why in the same way did I alone preserve the Capitol
and the citadel. Both then I afforded the aid which I could to all
collectively, and now I will afford it to each individually. Now with
respect to the Gallic treasures, the mode of interrogation renders
difficult a matter which in itself is easy. For why do you ask that
which you know? why do you order that which is in your own laps to be
shaken out of them rather than resign it, unless some fraud lurks
beneath? The more you require your own impositions to be examined into,
the more do I dread lest you should blind the eyes of those narrowly
watching you. Wherefore, it is not I that am to be compelled to discover
your hoard, but you must be forced to produce it to the public."
16. When the dictator ordered him to lay aside evasion, and urged him to
prove the truth of his information, or to own the guilt of having
advanced a false accusation against the senate, and of having exposed
them to the odium of a lying charge of concealment; when he refused to
speak, to meet the wishes of his enemies, he ordered him to be carried
off to prison. When arrested by the sergeant, he said, "O Jupiter,
supremely great and good, imperial Juno, and Minerva, and ye other gods
and goddesses, who inhabit the Capitol and citadel, do ye suffer your
soldier and defender to be thus harassed by his enemies? Shall this
right hand, by which I beat off the Gauls from your temples, be now in
bonds and chains?" Neither the eyes nor ears of any one could well
endure the indignity [thus offered him], but the state, most patient of
legitimate authority, had rendered certain offices absolute to
themselves; nor did either the tribunes of the commons, nor the commons
themselves, dare to raise their eyes or utter a sentence in opposition
to the dictatorial power. On Manlius being thrown into prison, it
appears that a great part of the commons put on mourning, that a great
many persons had let their hair and beard grow, and that a dejected
crowd presented itself at the entrance of the prison. The dictator
triumphed over the Volscians; and that triumph was the occasion rather
of ill-will than of glory. For they murmured that "it had been acquired
at home, not abroad, and that it was celebrated over a citizen, not over
an enemy; that only one thing was wanting to his arrogance, that Manlius
was not led before his car." And now the affair fell little short of
sedition, for the purpose of appeasing which, the senate, without the
solicitation of any one, suddenly becoming bountiful of their own
free-will, decreed that a colony of two thousand Roman citizens should
be conducted to Satricum; two acres and half of land were assigned to
each. And when they considered this, both as scanty in itself, conferred
on a few, and as a bribe for betraying Marcus Manlius, the sedition was
irritated by the remedy. And now the crowd of Manlius' partisans was
become more remarkable, both by their squalid attire and by the
appearance of persons under prosecutions, and terror being removed by
the resignation of the dictatorship, after the triumph had set both the
tongues and thoughts of men at liberty.
17. Expressions were therefore heard freely uttered of persons
upbraiding the multitude, that "by their favour they always raised their
defenders to a precipice, then at the very critical moment of danger
they forsook them. That in this way Spurius Cassius, when inviting the
commons to a share in the lands, in this way Spurius Mælius, when
warding off famine from the mouths of his fellow-citizens at his own
expense, had been undone; thus Marcus Manlius was betrayed to his
enemies, whilst drawing forth to liberty and light one half of the
state, when sunk and overwhelmed with usury. That the commons fattened
their favourites that they might be slaughtered. Was this punishment to
be suffered, if a man of consular rank did not answer at the nod of a
dictator? Suppose that he had lied before, and that on that account he
had had no answer to make; what slave was ever imprisoned in punishment
of a lie? Did not the memory of that night present itself, which was
well nigh the last and an eternal one to the Roman name? nor any idea of
the band of Gauls climbing up the Tarpeian rock? nor that of Marcus
Manlius himself, such as they had seen him in arms, covered with sweat
and blood, after having in a manner rescued Jupiter himself from the
hands of the enemy? Was a recompence made to the preserver of their
country with their half pounds of corn? and would they suffer a person,
whom they almost deified, whom they had set on a footing with Jupiter,
at least with respect to the surname of Capitolinus, to drag out an
existence subject to the will of an executioner, chained in a prison and
in darkness? Was there thus sufficient aid in one person for all; and no
relief for one in so many?" The crowd did not disperse from that place
even during the night, and they threatened that they would break open
the prison; when that being conceded which they were about to take by
force, Manlius was discharged from prison by a decree of the senate; by
which proceeding the sedition was not terminated, but a leader was
supplied to the sedition. About the same time the Latins and Hernicians,
as also the colonists of Circeii and Velitræ, when striving to clear
themselves of the charge [of being concerned] in the Volscian war, and
demanding back the prisoners, that they may punish them according to
their own laws, received a harsh answer; the colonists the severer,
because being Roman citizens they had formed the abominable design of
attacking their own country. They were therefore not only refused with
respect to the prisoners, but notice was given them in the name of the
senate, who however forbore from such a proceeding in the case of the
allies, instantly to depart from the city, from the presence and sight
of the Roman people; lest the law of embassy, provided for the
foreigner, not for the citizen, should afford them no protection.
18. The sedition excited by Manlius reassuming its former violence, on
the expiration of the year the election was held, and military tribunes
with consular power were elected from among the patricians; they were
Servius Cornelius Maluginensis a third time, Publius Valerius Potitus a
second time, Marcus Furius Camillus, Servius Sulpicius Rufus a second
time, Caius Papirius Crassus, Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus a second time.
At the commencement of which year peace with foreign countries afforded
every opportunity both to the patricians and plebeians: to the
plebeians, because not being called away by any levy, they conceived
hopes of destroying usury, whilst they had so influential a leader; to
the patricians, because their minds were not called away by any external
terror from relieving the evils existing at home. Accordingly, as both
sides arose much more strenuous then ever, Manlius also was present for
the approaching contest. Having summoned the commons to his house, he
holds consultations both by night and day with the leading men amongst
them with respect to effecting a revolution of affairs, being filled
with a much higher degree both of spirit and of resentment than he had
been before. The recent ignominy had lighted up resentment in a mind
unused to affront; it gave him additional courage, that the dictator had
not ventured to the same extent against him, as Quinctius Cincinnatus
had done in the case of Spurius Mælius, and because the dictator had not
only endeavoured to avoid the unpopularity of his imprisonment by
abdicating the dictatorship, but not even the senate could bear up
against it. Elated by these considerations, and at the same time
exasperated, he set about inflaming the minds of the commons, already
sufficiently heated of themselves: "How long," says he, "will you be
ignorant of your own strength, which nature has not wished even the
brutes to be ignorant of? At least count how many you are, and how many
enemies you have. Even if each of you were to attack an individual
antagonist, still I should suppose that you would strive more vigorously
in defence of liberty, than they in defence of tyranny. For as many of
you as have been clients around each single patron, in the same number
will ye be against a single enemy. Only make a show of war; ye shall