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[1] Inter bellorum magnorum aut uixdum finitorum aut imminentium curas intercessit res parua dictu sed quae studiis in magnum certamen excesserit. M. Fundanius et L. Ualerius tribuni plebi ad plebem tulerunt de Oppia lege abroganda. tulerat eam C. Oppius tribunus plebis Q. Fabio Ti. Sempronio consulibus in medio ardore Punici belli, ne qua mulier plus semunciam auri haberet neu uestimento uersicolori uteretur neu iuncto uehiculo in urbe oppidoue aut propius inde mille passus nisi sacrorum publicorum causa ueheretur.
[1] Amid the cares of great wars, either scarcely finished or impending, there intervened a matter small to tell, but one which, through partisanships, had risen into a great contest. Marcus Fundanius and Lucius Valerius, tribunes of the plebs, brought before the plebs a proposal for the Oppian law to be repealed. Gaius Oppius, tribune of the plebs, had carried it, when Quintus Fabius and Tiberius Sempronius were consuls, in the very heat of the Punic War: that no woman should have more than a half‑ounce of gold, nor use a parti‑colored garment, nor ride in a vehicle with a team in the city or any town, or within a thousand paces from there, unless she were being conveyed for the sake of public sacred rites.
Marcus and Publius Junius Brutus, tribunes of the plebs, were defending the Oppian law and said that they would not allow it to be abrogated; many nobles were stepping forth to persuade and to dissuade; the Capitol was being filled with a crowd of men favoring and opposing the law. The matrons could be held within the threshold by no authority, no modesty, no command of their husbands; they were blockading all the streets of the city and the approaches to the forum, begging the men descending to the forum that, with the republic flourishing and the private fortune of all increasing day by day, they would allow the former adornment to be restored to the matrons as well. This throng of women was growing day by day; for they were gathering even from the towns and market-villages.
[2] 'Si in sua quisque nostrum matre familiae, Quirites, ius et maiestatem uiri retinere instituisset, minus cum uniuersis feminis negotii haberemus: nunc domi uicta libertas nostra impotentia muliebri hic quoque in foro obteritur et calcatur, et quia singulas sustinere non potuimus uniuersas horremus. equidem fabulam et fictam rem ducebam esse uirorum omne genus in aliqua insula coniuratione muliebri ab stirpe sublatum esse; ab nullo genere non summum periculum est si coetus et concilia et secretas consultationes esse sinas. atque ego uix statuere apud animum meum possum utrum peior ipsa res an peiore exemplo agatur; quorum alterum ad nos consules reliquosque magistratus, alterum ad uos, Quirites, magis pertinet.
[2] 'If each one of us, Quirites, had resolved to retain, with respect to his own matron of the household, the right and majesty of the husband, we should have less business with women in the aggregate: now our liberty, conquered at home by womanly license, is here too in the forum crushed and trampled, and because we could not withstand them singly, we shudder at them all together. Indeed I used to reckon it a fable and a fictitious tale that every kind of men on some island was from the stock removed by a female conjuration; from no kind is there not the utmost danger, if you allow gatherings and councils and secret consultations. And I can scarcely determine in my mind whether the thing itself is worse or that it is being done with a worse precedent; of which the one more concerns us consuls and the rest of the magistrates, the other more concerns you, Quirites.'
for whether what is brought before you is for the commonwealth or not is your judgment, you who are about to go to the vote. this women’s consternation, whether of their own accord or with you as instigators, M. Fundanius and L. Valerius, has been made, undoubtedly pertaining to the fault of the magistrates; I do not know whether it is more disgraceful to you, tribunes, or to the consuls: to you, if you have now brought women to stir up tribunician seditions; to us, if, as once by the plebs, so now by a secession of the women, laws must be received. for my part, not without a certain blush a little before I came into the forum through the midst of a column of women.
and if a regard for the majesty and modesty of the individual women rather than of all collectively had not restrained me, lest they should seem to have been accosted by a consul, I would have said: "what sort of custom is this, rushing out into public and blockading the streets and accosting other people’s men? could not each of you have asked this very thing of your own at home? or are you more coaxing in public than in private, and toward others’ husbands than your own?"
although not even at home, if modesty were holding matrons within the bounds of what is their own right, was it proper for you to concern yourselves with what laws might here be proposed or abrogated. Our ancestors did not wish women to transact any business, not even private, without a guardian as authorizer, to be in the manus of parents, brothers, husbands: we, if it please the gods, now even allow them to take up the commonwealth and to be mingled almost with the forum and with public assemblies and the comitia. For what else are they now doing through the streets and crossroads than recommending the tribunes’ bill to the plebs, than declaring that a law ought to be abrogated? Give bridles to an unrestrained nature and an untamed animal and hope that they themselves will set a measure to license: unless you set it, this is the least of those things which women, with a resentful spirit, refuse to endure when imposed upon them either by customs or by laws.
[3] Recensete omnia muliebria iura quibus licentiam earum adligauerint maiores uestri per quaeque subiecerint uiris; quibus omnibus constrictas uix tamen continere potestis. quid? si carpere singula et extorquere et exaequari ad extremum uiris patiemini, tolerabiles uobis eas fore creditis?
[3] Recount all the feminine rights by which your ancestors bound their license and by which they also subjected them to men; with all these bonds, though constricted, you can scarcely nevertheless keep them in check. What then? If you will suffer them to carp at the particulars and to extort them one by one, and in the end to be equalized with men, do you believe they will be tolerable to you?
at once
the moment they begin to be equal, they will be superior. But, by Hercules, they refuse that anything new be proposed upon them; they implore not for right but to avert an injury: nay rather, that the law which you received and ordered by your votes, which you have approved by the use of so many years and by experience, that this you repeal— that is, by removing one law you weaken the rest. No law is sufficiently commodious for all: only this is sought, whether it benefits the greater part and, in the sum, profits.
if whatever law privately impedes someone is to be destroyed and demolished,
what will it matter to put laws to the vote before all, which those upon whom they have been carried can soon abrogate?
I wish, however, to hear what it is on account of which the matrons, consternated, have rushed forth into public and can scarcely abstain from the forum and the assembly?
that their parents, husbands, children, brothers
be ransomed from Hannibal as captives?
Far off, and may it always be far off, is such a fortune for the commonwealth; but nevertheless, when it did occur, you denied this to their pious prayers. Yet it is not piety nor solicitude for their own that has assembled them, but religion: they are going to receive the Idaean Mother coming from Pessinus out of Phrygia. What honorable, at least sayable, pretext is put forward for a female sedition?
"so that we may shine with gold and purple," she says, "so that in carriages on feast-days and on non-feast-days, as if triumphing over a law conquered and abrogated and over your suffrages captured and snatched away, we may be borne through the city: let there be no limit to expenses, no limit to luxury."
[4] Saepe me querentem de feminarum, saepe de uirorum nec de priuatorum modo sed etiam magistratuum sumptibus audistis, diuersisque duobus uitiis, auaritia et luxuria, ciuitatem laborare, quae pestes omnia magna imperia euerterunt. haec ego, quo melior laetiorque in dies fortuna rei publicae est, quo magis imperium crescit—et iam in Graeciam Asiamque transcendimus omnibus libidinum inlecebris repletas et regias etiam adtrectamus gazas—, eo plus horreo, ne illae magis res nos ceperint quam nos illas. infesta, mihi credite, signa ab Syracusis inlata sunt huic urbi.
[4] Often you have heard me complaining of the expenditures of women, often of men, and not of private persons only but even of magistrates, and that the commonwealth labors under two diverse vices, avarice and luxury, plagues which have overthrown all great empires. These things I—the better and happier from day to day the fortune of the state is, the more the dominion grows—and already we have crossed into Greece and Asia, lands filled with every allurement of lusts, and we even lay hands on regal treasures—so much the more I shudder, lest those things have taken us rather than we them. Believe me, hostile statues were brought into this city from Syracuse.
Already I hear far too many praising and marveling at the ornaments of Corinth and of Athens,
and laughing at the terracotta antefixes of the Roman gods. I would rather have these gods propitious,
and so I hope they will be, if we allow them to remain in their own seats. Within the memory of our fathers,
by his legate Cineas, Pyrrhus tempted with gifts not only the spirits of men but even of women.
just as before diseases it is necessary that they be known before their remedies,
so desires were born earlier than the laws that would set a measure to them. What
aroused the Licinian law about five hundred iugera, except a vast cupidity of making fields
continuous? What [aroused] the Cincian law concerning gifts and emoluments, except that the plebs had already begun to be tributary
and stipendiary to the senate?
Therefore it is by no means a wonder that neither the Oppian nor any other law was then desired which would set a measure to the expenditures of women, since they did not accept gold and purple when given and proffered unbidden. If now Cineas were to go around the city with those gifts, he would find, standing in public, those who would accept. And I cannot even enter upon the cause or the rationale of certain desires.
For just as the fact that what is permitted to others is not
permitted to you may perhaps have something of nature or of modesty or of indignation, so,
with the dress of all equalized, what does each of you fear lest in herself
it be observed? Indeed, the worst kind of shame is to be ashamed either of parsimony or of poverty;
but the law removes both from you, since that which it is not permitted to have you do not have. “This,” she says, “this very equalization I cannot bear,” the wealthy woman.
"Why am I not seen as distinguished with gold and purple? Why does the poverty of others hide under this appearance of the law, so that they seem to have been going to have, if it were permitted, what they cannot have?" Do you wish to cast this contest upon your wives, Quirites, that the rich should want to have that which no other woman can, and that the poor, lest for this very reason they be despised, stretch themselves beyond their means? lest, once they have begun at the same time to be ashamed of what they ought not, they will not be ashamed of what they ought.
She who can will provide from her own; she who cannot will ask her husband. Wretched that husband—both the one who is prevailed upon and the one who is not—when he sees that what he himself has not given has been given by another. Now, commonly, they solicit other men’s husbands, and, what is more, they petition for a law and for suffrages, and from some they obtain them.
you are exorable against yourself and your estate and your children:
as soon as the law ceases to set a limit to your wife's expenditures, you will never set one. do not suppose, <Quirites,> that the situation will be in the same condition as it was before
a law was carried about this. and it is safer that a wicked man not be accused than
be acquitted, and luxury not stirred would have been more tolerable than it will be now, exasperated by the very chains
like wild beasts, and then let loose.
[5] Post haec tribuni quoque plebi qui se intercessuros professi erant, cum pauca in eandem sententiam adiecissent, tum L. Ualerius pro rogatione ab se promulgata ita disseruit: 'si priuati tantummodo ad suadendum dissuadendumque id quod ab nobis rogatur processissent, ego quoque, cum satis dictum pro utraque parte existimarem, tacitus suffragia uestra expectassem: nunc cum uir clarissimus, consul M. Porcius, non auctoritate solum, quae tacita satis momenti habuisset, sed oratione etiam longa et accurata insectatus sit rogationem nostram, necesse est paucis respondere. qui tamen plura uerba in castigandis matronis quam in rogatione nostra dissuadenda consumpsit, et quidem ut in dubio poneret utrum id quod reprenderet matronae sua sponte an nobis auctoribus fecissent. rem defendam, non nos, in quos iecit magis hoc consul uerbo tenus quam ut re insimularet.
[5] After this, the tribunes of the plebs too, who had declared that they would interpose their veto, when they had added a few words to the same opinion, then L. Valerius, on behalf of the rogation proposed by himself, spoke thus: 'If only private men had come forward to advise for and against that which is asked by us, I too, since I thought enough had been said on either side, would in silence have awaited your votes: now, since a most illustrious man, the consul M. Porcius, not by authority only—which, even unspoken, would have had weight enough—but by a long and careful speech as well has assailed our rogation, it is necessary to reply in a few words. He, however, spent more words in chastising the matrons than in dissuading our rogation, and indeed so as to set in doubt whether that which he censured the matrons had done of their own accord or with us as instigators. I will defend the measure, not us, against whom this consul cast his charges more in word than so as to accuse in fact.
He called it a concourse and a sedition and at times a women’s secession
because the matrons in public had asked you to abrogate a law laid upon themselves during war, in hard times, in peace and with the commonwealth flourishing and blessed. I know that both these and other grand words are collected for the purpose of augmenting the matter, and
we all know that M. Cato as an orator is not only grave but sometimes even truculent, though by temperament he is mild. For what, after all, new have the matrons
done, that, numerous, in a cause pertaining to themselves, they have come forth into public?
already from the beginning, with Romulus reigning, when, the Capitol having been captured by the Sabines, in the middle of the Forum
with the standards brought together battle was being fought, was it not by the intervention of the matrons between the two battle-lines
that the battle was quelled? What? after the kings were driven out, when, with Coriolanus Marcius as leader, the legions of the Volsci
had pitched camp at the fifth milestone, did not the matrons turn back that column by which this city would have been overwhelmed?
and when the city had been captured by the Gauls,
did not the matrons, by the consensus of all, contribute into the public the gold by which the city was ransomed? in the most recent war, lest I repeat ancient things, did they not also, when
money was needed, have the widows’ moneys aid the treasury; and, when even the gods
newly called were being summoned to bring help in doubtful circumstances, the matrons
all set out to the sea to receive the Idaean Mother? the causes, you say, are dissimilar.
Nor is it my purpose to equate the causes: to justify that nothing novel was done is enough. Moreover, that in matters pertaining equally to all men and women no one was amazed that they acted—do we marvel that they acted in a cause pertaining properly to themselves? But what, moreover, did they do?
[6] Uenio nunc ad id de quo agitur. in quo duplex consulis oratio fuit; nam et legem ullam omnino abrogari est indignatus et eam praecipue legem quae luxuriae muliebris coercendae causa lata esset. et illa communis pro legibus uisa consularis oratio est, et haec aduersus luxuriam seuerissimis moribus conueniebat; itaque periculum est, nisi quid in utraque re uani sit docuerimus, ne quis error uobis offundatur.
[6] I come now to that which is at issue. In this the consul’s oration was twofold; for he was indignant both that any law at all should be abrogated, and especially that law which had been enacted for the purpose of coercing feminine luxury. And that consular oration seemed common on behalf of the laws, and this one, against luxury, accorded with the most severe morals; and so there is danger, unless we shall have shown that there is something vain in each matter, lest some error be cast over you.
For I, just as I acknowledge that of those laws which were carried not for some particular time but for the sake of perpetual utility unto eternity, none ought to be abrogated, except such a one as either usage has convicted or some condition of the commonwealth has rendered useless, so I see that the laws which certain seasons have required are, so to speak, mortal and changeable with the times themselves. Those which have been enacted in peace war for the most part abrogates; those in war, peace—just as in the administration of a ship different things are of use in a favorable, different in an adverse storm. Since these are thus distinguished by nature, from which, then, of the two kinds does that law seem to be which we are abrogating?
<num>What—an ancient one? A royal law born at the same time as the city itself
or, what is second, written by the decemvirs created for establishing laws in the
Twelve Tables, without which, since our ancestors did not think the matronal honor
could be preserved, we too should fear lest along with it we abrogate the modesty
and sanctity of women? Who then does not know that that law is new,
passed, with Q. Fabius and Ti. Sempronius as consuls, twenty years ago?
without which, though through so many years matrons have lived with the best morals, what, pray, is the danger lest, if it be abrogated, they spill over into luxury? For if that law <old> either had been passed for this reason, to put an end to womanly libido, it would be to be feared that, abrogated, it would incite it; but as to why it was passed, the time itself will indicate. Hannibal was in Italy, victor at Cannae; already he held Tarentum, already Arpi, already Capua; he seemed about to move his army up to the city of Rome; the allies had defected; we had neither soldiers for a supplement, nor naval allies to maintain the fleet, nor money in the treasury; slaves to whom arms might be given were being bought on the condition that the price for them should be paid to their masters when the war was finished; the publicans had professed that they would undertake to furnish on the same day monies, grain, and the other things which the use of war demanded; we were giving slaves to the oar, in a number fixed from the census, with pay at our expense; we were contributing all the gold and silver from the senators, once that measure had arisen, into the public fund; widows and orphans were bringing their monies into the aerarium; it had been provided by ordinance that we should not have at home more of wrought gold and silver, nor more of stamped (coined) silver and bronze—at such a time were matrons occupied in luxury and adornment, so that the Oppian Law was needed to coerce it, when, because the sacrifice of Ceres had been interrupted with all the matrons in mourning, the senate ordered the mourning to be ended in 30 days?
To whom does it not appear that the want and misery of the state, [and] that because the moneys of all private persons had to be turned to public use, caused that law to be written to last just so long as the cause for writing the law should have lasted? For if whatever cause at that time either the senate decreed or the people ordered ought to be observed in perpetuity, why do we return the monies to private individuals? why do we let out public contracts for ready cash?
[7] Omnes alii ordines, omnes homines mutationem in meliorem statum rei publicae sentient: ad coniuges tantum nostras pacis et tranquillitatis publicae fructus non perueniet? purpura uiri utemur, praetextati in magistratibus, in sacerdotiis, liberi nostri praetextis purpura togis utentur; magistratibus in coloniis municipiisque, hic Romae infimo generi, magistris uicorum, togae praetextae habendae ius permittemus, nec id ut uiui solum habeant [tantum] insigne sed etiam ut cum eo crementur mortui: feminis dumtaxat purpurae usu interdicemus? et cum tibi uiro liceat purpura in uestem stragulam uti, matrem familiae tuam purpureum amiculum habere non sines, et equus tuus speciosius instratus erit quam uxor uestita?
[7] All the other orders, all men will feel a change into a better state of the commonwealth: will the fruits of public peace and tranquillity not reach only our wives? We men will use purple, we as praetextati in magistracies and in priesthoods; our children will use purple-bordered togas; to magistrates in
colonies and municipia, here at Rome even to the lowest rank, to the masters of the vici, we will grant the right of having the toga praetexta, and not only that the living should have [only] this insignia but also that the dead be cremated with it: shall we forbid the use of purple to women alone? And while it is permitted to you as a man to use purple for a coverlet, you will not allow your mother of the family to have a purple mantle, and your horse will be more splendidly caparisoned than your wife is clothed?
but in purple, which is worn down and consumed, I do see an unjust, yet some, ground for stinginess; in
gold, however, in which, apart from the cost of workmanship, no deterioration occurs, what
meanness is there? rather, in it there is a safeguard for both private and public uses,
as you have experienced. he used to say that there would be no emulation among them individually, since none
would have it.
Indeed, by Hercules, there is for all a pain and an indignation, when
they see that to the wives of the allies of the Latin name those ornaments have been granted which have been taken away from themselves,
when they see them distinguished by gold and purple, when those are carried through
the city, while they themselves follow on foot, as though in those women’s cities, not in their own,
the command resided. This could wound the spirits of men: what do you think of the womenfolk,
whom even small things move? Neither magistracies nor priesthoods nor triumphs nor insignia nor gifts or war-spoils
can befall them: elegance and adornment and toilette—these are the insignia of women; in these they rejoice and
glory; this women’s world,
our ancestors called it.
Of course, if you abrogate the Oppian law, it will not be in your discretion to forbid anything of it which the law now forbids: fewer daughters, wives, and even sisters will be in the hand of certain men. The female servitude is never stripped off while their own menfolk are safe, and they themselves detest the liberty which widowhood and bereavement create. They prefer to have their adornment in your discretion rather than in the law’s; and you ought to have them in hand and in tutelage, not in servitude, and to prefer that you be called fathers or husbands rather than masters.
[8] Haec cum contra legem proque lege dicta essent, aliquanto maior frequentia mulierum postero die sese in publicum effudit unoque agmine omnes Brutorum ianuas obsederunt, qui collegarum rogationi intercedebant, nec ante abstiterunt quam remissa intercessio ab tribunis est. nulla deinde dubitatio fuit quin omnes tribus legem abrogarent. uiginti annis post abrogata est quam lata.
[8] When these things had been spoken both against the law and for the law, a considerably larger throng of women on the following day poured themselves into public, and in a single column they besieged all the doors of the Bruti, who were interceding against their colleagues’ proposal, nor did they desist before the intercession was withdrawn by the tribunes. There was then no doubt that all the tribes would abrogate the law. It was abrogated 20 years after it had been passed.
M. Porcius, consul, after the Lex Oppia had been abrogated, immediately
with twenty‑five long ships, of which five were the allies’, set out for the harbor of Luna,
having ordered the same army to assemble there, and, an edict having been sent along the
sea‑coast and ships of every kind having been gathered, setting out from Luna he proclaimed
that they should follow to the Port of the Pyrenees: from there he would go against the enemy
with a numerous fleet. Having sailed past the Ligurian mountains and the Gallic Gulf, they assembled on the day he
had named. Then they came to Rhoda, and the garrison of the Spaniards which was in the fortress
was dislodged by force.
[9] Iam tunc Emporiae duo oppida erant muro diuisa. unum Graeci habebant, a Phocaea, unde et Massilienses, oriundi, alterum Hispani; sed Graecum oppidum in mare expositum totum orbem muri minus quadringentos passus patentem habebat, Hispanis retractior a mari trium milium passuum in circuitu murus erat. tertium genus Romani coloni ab diuo Caesare post deuictos Pompei liberos adiecti.
[9] Already then at Emporiae there were two towns divided by a wall. One the Greeks held, sprung from Phocaea, whence also the Massilienses are descended; the other, the Spaniards. But the Greek town, exposed to the sea, had the whole circuit of its wall extending less than 400 paces, while for the Spaniards, set farther back from the sea, the wall was 3,000 paces in circumference. A third kind were Roman colonists, added by the deified Caesar after Pompey’s children had been vanquished.
now all blended into one body, the Spaniards first, and finally even the Greeks, admitted to Roman citizenship. One who then saw it would marvel, with the open sea on one side, and on the other the Spaniards, so fierce and warlike a nation, set opposite, what it was that protected them. Discipline was the guardian of infirmity, which fear most excellently restrains among the stronger.
they had the part of the wall turned toward the fields excellently fortified, with only one gate set in that direction, whose constant guard was always some one of the magistrates. by night a third part of the citizens kept watch on the walls; and not for custom’s sake only or by statute, but with as much rigor as if an enemy were at the gates, they both kept the watches and went the rounds with care. they admitted no Spaniard into the city; nor did they themselves lightly go out of the city.
to the sea the outlet lay open to all.
the gate facing the Spaniards’ town: they never went out except in numbers, about a third of them—whose watches had been on the walls the night before—would go out.
the reason for going out was this: by commerce with them the Spaniards, inexperienced in the sea, took pleasure in trading; and they themselves wanted to buy the things which from abroad were conveyed by ships and to exact the fruits of the fields.
the desire for this mutual intercourse made it so that the Spanish city lay open to the Greeks. They were also safer for this reason, that they lay under the shade of Roman friendship, which, though with smaller forces than the Massiliots, they cultivated with equal faith. Then too they received the consul and the army courteously and benignly.
Cato, having tarried there a few days while he explored where and how great the enemy forces were, so that not even delay might be sluggish, spent all that time in exercising the soldiers. It chanced to be the time of year when the Spaniards had grain on the threshing floors; and so, with the contractors forbidden to procure grain and sent off to Rome, “war,” he said, “will feed itself.” Setting out from Emporiae, he burns and devastates the enemy’s fields, and fills everything with flight and terror.
[10] Eodem tempore M. Heluio decedenti ex ulteriore Hispania cum praesidio sex milium dato ab Ap. Claudio praetore Celtiberi agmine ingenti ad oppidum Iliturgi occurrunt. uiginti milia armatorum fuisse Ualerius scribit, duodecim milia ex iis caesa, oppidum Iliturgi receptum et puberes omnes interfectos. inde ad castra Catonis Heluius peruenit et, quia tuta iam ab hostibus regio erat, praesidio in ulteriorem Hispaniam remisso Romam est profectus et ob rem feliciter gestam ouans urbem est ingressus.
[10] At the same time, as M. Helvius was departing from Farther Spain with an escort of six thousand, given by Ap. Claudius, praetor, the Celtiberians, with a huge column, met him at the oppidum of Iliturgi. Valerius writes that there were twenty thousand armed men, that twelve thousand of them were cut down, the oppidum of Iliturgi was recovered, and all adults were killed. Thence Helvius reached Cato’s camp and, because the region was now safe from enemies, the escort having been sent back to Farther Spain, he set out for Rome and, on account of the affair successfully conducted, entered the city in an ovation.
of unworked silver
he brought into the treasury 14,732 pounds, and
of coined bigati 17,023, and of Oscensian silver 119,439. The cause for denying him a triumph by the senate was that he had fought under another’s auspices and in another’s province; moreover, he had returned after two years, since, the province having been handed over to his successor Q. Minucius, he had been kept there the following year by a long and grave illness. And so Helvius, entering the city with an ovation, did so only two months before his successor Q.
Minucius should triumph.
[11] In Hispania interim consul haud procul Emporiis castra habebat. eo legati tres ab Ilergetum regulo Bilistage, in quibus unus filius eius erat, uenerunt querentes castella sua oppugnari nec spem ullam esse resistendi nisi praesidium Romanus misisset: tria milia militum satis esse nec hostes, si tanta manus uenisset, mansuros. ad ea consul moueri quidem se uel periculo eorum uel metu dicere, sed sibi nequaquam tantum copiarum esse ut, cum magna uis hostium haud procul absit et quam mox signis conlatis dimicandum sit in dies expectet, diuidendo exercitum minuere tuto uires possit.
[11] Meanwhile in Spain the consul had his camp not far from Emporiae. Thither three legates came from the petty-king of the Ilergetes, Bilistages, one of whom was his son, complaining that their forts were being attacked and that there was no hope at all of resisting unless a Roman garrison were sent: 3,000 soldiers would be sufficient, nor would the enemies remain if so great a force should come. To this the consul said that he was indeed moved either by their peril or by fear, but that he by no means had so great a force that—since a great multitude of enemies was not far off and he expected from day to day that very soon there would have to be fought with standards joined—by dividing the army he could safely lessen his strength.
When the legates heard this, weeping they prostrated themselves at the consul’s knees, begging that he not desert them in such panic‑stricken circumstances: for where, if turned away by the Romans, are they to go? They have no allies, no other hope anywhere on earth. They could have been outside this peril, if they had chosen to depart from their loyalty, if to conspire with the rest.
by no menaces, by no little terrors had they been moved, hoping that they had sufficient resource and aid for themselves in the Romans. If that were none, if it were denied them by the consul, they called gods and men to witness that they, unwilling and compelled, lest they suffer the same things which the Saguntines suffered, would defect, and would perish with the other Spaniards rather than alone.
[12] Et illo quidem die sic sine responso dimissi. consulem nocte quae insecuta est anceps cura agitare: nolle deserere socios, nolle minuere exercitum, quod aut moram sibi ad dimicandum aut in dimicando periculum adferre posset. stat sententia non minuere copias, ne quid interim hostes inferant ignominiae; sociis spem pro re ostentandam censet: saepe uana pro ueris, maxime in bello, ualuisse et credentem se aliquid auxilii habere, perinde atque haberet, ipsa fiducia et sperando atque audendo seruatum.
[12] And on that day indeed they were thus dismissed without an answer. the consul, in the night which followed was agitated by an ambivalent concern: he did not wish to desert the allies, he did not wish to diminish the army, because that could either bring him delay in fighting or, in the fighting, bring danger. the decision stands not to diminish the forces, lest meanwhile the enemy inflict ignominy; he judges that to the allies hope suited to the case should be displayed: often empty things in place of true things, especially in war, have prevailed; and one who believes he has some aid, just as though he had it, by confidence itself and by hoping and by daring has been preserved.
on the next day he replies to the legates that, although he fears lest by lending to others these his forces he diminish his own strength, nevertheless he has regard more for their season and danger than for his own. he orders it to be notified to a third part of the soldiers from all the cohorts that they should quickly cook the food which they are to put on the ships, and he ordered the ships to be made ready for the third day. he bids two from the legates of Bilistages and the Ilergetes to announce these things; the son of the regulus he keeps with himself by courteous entertainment and gifts. the legates did not set out before they saw the soldiers put aboard the ships: announcing this now as beyond doubt, they filled not their own people only but even the enemies with the report of Roman aid approaching.
[13] Consul ubi satis quod in speciem fuit ostentatum est, reuocari ex nauibus milites iubet: ipse, cum iam id tempus anni appeteret quo geri res possent, castra hiberna tria milia passuum ab Emporiis posuit. inde per occasiones nunc hac parte, nunc illa modico praesidio castris relicto praedatum milites in hostium agros ducebat; nocte ferme proficiscebantur ut et quam longissime a castris procederent et inopinantes opprimerent. et exercebat ea res nouos milites et hostium magna uis excipiebatur, nec iam egredi extra munimenta castellorum audebant.
[13] When the consul judged that enough had been displayed for appearance, he orders the soldiers to be called back from the ships: he himself, since now that season of the year was approaching in which operations could be conducted, he pitched winter quarters three miles from Emporiae. From there, as occasions offered, now on this side, now on that, with a modest garrison left in the camp, he was leading the soldiers to plunder into the enemy’s fields; they set out almost always by night, so that they might both advance as far as possible from the camp and overwhelm the unsuspecting. And this practice was training the new soldiers, and a great force of the enemy was being intercepted, nor did they now dare to go out beyond the fortifications of their forts.
when he had quite sufficiently tested the spirits of both his own men and the enemy, he ordered the tribunes and prefects and all the cavalrymen and centurions to be called together. ‘The time,’ he said, ‘which you have often desired has come, when there will be for you the power of exhibiting your virtue/valor. Until now you have served more in the manner of freebooters than of fighting men; now, in a just battle, as enemies with enemies you will join hands in combat; it will be permitted not to lay waste fields from there but to drain the wealth of cities.’
our fathers, when
<in> Spain the Carthaginians had both commanders [there] and armies, while they themselves had not a single soldier in it, nevertheless wished this to be added in the treaty: that the river Hiberus should be the boundary of their imperium. now, when two praetors, when the consul,
when three Roman armies hold Spain, and for nearly ten years no Carthaginian has been in these provinces, our imperium on this side of the Hiberus has been lost. this you ought to recover by arms and by virtue, and you should compel the nation rebelling, waging war more rashly than steadfastly, to accept again the yoke which it cast off.' in this manner having especially exhorted them, he announces that he will lead them by night to the enemy’s camp.
[14] Nocte media, cum auspicio operam dedisset, profectus ut locum quem uellet priusquam hostes sentirent caperet, praeter castra hostium circumducit et prima luce acie instructa sub ipsum uallum tres cohortes mittit. mirantes barbari ab tergo apparuisse Romanum, discurrere <et> ipsi ad arma. interim consul apud suos 'nusquam nisi in uirtute spes est, milites', inquit 'et ego sedulo ne esset feci.
[14] In the middle of the night, after he had given attention to the auspices, he set out in order to seize, before the enemy sensed it, whatever position he wished; he leads [his force] around past the enemy camp, and at first light, with the battle line drawn up, he sends three cohorts right up under the rampart itself. The barbarians, marveling that the Roman had appeared at their rear, run about and they themselves to arms. Meanwhile the consul among his own men says, 'Nowhere except in valor is there hope, soldiers, and I have diligently seen to it that there is not.'
Between our camp and us the enemies are in the middle, and behind the enemies there is open field. What is most beautiful is likewise safest: to have hope placed in virtue'. After these words he orders the cohorts to be withdrawn, so that he might draw the barbarians out by the simulation of flight. That which he had believed came to pass.
thinking that the Romans had grown frightened and were yielding, they burst out of the gate and fill with armed men as much ground as had been left between their own camp and the enemy’s battle line.
while they are in a flutter over forming the battle line, the consul, with everything now prepared and arranged, attacks them in disorder.
he led the cavalry first into the fight from both wings; but on the right, at once beaten and retreating in alarm, they even brought terror upon the infantry.
When the consul saw this, he orders two chosen cohorts to be led around from the enemy’s right flank and to show themselves from the rear before the battle-lines of the foot should clash.
That terror thrown before the enemy equalized the matter, which had been inclined by fear of the Roman cavalry; nevertheless the infantry and cavalry of the right wing were so disturbed that the consul himself with his own hand seized some and turned them against the enemy.
Thus, for as long as the fighting was with missiles, the battle was in the balance, and now on the right side, whence panic and flight had begun, the Roman scarcely held his ground; on the left wing and from the front the barbarians were being pressed, and, with the cohorts pressing on from the rear, the panic-stricken kept looking back.
[15] Fessos iam suos consul ex secunda acie subsidiariis cohortibus in pugnam inductis accendit. noua acies facta. integri recentibus telis fatigatos adorti hostes primum acri impetu uelut cuneo perculerunt, deinde dissipatos in fugam auerterunt; effuso per agros cursu castra repetebantur.
[15] The consul, when his men were now weary, enflamed them by leading into the fight from the second line the subsidiary cohorts. A new battle-line was formed. The fresh troops, with fresh missiles, having attacked the wearied enemies, first with a sharp impetus, as if by a wedge, they overwhelmed them, then, once scattered, they turned them to flight; with a headlong run across the fields, they were making for their camp again.
When Cato saw that everything was filled with flight,
he himself rides back to the second legion, which had been placed in reserve,
and orders the standards to be borne before him and, at full step, to advance to assault the enemy camp.
If anyone ran forward too eagerly out of the ranks, he himself, riding among them,
strikes with a spear and orders the tribunes and centurions to chastise them. Now the camp
was being stormed, and by stones and stakes and every kind of missile
the Romans were being driven back from the rampart.
when the newly-brought-up legion was brought up, then the spirit of the assailants rose, and the enemies fought more hostilely before the rampart. the consul surveys everything with his eyes, so that he may break in at that part where resistance is with the least force. at the left gate he sees them few in number: there he leads in the principes and the hastati of the second legion.
did not withstand their assault the outpost which had been set at the gate; and the rest, after they see the enemy within the rampart, themselves driven from the camp, throw away their standards and weapons. They are cut down at the gates, clinging in their own column in the narrow. The men of the Second cut the enemy’s backs, the rest plunder the camp.
[16] Tria eo die laudabilia fecisse putatur: unum, quod circumducto exercitu procul nauibus suis castrisque, ubi spem <nusquam> nisi in uirtute haberent, inter medios hostes proelium commisit; alterum, quod cohortes ab tergo hostibus obiecit; tertium, quod secundam legionem ceteris omnibus effusis ad sequendos hostes pleno gradu sub signis compositam instructamque subire ad portam castrorum iussit. nihil deinde a uictoria cessatum. cum receptui signo dato suos spoliis onustos in castra reduxisset, paucis horis noctis ad quietem datis ad praedandum in agros duxit: effusius, ut sparsis hostibus fuga, praedati sunt.
[16] He is thought on that day to have done three laudable things: one, that, after leading the army around far from their ships and camp, where they had hope nowhere except in valor, he joined battle in the midst of the enemies; a second, that he set cohorts at the enemies’ rear; a third, that, when all the others had streamed out to pursue the enemies, he ordered the second legion, at full pace under the standards, composed and drawn up, to move up to the gate of the camp. Then there was no pause after the victory. When, the signal for recall having been given, he had led his men, laden with spoils, back into the camp, after granting a few hours of the night for rest he led them out to plunder in the fields: they plundered more profusely, since the enemies were scattered in flight.
this development no less than the battle of the day before, adverse, drove the Emporitan Spaniards and their neighbors into surrender. Many also from other communities, who had taken refuge at Emporiae, surrendered themselves; all of whom, addressed kindly and cared for with wine and food, he sent home. At once he moved camp from there; and wherever the column advanced, envoys of those surrendering their communities met him, and when he came to Tarraco already all Spain on this side of the Hiberus was thoroughly subdued, and captives—both Romans and of the allies and of the Latin name—who had been overwhelmed by various misfortunes in Spain were being brought back by the barbarians as a gift to the consul.
then a rumor is spread abroad that the consul would lead the army into Turdetania, and it was falsely reported that he had even ‘set out’ toward the remote mountaineers. At this empty rumor, without any author, seven strongholds of the Bergistani community defected; them the consul, upon leading the army there, reduced into his power without a battle worth mentioning. Not long after, these same people, when the consul had returned to Tarraco, defected before any advance was made from there.
[17] Interim P. Manlius praetor exercitu uetere a Q. Minucio, cui successerat, accepto, adiuncto et Ap. Claudi Neronis ex ulteriore Hispania uetere item exercitu, in Turdetaniam proficiscitur. omnium Hispanorum maxime imbelles habentur Turdetani; freti tamen multitudine sua obuiam ierunt agmini Romano. eques immissus turbauit extemplo aciem eorum.
[17] Meanwhile P. Manlius, the praetor, after receiving the old army from Q. Minucius, whom he had succeeded,
and, the likewise old army of Ap. Claudius Nero from Further Spain having been joined, sets out into Turdetania.
Of all the Spaniards the Turdetani are held the least warlike; yet, relying on their multitude, they went to meet
the Roman column. The cavalry, sent in, at once threw their line of battle into confusion.
the infantry
battle was scarcely any contest at all: the veteran soldiers, experienced in enemies
and in war, made the fight not at all doubtful. Yet by that battle it was not brought to an end:
the Turduli hire ten thousand Celtiberians for a wage and with alien arms
were preparing war. Meanwhile the consul, struck by the rebellion of the Bergistani, thinking that the other
communities also would do the same when occasion offered, deprives all the Spaniards on this side of the Ebro of their arms;
a measure they took so grievously that many inflicted death upon themselves—fierce stock,
thinking that there is no life without arms.
When this was reported back to the consul, he ordered the senators of all the cities to be summoned to him, and said to them: 'It concerns not so much our interests as yours that you do not rebel, since this has always up to now been effected with greater harm to the Spaniards than toil for the Roman army. To prevent this from happening, I think it can be guarded against in only one way: if it is brought about that you cannot rebel. I wish to achieve this by the most gentle way possible.'
'you also aid me with counsel in this matter: none more willingly will I follow than that which you yourselves shall have brought forward.' As they were silent, he said that he gave them a space of a few days for deliberation. When, having been called back, they had been silent also in a second council, with the walls of all torn down in one day, he set out to those who were not yet obeying, and, as he came into each region, he received into his dominion all the peoples who dwelt around. Segestica only, a grave and opulent city, he took with siege-sheds and mantelets.
[18] Eo maiorem habebat difficultatem in subigendis hostibus quam qui primi uenerant in Hispaniam, quod ad illos taedio imperii Carthaginiensium Hispani deficiebant, huic ex usurpata libertate in seruitutem uelut adserendi erant; et ita mota omnia accepit ut alii in armis essent, alii obsidione ad defectionem cogerentur nec, nisi in tempore subuentum foret, ultra sustentaturi fuerint. sed in consule ea uis animi atque ingenii fuit ut omnia maxima minimaque per se adiret atque ageret, nec cogitaret modo imperaretque quae in rem essent sed pleraque ipse per se transigeret, nec in quemquam omnium grauius seueriusque quam in semet ipsum imperium exerceret, parsimonia et uigiliis et labore cum ultimis militum certaret, nec quicquam in exercitu suo praecipui praeter honorem atque imperium haberet.
[18] For that reason he had a greater difficulty in subjugating the enemies than those who first had come into Hispania, because to them the Spaniards were defecting out of weariness of the imperium of the Carthaginians, whereas to this man, from a usurped liberty, they were, as it were, to be adjudged into servitude; and he found everything so stirred up that some were in arms, others were being forced by siege into defection, nor, unless help were brought in time, would they have been able to hold out any longer. But in the consul there was such a force of spirit and of natural talent that he would approach and do everything, greatest and least, in person, and he would not only think and command the things that were to the advantage, but would himself bring most things to completion in person, nor did he exercise authority more weightily and more severely over anyone of all than over himself; in parsimony and vigils and labor he would vie with the lowest of the soldiers, and he had nothing preeminent in his army except honor and command.
[19] Difficilius bellum in Turdetania praetori P. Manlio Celti-.1 beri mercede exciti ab hostibus, sicut ante dictum est, faciebant; itaque eo consul accersitus litteris praetoris legiones duxit. ubi eo uenit, castra separatim Celtiberi et Turdetani habebant. cum Turdetanis extemplo leuia proelia incursantes in stationes eorum Romani facere semperque uictores ex quamuis temere coepto certamine abire.
[19] The war in Turdetania was more difficult for the praetor Publius Manlius; the Celtiberians, hired for pay by the enemies, as was said before, were making it so; and so the consul, summoned thither by the praetor’s letters, led the legions. When he came there, the Celtiberians and the Turdetani were holding their camps separately. With the Turdetani, at once the Romans, making incursions against their stations, would wage light skirmishes, and would always depart victors from a contest however rashly begun.
The consul orders the military tribunes to go to the Celtiberians for a parley and to carry to them a choice among three conditions: first, if they should wish to pass over to the Romans and receive double the stipend than what they had bargained for from the Turdetani; second, if they should go home, with public faith given, that the fact that they had joined themselves to the enemies of the Romans would be no cause of harm; third, if war by all means pleases, let them fix a day and a place where they may decide the matter with him by arms. From the Celtiberians a day was asked for deliberation. A council, with the Turdetani mingled in, was held with great tumult; therefore all the less could anything be decided.
while it was uncertain whether there was war or peace with the Celtiberians, nevertheless the Romans were carrying supplies from the fields and forts of the enemy just as in peace, often ten at a time entering their fortifications, as if by a common pact of commerce, under private truces. when the consul cannot lure the enemy to a fight, first he leads under the standards several unencumbered cohorts to plunder into the territory of an untouched region; then, having heard at Seguntia that the Celtiberians, all of them, had left their packs and baggage behind, he proceeds to lead thither to assault. after they are moved by nothing, with pay disbursed not only to his own soldiers but also to the praetor’s, and with the whole army left in the praetor’s camp, he himself with seven cohorts returned to the Hiberus.
[20] Ea tam exigua manu oppida aliquot cepit. defecere ad eum Sedetani Ausetani Suessetani. Lacetanos, deuiam et siluestrem gentem, cum insita feritas continebat in armis, tum conscientia, dum consul exercitusque Turdulo bello esset occupatus, depopulatorum subitis incursionibus sociorum.
[20] With so small a detachment he captured several towns. The Sedetani, Ausetani, and Suessetani defected to him. The Lacetani, a remote and sylvan people, were kept under arms both by innate ferocity and by the consciousness that, while the consul and the army were occupied with the Turdulian war, they had ravaged the allies by sudden incursions.
there
leaving a station of chosen cohorts, he gave orders to them not to move from that place before
he himself had come to them; he leads the rest of the forces around to the farther part
of the city. Of all the auxiliaries he had the greatest number of Suessetan youth:
he orders these to go up to attack the wall. When the Lacetani recognized
their arms and standards, mindful how often they had leapt about with impunity in their
territory, as often as they had, with standards joined, routed and put them to flight,
with the gate suddenly thrown open, all together they burst out against them.
Hardly did they endure their shouting,
much less the assault of the Suessetani. And after the consul, just as he had supposed it would happen, also saw it come to pass,
spurring on his horse he rides beneath the enemy’s wall to the cohorts,
and, catching them up—since all had poured out to pursue the Suessetani—by a quarter where there was silence and solitude he leads them into the city,
and he seized everything before the Lacetani could recover themselves.
Soon he received those very men, having nothing except their arms, into surrender.
[21] Confestim inde uictor ad Bergium castrum ducit. receptaculum id maxime praedonum erat et inde incursiones in agros pacatos prouinciae eius fiebant. transfugit inde ad consulem princeps Bergistanus et purgare se ac populares coepit: non esse in manu ipsis rem publicam; praedones receptos totum suae potestatis id castrum fecisse.
[21] Immediately from there the victor leads to the stronghold of Bergium. That was chiefly a receptacle of brigands, and from there incursions were being made into the pacified fields of that province. From there a Bergistan chieftain deserts to the consul and begins to purge himself and his fellow-countrymen: that the republic was not in their hands; that brigands, once received, had made that fortress wholly subject to their own power.
the consul ordered him to return home with some plausible fabricated reason why he had been absent: when he should see that he had come up to the walls and that the brigands were intent on defending the ramparts, then to remember to seize the citadel with the men of his own faction. It was done as he had prescribed; suddenly a double-sided terror encompassed the barbarians—on this side the Romans climbing the walls, on that side the citadel taken. Having gotten possession of this place, the consul ordered those who had held the citadel to be free, together with their kinsmen, and to have their own property; he commanded the quaestor to sell the rest of the Bergistani, and he exacted punishment from the brigands.
[22] Eadem aestate alter consul L. Ualerius Flaccus in Gallia cum Boiorum manu propter Litanam siluam signis conlatis secundo proelio conflixit. octo milia Gallorum caesa traduntur; ceteri omisso bello in uicos suos atque agros dilapsi. consul reliquum aestatis circa Padum Placentiae et Cremonae exercitum habuit restituitque quae in iis oppidis bello diruta fuerant.
[22] In the same summer the other consul, L. Valerius Flaccus, in Gaul joined battle with the force of the Boii near the Litana forest and fought with success. Eight thousand Gauls are reported to have been cut down; the rest, the war laid aside, scattered to their villages and fields. The consul kept the army for the remainder of the summer around the Po at Placentia and Cremona, and restored what in those towns had been demolished by war.
while this was the state of affairs in Italy and in Spain, T. Quinctius in Greece had so conducted the winter-quarters that, the Aetolians excepted—who had received prizes not up to the hope of victory, nor could prolonged quiet please them— all Greece at once, enjoying the goods of peace and liberty, rejoiced excellently in its condition; and it marveled not more at the valor of the Roman leader in war than, in victory, at his temperance, justice, and moderation. a senatorial decree, by which war had been decreed against Nabis the Lacedaemonian, is brought. when this was read, Quinctius proclaims an assembly at Corinth for a set day, with embassies of all the allied cities; and when from every side the leading men had come together in numbers—so arranged that not even the Aetolians were absent—he used such an oration: 'the war against Philip was carried on by Romans and Greeks not so much with a common spirit and counsel, as that each had their own causes of war. for he had violated the friendship of the Romans—now by the Carthaginians aiding their enemies, now by assaulting our allies—and toward you he was such that, for us, even if we were to forget our own injuries, your injuries would have been a cause of war worthy enough.'
Today’s consultation depends wholly on you. For I refer
to you whether you wish to tolerate Argos—occupied, as you yourselves know, by Nabis—to be under
his dominion, or judge it equitable that the most noble and most ancient
city, situated in the midst of Greece, be reclaimed into liberty and be in the same status as
the other cities of the Peloponnese and of Greece. This consultation, as you see, is wholly about a
matter pertaining to you: it touches the Romans in nothing, except insofar as, in a liberated
Greece, the servitude of a single city does not allow the glory to be either full or integral.
[23] Post orationem Romani imperatoris percenseri aliorum sententiae coeptae sunt. cum legatus Atheniensium quantum poterat gratiis agendis Romanorum in Graeciam merita extulisset—imploratos [auxilium] aduersus Philippum tulisse opem, non rogatos ultro aduersus tyrannum Nabim offerre auxilium—indignatusque esset haec tanta merita sermonibus tamen aliquorum carpi futura calumniantium cum fateri potius praeteritorum gratiam deberent, apparebat incessi Aetolos. igitur Alexander princeps gentis, inuectus primum in Athenienses, libertatis quondam duces et auctores, adsentationis propriae gratia communem causam prodentes, questus deinde [est] Achaeos, Philippi quondam milites, ad postremum inclinata fortuna eius transfugas, et Corinthum recepisse et id agere ut Argos habeant, Aetolos, primos hostes Philippi, semper socios Romanorum, pactos in foedere suas urbes agrosque fore deuicto Philippo fraudari Echino et Pharsalo, insimulauit fraudis Romanos quod uano titulo libertatis ostentato Chalcidem et Demetriadem praesidiis tenerent, qui Philippo cunctanti deducere inde praesidia obicere semper soliti sint, nunquam donec Demetrias Chalcisque et Corinthus tenerentur liberam Graeciam fore, postremo quia manendi in Graecia retinendique exercitus Argos et Nabim causam facerent.
[23] After the oration of the Roman commander, the opinions of the others began to be canvassed. When the envoy of the Athenians had extolled, as much as he could, the Romans’ merits in Greece—when implored for [help] against Philip they brought aid, unasked they of their own accord offered help against the tyrant Nabis—and was indignant that these so great services would nevertheless be torn to pieces by the speeches of certain calumniators, whereas they ought rather to acknowledge a debt of gratitude for past services, it was apparent that the Aetolians were being assailed. Accordingly Alexander, chieftain of the nation, first poured invective upon the Athenians, once leaders and authors of liberty, who, for the sake of their own adulation, were betraying the common cause; then he complained that the Achaeans—once Philip’s soldiers, and at the last, when his fortune had declined, defectors—had both received Corinth and were striving to have Argos; that the Aetolians, the first enemies of Philip, ever allies of the Romans, having stipulated in the treaty that their cities and fields would be theirs upon Philip’s defeat, were being defrauded of Echinus and Pharsalus; he accused the Romans of fraud because, with the empty title of liberty ostentatiously displayed, they held Chalcis and Demetrias with garrisons, though they were always wont to upbraid Philip when he delayed to withdraw his garrisons from there—Greece, he said, would never be free so long as Demetrias and Chalcis and Corinth were held—finally, because they were making Argos and Nabis a pretext for remaining in Greece and retaining their army.
[24] Haec uaniloquentia primum Aristaenum praetorem Achaeorum excitauit. 'ne istuc' inquit 'Iuppiter optimus maximus sirit Iunoque regina cuius in tutela Argi sunt, ut illa ciuitas inter tyrannum Lacedaemonium et latrones Aetolos praemium sit posita in eo discrimine ut miserius a uobis recipiatur quam ab illo capta est. mare interiectum ab istis praedonibus non tuetur nos, T. Quincti: quid si in media Peloponneso arcem sibi fecerint futurum nobis est?
[24] This vain-babbling first roused Aristaenus, praetor of the Achaeans. 'May not that be allowed,' he said, 'by Jupiter Best and Greatest and by Queen Juno, in whose tutelage Argos is, that that city be set as a prize between the Lacedaemonian tyrant and the Aetolian brigands, placed in such a crisis that it be recovered by you more wretchedly than it was captured by him. The sea interposed does not protect us from those pirates, T. Quincti: what, if they should make for themselves a citadel in the midst of the Peloponnese, will become of us?
they have only the tongue of the Greeks, as they have the appearance of men: they live with customs and rites more savage than any barbarians, nay than monstrous beasts.
and so we ask you, Romans, both that you recover Argos from Nabis and that you so constitute the affairs of Greece that you leave these parts sufficiently pacified also from the latrociny of the Aetolians.'
the Roman said that, with all on every side reproaching the Aetolians, he would have answered them, had he not seen all so incensed against them that they ought rather to be soothed than provoked.
accordingly, he said he would be content to report the opinion which existed about the Romans and the Aetolians, and what should please regarding the war against Nabis—if he did not restore Argos to the Achaeans.
[25] Tribunis militum ut exercitum ab Elatia arcesserent imperauit. per eosdem dies et Antiochi legatis de societate agentibus respondit nihil se absentibus decem legatis sententiae habere: Romam eundum ad senatum iis esse. ipse copias adductas ab Elatia ducere Argos pergit; atque ei circa Cleonas Aristaenus praetor cum decem milibus Achaeorum, equitibus mille occurrit, et haud procul inde iunctis exercitibus posuerunt castra.
[25] He ordered the military tribunes to summon the army from Elatia. In those same days he also replied to the legates of Antiochus, who were negotiating about an alliance, that with the ten commissioners absent he had no opinion to pronounce: they had to go to Rome to the senate. He himself proceeds to lead to Argos the forces brought from Elatia; and near Cleonae the praetor Aristaenus met him with 10,000 Achaeans and 1,000 horsemen, and not far from there, after the armies had been joined, they pitched camp.
On the next day they descended into the plain of the Argives and seize a place for a camp about four miles from Argos. The commander of the Laconians’ garrison was Pythagoras, likewise the tyrant’s son-in-law and the brother of his wife, who, upon the approach of the Romans, both citadels—for Argos has two—and other places which were either advantageous or suspect he strengthened with strong garrisons; but while doing these things he could by no means conceal the panic injected by the arrival of the Romans. And to the external terror there was added also an internal sedition.
Damocles was an Argive, a young man of greater spirit than counsel, who at first, an oath having been interposed, after conferring with suitable men about expelling the garrison, while he was eager to add forces to the conspiracy, proved a too incautious appraiser of good faith. While he was conversing with his own men, when a bodyguard sent by the prefect was summoning him, he perceived that the plan had been betrayed, and he urged the conspirators who were present that, rather than die dragged off, they should take up arms with him. And so with a few he proceeds to go into the forum, shouting that those who wanted the commonwealth safe should follow him, the author and leader of liberty.
it scarcely moved anyone, because they perceived nowhere any near hope, much less sufficiently firm protection. While he was shouting these things, the Lacedaemonians, having surrounded him, killed him with his followers. Then certain men and others were apprehended; of these several were slain, a few cast into custody; others, on the next night, having been let down by ropes over the wall, fled for refuge to the Romans.
[26] Quinctius adfirmantibus iis, si ad portas exercitus Romanus fuisset, non sine effectu motum eum futurum fuisse et, si propius castra admouerentur, non quieturos Argiuos, misit expeditos pedites equitesque, qui circa Cylarabim—gymnasium id est minus trecentos passus ab urbe—cum erumpentibus a porta Lacedaemoniis proelium commiserunt atque eos haud magno certamine compulerunt in urbem. et castra eo ipso loco ubi pugnatum erat imperator Romanus posuit; diem inde unum in speculis fuit, si quid noui motus oreretur. postquam oppressam metu ciuitatem uidit, aduocat consilium de oppugnandis Argis.
[26] Quinctius, when they affirmed that, if the Roman army had been at the gates, his agitation would not have been without effect, and that, if the camp were brought nearer, the Argives would not keep quiet, sent unencumbered infantry and cavalry, who around Cylarabis—a gymnasium, that is, less than 300 paces from the city—engaged in battle with the Lacedaemonians bursting out from the gate and, with no great struggle, drove them into the city. And in that very place where it had been fought the Roman commander pitched camp; then for one day he kept watch, in case any new movement should arise. After he saw the community pressed down by fear, he calls a council about the assaulting of Argos.
The opinion of all the princes of Greece, except Aristaenus, was the same: since the cause of the war was no other, from there most especially the war should be begun. This by no means pleased Quinctius, and he heard Aristaenus, discoursing against the consensus of all, with no doubtful approbation; and he himself added that, since a war had been undertaken on behalf of the Argives against the tyrant, what could be less congruent than that, the enemy being let go, Argos should be attacked? For his part, he would strike at the head of the war—Lacedaemon and the tyrant.
and,
with the council dismissed, he sent out unencumbered cohorts to forage for grain. Whatever was ripe
around was reaped and carried in; the green, lest the enemies soon have it, was trampled down
and ruined. Then he moved the camp, and, Mount Parthenius being crossed, past
Tegea, on the third day he pitched camp at Caryas.
There, before he entered the enemy’s territory, he awaited the allies’ auxiliaries. There came Macedonians from Philip, 1,500, and 400 Thessalian cavalry. And now it was not the auxiliaries—of which there was abundance—but the provisions requisitioned from the neighboring cities that were delaying the Roman.
Naval forces too in great numbers were assembling: already from Leucas L. Quinctius had come with forty ships, already the Rhodians’ eighteen decked ships, already King Eumenes was around the Cyclades islands with ten decked ships, thirty lembi, and other craft of smaller form mixed in. Very many exiles also of the Lacedaemonians themselves, driven out by the injustice of tyrants, with the hope of recovering their fatherland, gathered into the Roman camp; moreover there had already been many over several generations, from the time when tyrants held Lacedaemon, one set expelled by another. The chief of the exiles was Agesipolis, to whom by the right of his race the kingship at Lacedaemon belonged, driven out as an infant by the tyrant Lycurgus after the death of Cleomenes, who was the first tyrant in Lacedaemon.
[27] Cum terra marique tantum belli circumstaret tyrannum et prope nulla spes esset uere suas hostiumque aestimanti uires, non tamen omisit bellum sed et a Creta mille delectos iuuentutis eorum exciuit, cum mille iam haberet, et tria milia mercennariorum militum, decem milia popularium cum castellanis agrestibus in armis habuit et fossa ualloque urbem communiuit; et ne quid intestini motus oreretur, metu et acerbitate poenarum tenebat animos, quoniam ut saluum uellent tyrannum sperare non poterat. cum suspectos quosdam ciuium haberet, eductis in campum omnibus copiis— Dromon ipsi uocant—positis armis ad contionem uocari iubet Lacedaemonios atque eorum contioni satellites armatos circumdedit. et pauca praefatus cur sibi omnia timenti cauentique ignoscendum in tali tempore foret, et ipsorum referre si quos suspectos status praesens rerum faceret prohiberi potius ne quid moliri possint quam puniri molientes; itaque quosdam se in custodia habiturum donec ea quae instet tempestas praetereat: hostibus repulsis—a quibus, si modo proditio intestina satis caueatur, minus periculi esse- extemplo eos emissurum; sub haec citari nomina octoginta ferme principum iuuentutis iussit atque eos, ut quisque ad nomen responderat, in custodiam tradidit: nocte insequenti omnes interfecti.
[27] When so great a war hemmed the tyrant in by land and by sea, and there was almost no hope for one truly estimating his own and the enemies’ forces, nevertheless he did not abandon the war, but both summoned from Crete a thousand picked youths of theirs, when he already had a thousand, and he had under arms three thousand mercenary soldiers, ten thousand of the commons together with rural castellans; and he fortified the city with ditch and rampart; and, lest any internal disturbance arise, he held minds in check by fear and the harshness of punishments, since he could not hope that they would wish the tyrant safe. When he held certain citizens suspect, having led out into the field all the forces—what they themselves call the Dromon—he orders the Lacedaemonians, with their arms set down, to be called to an assembly, and he surrounded their assembly with armed bodyguards. And, after a few words by way of preface as to why pardon ought to be granted at such a time to a man fearing everything and taking precautions, and that it concerned them that, if the present condition of affairs made any persons suspect, they be prevented rather, so that they can contrive nothing, than punished when contriving; accordingly, that he would keep certain men in custody until the pressing storm should pass: once the enemies were repulsed—from whom, if only internal treachery were sufficiently guarded against, there would be less danger—he would at once dismiss them. After this he ordered the names of nearly eighty of the leaders of the youth to be called, and them, as each answered to his name, he handed over to custody: on the following night all were killed.
Then certain of the Helots—these are from of old the castellans, a rustic race—having been accused of wanting to defect, driven under beatings through all the villages, were put to death. By this terror the minds of the multitude were stupefied from every attempt at new counsels. He kept his forces within the fortifications, not deeming himself a match if he should wish to fight in pitched battle, and fearing to leave the city with the minds of all so suspended and uncertain.
[28] Quinctius satis iam omnibus paratis profectus ab statiuis die altero ad Sellasiam super Oenunta fluuium peruenit, quo in loco Antigonus Macedonum rex cum Cleomene Lacedaemoniorum tyranno signis conlatis dimicasse dicebatur. inde cum audisset descensum difficilis et artae uiae esse, breui per montes circuitu praemissis qui munirent uiam, lato satis et patenti limite ad Eurotam amnem, sub ipsis prope fluentem moenibus, peruenit. ubi castra metantes Romanos Quinctiumque ipsum cum equitibus atque expeditis praegressum auxiliares tyranni adorti in terrorem ac tumultum coniecerunt nihil tale expectantes quia nemo iis obuius toto itinere fuerat ac ueluti pacato agro transierant.
[28] Quinctius, now that all was sufficiently prepared, set out from his standing-camp, and on the second day came to Sellasia, above the river Oenus, in which place Antigonus, king of the Macedonians, was said to have fought a pitched battle with Cleomenes, the tyrant of the Lacedaemonians. Thence, when he had heard that the descent was difficult and the road narrow, by a short circuit through the mountains, having sent forward men to clear/secure the way, he reached by a track broad enough and open to the river Eurotas, which flows close under the very walls. There, while the Romans were marking out their camp and Quinctius himself had gone on ahead with the horse and the light-armed, the tyrant’s auxiliaries attacked and threw them into terror and tumult, expecting nothing of the sort, because no one had met them on the whole march and they had passed as if through a pacified country.
for some time, the horsemen calling for the foot-soldiers, the foot-soldiers for the horsemen,
since each had very little confidence in himself, there was panic;
at length the standards of the legions arrived, and, when the cohorts of the vanguard
had been led into battle, those who just now had been a terror were driven, panic-stricken, into the city.
The Romans, when they had withdrawn from the wall just so far as to be outside missile-shot,
stood for a little with their battle-line drawn up; after no one of the enemy
came out to meet them, they returned to camp. On the next day Quinctius goes on to lead his arrayed forces
near the river past the city, under the very foothills of Mount Menelaus: the legionary cohorts went first,
the light-armed and the horsemen closed the column.
Nabis had within the wall mercenary soldiers drawn up and ready under the standards, in whom all confidence was placed, so that he might attack the enemy from the rear. After the rear of the column had passed by, then from the town, with the same tumult with which they had burst out the day before, they burst out in several places at once. Ap. Claudius was bringing up the column; who, in view of what was going to happen, lest it occur unexpectedly, with the minds of his men prepared, immediately turned the standards and wheeled the whole column against the enemy.
and so,
as if straight battle-lines had clashed, there was for some time a regular battle. at length
the soldiers of Nabis inclined to flight; which would have been less perilous and panic-stricken if
the Achaeans, knowledgeable of the terrain, had not pressed on. they both wrought an enormous slaughter and
stripped most of those scattered everywhere in flight of their arms.
Quinctius pitched camp near Amyclae;
whence, after he had thoroughly ravaged all the places lying around the city, of a populous and pleasant countryside,
with none of the enemy now going out by the gate, he moved the camp to the river Eurotas. Thence he devastates the valley lying beneath Taygetus and the fields reaching to the sea.
[29] Eodem fere tempore L. Quinctius maritimae orae oppida partim uoluntate, partim metu aut ui recepit. certior deinde factus Gytheum oppidum omnium maritimarum rerum Lacedaemoniis receptaculum esse nec procul a mari castra Romana abesse, omnibus id copiis adgredi constituit. erat eo tempore ualida urbs et multitudine ciuium incolarumque et omni bellico apparatu instructa.
[29] At about the same time, Lucius Quinctius took into his control the towns of the sea-coast, part voluntarily, part through fear or by force. Then, having been informed that Gytheum, the town, was for the Lacedaemonians a receptacle for all maritime affairs, and that the Roman camp was not far from the sea, he decided to attack it with all his forces. At that time it was a strong city, furnished both with a multitude of citizens and inhabitants and with every warlike apparatus.
In time, as Quinctius was approaching a by-no-means easy undertaking, King Eumenes and the fleet of the Rhodians came up. A huge multitude of naval allies, contracted from three fleets, within a few days accomplished all the works that had to be done for the oppugnation of a city fortified by land and sea. Already, with the testudos brought up, the wall was being undermined; already it was being shaken by battering rams.
and so by frequent blows one tower was overturned, and whatever of the wall was around it was prostrated by its fall; and the Romans at once from the harbor, where the approach was more level, so that they might distend the enemy from a more open place, and at the same time were trying to break in through the way laid open by the collapse. nor was much lacking but that they penetrated where they had aimed; but their assault was delayed by a proffered hope of the city’s surrender, and soon thereafter the same was thrown into confusion. Dexagoridas and Gorgopas were commanding the city with equal authority.
Dexagoridas had sent word to the Roman legate that he would hand over the city; and when the time and plan for that matter had been agreed, he was slain by Gorgopas as a traitor, and the city was defended the more intently by that one man alone. And the assault would have become more difficult, had not T. Quinctius arrived with four thousand picked soldiers. When he had displayed a battle line drawn up on the brow of a mound not far from the city, and on the other side L. Quinctius pressed from his siege-works by land and sea, then indeed desperation compelled Gorgopas also to adopt the plan which he had avenged with death in the other; and having bargained that he be allowed to lead away from there the soldiers whom he had for garrison-duty, he handed the city over to Quinctius.
[30] Nabis sicut primo aduentu Romanae classis et traditione oppidorum maritimae orae conterritus erat, sic parua spe cum acquieuisset Gytheo ab suis retento, postquam id quoque traditum Romanis audiuit esse <et>, cum ab terra omnibus circa hosti<li>bus nihil spei esset, a mari quoque toto se interclusum, cedendum fortunae ratus caduceatorem primum in castra misit ad explorandum si paterentur legatos ad se mitti. qua impetrata re Pythagoras ad imperatorem uenit nullis cum aliis mandatis quam ut tyranno conloqui cum imperatore liceret. consilio aduocato cum omnes dandum conloquium censuissent, dies locusque constituitur.
[30] Nabis, just as at the first arrival of the Roman fleet and at the surrender of the towns of the maritime coast he had been cowed, so, when with little hope he had acquiesced in Gytheum being retained by his own men, after he heard that this too had been handed over to the Romans <and>, since, from the land, with all around hosti<li>bus, there was no hope, and that from the sea too he was entirely cut off, thinking he must yield to Fortune, first sent a caduceator (herald) into the camp to explore whether they would allow envoys to be sent to him. This having been obtained, Pythagoras came to the commander with no other mandates than that it be permitted for the tyrant to hold a colloquy with the commander. A council having been called, since all had judged that a colloquy should be granted, a day and place are appointed.
when they had come to the mounds of the middle region, with moderate forces following, with cohorts left there in a station, visible on both sides, Nabis with chosen bodyguards, Quinctius with his brother and King Eumenes and Sosila the Rhodian and Aristaenus, praetor of the Achaeans, and a few tribunes of the soldiers, descended.
[31] Ibi permisso [ut] seu dicere prius seu audire mallet, ita coepit tyrannus: 'si ipse per me, T. Quincti uosque qui adestis, causam excogitare cur mihi aut indixissetis bellum aut inferretis possem, tacitus euentum fortunae meae expectassem: nunc imperare animo nequiui quin, priusquam perirem, cur periturus essem scirem. et hercules, si tales essetis quales esse Carthaginienses fama est, apud quos nihil societatis fides sancti haberet, in me quoque uobis quid faceretis minus pensi esse non mirarer. nunc cum uos intueor, Romanos esse uideo, qui rerum diuinarum foedera, humanarum fidem socialem sanctissimam habeatis; cum me ipse respexi, eum <me> esse spero cui et publice, sicut ceteris Lacedaemoniis, uobiscum uetustissimum foedus sit et meo nomine priuatim amicitia ac societas, nuper Philippi bello renouata.
[31] There, permission being granted [whether] he preferred either to speak first or to hear, thus the tyrant began: “If I myself, by my own reflection, Titus Quinctius, and you who are present, could devise a cause why you either had declared war against me or brought it upon me, I would in silence have awaited the outcome of my fortune; now I have not been able to command my mind not to know, before I should perish, why I was going to perish. And, by Hercules, if you were such as the Carthaginians are reported to be, among whom nothing of the faith of alliance is held sacred, I should not wonder that you, in my case also, would reckon less what you do. Now, when I look at you, I see that you are Romans, who hold the covenants of divine things and the social faith of human affairs as most sacred; when I have looked back upon myself, I hope that I am the man for whom both publicly, as for the other Lacedaemonians, there is with you a most ancient treaty, and in my own name privately friendship and alliance, lately renewed in the war with Philip.”
the matter affords me a twofold defense; for I both received that city at their own summons and surrender—I did not seize it—and I received the city when it belonged to Philip’s party and was not in your alliance. Moreover, the timing acquits me in this: when I already held Argos, the alliance with you was concluded, and you stipulated that I should send auxiliaries to you for the war, not that I should lead away the garrison from Argos. But, by Hercules, in that controversy which is about Argos I am superior both in the equity of the case—that I did not take your city but an enemy’s, that I received it willing, not compelled by force—and by your own confession, in that in the conditions of the alliance you left Argos to me.
But the name of “tyrant” and my deeds weigh upon me, because I call slaves to liberty, because I lead the needy plebs into the fields. About this name I can answer that I, whatever sort I am, am the same as I was when you yourself with me, Titus Quinctius, struck a pact of alliance. Then I remember I was called king by you; now I see I am called tyrant.
and so, if I had changed the name of my rule, then an account for my inconstancy must be rendered by me; since you are the ones who change, an account for yours must be rendered by you.
as to the multitude increased by slaves being set free and the land apportioned to the needy, I can indeed in this too defend myself by the right of time: I had already done these things, whatever they are, when you struck an alliance with me and received auxiliaries in the war against Philip; but if I had done them now, I do not say, "in what would I have injured you in this, or violated your friendship?" but this, that I did it according to the custom and institution of the ancestors. do not measure by your laws and institutions the things which are done at Lacedaemon.
It is not necessary to compare particulars one by one. you by the census enroll the horseman, by the census the foot-soldier, and
you wish a few to excel in resources, the plebs to be subject to them: our lawgiver
did not wish the commonwealth to be in the hand of the few, that which you call the senate,
nor that one or another order excel in the state, but through
an equalization of fortune and dignity he believed it would come about that there would be many who would bear arms for
the fatherland. I myself, with brevity of speech, admit that I have acted for the many rather than for the fatherland;
and it could have been briefly perorated that I, after I established
friendship with you, have committed nothing on account of which you should repent of it.'
[32] Ad haec imperator Romanus: 'amicitia et societas nobis nulla tecum sed cum Pelope, rege Lacedaemoniorum iusto ac legitimo, facta est, cuius ius tyranni quoque qui postea per uim tenuerunt Lacedaemone imperium, quia nos bella nunc Punica, nunc Gallica, nunc alia ex aliis occupauerant, usurparunt, sicut tu quoque hoc Macedonico bello fecisti. nam quid minus conueniret quam eos qui pro libertate Graeciae aduersus Philippum gereremus bellum cum tyranno instituere amicitiam? et tyranno quam qui unquam fuit saeuissimo et uiolentissimo in suos?
[32] To this the Roman commander: 'no friendship and alliance was made by us with you, but with Pelops, the just and lawful king of the Lacedaemonians, whose right even the tyrants who afterwards held rule at Lacedaemon by force usurped, because wars, now Punic, now Gallic, now others one after another, had occupied us—just as you too have done in this Macedonian war. For what would be less fitting than that we, who were waging war for the liberty of Greece against Philip, should establish friendship with a tyrant? and with a tyrant than whom none ever was more savage and more violent toward his own people?'
For us indeed, even if you had neither taken Argos by fraud nor were holding it, since we are liberating all Greece, Lacedaemon too was to be vindicated to its ancient liberty and to its own laws, of which you just now made mention as though a rival of Lycurgus. Or is it to be our concern that Philip’s garrisons be withdrawn from Iasus and Bargylia, while we leave Argos and Lacedaemon, two most illustrious cities, once the lights of Greece, beneath your feet—cities which, by serving, would deform for us the title of a Greece set free? But indeed the Argives sided with Philip.
we remit this to you, lest you be angry with us in our turn. we have well ascertained that in that matter the fault was of two, or at most three, not of the city—by Hercules, just as in your being summoned and your garrison being received into the citadel nothing was done by public counsel. we know that the Thessalians and Phocians and Locrians were of Philip’s party by the consent of all; nevertheless, when we liberated the rest in Greece, what, pray, do you suppose we shall do in the case of the Argives, who are innocent of any public counsel?
of slaves called to
freedom and of lands divided to indigent men, accusations were being brought against you,
you said—not, to be sure, themselves middling; but what are those in comparison with the things which by you
and yours are daily, one upon another, crimes perpetrated? Hold a free assembly
either at Argos or at Lacedaemon, if it pleases you to hear the true charges of
most unrestrained domination. To omit all the other, older matters, what a slaughter
at Argos did that Pythagoras, your son-in-law, perpetrate almost before my eyes?
which you yourself [committed], when I was already almost on the borders of the Lacedaemonians? Come then: those whom, at a public assembly, with all your citizens listening, you proclaimed you would hold in custody after they were apprehended—order them to be produced in bonds; let the wretched parents, who mourn them falsely, know that they are alive. But indeed, even granting that these things are so, what is it to you, Romans?
this
will you say to those liberating Greece? this to those who, in order that they might be able to liberate it, crossed the sea and waged war by land and sea? “yet you,” you say,
“have not, properly, violated your friendship and alliance.” how many times do you wish me to prove that you have done that?
both things were done by you; for Messene too—received into our friendship under the one and the same right of treaty as Lacedaemon—you, an ally yourself, seized by force and arms, a city allied to us; and with Philip, our enemy, you negotiated not only a league but, if it please the gods, even an affinity (by kinship) through Philocles, his prefect; and,
[33] Sub haec Aristaenus nunc monere Nabim, nunc etiam orare ut dum liceret, dum occasio esset, sibi ac fortunis suis consuleret; referre deinde nominatim tyrannos ciuitatium finitimarum coepit, qui deposito imperio restitutaque libertate suis non tutam modo sed etiam honoratam inter ciues senectutem egissent. his dictis in uicem auditisque nox prope diremit conloquium. postero die Nabis Argis se cedere ac deducere praesidium, quando ita Romanis placeret, et captiuos et perfugas redditurum dixit; aliud si quid postularent, scriptum ut ederent petiit, ut deliberare cum amicis posset.
[33] After this Aristaenus now warned Nabis, now even begged him that, while it was permitted, while there was an occasion, he should look out for himself and his fortunes; then he began to recount by name the tyrants of the neighboring communities, who, having laid down their dominion and liberty having been restored, had spent among their fellow citizens not only a safe but even an honored old age. With these things said and heard in turn, night nearly broke off the conference. On the next day Nabis said that he would withdraw from Argos and lead away the garrison, since it so pleased the Romans, and that he would return the captives and deserters; if they should request anything else, he asked that they set it forth in writing, so that he might deliberate with his friends.
thus both time was given to the tyrant to consult, and Quinctius, with even the chiefs of the allies called in, held a council. The opinion of the greatest part was that there must be perseverance in war and the tyrant removed: never otherwise would the liberty of Greece be safe; it would have been much better not to set war in motion against him than to have the movement dropped; and that he himself, as if his domination had been approved, would become firmer, with the Roman people assumed as the author of an unjust rule, and by his example he would incite many in other cities to lay ambush against the liberty of their own citizens. The spirit of the general himself was more inclined to peace.
for he saw that, with the enemy driven within the walls, nothing remained except a siege, and that it would be [also] long; for they would not be attacking Gythium, which itself, however, had been surrendered, not stormed, but Lacedaemon, a city most strong in men and arms. There had been one hope, if, as they brought the army up, dissension among them and sedition could be stirred up: when they saw the standards almost being carried to the gates, no one had stirred. He added also that Villius the legate, returning from there, reported a faithless peace with Antiochus: that he had crossed into Europe with much greater land and naval forces than before.
if the siege of Lacedaemon had occupied the army, with what other forces against a king so
strong and potent would they wage war? these things he said openly; that silent concern
lay beneath, lest a new consul should draw Greece as his province by lot, and the inchoate
victory of the war have to be handed over to a successor.
[34] Cum aduersus tendendo nihil moueret socios, simulando se transire in eorum sententiam omnes in adsensum consilii sui traduxit. 'bene uertat' inquit, 'obsideamus Lacedaemonem, quando ita placet. illud modo ne fallat: [ceterum] cum res tam lenta quam ipsi scitis oppugnatio urbium sit et obsidentibus prius saepe quam obsessis taedium adferat, iam nunc hoc ita proponere uos animis oportet hibernandum circa Lacedaemonis moenia esse.
[34] When by pressing his opposition he could not move his allies at all, by pretending to pass over into their opinion he led them all into assent to his own counsel. 'May it turn out well,' he said, 'let us besiege Lacedaemon, since it so pleases. only let this not mislead: [besides] since the assault of cities is a matter as slow as you yourselves know, and often brings weariness to the besiegers sooner than to the besieged, you must even now set this before your minds—that there must be wintering around the walls of Lacedaemon.
if that delay had only toil and danger, I would exhort you, since you are prepared in minds and bodies to sustain them; now it also requires great expense in works, in machinations and engines with which so great a city is to be attacked, in provisions to be got ready for you and for us for the winter. Therefore, lest you either suddenly panic or disgracefully abandon a thing begun, I am of the opinion that it should first be written to your communities and that it be explored what spirit each has, what of strength. I have auxiliaries enough and more than enough; but the more numerous we are, the more things we shall need.
“Now the enemy’s land has nothing left except bare soil; in addition, winter will be upon us, making transport from afar difficult.” This oration first turned everyone’s minds to look back at each man’s own domestic evils—the sloth, envy, and detraction of those staying at home against the men under arms, a liberty difficult to bring to consensus, public indigence, and a malignity in contributing out of private means. Therefore, their wishes suddenly changed, they permitted the general to do whatever he believed to be for the res publica of the Roman people and their allies.
[35] Inde Quinctius adhibitis legatis tantum tribunisque militum condiciones in quas pax cum tyranno fieret has conscripsit: sex mensium indutiae ut essent Nabidi Romanisque et Eumeni regi et Rhodiis; legatos extemplo mitterent Romam T. Quinctius et Nabis, ut pax [ex] auctoritate senatus confirmaretur; et qua die scriptae condiciones pacis editae Nabidi forent, ea dies ut indutiarum principium esset, et ut ex ea die intra decimum diem ab Argis ceterisque oppidis quae in Argiuorum agro essent praesidia omnia deducerentur uacuaque et libera traderentur Romanis, et ne quod inde mancipium regium publicumue aut priuatum educeretur: si qua dolo malo publice aut priuatim ante educta forent, dominis recte restituerentur; naues quas ciuitatibus maritimis ademisset redderet neue ipse nauem ullam praeter duos lembos, qui non plus quam sedecim remis agerentur, haberet; perfugas et captiuos omnibus sociis populi Romani ciuitatibus redderet et Messeniis omnia quae comparerent quaeque domini cognossent; exulibus quoque Lacedaemoniis liberos coniuges restitueret quae earum uiros sequi uoluissent, inuita ne qua exulis comes esset; mercennariorum militum Nabidis qui aut in ciuitates suas aut ad Romanos transissent, iis res suae omnes recte redderentur; in Creta insula ne quam urbem haberet, quas habuisset redderet Romanis; ne quam societatem cum ullo Cretensium aut quoquam alio institueret neu bellum gereret; ciuitatibus omnibus, quasque [et] ipse restituisset quaeque se suaque in fidem ac dicionem populi Romani tradidissent, omnia praesidia deduceret seque ipse suosque ab iis abstineret; ne quod oppidum neu quod castellum in suo alienoue agro conderet; obsides ea ita futura daret quinque quos imperatori Romano placuisset et filium in iis suum, et talenta centum argenti in praesenti et quinquaginta talenta in singulos annos per annos octo.
[35] From there Quinctius, having called in only the legates and the military tribunes, wrote out these conditions on which peace with the tyrant would be made: that there should be a truce of 6 months between Nabis and the Romans and King Eumenes and the Rhodians; that T. Quinctius and Nabis should forthwith send legates to Rome, that the peace might be confirmed by the authority of the senate; and that on whatever day the written conditions of peace should have been published to Nabis, that day should be the beginning of the truce; and that from that day, within the 10th day, from Argos and the other towns which were in the territory of the Argives, all garrisons should be withdrawn and they should be handed over empty and free to the Romans, and that no royal slave or any public or private property should be taken out from there: if anything had previously been taken out by malicious fraud, publicly or privately, it should be duly restored to the owners; that he should return the ships which he had taken from the maritime communities and that he himself should have no ship except 2 lembi, which should be driven by not more than 16 oars; that he should return the fugitives and captives to all the allies of the Roman people, and to the Messenians all things which should be found and which the owners should recognize; that to the Lacedaemonian exiles also he should restore their children and wives who had wished to follow their husbands, and that no woman should be the companion of an exile against her will; that to the mercenary soldiers of Nabis who had either returned to their own cities or had passed over to the Romans, their property in all respects should be duly restored; that on the island of Crete he should hold no city, and that those which he had held he should restore to the Romans; that he should establish no alliance with any of the Cretans or with anyone else, nor wage war; that from all cities, both those which he himself had restored and those which had delivered themselves and their belongings into the faith and dominion of the Roman people, he should withdraw all garrisons and that he himself and his men should abstain from them; that he should found no town nor any stronghold in his own or in another’s territory; that he should give hostages on these terms, 5 whom it should have pleased the Roman commander, and his own son among them; and 100 talents of silver on the spot, and 50 talents each year for 8 years.
[36] Haec conscripta castris propius urbem motis Lacedaemonem mittuntur. nec sane quicquam eorum satis placebat tyranno, nisi quod praeter spem reducendorum exulum mentio nulla facta erat; maxime autem omnium ea res offendebat quod et naues et maritimae ciuitates ademptae erant. fuerat autem ei magno fructui mare omnem oram <a> Maleo praedatoriis nauibus infestam habenti; iuuentutem praeterea ciuitatium earum ad supplementum longe optimi generis militum habebat.
[36] These terms, having been written down, with the camp moved nearer to the city, are sent to Lacedaemon. And indeed nothing of them quite pleased the tyrant, except that, beyond expectation, no mention had been made of bringing back the exiles; but most of all it offended him that both the ships and the maritime cities had been taken away. Moreover, the sea had been of great profit to him, as he kept the whole shore from Malea infested with predatory ships; besides, he had the youth of those cities for reinforcement, men of by far the best kind of soldiers.
these conditions, although he himself had rolled them over in secret with his friends, yet all in common were reporting by rumor—vain, as for the rest of good faith, so too for covering secrets, were the dispositions of the royal satellites. not so much did all collectively find fault with everything, as each individual picked at those points which concerned him. those who had the wives of the exiles in marriage, or had possessed anything from their goods, were indignant as though about to lose them, not to give them back.
to the slaves freed from the tyrant, there presented itself before their eyes the prospect that their future freedom would be not only ineffectual but much fouler than their former servitude, as they returned into the power of angry masters. The mercenary soldiers also bore it ill that the pay of soldiery would fall in peace, and they saw that there was no return for themselves into the cities, hostile not so much to the tyrants as to their satellites.
[37] Haec inter se primo circulos serentes fremere; deinde subito ad arma discurrerunt. quo tumultu cum per se satis inritatam multitudinem cerneret tyrannus, contionem aduocari iussit. ubi cum ea quae imperarentur ab Romanis exposuisset et grauiora atque indigniora quaedam falso adfinxisset, et ad singula nunc ab uniuersis nunc a partibus contionis acclamaretur, interrogauit quid se respondere ad ea aut quid facere uellent.
[37] At first they, weaving circles among themselves, were murmuring; then suddenly they ran about to arms. At this tumult, since the tyrant saw the multitude sufficiently provoked on its own, he ordered an assembly to be called. There, when he had set forth the things that were being commanded by the Romans and had falsely added certain matters more grievous and more unworthy, and at each point there were acclamations, now from all together, now from parts of the assembly, he asked what they wished him to answer to those things, or what they wished him to do.
with almost one voice
all ordered that no answer be made and that war be waged; and each for himself, as a multitude is wont, bidding them to have good courage and to hope well, they said that Fortune helps the brave. Incited by these voices the tyrant pronounces that Antiochus and the Aetolians will give aid and that he has troops enough and to spare for sustaining a siege. The mention of peace had slipped from everyone’s minds, and they run to their stations, no longer to keep quiet.
the sally of a few provokers and javelins discharged instantly removed from the Romans any hesitation that there must be fighting. thence light skirmishes for the first four days were engaged, at first without any sufficiently sure outcome. on the fifth day, in an almost regular battle, the Lacedaemonians, so panic-stricken, were driven into the town, to such a degree that some Roman soldiers, cutting down the backs of the fleeing, entered the city through the walls—interrupted, as they then were.
[38] Et tunc quidem Quinctius satis eo terrore coercitis excursionibus hostium nihil praeter ipsius oppugnationem urbis superesse ratus, missis qui omnes nauales socios a Gytheo accerserent, ipse interim cum tribunis militum ad uisendum urbis situm moenia circumuehitur. fuerat quondam sine muro Sparta; tyranni nuper locis patentibus planisque obiecerant murum: altiora loca et difficiliora aditu stationibus armatorum pro munimento obiectis tutabantur. ubi satis omnia inspexit, corona oppugnandum ratus omnibus copiis-erant autem Romanorum sociorumque, simul peditum equitumque, simul terrestrium ac naualium copiarum, ad quinquaginta milia hominum- urbem cinxit.
[38] And then indeed Quinctius, with the enemy’s excursions sufficiently restrained by that terror, thinking that nothing remained except the assault of the city itself, after sending men to summon all the naval allies from Gythium, himself meanwhile with the tribunes of the soldiers goes around the walls to view the site of the city. Sparta had once been without a wall; the tyrants recently had thrown up a wall in the open and level places; the higher places and those more difficult of access they were protecting by stations of armed men set up as a muniment. When he had inspected everything enough, judging it should be assailed in a ring on all sides with all the forces—there were, moreover, of Romans and allies, both infantry and cavalry together, both land and naval forces together, to about 50 thousand men—he girdled the city.
Some carried ladders, others fire, others other things with which they would not only assault
but also terrify. They were ordered, with a shout raised, to move up from every side,
so that the Lacedaemonians, panicking at everything at once, might not know where they should first meet them or where to bring aid.
What strength there was in the army, divided threefold:
one part from the Phoebaeum, a second from the Dictynnaeum, a third from the place they call the Heptagoniae
—all these, however, are open places without a wall— he orders them to attack.
when so great a terror had encompassed the city on every side, at first the tyrant, stirred both by sudden shouts and by trepid messengers, to whatever place was most hard-pressed, either ran there himself or sent some; then, with fear poured around on every side, he became so benumbed that he could neither say what would be to advantage nor listen, and he was not only destitute of counsel but scarcely in possession of his mind.
[39] Romanos primo sustinebant in angustiis Lacedaemonii, ternaeque acies tempore uno locis diuersis pugnabant; deinde crescente certamine nequaquam erat proelium par. missilibus enim Lacedaemonii pugnabant, a quibus se et magnitudine scuti perfacile Romanus tuebatur miles et quod alii uani, alii leues admodum ictus erant. nam propter angustias loci confertamque turbam non modo ad emittenda cum procursu, quo plurimum concitantur, tela spatium habebant, sed ne ut de gradu quidem libero ac stabili conarentur.
[39] At first the Lacedaemonians held off the Romans in the narrow places, and three battle-lines were fighting at one time in different positions; then, as the contest grew, the battle was by no means equal. For the Lacedaemonians were fighting with missiles, from which the Roman soldier very easily protected himself both by the size of his shield and because some blows were vain, others exceedingly light. For on account of the narrowness of the place and the crowded throng, they not only did not have space for launching their missiles with a run-up—by which they are most impelled—but not even to make the attempt from a free and steady footing.
and so the missiles sent from the front were sticking in no bodies, rarely in shields; some were wounded by those standing around from higher places; soon, when they had already advanced, from the roofs not only missiles but tiles too struck down the unexpecting. then, with shields lifted above their heads and made continuous with one another in such a way that there was space neither for blind blows nor even for inserting a weapon at close quarters, a tortoise having been made they moved up. and the first narrows, for a short time, held them, packed with their own and the enemy’s throng: after they, gradually pressing the foe, had advanced into a more open street of the city, their force and impetus could no longer be sustained.
when the Lacedaemonians had turned their backs and, in a disordered flight, were seeking the higher places, Nabis, indeed, trembling as if the city were captured, was looking around by what means he himself might escape; Pythagoras, since in other respects he was fulfilling the spirit and office of a leader, then indeed alone was the cause that the city was not taken; for he ordered the edifices nearest the wall to be set ablaze. and when they had burned in a moment of time, with those who otherwise are accustomed to bring help for extinguishing now aiding the fire, the roofs were crashing down upon the Romans, and not only fragments of tiles but even charred beams were reaching the armed men, and flame was being poured widely, while the smoke created a terror even greater than the danger. and so both those of the Romans who were outside the city, then making their most vigorous assaults, drew back from the wall, and those who had already entered, lest they be cut off from their own by a fire rising behind them, withdrew; and Quinctius, after he saw what the matter was, ordered the retreat to be sounded.
[40] Quinctius plus ex timore hostium quam ex re ipsa spei nactus per triduum insequens territauit eos nunc proeliis lacessendo, nunc operibus, intersaepiendoque quaedam ne exitus ad fugam esset. his comminationibus compulsus tyrannus Pythagoran rursus oratorem misit; quem Quinctius primo aspernatus excedere castris iussit, dein suppliciter orantem aduolutumque genibus tandem audiuit. prima oratio fuit omnia permittentis arbitrio Romanorum; dein cum ea uelut uana et sine effectu nihil proficeret, eo deducta est res ut iis condicionibus quae ex scripto paucis ante diebus editae erant indutiae fierent, pecuniaque et obsides accepti.
[40] Quinctius, having gained more hope from the enemies’ fear than from the thing itself, for three days
in succession harried them, now by provoking with battles, now with works,
and by fencing off certain places so that there might be no exit for flight. Driven by these threats,
the tyrant sent Pythagoras again as orator (envoy); whom Quinctius,
at first spurning, ordered to depart from the camp; then, as he was praying suppliantly
and had fallen prostrate at his knees, at last he heard him. The first speech was that of one entrusting everything
to the arbitration of the Romans; then, since that, as if empty and without effect, achieved nothing,
the matter was brought to this point: that a truce be made on those conditions which, from a written document published a few days before,
had been set forth, and money and hostages were received.
while the tyrant was being besieged, the Argives—messengers bringing reports one [almost] on top of another that Lacedaemon was all but already captured—were themselves encouraged; and at the same time, because Pythagoras had withdrawn with the most powerful part of the garrison, despising the small number of those who were in the citadel, with a certain Archippus as leader they expelled the garrison; Timocrates of Pellene, because he had presided with clemency, they released alive upon a pledged faith. Upon this joy Quinctius arrived, peace having been granted to the tyrant, and Eumenes and the Rhodians and his brother L. Quinctius having been dismissed from Lacedaemon to the fleet.
[41] Laeta ciuitas celeberrimum festorum dierum ac nobile ludicrum Nemeorum, die stata propter belli mala praetermissum, in aduentum Romani exercitus ducisque indixerunt praefeceruntque ludis ipsum imperatorem. multa erant quae gaudium cumularent: reducti ciues ab Lacedaemone erant quos nuper Pythagoras quosque ante Nabis abduxerat; redierant qui post compertam a Pythagora coniurationem et caede iam coepta effugerant; libertatem ex longo interuallo libertatisque auctores Romanos, quibus causa bellandi cum tyranno ipsi fuissent, cernebant. testata quoque ipso Nemeorum die uoce praeconis libertas est Argiuorum.
[41] The city, joyful, proclaimed the most celebrated of festal days and the noble spectacle of the Nemeans—the fixed day having been passed over because of the evils of war—upon the arrival of the Roman army and its leader, and they put the commander himself in charge of the games. Many things were there to heap up their joy: citizens had been brought back from Lacedaemon, whom Pythagoras recently and before him Nabis had led away; those had returned who, after the conspiracy discovered by Pythagoras and the slaughter already begun, had fled; they beheld liberty after a long interval, and the Romans, authors of liberty, for whom they themselves had been the cause of waging war with the tyrant. The liberty of the Argives too, on the very day of the Nemeans, was proclaimed by the voice of the herald.
To the Achaeans, as much joy as the restored Argos brought into the common council of Achaea, so much the enslaved Lacedaemon left behind, and the tyrant clinging to their flank, did not afford unmixed joy. The Aetolians, moreover, tore this matter in pieces in every council: while with Philip they had not ceased to wage war until he withdrew from all the cities of Greece, Lacedaemon had been left to a tyrant; the legitimate king, who had been in the Roman camp, and the other most noble citizens were to live in exile; the Roman people had been made a satellite of the domination of Nabis. Quinctius led his forces back from Argos to Elatia, whence he had set out for the Spartan war.
there are those who hand down that the tyrant did not wage war by setting out from the town, but, with a camp pitched opposite the Roman camp, delayed for a long time because he was expecting the Aetolian auxiliaries; at last he was compelled to join battle when an assault was made by the Romans upon his foragers: in that engagement he was defeated and stripped of his camp and sought peace, when 14,000 soldiers had fallen and more than 4,000 had been taken.
[42] Eodem fere tempore et a T. Quinctio de rebus ad Lacedaemonem gestis et a M. Porcio consule ex Hispania litterae allatae. utriusque nomine in dies ternos supplicatio ab senatu decreta est. L. Ualerius consul, cum post fusos circa Litanam siluam Boios quietam prouinciam habuisset, comitiorum causa Romam rediit et creauit consules P. Cornelium Scipionem Africanum iterum et Ti. Sempronium Longum.
[42] At about the same time letters were brought both from T. Quinctius about the affairs conducted at Lacedaemon and from the consul M. Porcius out of Spain. In the name of each a public supplication for three days was decreed by the senate. L. Valerius the consul, since after the Boii had been routed around the Litana Forest he had held a quiet province, returned to Rome for the sake of the elections and created as consuls P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus for the second time and Ti. Sempronius Longus.
with the elections completed the consul returned to his province. a new legal claim was attempted that year by the Ferentinates, that Latins who had entered their names in a Roman colony
should be Roman citizens: as for the colonists enrolled at Puteoli, Salernum, and
Buxentum, who had entered their names and on that account claimed to be Roman citizens,
the senate judged that they were not Roman citizens.
[43] Principio anni quo P. Scipio Africanus iterum et Ti. Sempronius Longus consules fuerunt, legati Nabidis tyranni Romam uenerunt. iis extra urbem in aede Apollinis senatus datus est. pax quae cum T. Quinctio conuenisset ut rata esset petierunt impetraruntque.
[43] At the beginning of the year in which P. Scipio Africanus for the second time and Ti. Sempronius Longus were consuls, envoys of Nabis the tyrant came to Rome. To them, outside the city in the Temple of Apollo, an audience with the senate was granted. They requested that the peace which had been agreed with T. Quinctius be ratified, and they obtained it.
when a report had been made about the provinces, the senate in full numbers was going toward the opinion that, since in Spain and Macedonia the war had been brought to an end, Italy should be the province for both consuls. Scipio judged one consul to be sufficient for Italy, and that Macedonia should be decreed to the other: a grave war was impending from Antiochus, who had now of his own accord transgressed into Europe. What, then, did they suppose he would do, when on the one side the Aetolians, no doubtful enemies, were summoning him to war, and on the other Hannibal, a commander marked by the Romans’ disasters, was spurring him on?
while the provinces of the consuls were being disputed, the praetors cast lots: to Gnaeus Domitius the urban jurisdiction fell, to Titus Juventius the foreign; to Publius Cornelius Further Spain, to Sextus Digitius Nearer; to the two Gnaeus Cornelii, to Blasio Sicily, to Merenda Sardinia. it was not pleasing that a new army be transported into Macedonia; that the one which was there be led back into Italy by Quinctius and dismissed; likewise that the army which was with Marcus Porcius Cato in Spain be dismissed; that Italy be the province for both consuls and that they enroll two urban legions, so that, the armies which the senate had judged should be dismissed having been dismissed, there would be eight Roman legions in all.
[44] Uer sacrum factum erat priore anno, M. Porcio et L. Ualerio consulibus. id cum P. Licinius pontifex non esse recte factum collegio primum, deinde ex auctoritate collegii patribus renuntiasset, de integro faciendum arbitratu pontificum censuerunt ludosque magnos qui una uoti essent tanta pecunia quanta adsoleret faciendos: uer sacrum uideri pecus quod natum esset inter kal. Martias et pridie kal.
[44] A Sacred Spring had been performed in the prior year, with Marcus Porcius and Lucius Valerius as consuls. When Publius Licinius, pontifex, had reported to the college first that it had not been rightly done, and then, by the authority of the college, to the Fathers, they decreed that it should be done anew at the discretion of the pontifices, and that the Great Games, which had been vowed together with it, should be held with as much money as was accustomed: that the Sacred Spring should be deemed to be the cattle which had been born between the Kalends of March and the day before the Kalends.
they also won immense favor with that order
because at the Roman Games they ordered the curule aediles to separate the
senatorial seats from the people; for previously they had watched in common. to the equites
also the horses were taken away from very few, nor was any order dealt with harshly. the Atrium
Libertatis and the Villa Publica were restored and enlarged by these same men.
the ver sacrum and the Votive Roman Games, which Ser. Sulpicius Galba, consul, had vowed, were carried out. While the minds of men were occupied with their spectacle, Q. Pleminius, who on account of many crimes against gods and men committed at Locri had been thrown into prison, had procured men to set fires by night in several places of the city at once, so that, with the city thrown into consternation by nocturnal tumult, the prison could be broken open.
[45] Coloniae ciuium Romanorum eo anno deductae sunt Puteolos Uolturnum Liternum, treceni homines in singulas. item Salernum Buxentumque coloniae ciuium Romanorum deductae sunt. deduxere triumuiri Ti. Sempronius Longus, qui tum consul erat, M. Seruilius Q. Minucius Thermus.
[45] Colonies of Roman citizens were settled that year at Puteoli,
Volturnum, and Liternum, three hundred men to each. Likewise at Salernum
and Buxentum colonies of Roman citizens were settled. The triumvirs
Ti. Sempronius Longus, who was then consul, M. Servilius, and Q. Minucius Thermus led them out.
the land which had belonged to the Campanians was divided. Sipontum
likewise, in the territory which had belonged to the Arpinates, a colony of Roman citizens other
triumvirs—D. Iunius Brutus, M. Baebius Tamphilus, M. Heluius—led out. Likewise at Tempsa and at Croton colonies of Roman citizens were established.
The Tempsan territory had been captured from the Bruttians: the Bruttians had driven out the Greeks; the Greeks held Croton. The triumvirs Cn. Octavius, L. Aemilius Paulus, and C. Laetorius led out a colony to Croton; to Tempsa, L. Cornelius Merula, Q. <. . .>, and C. Salonius led out a colony. Prodigies also were seen that year at Rome; others were reported.
in the Forum and the Comitium and on the Capitol drops of blood were seen; and earth rained several times, and the head of Vulcan burned. It was reported that milk flowed in the Nar river, that at Ariminum freeborn boys were born without eyes and a nose, and that in the Picene territory one was born having neither feet nor hands. These prodigies were expiated by decree of the pontiffs.
[46] In Gallia L. Ualerius Flaccus proconsul circa Mediolanium cum Gallis Insubribus et Bois, qui Dorulato duce ad concitandos Insubres Padum transgressi erant, signis conlatis depugnauit; decem milia hostium sunt caesa. per eos dies collega eius M. Porcius Cato ex Hispania triumphauit. tulit in eo triumpho argenti infecti uiginti quinque milia pondo, bigati centum uiginti tria milia, Oscensis quingenta quadraginta, auri pondo mille quadringenta.
[46] In Gaul Lucius Valerius Flaccus, proconsul, near Mediolanium, with the Insubrian Gauls and the Boii, who, under their leader Dorulatus, had crossed the Po to stir up the Insubres, engaged in pitched battle; 10,000 of the enemy were cut down. About those same days his colleague Marcus Porcius Cato celebrated a triumph from Spain. In that triumph he displayed 25,000 pounds of unworked silver, 123,000 bigati, 540 Oscenses, and 1,400 pounds of gold.
he distributed to the soldiers from the booty 270 asses apiece, triple to a cavalryman. Tiberius Sempronius the consul, having set out to his province, led the legions first into the territory of the Boii. Then Boiorix, their chieftain, with his two brothers and the whole nation stirred to rebellion, pitched camp on open ground, so that it might be apparent that they intended to fight if the enemy entered their borders.
the consul, when he perceived how great forces and how great confidence
the enemy had, sends a messenger to his colleague to the effect that, if it seemed good to him, he should hasten
to come: that he himself, by stalling, would spin out the affair until his arrival. The same reason
which to the consul was a cause for delaying was to the Gauls—besides the fact that the enemy’s delay
was heartening their spirits—a cause for expediting the matter, so that before the forces of the consuls
were united they might settle the issue. For two days, however, they did nothing other than stand ready
for fighting, if anyone should come out against them; on the third they came up to the rampart and at the same time attacked
the camp from every side.
the consul ordered the soldiers to take up arms immediately;
then he held the armed men back for a little while, both to increase the enemy’s stolid confidence
and to arrange the forces by which gates they would burst out. Two legions were ordered
to carry out the standards by the two principal gates. But at the very exit the Gauls, so crowded together,
stood in the way so as to close the road.
for a long time they fought in narrow straits; nor was the matter carried on more by right hands
and swords than by men, braced with their shields and their very bodies, pressing hard—
the Romans in order to bear the standards out, the Gauls in order either to penetrate the camp
themselves or to prevent the Romans from going out. Nor could the battle line be moved to this
side or that until Q. Victorius, centurion of the first spear, and C. Atinius, military tribune—this one of the Fourth, that one of the Second legion—using a measure often tried in rough battles,
snatched the standards from the standard-bearers and hurled them into the enemy. While they
eagerly seek to recover the standard, the men of the Second were the first to fling themselves out of the gate.
[47] Iam hi extra uallum pugnabant, quarta legione in porta haerente, cum alius tumultus ex auersa parte castrorum est exortus. in portam quaestoriam inruperant Galli resistentesque pertinacius occiderant L. Postumium quaestorem, cui Tympano fuit cognomen, et M. Atinium et P. Sempronium praefectos socium, et ducentos ferme milites. capta ab ea parte castra erant, donec cohors extraordinaria, missa a consule ad tuendam quaestoriam portam, et eos qui intra uallum erant partim occidit partim expulit castris et inrumpentibus obstitit.
[47] Now these were fighting outside the rampart, with the fourth legion stuck fast in the gate, when
another tumult arose on the rear side of the camp. into the quaestorian gate
the Gauls had broken, and, as men resisted more stubbornly, they had slain L. Postumius
the quaestor, whose surname was Tympanus, and M. Atinius and P. Sempronius,
prefects of the allies, and about two hundred soldiers. the camp had been taken on that side,
until the extraordinary cohort, sent by the consul to guard the quaestorian
gate, both partly killed those who were within the rampart and partly drove them from the camp, and
stood against those breaking in.
at about the same time the fourth legion also, with two
extraordinary cohorts, burst forth from the gate. thus at once three battles around the camp, in places
apart, were in progress, and dissonant shouts, at the uncertain outcomes of their own men, from the present
contest were turning away the spirits of the fighters. until midday it was fought with equal forces
and with almost equal hope.
labor and heat, when they had forced the soft and fluid bodies of the Gauls, least patient of thirst, to withdraw from the fight, the Romans made an attack upon the few remaining and drove the routed into the camp. From there the signal for recall was given by the consul; at which the greater part withdrew themselves, a part, in zeal for the struggle and in the hope of gaining possession of the enemy’s camp, stood fast at the rampart. Their small number being despised, the Gauls in a body burst out of the camp: then the Romans, routed, do by their own panic and terror what they had refused at the consul’s command—make again for their camp.
[48] Scipionem alii coniuncto exercitu cum collega per Boiorum Ligurumque agros populantem isse, quod progredi siluae paludesque passae sint, scribunt, alii nulla memorabili re gesta Romam comitiorum causa redisse. eodem hoc anno T. Quinctius Elatiae, quo in hiberna reduxerat copias, totum hiemis tempus iure dicundo consumpsit mutandisque iis quae aut ipsius Philippi aut praefectorum eius licentia in ciuitatibus facta erant, cum suae factionis hominum uires augendo ius ac libertatem aliorum deprimerent. ueris initio Corinthum conuentu edicto uenit.
[48] Some write that Scipio, with the army joined to that of his colleague, went ravaging through the fields of the Boii and Ligurians, because the forests and marshes allowed an advance; others that, with nothing memorable accomplished, he returned to Rome for the sake of the comitia. In this same year T. Quinctius at Elateia, where he had led back his forces into winter quarters, spent the whole wintertime in pronouncing law and in changing those things which had been done in the communities either by the license of Philip himself or of his prefects, since by augmenting the strengths of men of their own faction they were depressing the right and liberty of others. At the beginning of spring he came to Corinth, an assembly having been proclaimed.
there he addressed the legations of all the cities, gathered around in the manner of an assembly, beginning from the first inception of the Romans’ amity with the nation of the Greeks and of the imperators who before himself had been in Macedonia and their own deeds. all was heard with immense approbation, except when it came to the mention of Nabis: that seemed least fitting for one liberating Greece—to have left a tyrant behind, grievous not only to his own fatherland but to be feared by all the cities around, clinging to the vitals of the most noble city.
[49] Nec ignarus huius habitus animorum Quinctius, si sine excidio Lacedaemonis fieri potuisset, fatebatur pacis cum tyranno mentionem admittendam auribus non fuisse: nunc, cum aliter quam ruina grauissimae ciuitatis opprimi non posset, satius uisum esse tyrannum debilitatum ac totis prope uiribus ad nocendum cuiquam ademptis relinqui quam intermori uehementioribus quam quae pati possit remediis ciuitatem sinere, in ipsa uindicta libertatis perituram. praeteritorum commemorationi subiecit proficisci sibi in Italiam atque omnem exercitum deportare in animo esse: Demetriadis Chalcidisque praesidia intra decimum diem audituros deducta, Acrocorinthum ipsis extemplo uidentibus uacuam Achaeis traditurum, ut omnes scirent utrum Romanis an Aetolis mentiri mos esset, qui male commissam libertatem populo Romano sermonibus distulerint et mutatos pro Macedonibus Romanos dominos. sed illis nec quid dicerent nec quid facerent quicquam unquam pensi fuisse; reliquas ciuitates monere ut <ex> factis, non ex dictis amicos pensent intellegantque quibus credendum et a quibus cauendum sit.
[49] Nor was Quinctius ignorant of this disposition of minds; he confessed that, if it could have been brought about without the destruction of Lacedaemon, mention of peace with the tyrant ought not to have been admitted to their ears: now, since he could not be crushed otherwise than by the ruin of a most weighty city, it seemed better that the tyrant, weakened and with almost all his forces for harming anyone taken away, be left, rather than to allow the city to die under remedies more vehement than those it can endure, doomed to perish in the very vindication of liberty. He subjoined to the commemoration of past events that he intended to set out for Italy and to carry back the whole army: that within the tenth day they would hear that the garrisons of Demetrias and Chalcis had been withdrawn, that, with them themselves seeing at once, he would hand over the Acrocorinth, emptied, to the Achaeans, so that all might know whether it was the Romans or the Aetolians who had the habit of lying—who have spread abroad by their talk that liberty, ill entrusted to the Roman People, has been deferred, and that Roman masters have been substituted for Macedonians. But as for those men, they had never reckoned at all either what they said or what they did; he warned the remaining cities to weigh their friends <ex> from deeds, not from words, and to understand whom to trust and whom to beware of.
let them use liberty with moderation: tempered, it is salutary both for individuals and for communities; excessive, it is grievous to others and for those who possess it it becomes headlong and unbridled. let the leaders and orders in the cities take counsel for concord among themselves, and let all the cities in common do so. against those who are of one mind, neither any king nor any tyrant will be strong enough; but discord and sedition make everything opportune for those lying in wait, since the party that is the inferior in a domestic contest attaches itself rather to an outsider than yields to a fellow citizen.
[50] Has uelut parentis uoces cum audirent, manare omnibus gaudio lacrimae, adeo ut ipsum quoque confunderent dicentem. paulisper fremitus adprobantium dicta fuit monentiumque aliorum alios ut eas uoces uelut oraculo missas in pectora animosque demitterent. silentio deinde facto petiit ab iis ut ciues Romanos, si qui apud eos in seruitute essent, conquisitos intra duos menses mitterent ad se in Thessaliam: ne ipsis quidem honestum esse in liberata terra liberatores eius seruire.
[50] When they heard these voices as of a parent, tears of joy flowed for all, so much that they even confounded him as he was speaking. For a little while there was a murmur of those approving the words, and of others admonishing others to let those voices, as if sent from an oracle, sink into their breasts and minds. Then, silence having been made, he asked of them that Roman citizens, if any among them were in servitude, once sought out, within two months they should send to him in Thessaly: that it was not honorable even for themselves that, in a liberated land, its liberators should serve.
All acclaimed that they gave thanks, among other things, even for this: that they had been admonished to perform so pious, so necessary an office. There was a vast number of those captured in the Punic War, whom Hannibal, since they were not ransomed by their own people, had sold. Let the evidence of their multitude be what Polybius writes: that the matter cost the Achaeans one hundred talents, since they had fixed five hundred denarii as the price per head to be rendered to the owners.
for Achaea had 1,200 by that reckoning: add now, in proportion, how many it is likely the whole of Greece had. The assembly was not yet dismissed when they look back and see the garrison descending from the Acrocorinthus, being led straight to the gate and departing. The commander, following their column, with all escorting, acclaiming him as savior and liberator, after saluting and dismissing them, returned by the same road by which he had come to Elateia.
from there he sends off Ap. Claudius, the legate, with all the forces; he orders him to lead through Thessaly and
Epirus to Oricum and to wait there for him: for from there he has in mind to transport the army into Italy. And to L. Quinctius, his brother, legate and prefect of the fleet,
he writes to concentrate the transports from every shore of Greece at the same place.
[51] Ipse Chalcidem profectus, deductis non a Chalcide solum sed etiam ab Oreo atque Eretria praesidiis, conuentum ibi Euboicarum habuit ciuitatium admonitosque in quo statu rerum accepisset eos et in quo relinqueret dimisit. Demetriadem inde proficiscitur deductoque praesidio, prosequentibus cunctis sicut Corinthi et Chalcide, pergit ire in Thessaliam, ubi non liberandae modo ciuitates erant sed ex omni conluuione et confusione in aliquam tolerabilem formam redigendae. nec enim temporum modo uitiis ac uiolentia et licentia regia turbati erant sed inquieto etiam ingenio gentis nec comitia nec conuentum nec concilium ullum non per seditionem ac tumultum iam inde a principio ad nostram usque aetatem traducentis.
[51] He himself set out for Chalcis, and, with the garrisons withdrawn not from Chalcis only but also from Oreus and Eretria, he held there an assembly of the Euboean cities,
and, after reminding them in what state of affairs he had received them and in what he was leaving them, he dismissed them. From there he sets out for Demetrias and, the garrison withdrawn, with all accompanying him,
as at Corinth and Chalcis, he goes on into Thessaly, where the cities were not only to be liberated but to be reduced from every foul mixture and confusion into some tolerable
form. For they were disturbed not only by the vices of the times and by royal violence and license, but also by the restless disposition of the nation, which has carried on neither comitia nor
assembly nor any council except through sedition and tumult from the beginning down to our own age.
[52] Ita cum percensuisset Thessaliam, per Epirum Oricum, unde erat traiecturus, uenit. ab Orico copiae omnes Brundisium transportatae; inde per totam Italiam ad urbem prope triumphantes non minore agmine rerum captarum quam suo prae se acto uenerunt. postquam Romam uentum est, senatus extra urbem Quinctio ad res gestas edisserendas datus est triumphusque meritus ab lubentibus decretus.
[52] Thus, when he had reviewed Thessaly, by way of Epirus to Oricum, whence he was going to cross, he came. From Oricum all the troops were transported to Brundisium; thence through all Italy to the city, almost triumphing, with no smaller procession of captured things than their own led before them, they came. After Rome was reached, the senate outside the city was given to Quinctius to expound the deeds performed, and a merited triumph was decreed by them gladly.
he triumphed for three days. on the first day he carried in arms, weapons, and bronze and marble statues, more taken from Philip than those he had taken from the cities; on the second, gold and silver, wrought and unwrought and coined. of unwrought silver there were ~eighteen~ thousand pounds and two hundred seventy; of wrought, many vessels of every kind, most of them caelated, some of exceptional art; and many things fabricated of bronze; in addition, ten silver shields.
of minted silver there were eighty-four thousand of the Attic standard:
they call them tetradrachms; the weight of silver in each is nearly that of three denarii. of gold
the weight was 3,714 pounds, and one shield wholly of gold,
and Philippei gold coins 14,514. on the third day golden crowns, gifts of the cities, were carried, one hundred
fourteen; and victims were led, and before the chariot many noble captives
and hostages, among whom was Demetrius, son of King Philip, and Armenes, son of Nabis the
tyrant, a Lacedaemonian.
[53] Exitu anni huius Q. Aelius Tubero tribunus plebis ex senatus consulto tulit ad plebem plebesque sciuit uti duae Latinae coloniae, una in Bruttios, altera in Thurinum agrum deducerentur. his deducendis triumuiri creati, quibus in triennium imperium esset, in Bruttios Q. Naeuius M. Minucius Rufus M. Furius Crassipes, in Thurinum agrum A. Manlius Q. Aelius L. Apustius. ea bina comitia Cn. Domitius praetor urbanus in Capitolio habuit.
[53] At the close of this year, Q. Aelius Tubero, tribune of the plebs, in accordance with a decree of the senate brought a measure to the plebs, and the plebs enacted, that two Latin colonies should be led out, one into the Bruttian country, the other into the Thurian territory. For leading these out, triumvirs were created, to whom imperium should be for a three-year term: into Bruttium, Q. Naevius, M. Minucius Rufus, M. Furius Crassipes; into the Thurian territory, A. Manlius, Q. Aelius, L. Apustius. Those two elections Cn. Domitius, the urban praetor, held on the Capitol.
in that year several temples were dedicated: one of Juno Matuta in the Forum Holitorium,
vowed and let on contract four years earlier by C. Cornelius, consul, in the Gallic war: the same man, as censor, dedicated it;
another, of Faunus: the aediles C. Scribonius and Cn. Domitius had contracted for its construction two years earlier from silver derived from fines, and Cn. Domitius, who, as urban praetor, dedicated it.
And Q. Marcius Ralla, duumvir created for that very purpose, dedicated the temple of Fortuna Primigenia on the Quirinal hill: P. Sempronius Sophus, consul, had vowed it ten years earlier in the Punic war, and the same man, as censor, had let it out on contract.
And on the island of Jove C. Servilius, duumvir, dedicated a temple: it had been vowed six years earlier in the Gallic war by L. Furius Purpurio as praetor, and by that same man later as consul let out on contract.
[54] P. Scipio ex prouincia Gallia ad consules subrogandos uenit. comitia consulum fuere, quibus creati sunt L. Cornelius Merula et Q. Minucius Thermus. postero die creati sunt praetores L. Cornelius Scipio M. Fuluius Nobilior C. Scribonius M. Ualerius Messalla L. Porcius Licinus et C. Flaminius.
[54] P. Scipio came from the province of Gaul to appoint consuls in substitution. the elections for consuls were held, in which L. Cornelius Merula and Q. Minucius Thermus were elected. on the following day the praetors were elected: L. Cornelius Scipio, M. Fulvius Nobilior, C. Scribonius, M. Valerius Messalla, L. Porcius Licinus, and C. Flaminius.
The scenic games of the Megalesia were first staged by the curule aediles Aulus Atilius Serranus and Lucius Scribonius Libo. At the Roman Games of these aediles, for the first time the senate watched separated from the people, and it gave rise to conversations, as every novelty is wont, some judging that at last a tribute long owed had been paid to the most august order, others interpreting that whatever had been added to the majesty of the Fathers had been taken from the dignity of the people, and that all such distinctions by which the orders were set apart tended to diminish both concord and equal liberty: up to the 558th year it had been watched in common; what had suddenly happened, why would the Fathers not want the plebs to be mingled with them in the seating? why should the rich disdain the poor as a seat‑fellow?
a new, haughty lust for distinction, by the senate of no nation before either desired or instituted. Finally, they say that even Africanus himself, because as consul he had been the author of that measure, repented; so far is anything moved away from the old from being acceptable: they prefer to stand by the ancient ways, unless usage evidently proves the contrary.
[55] Principio anni quo L. Cornelius Q. Minucius consules fuerunt terrae motus ita crebri nuntiabantur ut non rei tantum ipsius sed feriarum quoque ob id indictarum homines taederet; nam neque senatus haberi neque res publica administrari poterat sacrificando expiandoque occupatis consulibus. postremo decemuiris adire libros iussis, ex responso eorum supplicatio per triduum fuit. coronati ad omnia puluinaria supplicauerunt edictumque est ut omnes qui ex una familia essent supplicarent pariter.
[55] At the beginning of the year in which L. Cornelius and Q. Minucius were consuls, earthquakes were being reported so frequently that people were weary not only of the thing itself but also of the holidays proclaimed on that account; for, with the consuls occupied in sacrificing and expiating, neither could the senate be held nor could the republic be administered. Finally, when the decemvirs were ordered to consult the books, in accordance with their response a supplication was held for three days. Crowned with garlands, they made supplication at all the pulvinaria, and it was proclaimed that all who were of one household should make supplication together.
likewise, by authority of the senate the consuls issued an edict that no one, on the day on which, an earthquake having been reported, holidays had been proclaimed, should on that day report another earthquake. then they cast lots for the provinces, first the consuls, then the praetors. to Cornelius Gaul, to Minucius the Ligurians fell; the praetors, having cast lots, C. Scribonius the urban (jurisdiction), M. Valerius the peregrine, L. Cornelius Sicily, L. Porcius Sardinia, C. Flaminius Hither Spain, M. Fulvius Farther Spain.
[56] Nihil eo anno belli expectantibus consulibus litterae M. Cinci—praefectus is Pisis erat—allatae: Ligurum uiginti milia armatorum coniuratione per omnia conciliabula uniuersae gentis facta Lunensem primum agrum depopulatos, Pisanum deinde finem transgressos omnem oram maris peragrasse. itaque Minucius consul, cui Ligures prouincia euenerat, ex auctoritate patrum in rostra escendit et edixit ut legiones duae urbanae quae superiore anno conscriptae essent post diem decimum Arretii adessent: in earum locum se duas legiones urbanas scripturum. item sociis et Latino nomini, magistratibus legatisque eorum qui milites dare debebant, edixit ut in Capitolio se adirent.
[56] While the consuls were expecting nothing of war that year, letters from M. Cincius—he was prefect at Pisa—were brought: that, a conspiracy having been made through all the assemblies of the whole nation, twenty thousand armed Ligurians had first laid waste the Lunan territory, then, having crossed into the Pisan bounds, had traversed the whole sea‑coast. Therefore Minucius the consul, to whom the province of the Ligurians had fallen, by authority of the senate mounted the Rostra and proclaimed that the two urban legions which had been enrolled the previous year should be present at Arretium on the tenth day; in their place, he would enroll two urban legions. Likewise upon the allies and the Latin name, upon their magistrates and legates whose duty it was to furnish soldiers, he issued an edict that they should approach him on the Capitol.
to them he assigned 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry in proportion to the number of each one’s youths, and from the Capitol he straightway ordered them to go to the gate and, in order that the matter be hastened, to set out for the levy. For Fulvius and for Flaminius, 3,000 Roman infantry apiece, 100 cavalry apiece as a supplement, and 5,000 apiece of the allies of the Latin name and 200 cavalry apiece were decreed, and it was mandated to the praetors that they dismiss the veteran soldiers when they had come into the province. When the soldiers who were in the urban legions, in crowds, approached the tribunes of the plebs that they might examine the cases of those for whom either earned discharges or sickness were reasons why they should not serve, that matter was quashed by a dispatch from Ti. Sempronius, in which it was written that 10,000 Ligurians had come into the territory of Placentia and had thoroughly ravaged it, with slaughters and burnings, up to the very walls of the colony and the banks of the Po; that the tribe of the Boii also was looking toward rebellion.
on account of these matters the senate decreed that there was a tumult: that it did not please that the tribunes of the plebs should hear military cases, lest assembling at the edict be hindered. they added also
that the allies of the Latin name who had been in the army of Publius Cornelius and Tiberius Sempronius and had been discharged by those consuls should, by whatever day the consul Lucius Cornelius had proclaimed and to whatever place he had proclaimed, assemble in Etruria; and that Lucius Cornelius
the consul, as he set out into the province, in the towns and fields through which he was going, should, if any soldiers seemed good to him, enroll, arm, and lead them with him, and that he should have the right of dismissing any of them whenever he wished.
[57] Postquam consules dilectu habito profecti in prouincias sunt, tum T. Quinctius postulauit ut de iis quae cum decem legatis ipse statuisset senatus audiret eaque, si uideretur, auctoritate sua confirmaret: id eos facilius facturos si legatorum uerba qui ex uniuersa Graecia et magna parte Asiae quique ab regibus uenissent audissent. eae legationes a C. Scribonio praetore urbano in senatum introductae sunt benigneque omnibus responsum. cum Antiocho quia longior disceptatio erat, decem legatis, quorum pars aut in Asia aut Lysimachiae apud regem fuerant, delegata est.
[57] After the consuls, a levy having been held, set out into the provinces, then T. Quinctius demanded that the senate should hear about those things which he himself had determined with the ten legates and should confirm them by its authority, if it seemed good: that they would the more easily do this if they had heard the words of the envoys who had come from all Greece and a great part of Asia and who had come from kings. Those embassies were introduced into the senate by Gaius Scribonius, the urban praetor, and a kindly answer was given to all. Since with Antiochus the dispute was longer, it was delegated to ten legates, part of whom had been either in Asia or at Lysimachia with the king.
A mandate was given to T. Quinctius that, with them admitted, he should hear the words of the king’s envoys and respond to them with whatever could be answered in accordance with the dignity and utility of the Roman People. Menippus and Hegesianax were the principals of the royal legation. Of these, Menippus said that he did not know what perplexity their legation contained, since they had come simply to seek friendship and to join alliance.
that there are, moreover, three kinds of treaties by which cities and kings make compacts of friendship among themselves: one, when terms are dictated to those conquered in war; for where all things have been surrendered to him who is stronger in arms, what among those things he wishes the conquered to have, and by what he wishes them to be mulcted, is his right and decision; a second, when equals in war come into peace and friendship by an equal treaty; then, indeed, things are to be reclaimed and restored by agreement, and if the possession of any has been disturbed by war, these are to be settled either according to the formula of ancient law or to the convenience of both parties; a third kind is when those who have never been enemies come together to join themselves in friendship by a social treaty: such persons neither dictate nor accept terms; for that belongs to a victor and a vanquished. Since Antiochus is of that kind, he marvels that the Romans deem it equitable to dictate to him laws as to which cities of Asia are to be free and exempt, which they wish to be tributary, which they forbid the king to enter with royal garrisons; for with Philip, an enemy, peace was to be ratified, not with Antiochus, a friend, a treaty of alliance.
[58] Ad ea Quinctius: 'quoniam uobis distincte agere libet et genera iungendarum amicitiarum enumerare, ego quoque duas condiciones ponam, extra quas nullam esse regi nuntietis amicitiae cum populo Romano iungendae: unam, si nos nihil quod ad urbes Asiae attinet curare uelit, ut et ipse omni Europa abstineat; alteram, si se ille Asiae finibus non contineat et in Europam transcendat, ut et Romanis ius sit Asiae ciuitatium amicitias et tueri quas habeant et nouas complecti.' enimuero id auditu etiam dicere indignum esse Hegesianax Thraciae et Chersonesi urbibus arceri Antiochum, <cum> quae Seleucus, proauus eius, Lysimacho rege bello uicto et in acie caeso per summum decus parta reliquerit, pari cum laude eadem, ab Thracibus possessa, partim armis receperit Antiochus, partim deserta, sicut ipsam Lysimachiam, et reuocatis cultoribus frequentauerit et, quae strata ruinis atque incendiis erant, ingentibus impensis aedificauerit: quid igitur simile esse ex ea possessione, ita parta, ita recuperata, deduci Antiochum et Romanos abstinere Asia, quae nunquam eorum fuerit? amicitiam expetere Romanorum Antiochum, sed quae impetrata gloriae sibi, non pudori sit. ad haec Quinctius 'quandoquidem' inquit 'honesta pensamus, sicut aut sola aut prima certe pensari decet principi orbis terrarum populo et tanto regi, utrum tandem uidetur honestius liberas uelle omnes quae ubique sunt Graeciae urbes an seruas et uectigales facere?
[58] To this Quinctius: 'since you like to proceed distinctly and to enumerate the kinds of forging friendships, I likewise will set down two conditions, outside of which you are to announce that there is none for the king for joining friendship with the Roman people: one, if he should wish us to concern ourselves with nothing that pertains to the cities of Asia, that he himself also abstain from all Europe; the other, if he does not confine himself within the boundaries of Asia and crosses over into Europe, that it be lawful for the Romans also both to protect the friendships of the cities of Asia which they have and to embrace new ones.' And in truth Hegesianax declared that it was unworthy even to be heard and to be said, that Antiochus be barred from the cities of Thrace and of the Chersonese, <since> those which Seleucus, his great‑grandfather, after King Lysimachus had been conquered in war and slain in battle, had left acquired with the highest honor, the same places—held by the Thracians—Antiochus had recovered partly by arms, partly, after they had been deserted, as Lysimachia itself, he had repopulated by recalling settlers, and what had been strewn with ruins and burnings he had rebuilt with vast expenditures: what likeness is there, then, in Antiochus’ being driven out from that possession, so acquired, so recovered, and the Romans abstaining from Asia, which had never been theirs? Antiochus seeks the friendship of the Romans, but of such a sort as, when obtained, is for his glory, not for his shame.' To this Quinctius said: 'since we are weighing what is honorable—as either alone or at any rate first it ought to be weighed by the people who are the leading power of the world and by so great a king—which, pray, seems more honorable: to will that all the cities of Greece, wherever they are, be free, or to make them slaves and tribute‑paying?'
if Antiochus deems it fair for himself to reclaim into servitude those cities which his great‑grandfather had held by the right of war, but which his grandfather and father never claimed as their own, then the Roman People holds it to belong to its good faith and constancy not to abandon the undertaken patronage of the liberty of the Greeks. just as it freed Greece from Philip, so also it has in mind to free from Antiochus the cities of Asia which are of the Greek name. for colonies were not sent into Aeolis and Ionia into royal servitude, but for the purpose of augmenting the stock and propagating the most ancient nation throughout the circle of lands (the world)'.
[59] Cum haesitaret Hegesianax nec infitiari posset honestiorem causam libertatis quam seruitutis praetexi titulo, 'quin mittimus ambages?' inquit P. Sulpicius, qui maximus natu ex decem legatis erat, 'alteram ex duabus condicionibus quae modo diserte a Quinctio latae sunt legite aut supersedete de amicitia agere'. 'nos uero' inquit Menippus 'nec uolumus nec possumus pacisci quicquam quo regnum Antiochi minuatur.' postero die Quinctius legationes uniuersas Graeciae Asiaeque cum in senatum introduxisset, ut scirent quali animo populus Romanus, quali Antiochus erga ciuitates Graeciae essent, postulata et regis et sua exposuit: renuntiarent ciuitatibus suis populum Romanum, qua uirtute quaque fide libertatem eorum a Philippo uindicauerit, eadem ab Antiocho, nisi decedat Europa, uindicaturum. tum Menippus deprecari et Quinctium et patres institit ne festinarent decernere, quo decreto turbaturi orbem terrarum essent: tempus et sibi sumerent et regi ad cogitandum darent; cogitaturum, cum renuntiatae condiciones essent, et impetraturum aliquid aut pacis causa concessurum. ita integra dilata res est.
[59] When Hegesianax hesitated, nor could he deny that a more honorable cause is being cloaked under the title of liberty than of servitude, “Why don’t we dismiss circumlocutions?” said Publius Sulpicius, who was the eldest of the ten legates: “choose one of the two conditions that have just now been clearly proposed by Quinctius, or else abstain from negotiating about friendship.” “For our part,” said Menippus, “we neither wish nor are able to make any compact by which the kingdom of Antiochus would be diminished.” On the following day, when Quinctius had brought into the Senate all the embassies of Greece and Asia, in order that they might know with what disposition the Roman People, and with what Antiochus, stood toward the cities of Greece, he set forth both the king’s demands and his own: let them report back to their cities that the Roman People, by the same valor and the same good faith by which it had vindicated their liberty from Philip, would likewise vindicate it from Antiochus, unless he withdraw from Europe. Then Menippus pressed in supplication both Quinctius and the senators not to be hasty in decreeing, by which decree they were going to disturb the whole world: let them take time for themselves and give time to the king for deliberation; that he would deliberate, once the conditions had been reported, and would either obtain something or concede something for the sake of peace. Thus the matter was deferred intact.
[60] Uixdum hi profecti erant, cum a Carthagine legati bellum haud dubie parare Antiochum Hannibale ministro attulerunt inieceruntque curam ne simul et Punicum excitaretur bellum. Hannibal patria profugus peruenerat ad Antiochum, sicut ante dictum est, et erat apud regem in magno honore, nulla alia arte nisi quod uolutanti diu consilia de Romano bello nemo aptior super tali re particeps esse sermonis poterat. sententia eius una atque eadem semper erat, ut in Italia bellum gereretur: Italiam et commeatus et militem praebituram externo hosti; si nihil ibi moueatur liceatque populo Romano uiribus et copiis Italiae extra Italiam bellum gerere, neque regem neque gentem ullam parem Romanis esse.
[60] Scarcely had they set out, when envoys from Carthage brought word that Antiochus was undoubtedly preparing war, with Hannibal as his minister, and they instilled anxiety lest at the same time a Punic war too be stirred up. Hannibal, an exile from his fatherland, had arrived to Antiochus, as was said before, and was in great honor with the king, by no other art than this: that, as he long revolved counsels about the Roman war, no one could be a more apt participant in discourse on such a matter. His opinion was always one and the same, that the war should be waged in Italy: that Italy would furnish both supplies and soldiers to a foreign enemy; if nothing were moved there and it were permitted to the Roman people to wage war outside Italy with the forces and resources of Italy, neither the king nor any nation would be a match for the Romans.
he was demanding for himself one hundred decked ships and ten thousand infantry, one thousand cavalry: with that fleet he would first make for Africa;
he had great confidence that he could compel the Carthaginians to revolt by his agency;
if they should hesitate, he would in some part of Italy rouse war against the Romans. the king, with all the rest, ought to cross into Europe and in some part
of Greece keep his forces—without actually crossing over, and, which is enough for the appearance and fame of the war, ready to cross.
[61] In hanc sententiam cum adduxisset regem, praeparandos sibi ad id popularium animos ratus litteras, ne quo casu interceptae palam facerent conata, scribere non est ausus. Aristonem quendam Tyrium nanctus Ephesi expertusque sollertiam leuioribus ministeriis, partim donis, partim spe praemiorum oneratum, quibus etiam ipse rex adnuerat, Carthaginem cum mandatis mittit. edit nomina eorum quibus conuentis opus esset; instruit etiam secretis notis, per quas haud dubie agnoscerent sua mandata esse.
[61] When he had brought the king over to this opinion, thinking that the minds of his compatriots had to be prepared for this on his behalf, he did not dare to write letters, lest, if by some chance they were intercepted, they should make his attempts public. Having found at Ephesus a certain Ariston, a Tyrian, and having tested his cleverness in lighter errands, he sends him to Carthage with mandates, loaded in part with gifts, in part with the hope of rewards, to which even the king himself had assented. He sets forth the names of those with whom it was necessary to hold conferences; he also equips him with secret marks, by which they might without doubt recognize that the mandates were his.
This Ariston, loitering at Carthage, was learned of as to the cause for which he had come not earlier by Hannibal’s friends than by his enemies. And at first the matter was celebrated in talk in circles and at convivial banquets; then in the senate certain men said that nothing had been accomplished by Hannibal’s exile if, even while absent, he could engineer new affairs and, by soliciting the minds of men, disturb the condition of the state: that a certain Ariston, a Tyrian newcomer, had come equipped with mandates from Hannibal and King Antiochus; that certain persons were every day holding secret conferences with him; that in the dark something was being concocted which would soon erupt to the destruction of all. All shouted together that Ariston ought to be called and asked for what he had come, and, unless he would disclose it, to be sent to Rome with envoys: that a sufficient measure of punishments would be paid for the temerity of one man; that private persons would sin at their own peril, but that the Republic must be preserved not only beyond guilt but even beyond the reputation of guilt.
Summoned, Ariston set about clearing himself and employed the very strongest bulwark, that he had brought no letters to anyone;
but he did not sufficiently explain the reason for his arrival, and he stuck fast especially at this point, because they charged that he had conferred only with men of the Barcid faction.
From this there arose an altercation, some ordering that he now be apprehended as a spy and kept in custody, others denying that there was a cause for raising a tumult:
that it was a thing of bad precedent to seize guests for nothing; the same would befall Carthaginians at Tyre and in other emporia to which they frequently resort.
The matter was deferred for that day.
Ariston, using Punic ingenuity among the Carthaginians,
hung up written tablets in a most celebrated place above the magistrates’ daily seat
at early evening; he himself at the third watch boarded ship and fled. On the following day, when the sufetes had sat down to pronounce judgment, the tablets were seen
taken down and read. It had been written that Ariston had had, privately to no one,
publicly to the elders—thus they called the senate—instructions.
[62] Masinissa postquam et infames Carthaginienses et inter se ipsos discordes sensit, principibus propter conloquia Aristonis senatui, senatu propter indicium eiusdem Aristonis populo suspecto, locum iniuriae esse ratus agrum maritimum eorum et depopulatus est et quasdam urbes uectigales Carthaginiensium sibi coegit stipendium pendere. Emporia uocant eam regionem: ora est minoris Syrtis et agri uberis; una ciuitas eius Lepcis: ea singula in dies talenta uectigal Carthaginiensibus dedit. hanc tum regionem et totam infestam Masinissa et ex quadam parte dubiae possessionis, sui regni an Carthaginiensium esset, effecerat.
[62] Masinissa, after he perceived both that the Carthaginians were infamous and that they were at odds among themselves—since the leading men were suspect to the senate on account of Ariston’s colloquies, and the senate, on account of that same Ariston’s disclosure, was suspect to the people—thinking there was an occasion for injustice,
he both ravaged their maritime territory and compelled certain tributary cities
of the Carthaginians to pay tribute to himself. They call that region the Emporia:
it is the shore of the Lesser Syrtis and of fertile land; its single city is Lepcis: that one
city used to give the Carthaginians, as revenue, one talent per day. Masinissa had then made
this region both altogether harried and, in some part, of doubtful possession—whether it belonged
to his kingdom or to the Carthaginians.
and because he learned that they were at the same time going to Rome both to purge the charges and to lodge a complaint against him—men who would both load those matters with suspicions and dispute about the right to the revenues—he too sends legates to Rome. When the Carthaginians had been heard concerning the Tyrian newcomer, they first aroused concern in the senators lest it be necessary to wage war with Antiochus and the Poeni (Carthaginians) at the same time. Most of all, that suspicion pressed the charge: that the very man whom, once apprehended, it had been resolved should be sent to Rome, they had kept under guard neither him nor his ship.
Then about the field, with the king’s envoys, it began to be disputed.
The Carthaginians were defending their case by the law of boundaries, on the ground that
it was within those limits within which P. Scipio the victor had fixed the land that was of the right
of the Carthaginians, and by the confession of the king, who, when he was pursuing Aphthires,
a fugitive from his kingdom, wandering with a part of the Numidians about Cyrene,
had by entreaty sought from him a passage through that very land, as though it were without doubt
under Carthaginian jurisdiction. The Numidians were charging them with lying even about Scipio’s demarcation,
and, if anyone were willing to demand the true origin of the right, what
land in Africa was properly the Carthaginians’?
to newcomers, as much ground as they could encircle with a cut ox-hide was granted, for fortifying the city, as a precarious grant: whatever they have exceeded beyond Byrsa, their seat, they hold as gotten by force and wrong. nor can they prove, about that which is at issue, that they have possessed it not only continuously since they seized it, but not even for long [them]. by taking opportunities, now they, now the kings of the Numidians, have usurped the right, and possession has always been with him who could do more by arms.
that the matter should be of whatever condition it had been
before the Carthaginians were enemies to the Romans and the king
of the Numidians was an ally and friend; they should allow it to be of that, and not interpose themselves so as to prevent the one who
could from holding it. It was decided that an answer be returned to the envoys of both parties that they would send into
Africa men who should adjudicate between the Carthaginian people and the king in the present matter.
P. Scipio Africanus and C. Cornelius Cethegus and M.
Minucius Rufus were sent; the matter having been heard and inspected, they left all things in suspense, with their opinions inclined to neither
side.
Whether they did this of their own accord or because it had been so mandated is less certain than that it seems to have been apt to the time that they be left with the contest intact; for if it were not so, Scipio alone, either by his cognizance of the case or by his authority—having so deserved of both parties—could have ended the dispute with a nod.