Livy: AB VRBE CONDITA LIBRI

[1] Hos secuti M. Genucius et C. Curtius consules. Fuit annus domi forisque infestus. Nam principio et de conubio patrum et plebis C. Canuleius tribunus plebis rogationem promulgavit, qua contaminari sanguinem suum patres confundique iura gentium rebantur, et mentio primo sensim inlata a tribunis ut alterum ex plebe consulem liceret fieri, eo processit deinde ut rogationem novem tribuni promulgarent, ut populo potestas esset, seu de plebe seu de patribus vellet, consules faciendi.

[1] After them followed the consuls M. Genucius and C. Curtius. The year was troublesome at home and abroad. For at the beginning, too, on the conubium (right of intermarriage) of patricians and plebs, Gaius Canuleius, tribune of the plebs, published a bill, by which the patricians thought their blood would be contaminated and the rights of the gentes confounded; and the mention, first gently introduced by the tribunes, that it should be permitted that one of the consuls be made from the plebs, then advanced to this point, that nine tribunes promulgated a bill that the people should have the power, whether from the plebs or from the patricians as it wished, of making consuls.

Id vero si fieret, non volgari modo cum infimis, sed prorsus auferri a primoribus ad plebem summum imperium credebant. Laeti ergo audiere patres Ardeatium populum ob iniuriam agri abiudicati descisse, et Veientes depopulatos extrema agri Romani, et Volscos Aequosque ob communitam Verruginem fremere; adeo vel infelix bellum ignominiosae paci praeferebant. His itaque in maius etiam acceptis, ut inter strepitum tot bellorum conticescerent actiones tribuniciae, dilectus haberi, bellum armaque vi summa apparari iubent, si quo intentius possit quam T. Quinctio consule apparatum sit.

If that, in truth, were to be done, they believed that the supreme command would not merely be made vulgar in common with the lowest, but would be outright taken away from the foremost and transferred to the plebs. The senators therefore gladly heard that the people of Ardea had seceded because of the injury of land adjudicated away, and that the Veientes had ravaged the outermost parts of the Roman fields, and that the Volsci and Aequi were roaring because Verrugo had been fortified; to such a degree they preferred even an unlucky war to an ignominious peace. Accordingly, these reports also being received in an exaggerated sense, so that, amid the clamor of so many wars, the tribunician actions might fall silent, they order a levy to be held, and war and arms to be prepared with the utmost force, if in any way it might be done more intently than it had been prepared under the consulship of T. Quinctius.

Tum C. Canuleius, pauca in senatu vociferatus, nequiquam territando consules avertere plebem a cura novarum legum, nunquam eos se vivo dilectum habituros, antequam ea quae promulgata ab se collegisque essent plebes scivisset, confestim ad contionem advocavit.

Then C. Canuleius, after vociferating a few words in the senate—that the consuls were in vain, by terrifying, trying to turn the plebs away from concern for the new laws; that never, while he lived, would they hold a levy before the plebs had enacted by vote those measures which had been promulgated by himself and his colleagues—immediately summoned the assembly.

[2] Eodem tempore et consules senatum in tribunum et tribunus populum in consules incitabat. Negabant consules iam ultra ferri posse furores tribunicios; ventum iam ad finem esse; domi plus belli concitari quam foris. Id adeo non plebis quam patrum neque tribunorum magis quam consulum culpa accidere.

[2] At the same time the consuls were inciting the senate against the tribune, and the tribune the people against the consuls. The consuls declared that the tribunician frenzies could no longer be borne; that the limit had already been reached; that more war was being stirred up at home than abroad. And that this was happening not so much by the fault of the plebs as of the patres, nor more by the fault of the tribunes than of the consuls.

Cuius rei praemium sit in civitate, eam maximis semper auctibus crescere; sic pace bonos, sic bello fieri. Maximum Romae praemium seditionum esse; ideo singulis universisque semper honori fuisse. Reminiscerentur quam maiestatem senatus ipsi a patribus accepissent, quam liberis tradituri essent, vel quem ad modum plebs gloriari posset auctiorem amplioremque esse.

Whatever thing has its reward in the state, that grows ever by the greatest augments; thus in peace good men, thus in war are made. At Rome the greatest reward is for seditions; therefore it has always been to the honor of individuals and of all alike. Let them remember what majesty of the Senate they themselves received from the Fathers, what they are about to hand down to their children, or in what way the Plebs can boast that it is more augmented and more ample.

Finem ergo non fieri nec futuram donec quam felices seditiones tam honorati seditionum auctores essent. Quas quantasque res C. Canuleium adgressum! Conluvionem gentium, perturbationem auspiciorum publicorum privatorumque adferre, ne quid sinceri, ne quid incontaminati sit, ut discrimine omni sublato nec se quisquam nec suos noverit.

Therefore no end is being made, nor will there be one in future, until the authors of seditions are as honored as the seditions are fortunate. What things, and how great, C. Canuleius has undertaken! He brings a mongrel confluence of peoples, a perturbation of the auspices, both public and private, so that there be nothing pure, nothing uncontaminated, with every distinction removed, and no one may know either himself or his own.

Quam enim aliam vim conubia promiscua habere nisi ut ferarum prope ritu volgentur concubitus plebis patrumque? Ut qui natus sit ignoret, cuius sanguinis, quorum sacrorum sit; dimidius patrum sit, dimidius plebis, ne secum quidem ipse concors. Parum id videri quod omnia divina humanaque turbentur: iam ad consulatum volgi turbatores accingi.

For what other force can promiscuous connubia have, except that the couplings of plebeians and patricians are made common almost in the fashion of wild beasts? So that he who is born does not know of what blood he is, to which sacred rites he belongs; he is half of the patres, half of the plebs, not even in concord with himself. That seems too little—that all things divine and human be disturbed: now the agitators of the mob gird themselves for the consulship.

Et primo ut alter consul ex plebe fieret, id modo sermonibus temptasse; nunc rogari ut seu ex patribus seu ex plebe velit populus consules creet. Et creaturos haud dubie ex plebe seditiosissimum quemque; Canuleios igitur Iciliosque consules fore. Ne id Iuppiter optimus maximus sineret regiae maiestatis imperium eo recidere; et se miliens morituros potius quam ut tantum dedecoris admitti patiantur.

And at first that one consul should be made from the plebs, that they had only tried by talk; now it was being asked that the people, whether it wills from the patricians or from the plebs, should create consuls. And that they would, without doubt, elect from the plebs the most seditious of each; therefore the Canuleii and the Icilii would be consuls. May Jupiter Best and Greatest not allow the dominion of regal majesty to fall back to that point; and that they would die a thousand times over rather than permit so great a disgrace to be admitted.

Certum habere maiores quoque, si divinassent concedendo omnia non mitiorem in se plebem, sed asperiorem alia ex aliis iniquiora postulando cum prima impetrasset futuram, primo quamlibet dimicationem subituros fuisse potius quam eas leges sibi imponi paterentur. Quia tum concessum sit de tribunis, iterum concessum esse; finem non fieri posse si in eadem civitate tribuni plebis et patres essent; aut hunc ordinem aut illum magistratum tollendum esse, potiusque sero quam nunquam obviam eundum audaciae temeritatique. Illine ut impune primo discordias serentes concitent finitima bella, deinde adversus ea quae concitaverint armari civitatem defendique prohibeant, et cum hostes tantum non arcessierint, exercitus conscribi adversus hostes non patiantur, sed audeat Canuleius in senatu proloqui se nisi suas leges tamquam victoris patres accipi sinant dilectum haberi prohibiturum?

Our ancestors too held it as certain that, if they had divined that by conceding everything they would not have a gentler plebs toward themselves, but a more harsh one, demanding things one after another more iniquitous after it had obtained the first, at the outset they would rather have undergone any struggle whatsoever than have allowed such laws to be imposed upon themselves. Because then a concession was made about the tribunes, again a concession has been made; no end can be made if in the same civitas there are both tribunes of the plebs and the Fathers; either this order or that magistracy must be removed, and it is preferable, late rather than never, to go to meet—to confront—audacity and temerity. Is it for them, with impunity, first, by sowing discords, to stir up wars on the borders, then, against those things which they have stirred up, to forbid the state to be armed and defended, and, when they have all but summoned enemies, not to allow armies to be enrolled against the enemies, but Canuleius dares to declare in the senate that, unless the Fathers allow his laws to be received as those of a victor, he will prohibit a levy from being held?

Quid esse aliud quam minari se proditurum patriam, oppugnari atque capi passurum! Quid eam vocem animorum, non plebi Romanae, sed Volscis et Aequis et Veientibus allaturam! Nonne Canuleio duce se speraturos Capitolium atque arcem scandere posse?

What is it other than to threaten that he will betray the fatherland, to allow it to be attacked and captured! What spirit will that utterance bring, not to the Roman plebs, but to the Volsci, the Aequi, and the Veientes! Will they not, with Canuleius as leader, hope that they can scale the Capitol and the citadel?

Nisi patribus tribuni cum iure ac maiestate adempta animos etiam eripuerint, consules paratos esse duces prius adversus scelus civium quam adversus hostium arma.

Unless the tribunes, with the Fathers’ right and majesty removed, also snatch away their courage, the consuls stand ready as commanders first against the crime of citizens rather than against the arms of enemies.

[3] Cum maxime haec in senatu agerentur, Canuleius pro legibus suis et adversus consules ita disseruit: "Quanto opere vos, Quirites, contemnerent patres, quam indignos ducerent qui una secum urbe intra eadem moenia viveretis, saepe equidem et ante videor animadvertisse, nunc tamen maxime quod adeo atroces in has rogationes nostras coorti sunt, quibus quid aliud quam admonemus cives nos eorum esse et, si non easdem opes habere, eandem tamen patriam incolere? Altera conubium petimus, quod finitimis externisque dari solet; nos quidem civitatem, quae plus quam conubium est, hostibus etiam victis dedimus;—altera nihil novi ferimus, sed id quod populi est repetimus atque usurpamus, ut quibus velit populus Romanus honores mandet. Quid tandem est cur caelum ac terras misceant, cur in me impetus modo paene in senatu sit factus, negent se manibus temperaturos, violaturosque denuntient sacrosanctam potestatem?

[3] While these matters were being transacted in the senate at the very moment, Canuleius spoke thus on behalf of his laws and against the consuls: "How greatly, Quirites, the Patres contemn you, how unworthy they deem you to live together with them in one city within the same walls, I for my part seem to have noticed often before; now, however, most of all, because they have risen up so savage against these our bills, in which what else do we do than remind them that we are their fellow-citizens, and that, if we do not have the same resources, yet we inhabit the same fatherland? The one, we seek conubium (intermarriage), which is accustomed to be granted to neighbors and foreigners; we indeed have given civitas (citizenship), which is more than conubium, even to enemies conquered;—the other, we bring forward nothing new, but we demand back and assert what belongs to the People, that to whom the Roman People wills it may entrust honors. What, pray, is the reason why they confound heaven and earth, why an assault was just now almost made upon me in the senate, why they say they will not restrain their hands, and threaten that they will violate the sacrosanct power?"

Si populo Romano liberum suffragium datur, ut quibus velit consulatum mandet, et non praeciditur spes plebeio quoque, si dignus summo honore erit, apiscendi summi honoris, stare urbs haec non poterit? De imperio actum est? Et perinde hoc valet, plebeiusne consul fiat, tamquam seruum aut libertinum aliquis consulem futurum dicat?

If to the Roman People free suffrage is given, so that it may entrust the consulship to whom it wishes, and the hope is not cut off for a plebeian also, if he be worthy of the highest honor, of acquiring the highest honor, will this city be unable to stand? Is it all over with the imperium? And does this count the same—whether a plebeian be made consul—as if someone were saying that a slave or a freedman would be consul?

Ecquid sentitis in quanto contemptu vivatis? Lucis vobis huius partem, si liceat, adimant; quod spiratis, quod vocem mittitis, quod formas hominum habetis, indignantur; quin etiam, si dis placet, nefas aiunt esse consulem plebeium fieri. Obsecro vos, si non ad fastos, non ad commentarios pontificum admittimur, ne ea quidem scimus quae omnes peregrini etiam sciunt, consules in locum regum successisse nec aut iuris aut maiestatis quicquam habere quod non in regibus ante fuerit?

Do you at all perceive in how great a contempt you live? They would, if they could, take away from you even a portion of this very light; they resent that you breathe, that you send forth a voice, that you have the forms of men; nay even—if it please the gods—they say it is impious for a plebeian to become consul. I beseech you, if we are not admitted to the Fasti nor to the pontifical Commentaries, do we not even know the things which all foreigners know—that the consuls succeeded in place of the kings, and that they have nothing either of law or of majesty which had not been in the kings before?

En unquam creditis fando auditum esse, Numam Pompilium, non modo non patricium sed ne civem quidem Romanum, ex Sabino agro accitum, populi iussu, patribus auctoribus Romae regnasse? L. deinde Tarquinium, non Romanae modo sed ne Italicae quidem gentis, Demarati Corinthii filium, incolam ab Tarquiniis, vivis liberis Anci, regem factum? Ser.

Do you suppose it has ever been heard in report that Numa Pompilius, not only not a patrician but not even a Roman citizen, was summoned from the Sabine countryside and, by the people’s order, with the senators as sponsors, reigned at Rome? Then that L. Tarquinius, not only not of Roman stock but not even of Italian race, the son of Demaratus the Corinthian, a resident from Tarquinii, while the children of Ancus were still alive, was made king? Ser.

Tullium post hunc, captiva Corniculana natum, patre nullo, matre serva, ingenio, virtute regnum tenuisse? Quid enim de T. Tatio Sabino dicam, quem ipse Romulus, parens urbis, in societatem regni accepit? Ergo dum nullum fastiditur genus in quo eniteret virtus, crevit imperium Romanum.

Tullius after him, born of a Corniculan captive, with no father, with a mother a slave, held the kingdom by talent and virtue? For what shall I say of T. Tatius the Sabine, whom Romulus himself, parent of the city, received into a partnership of the kingship? Therefore, so long as no stock was disdained in which virtue could shine forth, the Roman imperium grew.

Paeniteat nunc vos plebeii consulis, cum maiores nostri advenas reges non fastidierint, et ne regibus quidem exactis clausa urbs fuerit peregrinae virtuti? Claudiam certe gentem post reges exactos ex Sabinis non in civitatem modo accepimus sed etiam in patriciorum numerum. Ex peregrinone patricius, deinde consul fiat, civis Romanus si sit ex plebe, praecisa consulatus spes erit?

Do you now regret a plebeian consul, when our ancestors did not disdain kings who were newcomers, and not even with the kings driven out was the city closed to foreign virtue? Surely we received the Claudian clan after the expulsion of the kings, from the Sabines, not only into citizenship but even into the number of the patricians. From a foreigner let a patrician, then a consul, be made; if a Roman citizen be from the plebs, shall the hope of the consulship be cut off?

Utrum tandem non credimus fieri posse, ut vir fortis ac strenuus, pace belloque bonus, ex plebe sit, Numae, L. Tarquinio, Ser. Tullio similis, an, ne si sit quidem, ad gubernacula rei publicae accedere eum patiemur, potiusque decemviris, taeterrimis mortalium, qui tum omnes ex patribus erant, quam optimis regum, novis hominibus, similes consules sumus habituri?

Do we, then, not believe it can come to pass that a man brave and strenuous, good in peace and in war, be from the plebs, like Numa, L. Tarquinius, Ser. Tullius? Or, even if such a man should exist, will we not suffer him to come to the helm of the Republic, and are we going to have consuls resembling the decemvirs—the foulest of mortals—who then were all from the patricians, rather than the best of kings, “new men”?

[4] "At enim nemo post reges exactos de plebe consul fuit. Quid postea? Nullane res nova institui debet?

[4] "But indeed no one from the plebs has been consul after the kings were driven out. What then? Must no new thing be instituted?

Et quod nondum est factum—multa enim nondum sunt facta in novo populo,— ea ne si utilia quidem sunt fieri oportet? Pontifices, augures Romulo regnante nulli erant; ab Numa Pompilio creati sunt. Census in civitate et discriptio centuriarum classiumque non erat; ab Ser.

And because a thing has not yet been done—for many things, indeed, have not yet been done in a new people—ought those things not to be done, even if they are useful? Under Romulus reigning there were no pontiffs, no augurs; they were created by Numa Pompilius. The census in the state and the distribution of centuries and classes did not exist; by Ser.

Tullio est facta. Consules nunquam fuerant; regibus exactis creati sunt. Dictatoris nec imperium nec nomen fuerat; apud patres esse coepit.

It was instituted by Tullius. Consuls had never existed; once the kings were driven out, they were created. Neither the imperium nor even the name of a dictator had existed; it began to be among the patres.

Tribuni plebi, aediles, quaestores nulli erant; institutum est ut fierent. Decemuiros legibus scribendis intra decem hos annos et creavimus et e re publica sustulimus. Quis dubitat quin in aeternum urbe condita, in immensum crescente nova imperia, sacerdotia, iura gentium hominumque instituantur?

Tribunes of the plebs, aediles, quaestors there were none; it was instituted that they should be created. The decemvirs for writing laws within these 10 years we both created and removed from the commonwealth. Who doubts that, with the city founded for eternity and growing without limit, new powers, priesthoods, and the law of nations and of men will be instituted?

Hoc ipsum, ne conubium patribus cum plebe esset, non decemviri tulerunt paucis his annis pessimo publico, cum summa iniuria plebis? An esse ulla maior aut insignitior contumelia potest quam partem civitatis velut contaminatam indignam conubio haberi? Quid est aliud quam exsilium intra eadem moenia, quam relegationem pati?

This very thing—that there be no connubium for the patricians with the plebs—did not the decemvirs, in these few years past, carry through to the worst public detriment, with the utmost injury to the plebs? Or can there be any greater or more conspicuous contumely than that a part of the citizen-body be held as if contaminated, unworthy of connubium? What is it other than exile within the same walls, than to undergo relegation?

Ne adfinitatibus, ne propinquitatibus immisceamur cavent, ne societur sanguis. Quid? Hoc si polluit nobilitatem istam vestram, quam plerique oriundi ex Albanis et Sabinis non genere nec sanguine sed per cooptationem in patres habetis, aut ab regibus lecti aut post reges exactos iussu populi, sinceram servare privatis consiliis non poteratis, nec ducendo ex plebe neque vestras filias sororesque ecnubere sinendo e patribus?

They take care that we not be mingled by affinities, not by propinquities, that blood not be conjoined. What? If this pollutes that nobility of yours, which most of you, sprung from the Albans and Sabines, hold not by genus nor by blood but through cooptation into the Fathers (the Senate), either chosen by the kings or, after the kings were driven out, by order of the people—could you not keep it sincere by private counsels, both by neither taking wives from the plebs nor by allowing your daughters and sisters to marry out from the patres?

Nemo plebeius patriciae virgini vim adferret; patriciorum ista libido est; nemo invitum pactionem nuptialem quemquam facere coegisset. Verum enimvero lege id prohiberi et conubium tolli patrum ac plebis, id demum contumeliosum plebi est. Cur enim non fertis, ne sit conubium divitibus ac pauperibus?

No plebeian would inflict force upon a patrician virgin; that lust belongs to the patricians; no one would have compelled anyone to make a nuptial pact unwilling. But indeed, for this to be prohibited by law and for the intermarriage of patricians and the plebs to be taken away—that, precisely, is contumelious to the plebs. Why then do you not pass that there be no intermarriage between rich and poor?

Quod privatorum consiliorum ubique semper fuit, ut in quam cuique feminae convenisset domum nuberet, ex qua pactus esset vir domo, in matrimonium duceret, id vos sub legis superbissimae vincula conicitis, qua dirimatis societatem civilem duasque ex una civitate faciatis. Cur non sancitis ne vicinus patricio sit plebeius nec eodem itinere eat, ne idem conuivium ineat, ne in foro eodem consistat? Quid enim in re est aliud, si plebeiam patricius duxerit, si patriciam plebeius?

What everywhere and always belonged to private counsels—that a woman should marry into whatever house had suited each woman, and that a man should lead into matrimony from whatever house he had made his pact—you cast under the bonds of a most supercilious law, by which you sunder the civil society and make two out of one citizenry. Why do you not sanction that a plebeian be not neighbor to a patrician, nor go by the same road, nor enter the same convivium, nor stand in the same forum? For what else is there in the reality, if a patrician has taken a plebeian, if a plebeian a patrician?

Quid iuris tandem immutatur? Nempe patrem sequuntur liberi. Nec quod nos ex conubio vestro petamus quicquam est, praeterquam ut hominum, ut civium numero simus, nec vos, nisi in contumeliam ignominiamque nostram certare iuvat, quod contendatis quicquam est.

What right, then, is altered? Surely the children follow the father. Nor is there anything that we seek from your connubium, except that we be in the number of men, of citizens; nor is there anything for you to contend for, unless it pleases you to vie for our contumely and ignominy.

[5] Denique utrum tandem populi Romani an vestrum summum imperium est? Regibus exactis utrum vobis dominatio an omnibus aequa libertas parta est? Oportet licere populo Romano, si velit, iubere legem, an ut quaeque rogatio promulgata erit vos dilectum pro poena decernetis, et simul ego tribunus vocare tribus in suffragium coepero, tu statim consul sacramento iuniores adiges et in castra educes, et minaberis plebi, minaberis tribuno?

[5] Finally, whose is the supreme imperium—of the Roman People or of you? With the kings driven out, was domination for you, or equal liberty for all, obtained? Ought it to be permitted to the Roman People, if it wills, to enact a law; or, whenever any bill (rogation) shall have been promulgated, will you decree a levy as a punishment, and the moment I, the tribune, begin to call the tribes to suffrage, will you at once, as consul, force the younger men to the oath and lead them out to the camp, and threaten the plebs—threaten the tribune?

Quid si non quantum istae minae adversus plebis consensum valerent bis iam experti essetis? Scilicet quia nobis consultum volebatis, certamine abstinuistis; an ideo non est dimicatum, quod quae pars firmior eadem modestior fuit? Nec nunc erit certamen, Quirites; animos vestros illi temptabunt semper, vires non experientur.

What if you had not already twice found out how much those threats would avail against the plebs’ consensus? Of course, because you wanted to see to our welfare, you abstained from the contest; or was it for this reason that there was no fighting, that the party which was stronger was also the more moderate? Nor now will there be a contest, Quirites; they will always test your spirits, they will not try your strength.

Itaque ad bella ista, seu falsa seu vera sunt, consules, parata vobis plebes est, si conubiis redditis unam hanc civitatem tandem facitis, si coalescere, si iungi miscerique vobis privatis necessitudinibus possunt, si spes, si aditus ad honores viris strenuis et fortibus datur, si in consortio, si in societate rei publicae esse, si, quod aequae libertatis est, in vicem annuis magistratibus parere atque imperitare licet. Si haec impediet aliquis, ferte sermonibus et multiplicate fama bella; nemo est nomen daturus, nemo arma capturus, nemo dimicaturus pro superbis dominis, cum quibus nec in re publica honorum nec in privata conubii societas est."

Therefore, for those wars—whether they are false or true—consuls, the plebs is ready for you, if, with connubia restored, you at last make this commonwealth one city; if they can coalesce, if they can be joined and mingled to you by private ties; if hope, if access to honors is given to energetic and brave men; if they may be in the consortium, in the society of the commonwealth; if, which is of equal liberty, it is permitted in turn to obey and to command in the annual magistracies. If someone will impede these things, wage your wars in speeches and multiply them in rumor; no one will give in his name, no one will take up arms, no one will fight for haughty masters, with whom there is neither in the republic a partnership of honors nor in private a partnership of connubium."

[6] Cum in contionem et consules processissent et res a perpetuis orationibus in altercationem vertisset, interroganti tribuno cur plebeium consulem fieri non oporteret, ut fortasse vere, sic parum utiliter in praesens Curtius respondit, quod nemo plebeius auspicia haberet, ideoque decemviros conubium diremisse ne incerta prole auspicia turbarentur. Plebes ad id maxime indignatione exarsit, quod auspicari, tamquam invisi dis immortalibus, negarentur posse; nec ante finis contentionum fuit, cum et tribunum acerrimum auctorem plebes nacta esset et ipsa cum eo pertinacia certaret, quam victi tandem patres ut de conubio ferretur concessere, ita maxime rati contentionem de plebeiis consulibus tribunos aut totam deposituros aut post bellum dilaturos esse, contentamque interim conubio plebem paratam dilectui fore.

[6] When both the consuls had come forward into the assembly and the matter had turned from continuous orations into an altercation, to the tribune asking why it was not proper that a plebeian be made consul, Curtius replied—perhaps truly, yet little useful for the present—that no plebeian possessed the auspices, and that for that reason the decemvirs had severed conubium, lest, with offspring uncertain, the auspices be disturbed. The plebs burned with indignation especially at this, that they were denied the power to take the auspices, as though hateful to the immortal gods; nor was there an end of the contests until the plebs both had found in the tribune a most ardent advocate and itself was contending with stubbornness along with him, when at last the patricians, overborne, conceded that a measure be brought concerning conubium, thinking especially thus: that the tribunes would either lay down entirely the contention about plebeian consuls or defer it until after the war, and that the plebs, content meanwhile with conubium, would be ready for the levy.

Cum Canuleius victoria de patribus et plebis favore ingens esset, accensi alii tribuni ad certamen pro rogatione sua summa vi pugnant et crescente in dies fama belli dilectum impediunt. Consules, cum per senatum intercedentibus tribunis nihil agi posset, concilia principum domi habebant. Apparebat aut hostibus aut civibus de victoria concedendum esse.

When Canuleius was mighty by victory over the fathers and by the favor of the plebs, the other tribunes, inflamed, fight in the contest for their rogation with the utmost force and, as the report of war grows day by day, impede the levy. The consuls, since nothing could be transacted through the senate with the tribunes interceding, were holding councils of the leading men at home. It was apparent that victory would have to be conceded either to the enemies or to the citizens.

Soli ex consularibus valerius atque Horatius non intererant consiliis. C. Claudi sententia consules armabat in tribunos, Quinctiorum Cincinnatique et Capitolini sententiae abhorrebant a caede violandisque quos foedere icto cum plebe sacrosanctos accepissent. Per haec consilia eo deducta est res, ut tribunos militum consulari potestate promisce ex patribus ac plebe creari sinerent, de consulibus creandis nihil mutaretur; eoque contenti tribuni, contenta plebs fuit.

Of the consulars only Valerius and Horatius were not taking part in the counsels. The opinion of C. Claudius was arming the consuls against the tribunes; the opinions of the Quinctii and of Cincinnatus and Capitolinus recoiled from slaughter and from violating those whom, with a treaty struck with the plebs, they had received as sacrosanct. Through these counsels the matter was brought to this point: that they should allow military tribunes with consular power to be created promiscuously from both the patricians and the plebs, while nothing was changed concerning the creating of consuls; and with this the tribunes were content, and the plebs was content.

Comitia tribunis consulari potestate tribus creandis indicuntur. Quibus indictis, extemplo quicumque aliquid seditiose dixerat aut fecerat unquam, maxime tribunicii, et prensare homines et concursare toto foro candidati coepere, ut patricios desperatio primo inritata plebe apiscendi honoris, deinde indignatio, si cum his gerendus esset honos, deterreret. Postremo coacti tamen a primoribus petiere, ne cessisse possessione rei publicae viderentur.

Elections are proclaimed for creating three tribunes with consular power. When these were announced, immediately whoever had ever said or done anything seditious—especially former tribunes—began, as candidates, to buttonhole men and to run about the whole forum, so that at first despair, with the plebs roused, of obtaining the honor, and then indignation, if the honor had to be administered together with such men, might deter the patricians. At last, however, compelled by the leading men, they ran for office, lest they seem to have yielded possession of the republic.

Eventus eorum comitiorum docuit alios animos in contentione libertatis dignitatisque, alios secundum deposita certamina incorrupto iudicio esse; tribunos enim omnes patricios creavit populus, contentus eo quod ratio habita plebeiorum esset. Hanc modestiam aequitatemque et altitudinem animi ubi nunc in uno inveneris, quae tum populi universi fuit?

The outcome of those elections taught that men’s minds are one way in the contention for liberty and dignity, and another, after the contests have been laid aside, with an incorrupt judgment; for the people created all the tribunes patricians, content with this: that account had been taken of the plebeians. Where now will you find in a single man this moderation, equity, and loftiness of spirit, which then was that of the whole people?

[7] Anno trecentesimo decimo quam urbs Roma condita erat primum tribuni militum pro consulibus magistratum ineunt, A. Sempronius Atratinus, L. Atilius, T. Cloelius, quorum in magistratu concordia domi pacem etiam foris praebuit. Sunt qui propter adiectum Aequorum Volscorumque bello et Ardeatium defectioni Veiens bellum, quia duo consules obire tot simul bella nequirent, tribunos militum tres creatos dicant, sine mentione promulgatae legis de consulibus creandis ex plebe, et imperio et insignibus consularibus usos. Non tamen pro firmato iam stetit magistratus eius ius, quia tertio mense quam inierunt, augurum decreto perinde ac vitio creati, honore abiere, quod C. Curtius qui comitiis eorum praefuerat parum recte tabernaculum cepisset.

[7] In the three hundred and tenth year from when the city of Rome had been founded, for the first time military tribunes in place of consuls entered upon the magistracy—A. Sempronius Atratinus, L. Atilius, T. Cloelius—whose concord while in office furnished peace at home and even abroad. There are some who say that, because the war of the Aequi and Volsci had been added and, to the defection of the Ardeates, the Veientine war—since two consuls could not cope with so many wars at once—three military tribunes were created, with no mention of a law having been promulgated about creating consuls from the plebs, and that they used both consular imperium and insignia. Yet the right of that magistracy did not stand as already established, because, in the third month after they entered office, by decree of the augurs, as if created with a flaw, they departed from the honor, for the reason that C. Curtius, who had presided over their comitia, had taken the augural tent (tabernaculum) improperly.

Legati ab Ardea Romam venerunt, ita de iniuria querentes ut si demeretur ea in foedere atque amicitia mansuros restituto agro appareret. Ab senatu responsum est iudicium populi rescindi ab senatu non posse, praeterquam quod nullo nec exemplo nec iure fieret, concordiae etiam ordinum causa: si Ardeates sua tempora exspectare velint arbitriumque senatui levandae iniuriae suae permittant, fore ut postmodo gaudeant se irae moderatos, sciantque patribus aeque curae fuisse ne qua iniuria in eos oreretur ac ne orta diuturna esset. Ita legati cum se rem integram relaturos dixissent, comiter dimissi.

Legates from Ardea came to Rome, complaining of the injury in such a way that it appeared that, if that were removed, with the land restored, they would remain in treaty and friendship. From the senate it was answered that the judgment of the people could not be rescinded by the senate, besides the fact that it would be done with neither precedent nor right, and for the sake as well of concord of the orders: if the Ardeates should be willing to await their own times and permit to the senate the arbitration for alleviating their injury, it would come to pass that thereafter they would rejoice that they had moderated their anger, and would know that the Fathers had been equally concerned both that no injury should arise against them and that, if arisen, it should not be long-lasting. Thus the legates, when they said that they would report the matter intact, were courteously dismissed.

Patricii cum sine curuli magistratu res publica esset, coiere et interregem creavere. Contentio consulesne an tribuni militum crearentur in interregno rem dies complures tenuit. Interrex ac senatus, consulum comitia, tribuni plebis et plebs, tribunorum militum ut habeantur, tendunt.

The patricians, when the commonwealth was without a curule magistrate, came together and created an interrex. A contention whether consuls or military tribunes should be created during the interregnum held the matter for several days. The interrex and the senate press for the comitia of consuls; the tribunes of the plebs and the plebs press that there be elections for military tribunes.

Vicere patres, quia et plebs, patriciis seu hunc seu illum delatura honorem, frustra certare supersedit, et principes plebis ea comitia malebant, quibus non haberetur ratio sua, quam quibus ut indigni praeterirentur. Tribuni quoque plebi certamen sine effectu in beneficio apud primores patrum reliquere. T. Quinctius Barbatus interrex consules creat L. Papirium Mugillanum, L. Sempronium Atratinum.

The patricians prevailed, because the plebs too, intending to confer the honor on this or that patrician, refrained from contending to no purpose, and the leaders of the plebs preferred those comitia in which no account was taken of themselves to those in which, as unworthy, they would be passed over. The tribunes of the plebs likewise left the contest without effect, as a favor among the foremost of the fathers. T. Quinctius Barbatus, interrex, elects as consuls L. Papirius Mugillanus and L. Sempronius Atratinus.

His consulibus cum Ardeatibus foedus renovatum est; idque monumenti est consules eos illo anno fuisse, qui neque in annalibus priscis neque in libris magistratuum inveniuntur. Credo quod tribuni militum initio anni fuerunt, eo perinde ac totum annum in imperio fuerint, suffectis iis consulibus praetermissa nomina consulum horum. Licinius Macer auctor est et in foedere Ardeatino et in linteis libris ad Monetae ea inventa.

Under these consuls a treaty with the Ardeans was renewed; and this is evidence that those men were consuls in that year, who are found neither in the ancient annals nor in the books of magistrates. I believe that, because military tribunes were in office at the beginning of the year, it was just as if they had held imperium for the whole year, and, when consuls were appointed as suffects in their place, the names of these consuls were omitted. Licinius Macer is authority that these facts were found both in the Ardeatine treaty and in the linen books at Moneta.

Et foris, cum tot terrores a finitimis ostentati essent, et domi otium fuit.

And abroad, although so many terrors had been displayed by the neighbors, there was peace at home.

[8] Hunc annum, seu tribunos modo seu tribunis suffectos consules quoque habuit, sequitur annus haud dubiis consulibus, M. Geganio Macerino iterum T. Quinctio Capitolino quintum. Idem hic annus censurae initium fuit, rei a parva origine ortae, quae deinde tanto incremento aucta est, ut morum disciplinaeque Romanae penes eam regimen, senatui equitumque centuriis decoris dedecorisque discrimen sub dicione eius magistratus, ius publicorum privatorumque locorum, vectigalia populi Romani sub nutu atque arbitrio eius essent. Ortum autem initium est rei, quod in populo per multos annos incenso neque differri census poterat neque consulibus, cum tot populorum bella imminerent, operae erat id negotium agere.

[8] This year, whether it had only tribunes or had consuls also suffect to the tribunes, is followed by a year with no-doubt consuls, M. Geganius Macerinus again and T. Quinctius Capitolinus for the fifth time. This same year was the beginning of the censorship, an institution arisen from a small origin which thereafter was augmented by so great an increment that the governance of Roman morals and discipline was in its hands; that the distinction of honor and dishonor for the senate and for the centuries of the equites was under the dominion of that magistracy; that the jurisdiction over public and private places, and the revenues of the Roman people, were under its nod and discretion. But the beginning of the matter arose because, the populace having been “incensus” for many years, the census could neither be deferred, nor had the consuls, when so many wars of nations were impending, the leisure to transact that business.

Mentio inlata apud senatum est rem operosam ac minime consularem suo proprio magistratu egere, cui scribarum ministerium custodiaeque tabularum cura, cui arbitrium formulae censendi subiceretur. Et patres quamquam rem parvam, tamen quo plures patricii magistratus in re publica essent, laeti accepere, id quod evenit futurum, credo, etiam rati, ut mox opes eorum qui praeessent ipsi honori ius maiestatemque adicerent, et tribuni, id quod tunc erat, magis necessarii quam speciosi ministerii procurationem intuentes, ne in parvis quoque rebus incommode adversarentur, haud sane tetendere. Cum a primoribus civitatis spretus honor esset, Papirium Semproniumque, quorum de consulatu dubitatur, ut eo magistratu parum solidum consulatum explerent, censui agendo populus suffragiis praefecit.

A mention was introduced before the senate that the laborious and least-consular affair required its own proper magistrate, to whom the service of the scribes and the care of the custody of the records should be assigned, and to whom the authority over the formula of the census should be subjected. And the senators, although the matter was small, nevertheless, in order that there might be more patrician magistracies in the commonwealth, gladly accepted it, thinking also—what in fact came to pass, I believe—that soon the resources of those who presided would add to the office itself right and majesty. And the tribunes, viewing the administration of a ministry then as more necessary than showy, so as not to oppose incommodiously even in small matters, did not, to be sure, contend. Since the honor was spurned by the foremost men of the state, the people by their votes put Papirius and Sempronius—whose consulship is in doubt—in charge of conducting the census, so that by that magistracy they might make good a consulship not very sound.

Censores ab re appellati sunt.

The censors were named from the task.

[9] Dum haec Romae geruntur, legati ab Ardea veniunt, pro veterrima societate renovataque foedere recenti auxilium prope eversae urbi implorantes. Frui namque pace optimo consilio cum populo Romano servata per intestina arma non licuit; quorum causa atque initium traditur ex certamine factionum ortum, quae fuerunt eruntque pluribus populis exitio quam bella externa, quam fames morbiue quaeque alia in deum iras velut ultima publicorum malorum vertunt. Virginem plebeii generis maxime forma notam duo petiere iuvenes, alter virgini genere par, tutoribus fretus, qui et ipsi eiusdem corporis erant, nobilis alter, nulla re praeterquam forma captus.

[9] While these things are being transacted at Rome, legates from Ardea come, imploring aid for a city nearly overthrown, on the strength of a most ancient alliance and a treaty renewed recently. For it was not permitted to enjoy the peace, preserved with the Roman people by a most excellent counsel, because of internal arms—civil strife; the cause and beginning of which is reported to have arisen from a contest of factions, which have been and will be for more peoples a destruction than foreign wars, than famine or diseases, or any other things which they turn into the wrath of the gods as if the ultimate of public evils. A virgin of plebeian stock, very notable for her beauty, two young men sought: one, equal to the maiden in birth, relying on the tutors, who themselves also were of the same order; the other, a noble, captivated by nothing except her beauty.

Adiuuabant eum optumatium studia, per quae in domum quoque puellae certamen partium penetravit. Nobilis superior iudicio matris esse, quae quam splendidissimis nuptiis iungi puellam volebat: tutores in ea quoque re partium memores ad suum tendere. Cum res peragi intra parietes nequisset, ventum in ius est.

His cause was aided by the zeal of the Optimates, through which the contest of parties penetrated even into the girl’s house. The noble was superior in the mother’s judgment, who wished the girl to be joined in the most splendid nuptials; the guardians, mindful of their party, in this matter too inclined to their own side. Since the affair could not be transacted within the walls, it came into court.

Postulatu audito matris tutorumque, magistratus secundum parentis arbitrium dant ius nuptiarum. Sed vis potentior fuit; namque tutores, inter suae partis homines de iniuria decreti palam in foro contionati, manu facta virginem ex domo matris rapiunt; adversus quos infestior coorta optumatium acies sequitur accensum iniuria iuvenem. Fit proelium atrox.

Upon hearing the request of the mother and the guardians, the magistrates, according to the parent’s arbitrament, grant the right of nuptials. But force proved more potent; for the guardians, having harangued openly in the forum among the men of their faction about the injury of the decree, after mustering a band, seize the maiden from her mother’s house; against whom there springs up a more hostile array of the Optimates, which follows the youth inflamed by the injury. A fierce battle ensues.

Pulsa plebs, nihil Romanae plebi similis, armata ex urbe profecta, colle quodam capto, in agros optumatium cum ferro ignique excursiones facit; urbem quoque, omni etiam expertium ante certaminis multitudine opificum ad spem praedae evocata, obsidere parat; nec ulla species cladesque belli abest, velut contacta civitate rabie duorum iuvenum funestas nuptias ex occasu patriae petentium. Parum parti utrique domi armorum bellique est visum; optumates Romanos ad auxilium urbis obsessae, plebs ad expugnandam secum Ardeam Volscos excivere. Priores Volsci duce Aequo Cluilio Ardeam venere et moenibus hostium vallum obiecere.

The plebs, routed, nothing like the Roman plebs, armed, set out from the city; having seized a certain hill, it makes incursions with sword and fire into the fields of the optimates; it also prepares to besiege the city, the whole multitude of craftsmen, even previously untried in combat, having been called out by hope of plunder; nor is any form or disaster of war absent, as though the commonwealth were tainted with the madness of two young men seeking funereal nuptials from the downfall of their fatherland. It seemed too little to each party to have arms and war at home; the optimates summoned the Romans to the aid of the besieged city, the plebs called out the Volscians with them for the storming of Ardea. The Volsci came first to Ardea under their leader Aequus Cluilius and threw up a rampart against the enemy walls.

Quod ubi Romam est nuntiatum, extemplo M. Geganius consul cum exercitu profectus tria milia passuum ab hoste locum castris cepit, praecipitique iam die curare corpora milites iubet. Quarta deinde vigilia signa profert; coeptumque opus adeo adproperatum est, ut sole orto Volsci firmiore se munimento ab Romanis circumvallatos quam a se urbem viderent; et alia parte consul muro Ardeae brachium iniunxerat, qua ex oppido sui commeare possent.

When this was reported to Rome, immediately M. Geganius, the consul, set out with the army and seized a place for a camp three miles from the enemy, and, the day now precipitous, he orders the soldiers to care for their bodies. Then at the fourth watch he brings out the standards; and the work begun was so hastened that, with the sun risen, the Volsci saw themselves encircled by a stronger fortification by the Romans than that with which they had encircled the city; and on another side the consul had joined an arm to the wall of Ardea, by which his own could go to and fro from the town.

[10] Volscus imperator, qui ad eam diem non commeatu praeparato sed ex populatione agrorum rapto in diem frumento aluisset militem, postquam saeptus vallo repente inops omnium rerum erat, ad conloquium consule evocato, si solvendae obsidionis causa venerit Romanus, abducturum se inde Volscos ait. Adversus ea consul victis condiciones accipiendas esse, non ferendas respondit, neque ut venerint ad oppugnandos socios populi Romani suo arbitrio, ita abituros Volscos esse. Dedi imperatorem, arma poni iubet, et fatentes victos se esse imperio parere; aliter tam abeuntibus quam manentibus se hostem infensum victoriam potius ex Volscis quam pacem infidam Romam relaturum.

[10] The Volscian commander, who up to that day had sustained his soldier not by prepared supply-train but by grain snatched day by day from the depredation of the fields, after he was hemmed in by a rampart and was suddenly destitute of all things, with the consul summoned to a conference, said that if the Roman had come for the sake of having the siege dissolved, he would lead the Volsci away from there. To this the consul replied that for the conquered conditions are to be accepted, not imposed, nor, just as they had come at their own discretion to assail the allies of the Roman People, would the Volsci depart at their own discretion. He orders the commander to be surrendered, the arms to be laid down, and, confessing that they are conquered, to obey command; otherwise, whether they are going away or remaining, he, as a hostile enemy, will carry back to Rome victory from the Volsci rather than a faithless peace.

Volsci exiguam spem in armis alia undique abscisa cum temptassent, praeter cetera adversa loco quoque iniquo ad pugnam congressi, iniquiore ad fugam, cum ab omni parte caederentur, ad preces a certamine versi, dedito imperatore traditisque armis sub iugum missi, cum singulis vestimentis ignominiae cladisque pleni dimittuntur; et cum haud procul urbe Tusculo consedissent, vetere Tusculanorum odio inermes oppressi dederunt poenas, vix nuntiis caedis relictis. Romanus Ardeae turbatas seditione res principibus eius motus securi percussis bonisque eorum in publicum Ardeatium redactis composuit; demptamque iniuriam iudicii tanto beneficio populi Romani Ardeates credebant; senatui superesse aliquid ad delendum publicae avaritiae monumentum videbatur. Consul triumphans in urbem redit, Cluilio duce Volscorum ante currum ducto praelatisque spoliis quibus dearmatum exercitum hostium sub iugum miserat.

When the Volsci, having tried a scant hope in arms, with other supports cut off on every side, had engaged, besides other adverse circumstances, also on ground unfair for battle, more unfair for flight, and, as they were being hewn down from every side, turned from combat to prayers, with their commander surrendered and their arms handed over, they were sent under the yoke, and, with a single garment apiece, full of ignominy and calamity, they were dismissed; and when they had encamped not far from the city Tusculum, unarmed, overwhelmed by the old hatred of the Tusculans, they paid the penalties, with scarcely messengers of the slaughter left. The Roman at Ardea settled affairs troubled by sedition, after the chiefs of that disturbance were struck with the axe and their goods were reduced into the public treasury of the Ardeates; and the Ardeates believed that by so great a benefaction of the Roman people the injustice of the judgment had been removed; to the senate it seemed that something still remained for blotting out the monument of public avarice. The consul returns to the city in triumph, Cluilius, leader of the Volsci, led before the chariot, and the spoils displayed, with which he had sent the disarmed army of the enemy beneath the yoke.

Aequavit, quod haud facile est, Quinctius consul togatus armati gloriam collegae, quia concordiae pacisque domesticam curam iura infimis summisque moderando ita tenuit ut eum et patres severum consulem et plebs satis comem crediderint. Et adversus tribunos auctoritate plura quam certamine tenuit; quinque consulatus eodem tenore gesti vitaque omnis consulariter acta verendum paene ipsum magis quam honorem faciebant. Eo tribunorum militarium nulla mentio his consulibus fuit;

Quinctius, the consul in the toga, equaled—no easy feat—the glory of his armed colleague, because by moderating the laws for the lowest and the highest he so maintained a domestic care of concord and peace that both the patres judged him a severe consul and the plebs sufficiently affable. And against the tribunes he held more by authority than by contest; five consulships conducted with the same tenor and an entire life acted consularly made the man himself almost more to be revered than the honor. In consequence, of military tribunes there was no mention under these consuls;

[11] Consules creant M. Fabium Vibulanum, Postumum Aebutium Cornicinem. Fabius et Aebutius consules, quo maiori gloriae rerum domi forisque gestarum succedere se cernebant, maxime autem memorabilem annum apud finitimos socios hostesque esse quod Ardeatibus in re praecipiti tanta foret cura subuentum, eo impensius ut delerent prorsus ex animis hominum infamiam iudicii, senatus consultum fecerunt ut, quoniam civitas Ardeatium intestino tumultu redacta ad paucos esset, coloni eo praesidii causa adversus Volscos scriberentur. Hoc palam relatum in tabulas, ut plebem tribunosque falleret iudicii rescindendi consilium initum; consenserant autem ut, multo maiore parte Rutulorum colonorum quam Romanorum scripta, nec ager ullus divideretur nisi is, qui interceptus iudicio infami erat, nec ulli prius Romano ibi quam omnibus Rutulis divisus esset, gleba ulla agri adsignaretur.

[11] They elect as consuls M. Fabius Vibulanus and Postumus Aebutius Cornicen. Fabius and Aebutius, consuls, since they saw themselves succeeding to the greater glory of deeds done at home and abroad, and especially that the year would be most memorable among neighboring allies and enemies because for the Ardeates, in a critical emergency, such care had been brought as succor, all the more zealously, in order utterly to erase from men’s minds the infamy of the judgment, they passed a senatorial decree that, since the community of the Ardeates had been reduced by an internal tumult to a few, colonists should be enrolled thither for the sake of a garrison against the Volsci. This was openly entered in the tablets, so that it might deceive the plebs and the tribunes; a plan had been set on foot for rescinding the judgment; and they had agreed that, with a much greater number of Rutulian colonists than Roman enrolled, no land should be divided except that which had been intercepted by the infamous judgment, and that no clod of land should be assigned there to any Roman before it had been divided to all the Rutulians.

Sic ager ad Ardeates rediit. Triumviri ad coloniam Ardeam deducendam creati Agrippa Menenius T. Cloelius Siculus, M. Aebutius Helua; qui praeter minime populare ministerium, agro adsignando sociis quem populus Romanus suum iudicasset cum plebem offendissent, ne primoribus quidem patrum satis accepti, quod nihil gratiae cuiusquam dederant, vexationes ad populum iam die dicta ab tribunis, remanendo in colonia, quam testem integritatis iustitiaeque habebant, vitavere.

Thus the land returned to the Ardeates. Triumvirs for leading a colony to Ardea were appointed: Agrippa Menenius, T. Cloelius Siculus, M. Aebutius Helva; who, besides a service most unpopular, having offended the plebs by assigning to the allies land which the Roman People had adjudged its own, were not even sufficiently acceptable to the foremost of the patres, because they had granted no favor to anyone; prosecutions before the people, the day already named by the tribunes, they avoided by remaining in the colony, which they had as a witness of their integrity and justice.

[12] Pax domi forisque fuit et hoc et insequente anno, C. Furio Paculo et M. Papirio Crasso consulibus. Ludi ab decemviris per secessionem plebis a patribus ex senatus consulto voti eo anno facti sunt. Causa seditionum nequiquam a Poetelio quaesita, qui tribunus plebis iterum ea ipsa denuntiando factus, neque ut de agris dividendis plebi referrent consules ad senatum peruincere potuit, et cum magno certamine obtinuisset ut consulerentur patres, consulum an tribunorum placeret comitia haberi, consules creari iussi sunt; ludibrioque erant minae tribuni denuntiantis se dilectum impediturum, cum quietis finitimis neque bello neque belli apparatu opus esset.

[12] There was peace at home and abroad both this year and the next, with C. Furius Paculus and M. Papirius Crassus as consuls. The Games, vowed by the decemvirs, by decree of the senate, on the part of the patres during the secession of the plebs, were performed that year. The cause of the seditions was sought in vain by Poetelius, who, by denouncing those very measures, had again become tribune of the plebs; nor could he prevail that the consuls should refer to the senate about dividing lands to the plebs; and when, with great contest, he had obtained that the patres be consulted whether it was pleasing that the comitia be held by the consuls or by the tribunes, the consuls were ordered to be elected; and a laughingstock were the threats of the tribune, declaring that he would obstruct the levy, since, with the neighbors quiet, there was need neither of war nor of the apparatus of war.

Sequitur hanc tranquillitatem rerum annus Proculo Geganio Macerino L. Menenio Lanato consulibus multiplici clade ac periculo insignis, seditionibus, fame, regno prope per largitionis dulcedinem in ceruices accepto; unum afuit bellum externum; quo si adgravatae res essent, vix ope deorum omnium resisti potuisset. Coepere a fame mala, seu adversus annus frugibus fuit, seu dulcedine contionum et urbis deserto agrorum cultu; nam utrumque traditur. Et patres plebem desidem et tribuni plebis nunc fraudem, nunc neglegentiam consulum accusabant.

Following this tranquility of affairs, there comes a year, with Proculus Geganius Macerinus and L. Menenius Lanatus as consuls, marked by multiple disaster and danger—seditions, famine, a kingship almost taken upon their necks through the sweetness of largesse; one thing was absent: an external war; had the situation been aggravated by that, scarcely, with the help of all the gods, could resistance have been made. The troubles began from famine, whether the year was adverse to the crops, or, through the sweetness of mass-meetings and of the city, the cultivation of the fields was deserted; for both are handed down. And the patricians accused the plebs as slothful, and the tribunes of the plebs accused the consuls, now of fraud, now of negligence.

Postremo perpulere plebem, haud adversante senatu, ut L. Minucius praefectus annonae crearetur, felicior in eo magistratu ad custodiam libertatis futurus quam ad curationem ministerii sui, quamquam postremo annonae quoque levatae haud immeritam et gratiam et gloriam tulit. Qui cum multis circa finitimos populos legationibus terra marique nequiquam missis, nisi quod ex Etruria haud ita multum frumenti advectum est, nullum momentum annonae fecisset, et revolutus ad dispensationem inopiae, profiteri cogendo frumentum et vendere quod usui menstruo superesset, fraudandoque parte diurni cibi servitia, criminando inde et obiciendo irae populi frumentarios, acerba inquisitione aperiret magis quam levaret inopiam, multi ex plebe, spe amissa, potius quam ut cruciarentur trahendo animam, capitibus obvolutis se in Tiberim praecipitaverunt.

At last they drove the plebs, the senate not opposing, to have L. Minucius created prefect of the grain-supply, destined to be more fortunate in that magistracy for the guardianship of liberty than for the care of his own ministry—although in the end, when the grain-supply too was relieved, he earned not undeserved both gratitude and glory. He, after many legations had been sent in vain by land and sea among the neighboring peoples—except that from Etruria not so much grain was brought in—had produced no effect upon the grain-supply; and, reverting to the dispensation of scarcity, by compelling the declaration of grain and the sale of what exceeded monthly use, and by defrauding the slaves of a portion of their daily food, and by incriminating the grain-dealers and exposing them to the people’s wrath, by a harsh inquisition he laid bare rather than lightened the want. Many of the plebs, hope lost, rather than be tortured by dragging out their breath, with their heads veiled, hurled themselves headlong into the Tiber.

[13] Tum Sp. Maelius ex equestri ordine, ut illis temporibus praediues, rem utilem pessimo exemplo, peiore consilio est adgressus. Frumento namque ex Etruria privata pecunia per hospitum clientiumque ministeria coempto, quae, credo, ipsa res ad levandam publica cura annonam impedimento fuerat, largitiones frumenti facere instituit; plebemque hoc munere delenitam, quacumque incederet, conspectus elatusque supra modum hominis privati, secum trahere, haud dubium consulatum favore ac spe despondentem. Ipse, ut est humanus animus insatiabilis eo quod fortuna spondet, ad altiora et non concessa tendere et, quoniam consulatus quoque eripiendus invitis patribus esset, de regno agitare: id unum dignum tanto apparatu consiliorum et certamine quod ingens exsudandum esset praemium fore.

[13] Then Spurius Maelius, from the equestrian order—opulent for those times—undertook a useful thing with the worst precedent and with even worse counsel. For, grain having been bought up from Etruria with private money through the services of his hosts and clients—a procedure which, I believe, was itself an impediment to relieving the grain-supply by public care—he began to make largesses of grain; and the plebs, beguiled by this favor, wherever he walked, he, conspicuous and exalted beyond the measure of a private man, drew after him, pledging to himself, without doubt, the consulship by their favor and expectation. He himself, as the human mind is insatiable for that which Fortune promises, began to strive for higher and not permitted things, and—since even the consulship would have to be snatched from the Fathers against their will—to agitate for kingship: that alone he judged worthy of so great an apparatus of plans and of a struggle, the prize for which would be immense, though to be sweated out.

Iam comitia consularia instabant; quae res eum necdum compositis maturisue satis consiliis oppressit. Consul sextum creatus T. Quinctius Capitolinus, minime opportunus vir novanti res; collega additur ei Agrippa Menenius cui Lanato erat cognomen; et L. Minucius praefectus annonae seu refectus seu, quoad res posceret, in incertum creatus; nihil enim constat, nisi in libros linteos utroque anno relatum inter magistratus praefecti nomen. Hic Minucius eandem publice curationem agens quam Maelius privatim agendam susceperat, cum in utraque domo genus idem hominum versaretur, rem compertam ad senatum defert: tela in domum Maeli conferri, eumque contiones domi habere, ac non dubia regni consilia esse.

Now the consular elections were at hand; and this matter pressed him, his plans not yet composed or sufficiently matured. Titus Quinctius Capitolinus was created consul for the sixth time, a man least opportune for one attempting innovations; a colleague is added to him, Agrippa Menenius, whose cognomen was Lanatus; and Lucius Minucius, prefect of the grain-supply, either reinstated or, so long as circumstances required, appointed for an indeterminate term; for nothing is certain, except that in the Linen Books in each year the name of the prefect was entered among the magistrates. This Minucius, publicly conducting the same care which Maelius had undertaken to conduct privately, since in each house the same sort of men were frequenting, reports the matter as ascertained to the senate: that weapons were being conveyed into Maelius’s house, and that he was holding assemblies at home, and that the counsels of kingship were not in doubt.

Tempus agendae rei nondum stare: cetera iam convenisse: et tribunos mercede emptos ad prodendam libertatem et partita ducibus multitudinis ministeria esse. Serius se paene quam tutum fuerit, ne cuius incerti vanique auctor esset, ea deferre. Quae postquam sunt audita, cum undique primores patrum et prioris anni consules increparent quod eas largitiones coetusque plebis in privata domo passi essent fieri, et novos consules quod exspectassent donec a praefecto annonae tanta res ad senatum deferretur, quae consulem non auctorem solum desideraret sed etiam vindicem, tum Quinctius consules immerito increpari ait, qui constricti legibus de provocatione ad dissolvendum imperium latis, nequaquam tantum virium in magistratu ad eam rem pro atrocitate vindicandam quantum animi haberent.

That the time for carrying out the matter was not yet fixed; that the other things had already come together; and that the tribunes had been bought for a price to betray liberty, and the services apportioned to the leaders of the multitude. That he had reported these things later almost than was safe, so that he might not be the author of anything uncertain and vain. After these things were heard, since on all sides the chiefs of the patres and the consuls of the previous year were being reproached because they had allowed those largesses and gatherings of the plebs to be held in a private house, and the new consuls because they had waited until so great a matter was reported to the senate by the prefect of the corn-supply, a matter which required of a consul not only a promoter but even an avenger, then Quinctius said that the consuls were unjustly reproached, who, constrained by the laws on provocation enacted for dissolving the imperium, had by no means so much strength in their magistracy for avenging a matter of such atrocity as they had of spirit.

Opus esse non forti solum viro sed etiam libero exsolutoque legum vinclis. Itaque se dictatorem L. Quinctium dicturum; ibi animum parem tantae potestati esse. Adprobantibus cunctis, primo Quinctius abnuere et quid sibi vellent rogitare qui se aetate exacta tantae dimicationi obicerent.

There was need not of a strong man only, but also of a free one, unbound and released from the bonds of the laws. Therefore he said he would name L. Quinctius dictator; in that office his spirit would be equal to so great an authority. With all approving, at first Quinctius refused and kept asking what they wanted of him, that they should expose him, with his age spent, to so great a contest.

Dein cum undique plus in illo senili animo non consilii modo sed etiam virtutis esse quam in omnibus aliis dicerent laudibusque haud immeritis onerarent, et consul nihil remitteret, precatus tandem deos immortales Cincinnatus ne senectus sua in tam trepidis rebus damno dedecoriue rei publicae esset, dictator a consule dicitur. Ipse deinde C. Servilium Ahalam magistrum equitum dicit.

Then, when from every side they said that in that elderly mind there was more not only of counsel but also of virtue than in all the others, and loaded him with praises by no means undeserved, and the consul abated nothing, Cincinnatus at length, after praying to the immortal gods that his old age might not, in such anxious circumstances, be a damage or a disgrace to the republic, is declared dictator by the consul. He himself then names C. Servilius Ahala Master of the Horse.

[14] Postero die, dispositis praesidiis cum in forum descendisset conversaque in eum plebs novitate rei ac miraculo esset, et Maeliani atque ipse dux eorum in se intentam vim tanti imperii cernerent, expertes consiliorum regni qui tumultus, quod bellum repens aut dictatoriam maiestatem aut Quinctium post octogesimum annum rectorem rei publicae quaesisset rogitarent, missus ab dictatore Servilius magister equitum ad Maelium "vocat te" inquit, "dictator". Cum pavidus ille quid vellet quaereret, Serviliusque causam dicendam esse proponeret crimenque a Minucio delatum ad senatum diluendum, tunc Maelius recipere se in cateruam suorum, et primum circumspectans tergiuersari, postremo cum apparitor iussu magistri equitum duceret, ereptus a circumstantibus fugiensque fidem plebis Romanae implorare, et opprimi se consensu patrum dicere, quod plebi benigne fecisset; orare ut opem sibi ultimo in discrimine ferrent neue ante oculos suos trucidari sinerent. Haec eum vociferantem adsecutus Ahala Servilius obtruncat, respersusque cruore, stipatus caterua patriciorum iuvenum, dictatori renuntiat vocatum ad eum Maelium, repulso apparitore concitantem multitudinem, poenam meritam habere. Tum dictator "Macte virtute" inquit, "C. Servili, esto liberata re publica".

[14] On the next day, after the garrisons had been posted and he had descended into the forum, the plebs, turned toward him by the novelty and marvel of the affair, and the Maelian faction and their leader themselves, saw the force of so great an imperium aimed at them; those unaware of the counsels of kingship kept asking what uproar, what sudden war had required either the majesty of a dictatorship or Quinctius as ruler of the republic after his eightieth year. Servilius, the Master of the Horse, sent by the dictator to Maelius, said, “The dictator calls you.” When that frightened man asked what he wanted, and Servilius stated that a cause must be pleaded and that the charge brought by Minucius to the senate must be cleared away, then Maelius withdrew into the band of his own, and at first, looking around, prevaricated; at last, when the apparitor by order of the Master of the Horse was leading him, snatched away by those standing around and fleeing, he implored the good faith of the Roman plebs, and said that he was being crushed by the consensus of the patres because he had acted kindly toward the plebs; he begged that they bring help to him in his last crisis and not allow him to be butchered before their eyes. Servilius Ahala, having overtaken him as he was crying this out, cuts him down; and, spattered with gore, hemmed in by a crowd of patrician youths, he reports to the dictator that Maelius, summoned to him, with the apparitor driven back, was stirring up the multitude, and has the penalty he deserved. Then the dictator said, “Well done in valor, Gaius Servilius; let the republic be freed.”

[15] Tumultuantem deinde multitudinem incerta existimatione facti ad contionem vocari iussit, et Maelium iure caesum pronuntiavit etiamsi regni crimine insons fuerit, qui vocatus a magistro equitum ad dictatorem non venisset. Se ad causam cognoscendam consedisse, qua cognita habiturum fuisse Maelium similem causae fortunam; vim parantem ne iudicio se committeret, vi coercitum esse. Nec cum eo tamquam cum cive agendum fuisse, qui natus in libero populo inter iura legesque, ex qua urbe reges exactos sciret eodemque anno sororis filios regis et liberos consulis, liberatoris patriae, propter pactionem indicatam recipiendorum in urbem regum a patre securi esse percussos, ex qua Collatinum Tarquinium consulem nominis odio abdicare se magistratu atque exsulare iussum, in qua de Sp. Cassio post aliq vot annos propter consilia inita de regno supplicium sumptum, in qua nuper decemviros bonis, exsilio, capite multatos ob superbiam regiam, in ea Sp. Maelius spem regni conceperit.

[15] Then, as the multitude was tumultuating in an uncertain estimation of the deed, he ordered them to be called to an assembly, and he pronounced Maelius slain by right even if he had been innocent of the charge of kingship, since, when summoned by the master of the horse to the dictator, he had not come. He himself had sat to inquire into the case, and, the case once examined, Maelius would have had an outcome to match his case; as he was preparing force so as not to submit himself to judgment, he was restrained by force. Nor ought he to have been dealt with as with a citizen, who, though born among a free people amid rights and laws, knew that from this city kings had been driven out, and that in that same year the king’s sister’s sons and the sons of the consul—the liberator of his country—had been struck with the axe by their father because the pact for re-admitting the kings into the city had been exposed; from which city Collatinus Tarquinius, the consul, had been ordered, through hatred of the name, to abdicate his magistracy and to go into exile; in which city, after some years, punishment had been exacted upon Spurius Cassius for designs undertaken concerning kingship; in which city, recently, the decemvirs had been penalized in goods, by exile, and in life for royal arrogance—in that city Spurius Maelius conceived a hope of kingship.

Et quis homo? Quamquam nullam nobilitatem, nullos honores, nulla merita cuiquam ad dominationem pandere viam; sed tamen Claudios, Cassios consulatibus, decemviratibus, suis maiorumque honoribus, splendore familiarum sustulisse animos quo nefas fuerit: Sp. Maelium, cui tribunatus plebis magis optandus quam sperandus fuerit, frumentarium divitem bilibris farris sperasse libertatem se civium suorum emisse, ciboque obiciendo ratum victorem finitimorum omnium populum in servitutem perlici posse, ut quem senatorem concoquere civitas vix posset regem ferret, Romuli conditoris, ab dis orti, recepti ad deos, insignia atque imperium habentem. Non pro scelere id magis quam pro monstro habendum, nec satis esse sanguine eius expiatum, nisi tecta parietesque intra quae tantum amentiae conceptum esset dissiparentur bonaque contacta pretiis regni mercandi publicarentur.

And what man? Although no nobility, no honors, no merits ought to open a way to domination for anyone; yet that the Claudii, the Cassii—by consulships, decemvirates, by their own and their forefathers’ honors, by the splendor of their houses—had lifted their spirits to a pitch at which it would have been an abomination: Sp. Maelius, for whom the tribunate of the plebs would have been more to be wished than to be hoped for, a grain‑dealer rich, by a two‑pound weight of far, hoped that he had bought the freedom of his fellow‑citizens, and, by throwing out food, taking it for certain that the people, conqueror of all the neighboring nations, could be lured into slavery; that the commonwealth would endure as king the man whom it could scarcely stomach as a senator, one bearing the insignia and the imperium of Romulus the founder—sprung from the gods and received back among the gods. That ought to be held not so much a crime as a portent, nor is it enough that it be expiated by his blood, unless the roofs and walls within which so great a madness was conceived be torn down, and the goods that had been tainted by the prices for buying a kingship be made public property.

Iubere itaque quaestores vendere ea bona atque in publicum redigere.

He therefore ordered the quaestors to sell those goods and to bring them into the public treasury.

[16] Domum deinde, ut monumento area esset oppressae nefariae spei, dirui extemplo iussit. Id Aequimaelium appellatum est. L. Minucius bove aurata extra portam Trigeminam est donatus, ne plebe quidem invita, quia frumentum Maelianum assibus in modios aestimatum plebi divisit.

[16] Then he ordered the house to be torn down at once, so that the area might be a monument of the nefarious hope that had been crushed. This was called the Aequimaelium. Lucius Minucius was presented with a gilded ox outside the Trigemina Gate, not even with the plebs unwilling, because he distributed to the plebs the Maelian grain, assessed at asses per modius.

Hunc Minucium apud quosdam auctores transisse a patribus ad plebem, undecimumque tribunum plebis cooptatum seditionem motam ex Maeliana caede sedasse invenio; ceterum vix credibile est numerum tribunorum patres augeri passos, idque potissimum exemplum a patricio homine introductum, nec deinde id plebem concessum semel obtinuisse aut certe temptasse. Sed ante omnia refellit falsum imaginis titulum paucis ante annis lege cautum ne tribunis collegam cooptare liceret. Q. Caecilius Q. Iunius Sex.

As for this Minucius, I find in certain authors that he passed over from the patricians to the plebs, and, having been co-opted as the eleventh tribune of the plebs, he quelled the sedition stirred up from the Maelian slaughter; but, on the other hand, it is scarcely credible that the fathers allowed the number of tribunes to be increased—and that this precedent above all was introduced by a patrician man—nor thereafter that the plebs, once it had been conceded, either maintained it or at least attempted it. But, before all, the false inscription of the image refutes it: a few years earlier it had been provided by law that it was not permitted for the tribunes to co-opt a colleague. Q. Caecilius Q. Iunius Sex.

Titinius soli ex collegio tribunorum neque tulerant de honoribus Minuci legem et criminari nunc Minucium, nunc Servilium apud plebem querique indignam necem Maeli non destiterant. Peruicerunt igitur ut tribunorum militum potius quam consulum comitia haberentur, haud dubii quin sex locis—tot enim iam creari licebat—et plebeii aliqui, profitendo se ultores fore Maelianae caedis, crearentur. Plebs quamquam agitata multis eo anno et variis motibus erat, nec plures quam tres tribunos consulari potestate creavit et in his L. Quinctium Cincinnati filium, ex cuius dictaturae invidia tumultus quaerebatur.

Titinius alone out of the college of the tribunes had not carried the law about the honors of Minucius, and they did not cease now to charge Minucius, now Servilius before the plebs, and to complain of the unworthy death of Maelius. They prevailed, therefore, that elections should be held for military tribunes rather than for consuls, in no doubt that, with six places—for so many it was now permitted to be created—some plebeians also, by professing themselves to be avengers of the Maelian slaughter, would be elected. The plebs, although it had been agitated that year by many and various tumults, created no more than three tribunes with consular power, and among these L. Quinctius, son of Cincinnatus, out of the odium of whose dictatorship a tumult was being sought.

Praelatus suffragiis Quinctio Mamercus Aemilius, vir summae dignitatis; L. Iulium tertium creant.

Preferred by the suffrages to Quinctius was Mamercus Aemilius, a man of the highest dignity; they create L. Julius as the third.

[17] In horum magistratu Fidenae, colonia Romana, ad Lartem Tolumnium ac Veientes defecere. Maius additum defectioni scelus: C. Fulcinium Cloelium Tullum Sp. Antium L. Roscium legatos Romanos, causam novi consilii quaerentes, iussu Tolumni interfecerunt. Leuant quidam regis facinus; in tesserarum prospero iactu vocem eius ambiguam, ut occidi iussisse videretur, a Fidenatibus exceptam causam mortis legatis fuisse,—rem incredibilem, interuentu Fidenatium, novorum sociorum, consulentium de caede ruptura ius gentium, non aversum ab intentione lusus animum nec deinde in errorem versum facinus.

[17] In the magistracy of these men, Fidenae, a Roman colony, defected to Lars Tolumnius and the Veientines. A greater crime was added to the defection: the Fidenates, by order of Tolumnius, slew the Roman envoys—Gaius Fulcinius, Cloelius Tullus, Spurius Antius, Lucius Roscius—who were seeking the reason for the new counsel. Some lessen the king’s crime; they say that, in a lucky throw of the dice, an ambiguous utterance of his—so that he seemed to have ordered them to be killed—was caught up by the Fidenates and was the cause of the envoys’ death,—a thing unbelievable: that, with the intervention of the Fidenates, new allies, consulting about a murder, the ius gentium should be broken; that a mind not averted from the intention of play and a deed should then be turned into a mere error.

Propius est fidem obstringi Fidenatium populum ne respicere spem ullam ab Romanis posset conscientia tanti sceleris voluisse. Legatorum qui Fidenis caesi erant statuae publice in Rostris positae sunt. Cum Veientibus Fidenatibusque, praeterquam finitimis populis, ab causa etiam tam nefanda bellum exorsis atrox dimicatio instabat.

It is more credible that the people of Fidenae wished to bind their faith, so that, by the consciousness of so great a crime, they could not look back to any hope from the Romans. The statues of the envoys who had been slain at Fidenae were publicly set up on the Rostra. With the Veientes and the Fidenates—besides being neighboring peoples, having even set a war in motion from so nefarious a cause—a savage struggle was imminent.

Itaque ad curam summae rerum quieta plebe tribunisque eius, nihil controversiae fuit quin consules crearentur M. Geganius Macerinus tertium et L. Sergius Fidenas. A bello credo quod deinde gessit appellatum; hic enim primus cis Anienem cum rege Veientium secundo proelio conflixit, nec incruentam victoriam rettulit. Maior itaque ex civibus amissis dolor quam laetitia fusis hostibus fuit; et senatus, ut in trepidis rebus, dictatorem dici Mam.

Therefore, with the plebs and its tribunes quiet as to the care of the supreme affairs, there was no controversy but that consuls should be elected M. Geganius Macerinus for the third time and L. Sergius Fidenas. I believe he was so called from the war which he afterwards waged; for he was the first on this side of the Anio to engage in a second battle with the king of the Veientians, nor did he bring back an unbloodied victory. Therefore the grief from citizens lost was greater than the joy at the routed enemies; and the senate, as in anxious circumstances, ordered that a dictator be named, Mam.

Aemilium iussit. Is magistrum equitum ex collegio prioris anni, quo simul tribuni militum consulari potestate fuerant, L. Quinctium Cincinnatum, dignum parente iuvenem, dixit. Ad dilectum a consulibus habitum centuriones veteres belli periti adiecti et numerus amissorum proxima pugna expletus.

He ordered that Mamercus Aemilius be named dictator. He appointed as master of horse from the college of the previous year—in which at the same time there had been tribunes with consular power—Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, a young man worthy of his parent. To the levy held by the consuls, veteran centurions skilled in war were added, and the number of those lost in the most recent battle was made up.

Legatos T. Quinctium Capitolinum et M. Fabium Vibulanum sequi se dictator iussit. Cum potestas maior tum vir quoque potestati par hostes ex agro Romano trans Anienem submovere; collesque inter Fidenas atque Anienem ceperunt referentes castra, nec ante in campos degressi sunt quam legiones Faliscorum auxilio venerunt. Tum demum castra Etruscorum pro moenibus Fidenarum posita.

The dictator ordered the legates, T. Quinctius Capitolinus and M. Fabius Vibulanus, to follow him. Both because the authority was greater, and because the man too was equal to his authority, he drove the enemies from the Roman land across the Anio; and they seized the hills between Fidenae and the Anio, drawing back their camp, nor did they descend into the plains until the legions of the Faliscans came for aid. Then at last the Etruscans’ camp was pitched before the walls of Fidenae.

Et dictator Romanus haud procul inde ad confluentes consedit in utriusque ripis amnis, qua sequi munimento poterat vallo interposito. Postero die in aciem eduxit.

And the Roman dictator, not far from there, took up position at the confluence, on both banks of the river, where he could advance under a fortification, with a rampart interposed. On the next day he led out into battle line.

[18] Inter hostes variae fuere sententiae. Faliscus procul ab domo militiam aegre patiens satisque fidens sibi, poscere pugnam: Veienti Fidenatique plus spei in trahendo bello esse. Tolumnius, quamquam suorum magis placebant consilia, ne longinquam militiam non paterentur Falisci, postero die se pugnaturum edicit.

[18] Among the enemies there were varied opinions. The Faliscans, far from home, ill-enduring military service and quite confident in themselves, demanded battle; the Veientes and Fidenaeans held that there was more hope in dragging out the war. Tolumnius, although the counsels of his own men pleased him more, so that the Faliscans might not have to endure a long campaign, proclaims that he will fight on the following day.

Dictatori ac Romanis, quod detractasset pugnam hostis, animi accessere; posteroque die iam militibus castra urbemque se oppugnaturos frementibus ni copia pugnae fiat, utrimque acies inter bina castra in medium campi procedunt. Veiens multitudine abundans, qui inter dimicationem castra Romana adgrederentur post montes circummisit. Trium populorum exercitus ita stetit instructus ut dextrum cornu Veientes, sinistrum Falisci tenerent, medii Fidenates essent.

To the Dictator and the Romans, because the enemy had drawn back from battle, courage accrued; and on the following day, with the soldiers now roaring that they would assault the camp and the city unless a supply/permission of battle be given, on both sides the battle-lines advanced between the two camps into the middle of the field. The Veientines, abounding in multitude, sent around behind the hills those who, during the struggle, should attack the Roman camp. The army of the three peoples stood thus arrayed: the Veientines held the right wing, the Falisci the left, and the Fidenates were in the center.

Dictator dextro cornu adversus Faliscos, sinistro contra Veientem Capitolinus Quinctius intulit signa; ante mediam aciem cum equitatu magister equitum processit. Parumper silentium et quies fuit, nec Etruscis nisi cogerentur pugnam inituris et dictatore arcem Romanam respectante, ut ex ea ab auguribus, simul aves rite admisissent, ex composito tolleretur signum. Quod simul conspexit, primos equites clamore sublato in hostem emisit; secuta peditum acies ingenti vi conflixit.

The Dictator advanced the standards with the right wing against the Falisci; on the left, against the Veientine, Capitolinus Quinctius brought up the standards; before the center of the battle-line the Master of the Horse advanced with the cavalry. For a little while there was silence and repose, and the Etruscans were not about to enter upon battle unless they were forced; and the Dictator kept looking back toward the Roman citadel, in order that from it by the augurs, as soon as the birds had duly assented, the signal might, by prearrangement, be lifted. As soon as he caught sight of this, he sent the foremost cavalrymen, a shout having been raised, against the enemy; the infantry line followed and clashed with immense force.

Nulla parte legiones Etruscae sustinuere impetum Romanorum; eques maxime resistebat, equitumque longe fortissimus ipse rex ab omni parte effuse sequentibus obequitans Romanis trahebat certamen.

In no part did the Etruscan legions sustain the impetus of the Romans; the cavalry resisted most of all, and by far the bravest of the horsemen, the king himself, riding around the Romans as they, poured out from every side, were pursuing, was drawing out the contest.

[19] Erat tum inter equites tribunus militum A. Cornelius Cossus, eximia pulchritudine corporis, animo ac viribus par memorque generis, quod amplissimum acceptum maius auctiusque reliquit posteris. Is cum ad impetum Tolumni, quacumque se intendisset, trepidantes Romanas videret turmas insignemque eum regio habitu volitantem tota acie cognosset, "hicine est" inquit, "ruptor foederis humani violatorque gentium iuris? Iam ego hanc mactatam victimam, si modo sancti quicquam in terris esse di volunt, legatorum manibus dabo". Calcaribus subditis infesta cuspide in unum fertur hostem; quem cum ictum equo deiecisset, confestim et ipse hasta innixus se in pedes excepit.

[19] At that time among the horsemen was the military tribune A. Cornelius Cossus, of exceptional pulchritude of body, his courage and strength to match, and mindful of his lineage—which, received most illustrious, he left greater and more augmented to posterity. When he saw the Roman troops wavering at Tolumnius’s charge, wherever he directed himself, and recognized him, conspicuous in royal attire, darting through the whole line of battle, he said, “Is this the breaker of the human foedus and violator of the ius gentium? Now I will give this victim, once sacrificed—if only the gods are willing that anything be sacred on earth—into the hands of the legates.” With spurs driven in and his spear-point leveled in hostility, he rushes upon that one foe; and when he had struck him and thrown him from his horse, straightway he too, leaning on his spear, took himself onto his feet.

Adsurgentem ibi regem umbone resupinat, repetitumque saepius cuspide ad terram adfixit. Tum exsangui detracta spolia caputque abscisum victor spiculo gerens terrore caesi regis hostes fundit. Ita equitum quoque fusa acies, quae una fecerat anceps certamen.

There he flung the king, as he was rising, onto his back with the shield‑boss, and, struck again and again, he affixed him to the ground with the spear‑point. Then, the spoils stripped from the bloodless body and the head severed, the victor, bearing them on his javelin, routs the enemies by the terror of the slain king. Thus the cavalry’s battle‑line too was routed, which alone had made the contest doubtful.

Dictator legionibus fugatis instat et ad castra compulsos caedit. Fidenatium plurimi locorum notitia effugere in montes. Cossus Tiberim cum equitatu transvectus ex agro Veientano ingentem detulit praedam ad urbem.

The dictator presses hard upon the routed legions and cuts down those driven back to the camp. Of the Fidenates, very many, by knowledge of the localities, escaped into the mountains. Cossus, having crossed the Tiber with the cavalry, brought an immense spoil from the Veientine countryside to the city.

Inter proelium et ad castra Romana pugnatum est adversus partem copiarum ab Tolumnio, ut ante dictum est, ad castra missam. Fabius Vibulanus corona primum vallum defendit; intentos deinde hostes in vallum, egressus dextra principali cum triariis, repente invadit. Quo pavore iniecto caedes minor, quia pauciores erant, fuga non minus trepida quam in acie fuit.

Meanwhile, at the Roman camp fighting took place against the portion of the forces which, as said before, had been sent by Tolumnius to the camp. Fabius Vibulanus at first defended the rampart with a ring of men; then, when the enemy were intent upon the rampart, having gone out by the right principal gate with the triarii, he suddenly attacks them. With this panic inflicted, the slaughter was less, because they were fewer, but the flight was no less panic‑stricken than in the battle‑line.

[20] Omnibus locis re bene gesta, dictator senatus consulto iussuque populi triumphans in urbem rediit. Longe maximum triumphi spectaculum fuit Cossus, spolia opima regis interfecti gerens; in eum milites carmina incondita aequantes eum Romulo canere. Spolia in aede Iovis Feretri prope Romuli spolia quae, prima opima appellata, sola ea tempestate erant, cum sollemni dedicatione dono fixit; averteratque in se a curru dictatoris civium ora et celebritatis eius diei fructum prope solus tulerat.

[20] With affairs well conducted in all places, the dictator, by decree of the senate and by order of the people, returned to the city in triumph. By far the greatest spectacle of the triumph was Cossus, bearing the opima spoils of the slain king; the soldiers were singing unpolished songs about him, equating him with Romulus. He fixed the spoils as a gift, with a solemn dedication, in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, near the spoils of Romulus which, called the first Opima, were at that time the only ones; and he had turned the citizens’ faces toward himself and away from the dictator’s chariot, and had almost alone carried off the fruit of that day’s celebrity.

Dictator coronam auream, libram pondo, ex publica pecunia populi iussu in Capitolio Iovi donum posuit.

The Dictator placed a golden crown, a pound in weight, as a gift to Jupiter on the Capitol, from public money by order of the people.

Omnes ante me auctores secutus, A. Cornelium Cossum tribunum militum secunda spolia opima Iovis Feretri templo intulisse exposui; ceterum, praeterquam quod ea rite opima spolia habentur, quae dux duci detraxit nec ducem novimus nisi cuius auspicio bellum geritur, titulus ipse spoliis inscriptus illos meque arguit consulem ea Cossum cepisse. Hoc ego cum Augustum Caesarem, templorum omnium conditorem aut restitutorem, ingressum aedem Feretri Iovis quam vetustate dilapsam refecit, se ipsum in thorace linteo scriptum legisse audissem, prope sacrilegium ratus sum Cosso spoliorum suorum Caesarem, ipsius templi auctorem, subtrahere testem. Qui si ea in re sit error quod tam veteres annales quodque magistratuum libri, quos linteos in aede repositos Monetae Macer Licinius citat identidem auctores, septimo post demum anno cum T. Quinctio Poeno A. Cornelium Cossum consulem habeant, existimatio communis omnibus est.

Following all the authors before me, I have set forth that Aulus Cornelius Cossus, a military tribune, carried the second spolia opima into the temple of Jupiter Feretrius; however, besides the fact that those are rightly held to be spolia opima which a leader stripped from a leader, and we acknowledge no leader except him under whose auspices war is waged, the very inscription written upon the spoils convicts them and me that Cossus took them as consul. Since I had heard that Augustus Caesar—founder or restorer of all the temples—when he entered the shrine of Jupiter Feretrius, which had fallen to ruin through age and which he restored, himself read this written upon the linen corselet, I thought it near sacrilege to remove from Cossus, in the matter of his spoils, Caesar—the author of that very temple—as a witness. If there be error in this point, because both the most ancient annals and the books of the magistrates, the “linen” ones deposited in the temple of Moneta which Licinius Macer repeatedly cites as authorities, record Aulus Cornelius Cossus as consul only in the seventh year thereafter with Titus Quinctius Poenus, such is the common estimation of all.

Nam etiam illud accedit, ne tam clara pugna in eum annum transferri posset, quod imbelle triennium ferme pestilentia inopiaque frugum circa A. Cornelium consulem fuit, adeo ut quidam annales velut funesti nihil praeter nomina consulum suggerant. Tertius ab consulatu Cossi annus tribunum eum militum consulari potestate habet, eodem anno magistrum equitum; quo in imperio alteram insignem edidit pugnam equestrem. Ea libera coniectura est.

For furthermore this is added, that so illustrious a battle could not be transferred into that year, because an almost warless three-year period, owing to pestilence and scarcity of grain, lay around the consulship of A. Cornelius, to such a degree that certain annals, as if funereal, suggest nothing besides the names of the consuls. The third year after the consulship of Cossus has him as military tribune with consular power, and in the same year as master of the horse; under which command he produced another distinguished equestrian battle. This is a free conjecture.

Sed, ut ego arbitror, vana versare in omnes opiniones licet, cum auctor pugnae, recentibus spoliis in sacra sede positis, Iovem prope ipsum, cui vota erant, Romulumque intuens, haud spernendos falsi tituli testes, se A. Cornelium Cossum consulem scripserit.

But, as I judge, though it is permitted to toss about vainly among all opinions, since the author of the battle, with the fresh spoils placed in the sacred seat, gazing upon Jupiter himself close by, to whom the vows were, and upon Romulus—witnesses not to be scorned against a false title—inscribed himself as A. Cornelius Cossus, consul.

[21]M. Cornelio Maluginense L. Papirio Crasso consulibus exercitus in agrum Veientem ac Faliscum ducti. Praedae abactae hominum pecorumque; hostis in agris nusquam inventus neque pugnandi copia facta; urbes tamen non oppugnatae quia pestilentia populum invasit. Et seditiones domi quaesitae sunt, nec motae tamen, ab Sp. Maelio tribuno plebis, qui favore nominis moturum se aliquid ratus et Minucio diem dixerat et rogationem de publicandis bonis Servili Ahalae tulerat, falsis criminibus a Minucio circumventum Maelium arguens, Servilio caedem civis indemnati obiciens; quae vaniora ad populum ipso auctore fuere.

[21] In the consulship of M. Cornelius Maluginensis and L. Papirius Crassus, the armies were led into the Veientine and Faliscan territory. Booty of both men and cattle was driven off; the enemy was nowhere found in the fields, nor was an opportunity of fighting afforded; the cities, however, were not attacked because a pestilence invaded the populace. And seditions at home were sought, yet not stirred, by Sp. Maelius, tribune of the plebs, who, thinking that by the favor attached to the name he would set something in motion, had named a day for Minucius and had brought a rogation for the confiscation of the goods of Servilius Ahala, alleging that Maelius had been circumvented by Minucius with false charges, and charging Servilius with the slaughter of a citizen uncondemned; which matters were the more vain to the populace on account of their very author.

Ceterum magis vis morbi ingravescens curae erat terroresque ac prodigia, maxime quod crebris motibus terrae ruere in agris nuntiabantur tecta. Obsecratio itaque a populo duumviris praeeuntibus est facta.

But moreover the increasing force of the disease was a greater concern, and the terrors and prodigies, especially because houses were reported to be collapsing in the countryside from frequent motions of the earth. And so a supplication was made by the people, with the duumviri leading.

Pestilentior inde annus C. Iulio iterum et L. Verginio consulibus tantum metus et vastitatis in urbe agrisque fecit, ut non modo praedandi causa quisquam ex agro Romano exiret belliue inferendi memoria patribus aut plebi esset, sed ultro Fidenates, qui se primo aut montibus aut muris tenuerant, populabundi descenderent in agrum Romanum. Deinde Veientium exercitu accito—nam Falisci perpelli ad instaurandum bellum neque clade Romanorum neque sociorum precibus potuere—duo populi transiere Anienem atque haud procul Collina porta signa habuere. Trepidatum itaque non in agris magis quam in urbe est.

A more pestilential year then, in the consulship of Gaius Julius again and Lucius Verginius, produced so much fear and devastation in the city and the fields that not only did no one go out from the Roman countryside for the sake of plundering, nor was there any thought of bringing on war in the minds of the fathers or the plebs, but moreover the Fidenates, who at first had kept themselves either to the hills or to their walls, came down marauding into the Roman land. Next, the army of the Veientes having been called in—for the Falisci could not be driven to renew the war either by the disaster of the Romans or by the entreaties of their allies—the two peoples crossed the Anio and had their standards not far from the Colline Gate. Therefore there was panic felt not more in the fields than in the city.

Iulius consul in aggere murisque explicat copias, a verginio senatus in aede Quirini consulitur. Dictatorem dici Q. Servilium placet, cui Prisco alii, alii Structo fuisse cognomen tradunt. Verginius dum collegam consuleret moratus, permittente eo nocte dictatorem dixit; is sibi magistrum equitum Postumum Aebutium Heluam dicit.

The consul Julius deploys his forces on the rampart and walls; by Verginius the senate is consulted in the Temple of Quirinus. It pleases that Q. Servilius be named Dictator, to whom some hand down the cognomen Priscus, others Structus. Verginius, delaying while he consulted his colleague, with him permitting it, by night named the Dictator; he appoints as his Master of Horse Postumus Aebutius Helva.

[22] Dictator omnes luce prima extra portam Collinam adesse iubet. Quibuscumque vires suppetebant ad arma ferenda praesto fuere. Signa ex aerario prompta feruntur ad dictatorem.

[22] The dictator orders all to be present at first light outside the Colline Gate. Whosoever had strength sufficient for bearing arms stood ready. The standards, drawn out from the treasury, are carried to the dictator.

Quae cum agerentur, hostes in loca altiora concessere. Eo dictator agmine infesto subit; nec procul Nomento signis conlatis fudit Etruscas legiones. Compulit inde in urbem Fidenas valloque circumdedit; sed neque scalis capi poterat urbs alta et munita neque in obsidione vis ulla erat, quia frumentum non necessitati modo satis, sed copiae quoque abunde ex ante convecto sufficiebat.

While these things were being transacted, the enemies withdrew into higher locations. Thither the dictator advances in a hostile column; and not far from Nomentum, with the standards joined, he routed the Etruscan legions. From there he drove them into the city of Fidenae and surrounded it with a rampart; but the city, lofty and fortified, could neither be taken by ladders, nor was there any force in a siege, because grain sufficed not only for necessity but also abundantly for plenty, from what had been conveyed beforehand.

Ita expugnandi pariter cogendique ad deditionem spe amissa, dictator in locis propter propinquitatem notis ab aversa parte urbis, maxime neglecta quia suapte natura tutissima erat, agere in arcem cuniculum instituit. Ipse diversissimis locis subeundo ad moenia quadrifariam diviso exercitu qui alii aliis succederent ad pugnam, continenti die ac nocte proelio ab sensu operis hostes avertebat, donec perfosso monte erecta in arcem via est, intentisque Etruscis ad vanas a certo periculo minas clamor supra caput hostilis captam urbem ostendit.

Thus, with the hope both of storming and of compelling to surrender having been lost, the dictator, in places near at hand and therefore well known on the back side of the city—most neglected because by its very nature it was safest—began to drive a tunnel into the citadel. He himself, by approaching the walls at very different points, with the army divided fourfold so that some relieved others for the fight, kept the enemy, by continuous battle day and night, diverted from any awareness of the work, until, the hill having been bored through, a way was opened up into the citadel; and while the Etruscans were intent upon empty threats, far from the sure danger, a hostile shout overhead revealed that the city had been taken.

Eo anno C. Furius Paculus et M. Geganius Macerinus censores villam publicam in campo Martio probaverunt, ibique primum census populi est actus.

In that year Gaius Furius Paculus and Marcus Geganius Macerinus, censors, approved the Villa Publica on the Campus Martius, and there for the first time the census of the people was conducted.

[23] Eosdem consules insequenti anno refectos, Iulium tertium, verginium iterum, apud Macrum Licinium invenio: valerius Antias et Q. Tubero M. Manlium et Q. Sulpicium consules in eum annum edunt. Ceterum in tam discrepanti editione et Tubero et Macer libros linteos auctores profitentur; neuter tribunos militum eo anno fuisse traditum a scriptoribus antiquis dissimulat. Licinio libros haud dubie sequi linteos placet: Tubero incertus veri est.

[23] The same consuls, renewed for the succeeding year—Julius for the third time, Verginius again—I find according to Licinius Macer; Valerius Antias and Q. Tubero publish M. Manlius and Q. Sulpicius as consuls for that year. However, in so discrepant an edition both Tubero and Macer profess the Linen Books as authorities; neither conceals that, as handed down by ancient writers, there were military tribunes in that year. Licinius, without doubt, chooses to follow the Linen Books; Tubero is uncertain of the truth.

Sit inter cetera vetustate cooperta hoc quoque in incerto positum.

Among the other things covered by antiquity, let this too be placed in uncertainty.

Trepidatum in Etruria est post Fidenas captas, non Veientibus solum exterritis metu similis excidii, sed etiam Faliscis memoria initi primo cum iis belli, quamquam rebellantibus non adfuerant. Igitur cum duae civitates legatis circa duodecim populos missis impetrassent ut ad voltumnae fanum indiceretur omni Etruriae concilium, velut magno inde tumultu imminente, senatus Mam. Aemilium dictatorem iterum dici iussit.

There was trepidation in Etruria after Fidenae was captured, with not the Veientines only terror-stricken by fear of a like destruction, but the Faliscans as well, by the memory that the war had first been initiated in company with them, although they had not been present for the rebels. Therefore, when the two states, sending envoys around to the twelve peoples, had prevailed that a council of all Etruria be proclaimed at the shrine of Voltumna, as if a great tumult were imminent from that quarter, the senate ordered that Mamercus Aemilius be named dictator again.

Ab eo A. Postumius Tubertus magister equitum est dictus; bellumque tanto maiore quam proximo conatu apparatum est quanto plus erat ab omni Etruria periculi quam ab duobus populis fuerat.

By him A. Postumius Tubertus was named master of the horse; and the war was prepared with so much greater an effort than the previous one as there was more peril from all Etruria than there had been from two peoples.

[24] Ea res aliquanto exspectatione omnium tranquillior fuit. Itaque cum renuntiatum a mercatoribus esset negata Veientibus auxilia, iussosque suo consilio bellum initum suis viribus exsequi nec adversarum rerum quaerere socios, cum quibus spem integram communicati non sint, tum dictator, ne nequiquam creatus esset, materia quaerendae bello gloriae adempta, in pace aliquid operis edere quod monumentum esset dictaturae cupiens, censuram minuere parat, seu nimiam potestatem ratus seu non tam magnitudine honoris quam diuturnitate offensus. Contione itaque advocata, rem publicam foris gerendam ait tutaque omnia praestanda deos immortales suscepisse: se, quod intra muros agendum esset, libertati populi Romani consulturum.

[24] That affair was somewhat calmer than the expectation of all. And so, when it had been reported by merchants that auxiliaries had been denied to the Veientes, and that they had been ordered, by their own counsel, to prosecute with their own forces the war they had initiated, and not to seek allies in adverse circumstances with whom they had not shared their unimpaired hope, then the dictator, lest he should have been created to no purpose, the material for seeking glory in war having been taken away, wishing in peace to produce some work that would be a monument of his dictatorship, prepares to diminish the censorship, either thinking its power excessive or offended not so much by the magnitude of the honor as by its duration. Therefore, an assembly having been convened, he says that the commonwealth is to be conducted abroad and that the immortal gods have undertaken to guarantee all safety; as for himself, in what was to be done within the walls, he would have regard to the liberty of the Roman people.

Maximam autem eius custodiam esse, si magna imperia diuturna non essent et temporis modus imponeretur, quibus iuris imponi non posset. Alios magistratus annuos esse, quinquennalem censuram; grave esse iisdem per tot annos magna parte vitae obnoxios vivere. Se legem laturum ne plus quam annua ac semestris censura esset.

Moreover, the greatest safeguard of this would be, if great commands were not long-lasting and a limit of time were imposed upon those for which a limit of law could not be imposed. Other magistracies are annual; the censorship is quinquennial; it is grievous that men should live for so many years subject to the same persons for a great part of life. He would bring in a law that the censorship be no more than a year-and-a-half.

Consensu ingenti populi legem postero die pertulit et "ut re ipsa" inquit, "sciatis, Quirites, quam mihi diuturna non placeant imperia, dictatura me abdico". Deposito suo magistratu, imposito fine alteri, cum gratulatione ac favore ingenti populi domum est reductus. Censores aegre passi Mamercum quod magistratum populi Romani minuisset tribu moverunt octiplicatoque censu aerarium fecerunt. Quam rem ipsum ingenti animo tulisse ferunt, causam potius ignominiae intuentem quam ignominiam; primores patrum, quamquam deminutum censurae ius noluissent, exemplo acerbitatis censoriae offensos, quippe cum se quisque diutius ac saepius subiectum censoribus fore cerneret quam censuram gesturum: populi certe tanta indignatio coorta dicitur ut vis a censoribus nullius auctoritate praeterquam ipsius Mamerci deterreri quiuerit.

By the immense consensus of the people he carried the law on the following day, and said: "and so that by the fact itself you may know, Quirites, how little long-lasting imperia please me, I abdicate the dictatorship." With his own magistracy laid down, and a limit imposed on the other, he was escorted home with the congratulations and immense favor of the people. The censors, taking it ill that Mamercus had diminished a magistracy of the Roman people, removed him from his tribe and, with his census octupled, made him an aerarian. They report that he himself bore this with a mighty spirit, looking rather to the cause of the ignominy than to the ignominy; the foremost of the patres, although they had not wished the right of the censorship to be diminished, were offended by the example of censorial harshness, since each one perceived that he would be subjected to the censors longer and more often than he would bear the censorship; and certainly so great an indignation of the people is said to have arisen that the force of the censors could be deterred by no one’s authority except that of Mamercus himself.

[25] Tribuni plebi adsiduis contentionibus prohibendo consularia comitia cum res prope ad interregnum perducta esset, evicere tandem ut tribuni militum consulari potestate crearentur. Victoriae praemium quod petebatur ut plebeius crearetur nullum fuit: omnes patricii creati sunt, M. Fabius Vibulanus M. Folius L. Sergius Fidenas. Pestilentia eo anno aliarum rerum otium praebuit.

[25] By continual contentions, by prohibiting the consular comitia, the tribunes of the plebs, when the affair had been brought almost to an interregnum, at last prevailed that military tribunes with consular power be created. The prize of victory that was sought—that a plebeian be created—was none: all were created patricians, M. Fabius Vibulanus, M. Folius, L. Sergius Fidenas. A pestilence in that year afforded leisure from other affairs.

Aedis Apollini pro valetudine populi vota est. Multa duumviri ex libris placandae deum irae avertendaeque a populo pestis causa fecere; magna tamen clades in urbe agrisque promiscua hominum pecorumque pernicie accepta. Famem quoque ex pestilentia morbo implicitis cultoribus agrorum timentes in Etruriam Pomptinumque agrum et Cumas, postremo in Siciliam quoque frumenti causa misere.

A temple to Apollo was vowed for the health of the people. The duumvirs, from the Books, did many things for the purpose of appeasing the gods’ wrath and averting pestilence from the people; yet a great disaster was received in the city and the fields, with indiscriminate destruction of men and herds. Fearing also famine, since the cultivators of the fields were entangled by the pestilential disease, they sent to Etruria and the Pomptine territory and to Cumae, and finally to Sicily as well, for the sake of grain.

Consularium comitiorum nulla mentio habita est; tribuni militum consulari potestate omnes patricii creati sunt, L. Pinarius Mamercus L. Furius Medullinus Sp. Postumius Albus.

No mention was made of the consular elections; the military tribunes with consular power—all patricians—were elected: L. Pinarius Mamercus, L. Furius Medullinus, Sp. Postumius Albus.

Eo anno vis morbi levata neque a penuria frumenti, quia ante provisum erat, periculum fuit. Consilia ad movenda bella in Volscorum Aequorumque conciliis et in Etruria ad fanum voltumnae agitata. Ibi prolatae in annum res decretoque cautum ne quod ante concilium fieret, nequiquam Veiente populo querente eandem qua Fidenae deletae sint imminere Veiis fortunam.

In that year the force of the disease was alleviated, nor was there danger from a scarcity of grain, because provision had been made beforehand. Plans for setting wars in motion were agitated in the councils of the Volsci and Aequi, and in Etruria at the shrine of Voltumna. There the matters were deferred to the next year, and it was provided by decree that nothing be done before the council, in vain the Veientine people complaining that the same fortune by which Fidenae had been destroyed was looming over Veii.

Interim Romae principes plebis, iam diu nequiquam imminentes spei maioris honoris, dum foris otium esset, coetus indicere in domos tribunorum plebis; ibi secreta consilia agitare; queri se a plebe adeo spretos, ut cum per tot annos tribuni militum consulari potestate creentur, nulli unquam plebeio ad eum honorem aditus fuerit. Multum providisse suos maiores qui caverint ne cui patricio plebeii magistratus paterent; aut patricios habendos fuisse tribunos plebi; adeo se suis etiam sordere nec a plebe minus quam a patribus contemni. Alii purgare plebem, culpam in patres vertere: eorum ambitione artibusque fieri ut obsaeptum plebi sit ad honorem iter; si plebi respirare ab eorum mixtis precibus minisque liceat, memorem eam suorum inituram suffragia esse et parto auxilio imperium quoque adscituram.

Meanwhile at Rome the leaders of the plebs, now long in vain pressing upon the hope of a greater honor, while there was leisure abroad, began to convene meetings in the houses of the tribunes of the plebs; there they agitated secret counsels; they complained that they were so scorned by the plebs that, although for so many years military tribunes with consular power had been created, no plebeian had ever had access to that honor. Their ancestors, they said, had shown much providence in having taken care that plebeian magistracies should not be open to any patrician; or else the tribunes of the plebs ought to have been patricians—so far are they foul even to their own, and are despised by the plebs no less than by the fathers. Others cleared the plebs and shifted the blame onto the patres: by their ambition and arts it comes about that the road to honor is barred to the plebs; if it were permitted the plebs to breathe from their mingled entreaties and threats, it would enter upon its votes mindful of its own, and, once aid were obtained, would also draw to itself imperium.

Placet tollendae ambitionis causa tribunos legem promulgare ne cui album in vestimentum addere petitionis causa liceret. Parua nunc res et vix serio agenda videri possit, quae tunc ingenti certamine patres ac plebem accendit. Vicere tamen tribuni ut legem perferrent; apparebatque inritatis animis plebem ad suos studia inclinaturam.

It pleased the tribunes, for the sake of removing ambition, to promulgate a law that it should not be permitted to anyone to add white to his clothing for the purpose of petitioning for office. A small matter now, and one that might scarcely seem to deserve serious handling, which then inflamed the patricians and the plebs with an immense contest. Yet the tribunes prevailed to carry the law; and it was apparent that, their spirits irritated, the plebs would incline their sympathies to their own.

Quae ne libera essent, senatus consultum factum est ut consularia comitia haberentur.

To keep these from being free, a senatorial decree was passed that consular comitia should be held.

[26] Tumultus causa fuit, quem ab Aequis et Volscis Latini atque Hernici nuntiarant. T. Quinctius L. F. Cincinnatus —eidem et Poeno cognomen additur—et Cn. Iulius Mento consules facti. Nec ultra terror belli est dilatus.

[26] The cause was a tumult, which the Latins and the Hernici had announced as coming from the Aequi and the Volsci. Titus Quinctius, son of Lucius, Cincinnatus— to the same the cognomen “Poenus” is also added— and Gnaeus Julius Mento were made consuls. Nor was the terror of war deferred any further.

Lege sacrata, quae maxima apud eos vis cogendae militiae erat, dilectu habito, utrimque validi exercitus profecti in Algidum convenere, ibique seorsum Aequi, seorsum Volsci castra communivere, intentiorque quam unquam ante muniendi exercendique militem cura ducibus erat. Eo plus nuntii terroris Romam attulere. Senatui dictatorem dici placuit, quia etsi saepe victi populi maiore tamen conatu quam alias unquam rebellarant; et aliquantum Romanae iuventutis morbo absumptum erat.

By a sacral law—which among them was the greatest force for compelling the militia—after a levy had been held, on both sides strong armies set out and met at Algidus; and there, separately the Aequi, separately the Volsci, fortified their camps, and the care of fortifying and exercising the soldiery was more intent among the leaders than ever before. So much the more did the messengers bring terror to Rome. It pleased the senate that a dictator be proclaimed, because although the peoples, often conquered, had nevertheless rebelled with a greater exertion than ever before; and some portion of the Roman youth had been consumed by disease.

Ante omnia pravitas consulum discordiaque inter ipsos et certamina in consiliis omnibus terrebant. Sunt qui male pugnatum ab his consulibus in Algido auctores sint eamque causam dictatoris creandi fuisse. Illud satis constat ad alia discordes in uno adversus patrum voluntatem consensisse ne dicerent dictatorem, donec cum alia aliis terribiliora adferrentur nec in auctoritate senatus consules essent, Q. Servilius Priscus, summis honoribus egregie usus, "uos" inquit, "tribuni plebis, quoniam ad extrema ventum est, senatus appellat ut in tanto discrimine rei publicae dictatorem dicere consules pro potestate vestra cogatis." qua voce audita occasionem oblatam rati tribuni augendae potestatis secedunt proque collegio pronuntiant placere consules senatui dicto audientes esse; si adversus consensum amplissimi ordinis ultra tendant, in vincla se duci eos iussuros.

Before all else, the depravity of the consuls and the discord between them and their contests in every council were terrifying. There are those who assert that a battle was badly fought by these consuls on the Algidus, and that this was the cause for creating a dictator. This much is sufficiently agreed: though at odds in other matters, they agreed in one thing, against the will of the fathers, that they would not name a dictator—until, as different men were bringing in reports more terrible one than another, and the consuls were not within the authority of the senate, Q. Servilius Priscus, who had made most excellent use of the highest honors, said: “you, tribunes of the plebs, since it has come to the extremities, the senate appeals to you to compel the consuls, by your power, to name a dictator in so great a crisis of the commonwealth.” On hearing this utterance, thinking an opportunity offered for augmenting their power, the tribunes withdraw and, on behalf of the college, proclaim that it pleases them that the consuls be obedient to the senate’s command; if they should press further against the consensus of that most august order, they would order them to be led into chains.

Consules ab tribunis quam ab senatu vinci maluerunt, proditum a patribus summi imperii ius datumque sub iugum tribuniciae potestati consulatum memorantes, si quidem cogi aliquid pro potestate ab tribuno consules et—quo quid ulterius privato timendum foret?—in vincla etiam duci possent. Sors ut dictatorem diceret—nam ne id quidem inter collegas convenerat—T. Quinctio evenit. Is A. Postumium Tubertum, socerum suum, severissimi imperii virum, dictatorem dixit; ab eo L. Iulius magister equitum est dictus.

The consuls preferred to be overcome by the tribunes rather than by the senate, protesting that the right of the highest imperium had been betrayed by the Fathers and that the consulship had been given under the yoke to the tribunician power, since indeed the consuls could be compelled to do something by a tribune by virtue of his power and—what further would a private citizen have to fear?—even be led into chains. The lot to name a dictator—for not even that had been agreed between the colleagues—fell to T. Quinctius. He named A. Postumius Tubertus, his father-in-law, a man of most severe imperium, as dictator; by him L. Iulius was named Master of the Horse.

Dilectus simul edicitur et iustitium, neque aliud tota urbe agi quam bellum apparari. Cognitio vacantium militiae munere post bellum differtur; ita dubii quoque inclinant ad nomina danda. Et Hernicis Latinisque milites imperati; utrimque enixe oboeditum dictatori est.

A levy is at the same time proclaimed and a iustitium, and nothing else is being done throughout the whole city but that war is being prepared. The inquiry concerning those exempt from the military duty is deferred until after the war; thus even the hesitant incline to give in their names. And from the Hernici and the Latins soldiers are requisitioned; from both sides there is zealous obedience to the dictator.

[27] Haec omnia celeritate ingenti acta; relictoque Cn. Iulio consule ad praesidium urbis et L. Iulio magistro equitum ad subita belli ministeria, ne qua res qua eguissent in castris moraretur, dictator, praeeunte A. Cornelio pontifice maximo, ludos magnos tumultus causa vovit, profectusque ab urbe, diviso cum Quinctio consule exercitu, ad hostes pervenit. Sicut bina castra hostium parvo inter se spatio distantia viderant, ipsi quoque mille ferme passus ab hoste dictator Tusculo, consul Lanuuio propiorem locum castris ceperunt. Ita quattuor exercitus, totidem munimenta planitiem in medio non parvis modo excursionibus ad proelia, sed vel ad explicandas utrimque acies satis patentem habebant.

[27] All these things were done with prodigious celerity; and, with Cn. Julius the consul left for the protection of the city and L. Julius, the Master of Horse, for the sudden services of war, lest anything they needed in the camp be delayed, the dictator, with A. Cornelius the pontifex maximus leading the rite, vowed the Great Games on account of the tumult, and, setting out from the city, after dividing the army with the consul Quinctius, reached the enemy. Just as they had seen the enemy’s twin camps separated from each other by a small interval, they too took positions for their own camps about a thousand paces from the foe—the dictator at Tusculum, the consul at Lanuvium—in a nearer place. Thus the four armies, with just as many fortifications, had the plain between them sufficiently open not only for no small excursions into battles, but even for unfolding the battle lines on both sides.

Nec ex quo castris castra conlata sunt cessatum a levibus proeliis est, facile patiente dictatore conferendo vires spem universae victoriae temptato paulatim eventu certaminum suos praecipere. Itaque hostes nulla in proelio iusto relicta spe, noctu adorti castra consulis rem in casum ancipitis eventus committunt. Clamor subito ortus non consulis modo vigiles, exercitum deinde omnem, sed dictatorem quoque ex somno excivit.

Nor, from the time that camp was set against camp, was there any cessation from light skirmishes, the dictator easily permitting the comparing of forces, and, as the outcome of the contests was gradually tested, leading his men to anticipate hope of an overall victory. Therefore the enemy, with no hope left in a regular battle, attacked the consul’s camp by night and committed the matter to the chance of a doubtful outcome. A clamor suddenly arising roused not only the consul’s sentries, then the whole army, but even the dictator himself from sleep.

Ubi praesenti ope res egebant, consul nec animo defecit nec consilio: pars militum portarum stationes firmat, pars corona vallum cingunt. In alteris apud dictatorem castris quo minus tumultus est, eo plus animadvertitur quid opus facto sit. Missum extemplo ad castra subsidium, cui Sp. Postumius Albus legatus praeficitur: ipse parte copiarum parvo circuitu locum maxime secretum ab tumultu petit, unde ex necopinato aversum hostem invadat.

Where the situation required present help, the consul failed neither in spirit nor in counsel: part of the soldiers strengthens the stations at the gates, part encircle the rampart in a ring. In the other camp, with the dictator, the less tumult there is, the more it is observed what needs to be done. A relief force was sent at once to the camp, and Spurius Postumius Albus, legate, is put in command of it; he himself, with a part of the forces, by a small circuit seeks a spot most secluded from the tumult, whence he might, from an unexpected quarter, assail the enemy turned away in the rear.

Q. Sulpicium legatum praeficit castris; M. Fabio legato adsignat equites, nec ante lucem movere iubet manum inter nocturnos tumultus moderatu difficilem. Omnia quae vel alius imperator prudens et impiger in tali re praeciperet ageretque, praecipit ordine atque agit: illud eximium consilii animique specimen et neutiquam volgatae laudis, quod ultro ad oppugnanda castra hostium, unde maiore agmine profectos exploratum fuerat, M. Geganium cum cohortibus delectis misit. Qui postquam intentos homines in eventum periculi alieni, pro se incautos neglectis vigiliis stationibusque est adortus, prius paene cepit castra quam oppugnari hostes satis scirent.

He puts Q. Sulpicius, a legate, in command of the camp; to the legate M. Fabius he assigns the horsemen, and he orders that the force not move before daylight, difficult to manage amid nocturnal tumults. Everything which either another general, prudent and energetic in such a situation, would order and do, he orders in sequence and does: that was an outstanding proof of counsel and spirit, and by no means of commonplace praise, that, of his own accord, for the assaulting of the enemy’s camp—whence it had been reconnoitered that they had set out with a larger column—he sent M. Geganius with chosen cohorts. Who, after he attacked men intent on the outcome of another’s peril, careless for themselves with their watches and posts neglected, almost captured the camp before the enemies knew well enough that it was being stormed.

Inde fumo, ut convenerat, datum signum ubi conspectum ab dictatore est, exclamat capta hostium castra nuntiarique passim iubet.

Thence the signal was given by smoke, as had been agreed; when it was seen by the dictator, he shouts that the enemy camp has been captured and orders it to be announced everywhere.

[28] Et iam lucescebat omniaque sub oculis erant. Et Fabius cum equitatu impetum dederat et consul eruptionem e castris in trepidos iam hostes fecerat; dictator autem parte altera subsidia et secundam aciem adortus, circumagenti se ad dissonos clamores ac subitos tumultus hosti undique obiecerat victorem peditem equitemque. Circumventi igitur iam in medio ad unum omnes poenas rebellionis dedissent, ni vettius Messius ex Volscis, nobilior vir factis quam genere, iam orbem voluentes suos increpans clara voce "hic praebituri" inquit, "uos telis hostium estis indefensi, inulti?

[28] And now it was growing light and everything was in plain sight. And Fabius with the cavalry had delivered a charge, and the consul had made a sally from the camp against enemies already in a panic; but the dictator, on the other flank having attacked the reserves and the second battle line, as the foe wheeled about toward discordant shouts and sudden tumults, had thrown against them on every side victorious infantry and cavalry. Surrounded therefore now in the middle, they would all, to a man, have paid the penalties of rebellion, if Vettius Messius of the Volsci, a man more noble by deeds than by birth, rebuking his men, who were already wheeling into a ring, in a loud voice said, "Here, are you about to offer yourselves to the enemy’s missiles, defenseless, unavenged?"

Quid igitur arma habetis, aut quid ultro bellum intulistis, in otio tumultuosi, in bello segnes? Quid hic stantibus spei est? An deum aliquem protecturum vos rapturumque hinc putatis?

Why then do you have arms, or why did you of your own accord bring war—tumultuous in idleness, sluggish in war? What hope is there here for you standing still? Or do you think some god will protect you and snatch you from here?

Ferro via facienda est. Hac qua me praegressum videritis, agite, qui visuri domos parentes coniuges liberos estis, ite mecum! Non murus nec vallum sed armati armatis obstant.

A way must be made with steel. By this way—wherever you see me gone ahead—forward, you who are going to behold your homes, parents, spouses, children; go with me! Not a wall nor a rampart, but armed men stand in the way of armed men.

Virtute pares, necessitate, quae ultimum ac maximum telum est, superiores estis". Haec locutum exsequentemque dicta redintegrato clamore secuti dant impressionem qua Postumius Albus cohortes obiecerat; et moverunt victorem, donec dictator pedem iam referentibus suis advenit eoque omne proelium versum est. Uni viro Messio fortuna hostium innititur. Multa utrimque volnera, multa passim caedes est; iam ne duces quidem Romani incruenti pugnant.

"In valor you are equals; by necessity, which is the ultimate and greatest weapon, you are superiors." Him having spoken these things and following up his words, they, the shout renewed, deliver an assault where Postumius Albus had thrown forward cohorts; and they made the victor waver, until the dictator arrived, with his men now drawing back, and at his coming the whole battle was turned. On one man, Messius, the fortune of the enemy rests. Many wounds on both sides, much slaughter everywhere; now not even the Roman commanders fight unbloodied.

Unus Postumius ictus saxo, perfracto capite acie excessit; non dictatorem umerus volneratus, non Fabium prope adfixum equo femur, non brachium abscisum consulem ex tam ancipiti proelio submovit.

One Postumius, struck by a stone, with his skull shattered, left the battle line; neither did a wounded shoulder drive the dictator, nor a thigh almost affixed to his horse drive Fabius, nor a severed arm drive the consul, from so perilous a battle.

[29] Messium impetus per stratos caede hostes cum globo fortissimorum iuvenum extulit ad castra Volscorum, quae nondum capta erant. Eodem omnis acies inclinatur. Consul effusos usque ad vallum persecutus ipsa castra vallumque adgreditur; eodem et dictator alia parte copias admovet.

[29] The impetus of Messius, through enemies strewn by slaughter, together with a mass of the bravest youths, carried him to the camp of the Volsci, which had not yet been taken. To the same point the whole battle line inclines. The consul, having pursued the routed up to the rampart, assaults the camp itself and the rampart; to the same place the dictator also brings up his forces on another side.

Non segnior oppugnatio est quam pugna fuerat. Consulem signum quoque intra vallum iniecisse ferunt, quo milites acrius subirent, repetendoque signo primam impressionem factam. Et dictator proruto vallo iam in castra proelium intulerat.

The assault is no less brisk than the battle had been. They report that the consul even hurled the standard inside the rampart, so that the soldiers might go up more keenly, and that by recovering the standard the first inrush was made. And the dictator, the rampart broken down, had already carried the battle into the camp.

Tum abici passim arma ac dedi hostes coepti, castrisque et his captis, hostes praeter senatores omnes venum dati sunt. Praedae pars sua cognoscentibus Latinis atque Hernicis reddita, partem sub hasta dictator vendidit; praepositoque consule castris, ipse triumphans invectus urbem dictatura se abdicavit. Egregiae dictaturae tristem memoriam faciunt, qui filium ab A. Postumio, quod occasione bene pugnandi captus iniussu decesserit praesidio, victorem securi percussum tradunt.

Then the enemy began to throw down their arms everywhere and to surrender; and when the camp too had been taken, the enemy, all except the senators, were sold. To the Latins and Hernici identifying what was theirs, their share of the booty was returned; and the dictator sold part under the spear; and, the consul being put in charge of the camp, he himself, borne in triumph into the city, abdicated the dictatorship. A sad memory attaches to an excellent dictatorship, from those who hand down that his son—because, having seized an occasion for fighting to good effect, he had left his post without orders—though victorious, was struck by the axe by Aulus Postumius.

Nec libet credere, et licet in variis opinionibus; et argumento est quod imperia Manliana, non Postumiana appellata sunt, cum qui prior auctor tam saevi exempli foret, occupaturus insignem titulum crudelitatis fuerit. Imperioso quoque Manlio cognomen inditum; Postumius nulla tristi nota est insignitus.

Nor do I care to believe it, and it may remain among various opinions; and as evidence is the fact that the commands were called Manlian, not Postumian, since he who was the earlier author of so savage an example would have preempted the notable title of cruelty. To Manlius too the cognomen Imperiosus was given; Postumius is marked with no grim stigma.

Cn. Iulius consul aedem Apollinis absente collega sine sorte dedicavit. Aegre id passus Quinctius cum dimisso exercitus in urbem redisset, nequiquam in senatu est conquestus.

Gnaeus Julius, the consul, dedicated the temple of Apollo without sortition, his colleague being absent. Ill enduring this, Quinctius, when he had returned to the city after dismissing the army, complained in the Senate, to no avail.

Insigni magnis rebus anno additur, nihil tum ad rem Romanam pertinere visum, quod Carthaginienses, tanti hostes futuri, tum primum per seditiones Siculorum ad partis alterius auxilium in Siciliam exercitum traiecere.

To a year distinguished by great affairs it is added—then seen to pertain nothing to the Roman commonwealth—that the Carthaginians, destined to be so great enemies, then for the first time, through the seditions of the Sicilians, transported an army into Sicily to the aid of the other party.

[30] Agitatum in urbe ab tribunis plebis ut tribuni militum consulari potestate crearentur nec obtineri potuit. Consules fiunt L. Papirius Crassus, L. Iulius. Aequorum legati foedus ab senatu cum petissent et pro foedere deditio ostentaretur, indutias annorum octo impetraverunt: Volscorum res, super acceptam in Algido cladem, pertinaci certamine inter pacis bellique auctores in iurgia et seditiones versa: undique otium fuit Romanis.

[30] It was agitated in the city by the tribunes of the plebs that military tribunes with consular power be created, and it could not be carried. The consuls are L. Papirius Crassus and L. Julius. When the envoys of the Aequi requested a treaty from the Senate and, in place of a treaty, surrender was displayed, they obtained a truce for eight years; the situation of the Volsci, over and above the defeat received at Algidus, by a stubborn contest between the promoters of peace and of war was turned into wranglings and seditions: on every side there was peace for the Romans.

Legem de multarum aestimatione pergratam populo cum ab tribunis parari consules unius ex collegio proditione excepissent, ipsi praeoccupaverunt ferre.

When the consuls, through the betrayal of one of the college, had found out that the tribunes were preparing a law on the estimation of fines, very pleasing to the people, they forestalled them and brought it forward themselves.

Consules L. Sergius Fidenas iterum Hostius Lucretius Tricipitinus. Nihil dignum dictu actum his consulibus. Secuti eos consules A. Cornelius Cossus T. Quinctius Poenus iterum.

The consuls were L. Sergius Fidenas, for the second time, and Hostius Lucretius Tricipitinus. Nothing worthy of mention was done under these consuls. The consuls who followed them were A. Cornelius Cossus and T. Quinctius Poenus, for the second time.

Veientes in agrum Romanum excursiones fecerunt. Fama fuit quosdam ex Fidenatium iuventute participes eius populationis fuisse, cognitioque eius rei L. Sergio et Q. Servilio et Mam. Aemilio permissa.

The Veientes made excursions into the Roman territory. There was a report that certain men from the youth of the Fidenates had been participants in that devastation, and an inquiry into that matter was entrusted to L. Sergius, Q. Servilius, and Mam. Aemilius.

Quidam Ostiam relegati, quod cur per eos dies a Fidenis afuissent parum constabat; colonorum additus numerus, agerque iis bello interemptorum adsignatus. Siccitate eo anno plurimum laboratum est, nec caelestes modo defuerunt aquae, sed terra quoque ingenito umore egens vix ad perennes suffecit amnes. Defectus alibi aquarum circa torridos fontes rivosque stragem siti pecorum morientum dedit; scabie alia absumpta, volgatique in homines morbi.

Some were relegated to Ostia, because it was little established why they had been absent from Fidenae during those days; the number of colonists was increased, and land of those slain in war was assigned to them. In that year there was the utmost labor from drought, and not only did the waters of heaven fail, but the earth too, lacking its inborn moisture, scarcely sufficed for the perennial rivers. Elsewhere, the defect of waters around parched springs and rivulets produced a slaughter from thirst of dying herds; others were consumed by scab, and diseases were spread among men.

Et primo in agrestes ingruerant servitiaque; urbs deinde impletur. Nec corpora modo adfecta tabo, sed animos quoque multiplex religio et pleraque externa invasit, novos ritus sacrificandi vaticinando inferentibus in domos quibus quaestui sunt capti superstitione animi, donec publicus iam pudor ad primores civitatis pervenit, cernentes in omnibus vicis sacellisque peregrina atque insolita piacula pacis deum exposcendae. Datum inde negotium aedilibus, ut animadverterent ne qui nisi Romani di neu quo alio more quam patrio colerentur.

And at first they had fallen upon the countryfolk and the slave-bands; then the city was filled. Not only were bodies affected with putrid corruption, but minds too were invaded by a manifold religiosity, and for the most part foreign, with people bringing into homes new rites of sacrificing and vaticinating—men for whom minds captured by superstition are a source of profit—until a public shame now reached the leading men of the state, as they beheld in all the neighborhoods and little shrines foreign and unusual expiations for seeking the peace of the gods. Thereupon the task was given to the aediles to see to it that no gods save Roman gods, nor in any fashion other than the ancestral, should be worshiped.

Irae adversus Veientes in insequentem annum, C. Servilium Ahalam L. Papirium Mugillanum consules, dilatae sunt. Tunc quoque ne confestim bellum indiceretur neue exercitus mitterentur religio obstitit; fetiales prius mittendos ad res repetendas censuere. Cum Veientibus nuper acie dimicatum ad Nomentum et Fidenas fuerat, indutiaeque inde, non pax facta, quarum et dies exierat, et ante diem rebellaverant; missi tamen fetiales; nec eorum, cum more patrum iurati repeterent res, verba sunt audita.

The wraths against the Veientes were deferred into the following year, C. Servilius Ahala and L. Papirius Mugillanus being consuls. Then too a religio stood in the way, lest war be declared forthwith and armies be sent; they judged that fetials should first be sent to demand restitution. With the Veientes recently there had been a pitched battle at Nomentum and Fidenae, and from that a truce, not a peace, had been made, the days of which had run out, and they had rebelled even before the day; nevertheless the fetials were sent; nor were their words heard, when, sworn according to the custom of the fathers, they were reclaiming the things.

Controversia inde fuit utrum populi iussu indiceretur bellum an satis esset senatus consultum. Peruicere tribuni, denuntiando impedituros se dilectum, ut Quinctius consul de bello ad populum ferret. Omnes centuriae iussere.

Thereupon there was a controversy whether war should be declared by order of the people or whether a senatorial decree would be sufficient. The tribunes prevailed, by giving notice that they would impede the levy, that the consul Quinctius should carry the question of war to the people. All the centuries voted it.

In eo quoque plebs superior fuit, quod tenuit ne consules in proximum annum crearentur.

In this also the plebs was superior, in that it secured that consuls not be elected for the next year.

[31] Tribuni militum consulari potestate quattuor creati sunt, T. Quinctius Poenus ex consulatu C. Furius M. Postumius A. Cornelius Cossus. Ex his Cossus praefuit urbi, tres dilectu habito profecti sunt Veios, documentoque fuere quam plurium imperium bello inutile esset. Tendendo ad sua quisque consilia, cum aliud alii videretur, aperuerunt ad occasionem locum hosti; incertam namque aciem, signum aliis dari, receptui aliis cani iubentibus, invasere opportune Veientes.

[31] Four military tribunes with consular power were created: T. Quinctius Poenus, a former consul, C. Furius, M. Postumius, A. Cornelius Cossus. Of these, Cossus had charge of the city; the other three, after holding a levy, set out to Veii, and they were a demonstration of how the command (imperium) of very many was useless in war. Each tending to his own counsels, since one thing seemed right to one, another to another, they opened room for opportunity to the enemy; for the Veientines opportunely attacked the uncertain battle-line, as some were ordering the signal to be given, others that the retreat be sounded.

Castra propinqua turbatos ac terga dantes accepere; plus itaque ignominiae quam cladis est acceptum. Maesta civitas fuit vinci insueta; odisse tribunos, poscere dictatorem: in eo verti spes civitatis. Et cum ibi quoque religio obstaret ne non posset nisi ab consule dici dictator, augures consulti eam religionem exemere.

the nearby camp took in the disordered and those turning their backs; accordingly more ignominy than disaster was incurred. The city, unaccustomed to be conquered, was downcast; they hated the tribunes, demanded a dictator: on that the hopes of the state were turned. And since there too religion stood in the way—that a dictator could not be proclaimed except by a consul—the augurs, having been consulted, removed that religious obstacle.

A. Cornelius dictatorem Mam. Aemilium dixit et ipse ab eo magister equitum est dictus; adeo, simul fortuna civitatis virtute vera eguit, nihil censoria animadversio effecit, quo minus regimen rerum ex notata indigne domo peteretur.

A. Cornelius named Mam. Aemilius dictator, and he himself was named by him Master of the Horse; to such a degree that, as soon as the fortune of the state was in need of true virtue, the censorial animadversion accomplished nothing to hinder that the governance of affairs be sought from a house undeservedly branded.

Veientes re secunda elati, missis circum Etruriae populos legatis, iactando tres duces Romanos ab se uno proelio fusos, cum tamen nullam publici consilii societatem movissent, voluntarios undique ad spem praedae adsciuerunt. Uni Fidenatium populo rebellare placuit; et tamquam nisi ab scelere bellum ordiri nefas esset, sicut legatorum ante, ita tum novorum colonorum caede imbutis armis, Veientibus sese coniungunt. Consultare inde principes duorum populorum, Veios an Fidenas sedem belli caperent.

The Veientines, elated by favorable fortune, having sent legates around the peoples of Etruria and boasting that three Roman leaders had been routed by them in one battle, although they had nevertheless moved no confederation by public counsel, enrolled volunteers from everywhere by the hope of booty. Only the people of Fidenae resolved to revolt; and, as though it were impious for war to be begun except from a crime, with their arms stained with slaughter—just as before of the legates, so then of the new colonists—they join themselves to the Veientines. Thereupon the chiefs of the two peoples take counsel whether they should make Veii or Fidenae the seat of war.

Fidenae visae opportuniores; itaque traiecto Tiberi Veientes Fidenas transtulerunt bellum. Romae terror ingens erat. Accito exercitu a Veiis, eoque ipso ab re male gesta perculso, castra locantur ante portam Collinam, et in muris armati dispositi, et iustitium in foro tabernaeque clausae, fiuntque omnia castris quam urbi similiora,

Fidenae seemed more opportune; and so, the Tiber having been crossed, the Veientes transferred the war to Fidenae. At Rome there was immense terror. The army having been summoned from Veii, and that very force dismayed by the ill-conducted affair, a camp is pitched before the Colline Gate, and armed men are posted on the walls, and a suspension of public business in the Forum and the shops closed, and everything becomes more like a camp than a city,

[32] cum trepidam civitatem praeconibus per vicos dimissis dictator ad contionem advocatam increpuit quod animos ex tam levibus momentis fortunae suspensos gererent ut parva iactura accepta, quae ipsa non virtute hostium nec ignavia Romani exercitus sed discordia imperatorum accepta sit, Veientem hostem sexiens victum pertimescant Fidenasque prope saepius captas quam oppugnatas. Eosdem et Romanos et hostes esse qui per tot saecula fuerint; eosdem animos, easdem corporis vires, eadem arma gerere. Se quoque eundem dictatorem Mam.

[32] when the city was in alarm, with heralds sent through the streets, the dictator rebuked the assembly that had been called, because they were carrying spirits suspended on such light moments of fortune, so that, a small loss received—which itself was incurred not by the valor of the enemy nor by the sloth of the Roman army but by the discord of the commanders—they should be thoroughly afraid of the Veientine foe, beaten six times, and of Fidenae, almost more often captured than assailed. That both the Romans and the enemies are the same as those who have been through so many ages; that they bear the same spirits, the same strengths of body, the same arms. That he too is the same dictator Mam.

Aemilium esse qui antea Veientium Fidenatiumque adiunctis Faliscis ad Nomentum exercitus fuderit, et magistrum equitum A. Cornelium eundem in acie fore qui priore bello tribunus militum, Larte Tolumnio rege Veientium in conspectu duorum exercituum occiso, spolia opima Iovis Feretrii templo intulerit. Proinde memores secum triumphos, secum spolia, secum victoriam esse, cum hostibus scelus legatorum contra ius gentium interfectorum, caedem in pace Fidenatium colonorum, indutias ruptas, septimam infelicem defectionem, arma caperent. Simul castra castris coniunxissent, satis confidere nec sceleratissimis hostibus diuturnum ex ignominia exercitus Romani gaudium fore, et populum Romanum intellecturum quanto melius de re publica meriti sint qui se dictatorem tertium dixerint quam qui ob ereptum censurae regnum labem secundae dictaturae suae imposuerint.

Aemilius is the same man who formerly, at Nomentum, routed the armies of the Veientes and the Fidenates, the Faliscans having been joined to them; and the master of the horse, A. Cornelius, will be the same man in the battle-line who, in the earlier war, being military tribune, when King Lars Tolumnius of the Veientes was slain in sight of the two armies, carried the spolia opima into the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Therefore let them remember that with them are triumphs, with them spoils, with them victory; while with the enemies are the crime of the legates murdered against the ius gentium, the slaughter in time of peace of the Fidenaean colonists, the broken truces, the seventh ill‑omened defection—let them take up arms. As soon as they should have joined camp to camp, he trusted well enough that even for the most wicked enemies there would not be long‑lasting joy from the dishonor of the Roman army, and that the Roman people would understand how much better they have deserved of the commonwealth who have declared him dictator for the third time, than they who, because the kingship of the censorship was snatched from them, set a stain upon their second dictatorship.

Votis deinde nuncupatis profectus mille et quingentos passus citra Fidenas castra locat, dextra montibus, laeua Tiberi amne saeptus. T. Quinctium Poenum legatum occupare montes iubet occultumque id iugum capere, quod ab tergo hostibus foret.

Then, the vows having been publicly proclaimed, having set out he pitches camp one thousand five hundred paces on this side of Fidenae, enclosed on the right by mountains, on the left by the Tiber river. He orders T. Quinctius Poenus, the legate, to occupy the mountains and to seize that hidden ridge which would be to the enemies’ rear.

Ipse postero die cum Etrusci pleni animorum ab pristini diei meliore occasione quam pugna in aciem processissent, cunctatus parumper dum speculatores referrent Quinctium evasisse in iugum propinquum arci Fidenarum, signa profert peditumque aciem instructam pleno gradu in hostem inducit; magistro equitum praecipit ne iniussu pugnam incipiat: se cum opus sit equestri auxilio signum daturum; tum ut memor regiae pugnae, memor opimi doni Romulique ac Iovis Feretri rem gereret. Legiones impetu ingenti confligunt. Romanus odio accensus impium Fidenatem, praedonem Veientem, ruptores indutiarum, cruentos legatorum infanda caede, respersos sanguine colonorum suorum, perfidos socios, imbelles hostes compellans, factis simul dictisque odium explet.

He himself on the next day, when the Etruscans, full of spirit from the previous day’s advantage, more favorable than an engagement, had advanced into battle order, delayed a little while until the scouts reported that Quinctius had gained the ridge near the citadel of Fidenae; he brings forth the standards and leads the drawn-up battle-line of foot at a full pace against the enemy; he instructs the master of the horse not to begin the fight without orders: that he himself, when there is need of cavalry aid, will give the signal; then that he should conduct the affair mindful of the regal battle, mindful of the spolia opima and of Romulus and Jupiter Feretrius. The legions clash with a huge onrush. The Roman, inflamed with hatred, accosting the impious Fidenaean, the plundering Veientine, breakers of truces, blood-soaked with the unspeakable slaughter of the legates, spattered with the blood of their own colonists, treacherous allies, unwarlike enemies, satisfies his hatred by deeds and by words alike.

[33] Concusserat primo statim congressu hostem cum repente patefactis Fidenarum portis nova erumpit acies, inaudita ante id tempus invisitataque. Ignibus armata ingens multitudo facibusque ardentibus tota conlucens, velut fanatico instincta cursu in hostem ruit, formaque insolitae pugnae Romanos parumper exterruit. Tum dictator, magistro equitum equitibusque, tum ex montibus Quinctio accito, proelium ciens ipse in sinistrum cornu, quod, incendio similius quam proelio, territum cesserat flammis, accurrit claraque voce "Fumone victi" inquit, "uelut examen apum, loco vestro exacti inermi cedetis hosti?

[33] He had shaken the enemy at the very first encounter, when suddenly, with the gates of Fidenae thrown open, a new battle line bursts forth, unprecedented and unseen until that time. A huge multitude, armed with fires and all shining with burning torches, as if driven by fanatic instinct, rushes upon the enemy at a run, and the form of this unusual combat somewhat terrified the Romans. Then the dictator, having summoned the Master of Horse and the cavalry, and then Quinctius from the hills, calling the battle, himself runs to the left wing, which—more like a conflagration than a battle—had, in fright, yielded to the flames, and with a clear voice he says, “Defeated at Fumon, will you, like a swarm of bees, driven from your place, yield to an unarmed enemy?”

Non ferro exstinguetis ignes? Non faces has ipsas pro se quisque, si igni, non telis pugnandum est, ereptas ultro infertis? Agite, nominis Romani ac virtutis patrum vestraeque memores vertite incendium hoc in hostium urbem, et suis flammis delete Fidenas, quas vestris beneficiis placare non potuistis.

Will you not quench the fires with steel? Will you not, each man for himself, snatch away these very torches and bear them in against the foe, if it must be fought with fire, not with missiles? Come on, mindful of the Roman name and of the virtus of your fathers and your own, turn this conflagration upon the enemy’s city, and with their own flames wipe out Fidenae, whom you could not placate by your benefactions.

Legatorum hoc vos vestrorum colonorumque sanguis vastatique fines monent." Ad imperium dictatoris mota cuncta acies. Faces partim emissae excipiuntur, partim vi eripiuntur: utraque acies armatur igni. Magister equitum et ipse novat pugnam equestrem; frenos ut detrahant equis imperat, et ipse princeps calcaribus subditis evectus effreno equo in medios ignes infertur, et alii concitati equi libero cursu ferunt equitem in hostem.

This the blood of your legates and your colonists and your ravaged frontiers admonish you. At the command of the dictator the whole battle-line was set in motion. The torches, some when launched are caught, others are torn away by force: both battle-lines are armed with fire. The Master of the Horse himself also innovates the equestrian combat; he orders that they remove the bridles from the horses, and he himself, foremost, with spurs applied, borne forward, on an unbridled horse is carried into the midst of the fires, and other excited horses, at free course, bear their horseman upon the enemy.

Puluis elatus mixtusque fumo lucem ex oculis virorum equorumque aufert. Ea quae militem terruerat species nihil terruit equos; ruinae igitur similem stragem eques quacumque pervaserat dedit. Clamor deinde accidit novus; qui cum utramque mirabundam in se aciem vertisset, dictator exclamat Quinctium legatum et suos ab tergo hostem adortos; ipse redintegrato clamore infert acrius signa.

Dust, raised and mingled with smoke, took the light from the eyes of men and horses. That appearance which had terrified the foot-soldier terrified the horses not at all; therefore the cavalry dealt a slaughter like to a ruin wherever it had penetrated. Then a new clamor arose; and when it had turned both battle-lines, in astonishment, toward itself, the dictator shouts that the legate Quinctius and his men had attacked the enemy from the rear; he himself, the clamor renewed, bears the standards forward more fiercely.

Cum duae acies, duo diversa proelia circumventos Etruscos et a fronte et ab tergo urgerent, neque in castra retro neque in montes, unde se novus hostis obiecerat, iter fugae esset, et equitem passim liberi frenis distulissent equi, Veientium maxima pars Tiberim effusi petunt, Fidenatium qui supersunt ad urbem Fidenas tendunt. Infert pavidos fuga in mediam caedem; obtruncantur in ripis; alios in aquam compulsos gurgites ferunt; etiam peritos nandi lassitudo et volnera et pavor degravant; pauci ex multis tranant. Alterum agmen fertur per castra in urbem.

When two battle lines, two diverse battles, pressed the surrounded Etruscans both from the front and from the rear, and there was no route of flight either back into the camp or into the hills whence a new enemy had cast himself, and, the horses being free of reins, had scattered the cavalry everywhere, the greatest part of the Veientes, poured out in disorder, make for the Tiber; those of the Fidenates who survive aim for the city of Fidenae. Flight carries the panic-stricken into the midst of slaughter; they are hewn down on the banks; whirlpools bear off others driven into the water; even the skilled in swimming are weighed down by weariness and wounds and fear; few out of many swim across. The other column is borne through the camp into the city.

Eadem et Romanos sequentes impetus rapit, Quinctium maxime et cum eo degressos modo de montibus, recentissimum ad laborem militem, quia ultimo proelio advenerat.

The same impetus likewise carries off the Romans as they follow, especially Quinctius and those who had only just descended from the mountains with him—the soldiers freshest for toil—since they had arrived at the last battle.

[34] Hi postquam mixti hostibus portam intravere, in muros evadunt, suisque capti oppidi signum ex muro tollunt. Quod ubi dictator conspexit- iam enim et ipse in deserta hostium castra penetraverat,—cupientem militem discurrere ad praedam, spe iniecta maioris in urbe praedae, ad portam ducit, receptusque intra muros in arcem quo ruere fugientium turbam videbat pergit; nec minor caedes in urbe quam in proelio fuit donec abiectis armis nihil praeter vitam petentes dictatori deduntur. Urbs castraque diripiuntur.

[34] After these men, mingled with the enemies, had entered the gate, they get up onto the walls, and for their own men they lift from the wall the signal that the town has been taken. When the dictator saw this— for already he too had penetrated into the deserted camp of the enemy,—seeing the soldiers eager to run about for plunder, with hope instilled of greater plunder in the city, he leads them to the gate; and, once received within the walls, he makes for the citadel to where he saw the crowd of the fugitives rushing; nor was the slaughter in the city less than in the battle until, their arms thrown aside, seeking nothing beyond life, they surrendered to the dictator. The city and the camp are sacked.

Postero die singulis captivis ab equite ac centurione sorte ductis et, quorum eximia virtus fuerat, binis, aliis sub corona venundatis, exercitum victorem opulentumque praeda triumphans dictator Romam reduxit; iussoque magistro equitum abdicare se magistratu, ipse deinde abdicat, die sexto decimo reddito in pace imperio quod in bello trepidisque rebus acceperat. Classi quoque ad Fidenas pugnatum cum Veientibus quidam in annales rettulere, rem aeque difficilem atque incredibilem, nec nunc lato satis ad hoc amne et tum aliquanto, ut a veteribus accepimus, artiore, nisi in traiectus forte fluminis prohibendo aliquarum navium concursum in maius, ut fit, celebrantes navalis victoriae vanum titulum appetivere.

On the next day, with single captives drawn by lot for each horseman and centurion, and, for those whose exceptional valor had been shown, two each, the rest having been sold “under the garland,” the dictator, triumphing, led the victorious army rich with booty back to Rome; and when the master of the horse had been ordered to abdicate his magistracy, he then himself abdicated, on the sixteenth day, having returned in peace the imperium which he had received in war and in alarmed circumstances. Some, too, have entered in the annals that a fleet fought the Veientes at Fidenae, a matter as difficult as it is incredible, the river not even now being broad enough for this, and then somewhat, as we have received from the ancients, narrower—unless perhaps, in prohibiting crossings of the river, by celebrating into the greater, as happens, the clash of some ships, they have grasped at the vain title of a naval victory.

[35] Insequens annus tribunos militares consulari potestate habuit A. Sempronium Atratinum L. Quinctium Cincinnatum L. Furium Medullinum L. Horatium Barbatum. Veientibus annorum viginti indutiae datae et Aequis triennii, cum plurium annorum petissent; et a seditionibus urbanis otium fuit.

[35] The following year had as military tribunes with consular power A. Sempronius Atratinus, L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, L. Furius Medullinus, and L. Horatius Barbatus. To the Veientes a truce of twenty years was given, and to the Aequians of three years, although they had asked for more years; and there was repose from urban seditions.

Annum insequentem neque bello foris neque domi seditione insignem ludi bello voti celebrem et tribunorum militum apparatu et finitimorum concursu fecere. Tribuni consulari potestate erant Ap. Claudius Crassus Sp. Nautius Rutulus, L. Sergius Fidenas Sex. Iulius Iulus.

The year that followed, marked neither by war abroad nor by sedition at home, the games vowed in war made celebrated, as did the display of the military tribunes and the concourse of the neighboring peoples. Tribunes with consular power were Ap. Claudius Crassus, Sp. Nautius Rutulus, L. Sergius Fidenas, Sex. Iulius Iulus.

Spectaculum comitate etiam hospitum, ad quam publice consenserant, advenis gratius fuit. Post ludos contiones seditiosae tribunorum plebi fuerunt, obiurgantium multitudinem quod admiratione eorum quos odisset, stupens in aeterno se ipsa teneret servitio, et non modo ad spem consulatus in partem revocandam adspirare non auderet, sed ne in tribunis quidem militum creandis, quae communia essent comitia patrum ac plebis, aut sui aut suorum meminisset. Desineret ergo mirari cur nemo de commodis plebis ageret; eo impendi laborem ac periculum unde emolumentum atque honos speretur; nihil non adgressuros homines si magna conatis magna praemia proponantur; ut quidem aliquis tribunus plebis ruat caecus in certamina periculo ingenti, fructu nullo, ex quibus pro certo habeat, patres, adversus quos tenderet, bello inexpiabili se persecuturos, apud plebem, pro qua dimicaverit, nihilo se honoratiorem fore, neque sperandum neque postulandum esse.

The spectacle, by the comity of the hosts as well, to which they had publicly consented, was more pleasing to the newcomers. After the games there were seditious assemblies of the tribunes of the plebs, rebuking the multitude because, in admiration of those whom they had hated, stupefied, they kept themselves in eternal servitude, and not only did they not dare to aspire to the hope of recalling the consulship in part, but not even in the creating of military tribunes—elections which were common comitia of the patres and the plebs—did they remember either themselves or their own. Let them then cease to wonder why no one deals with the interests of the plebs; labor and peril are expended where emolument and honor are hoped; men will attempt nothing not, if great rewards are proposed for great undertakings; as for some tribune of the plebs to rush blind into contests with enormous peril and no fruit, from which he may hold for certain that the patres, against whom he would strain, will prosecute him with an inexpiable war, and that among the plebs, for whom he has fought, he will be not a whit more honored—this is neither to be hoped nor to be demanded.

Magnos animos magnis honoribus fieri. Neminem se plebeium contempturum ubi contemni desissent. Experiundam rem denique in uno aut altero esse sitne aliqui plebeius ferendo magno honori an portento simile miraculoque sit fortem ac strenuum virum aliquem exsistere ortum ex plebe.

Great spirits are made by great honors. No one will despise a plebeian once they have ceased to be despised. Finally, the matter must be tried in one or another, whether some plebeian is capable of bearing a great honor, or whether it is something like a portent and a miracle that a brave and strenuous man should arise, sprung from the plebs.

Summa vi expugnatum esse ut tribuni militum consulari potestate et ex plebe crearentur. Petisse viros domi militiaeque spectatos; primis annis suggillatos, repulsos, risui patribus fuisse; desisse postremo praebere ad contumeliam os. Nec se videre cur non lex quoque abrogetur, qua id liceat quod nunquam futurum sit; minorem quippe ruborem fore in iuris iniquitate, quam si per indignitatem ipsorum praetereantur.

That by utmost force it was carried that military tribunes with consular power should also be created from the plebs. They had sought men proven at home and in military service; in the first years they were mocked, rejected, and a laughing-stock to the patres; at last they ceased to offer their face for contumely. Nor do they see why the law too should not be abrogated, by which that is permitted which will never come to pass; for there will be less blush in the iniquity of the law than if, through their own indignity, they are passed over.

[36] Huius generis orationes cum adsensu auditae incitavere quosdam ad petendum tribunatum militum, alium alia de commodis plebis laturum se in magistratu profitentem. Agri publici dividendi coloniarumque deducendarum ostentatae spes et vectigali possessoribus agrorum imposito in stipendium militum erogandi aeris. Captatum deinde tempus ab tribunis militum, quo per discessum hominum ab urbe, cum patres clandestina denuntiatione revocati ad diem certam essent, senatus consultum fieret absentibus tribunis plebi ut quoniam Volscos in Hernicorum agros praedatum exisse fama esset, ad rem inspiciendam tribuni militum proficiscerentur consulariaque comitia haberentur.

[36] Orations of this kind, heard with assent, incited certain men to seek the military tribunate, each proclaiming that in his magistracy he would bring this or that advantage for the plebs. Hopes were flaunted of dividing the public land and of leading out colonies, and of imposing a vectigal on the possessors of fields in order to disburse money for the soldiers’ stipend. Then a moment was seized by the military tribunes, when, through the withdrawal of people from the city—since the Fathers had been recalled by a clandestine summons to a fixed day—a senatorial decree might be passed, the tribunes of the plebs being absent, to the effect that, since there was a report that the Volsci had gone out to plunder into the fields of the Hernici, the military tribunes should set out to inspect the matter, and consular elections should be held.

Profecti Ap. Claudium, filium decemviri, praefectum urbis relinquunt, impigrum iuvenem et iam inde ab incunabulis imbutum odio tribunorum plebisque. Tribuni plebi nec cum absentibus iis qui senatus consultum fecerant, nec cum Appio, transacta re, quod contenderent, fuit.

Having set out, they leave Appius Claudius, the son of the Decemvir, as prefect of the city—an energetic young man and, from his very cradle, imbued with hatred of the tribunes of the plebs and of the plebs. The tribunes of the plebs had no ground for contention either with those absent who had made the senatorial decree, or with Appius, the matter having already been transacted.

[37] Creati consules sunt C. Sempronius Atratinus Q. Fabius Vibulanus.

[37] The consuls elected were Gaius Sempronius Atratinus and Quintus Fabius Vibulanus.

Peregrina res, sed memoria digna traditur eo anno facta, volturnum, Etruscorum urbem, quae nunc Capua est, ab Samnitibus captam, Capuamque ab duce eorum Capye vel, quod propius vero est, a campestri agro appellatam. Cepere autem, prius bello fatigatis Etruscis, in societatem urbis agrorumque accepti, deinde festo die graves somno epulisque incolas veteres novi coloni nocturna caede adorti.

A foreign matter, but worthy of memory, is handed down as having happened in that year: Vulturnum, a city of the Etruscans, which now is Capua, was captured by the Samnites, and Capua was named either from their leader Capys or, what is nearer to the truth, from the campestral field. They took it, moreover, first the Etruscans having been wearied by war, themselves admitted into a partnership of city and fields, then, on a feast day, the new colonists assailed the old inhabitants, heavy with sleep and banquets, with a nocturnal massacre.

His rebus actis, consules ii, quos diximus, idibus Decembribus magistratum occepere. Iam non solum qui ad id missi erant rettulerant imminere Volscum bellum, sed legati quoque ab Latinis et Hernicis nuntiabant non ante unquam Volscos nec ducibus legendis nec exercitui scribendo intentiores fuisse; volgo fremere aut in perpetuum arma bellumque oblivioni danda iugumque accipiendum, aut iis cum quibus de imperio certetur, nec virtute nec patientia nec disciplina rei militaris cedendum esse. Haud vana attulere; sed nec perinde patres moti sunt, et C. Sempronius cui ea provincia sorti evenit tamquam constantissimae rei fortunae fretus, quod victoris populi adversus victos dux esset omnia temere ac neglegenter egit, adeo ut disciplinae Romanae plus in Volsco exercitu quam in Romano esset.

With these matters transacted, those consuls whom we mentioned entered upon office on the Ides of December. Now not only had those who were sent for that purpose reported that a Volscian war was impending, but envoys also from the Latins and the Hernici announced that never before had the Volsci been more intent either on choosing commanders or on enrolling an army; everywhere there was a murmur that either arms and war must be consigned to perpetual oblivion and the yoke accepted, or, with those with whom the struggle is for imperium, there must be no yielding in courage, nor in endurance, nor in the discipline of military affairs. They brought no idle tale; but neither were the senators moved in like measure, and Gaius Sempronius, to whom that province fell by lot, as though relying on the fortune of a most assured matter—because he was a general of a conquering people against the conquered—did everything rashly and negligently, to such a degree that there was more of Roman discipline in the Volscian army than in the Roman.

Ergo fortuna, ut saepe alias, virtutem est secuta. Primo proelio, quod ab Sempronio incaute inconsulteque commissum est, non subsidiis firmata acie, non equite apte locato concursum est. Clamor indicium primum fuit quo res inclinatura esset, excitatior crebriorque ab hoste sublatus: ab Romanis dissonus, impar, segnius saepe iteratus prodidit pavorem animorum.

Therefore Fortune, as often at other times, followed Virtue. In the first battle, which Sempronius brought on incautiously and inconsiderately, they joined combat with the battle line not strengthened by reserves and with the cavalry not suitably posted. The clamor was the first indication of the way the issue would incline—lifted by the enemy more excited and more frequent; from the Romans it was discordant, unequal, more sluggish, often repeated, and it betrayed the fear of their spirits.

Eo ferocior inlatus hostis urgere scutis, micare gladiis. Altera ex parte nutant circumspectantibus galeae, et incerti trepidant applicantque se turbae; signa nunc resistentia deseruntur ab antesignanis, nunc inter suos manipulos recipiuntur. Nondum fuga certa, nondum victoria erat; tegi magis Romanus quam pugnare; Volscus inferre signa, urgere aciem, plus caedis hostium videre quam fugae.

So the enemy, attacking more ferociously, pressed with shields and made their swords flash. On the other side, helmets nod as men look around, and the uncertain panic and attach themselves to the crowd; now the standards, standing their ground, are deserted by the vanguard, now they are taken back in among their own maniples. There was not yet certain flight, nor yet victory; the Roman was covering himself rather than fighting; the Volscian was advancing the standards, pressing the battle line, seeing more slaughter of enemies than of flight.

[38] Iam omnibus locis ceditur, nequiquam Sempronio consule obiurgante atque hortante. Nihil nec imperium nec maiestas valebat, dataque mox terga hostibus forent, ni Sex. Tempanius, decurio equitum, labante iam re praesenti animo subvenisset.

[38] Now they were giving way in all places, with the consul Sempronius chiding and exhorting in vain. Neither authority nor majesty availed anything, and their backs would soon have been given to the enemy, had not Sextus Tempanius, a decurion of cavalry, with presence of mind, come to the rescue when the situation was already tottering.

Qui cum magna voce exclamasset ut equites, qui saluam rem publicam vellent esse, ex equis desilirent, omnium turmarum equitibus velut ad consulis imperium motis, "nisi haec" inquit, "parmata cohors sistit impetum hostium, actum de imperio est. Sequimini pro vexillo cuspidem meam; ostendite Romanis Volscisque neque equitibus vobis ullos equites nec peditibus esse pedites pares". Cum clamore comprobata adhortatio esset, vadit alte cuspidem gerens. Quacumque incedunt, vi viam faciunt; eo se inferunt obiectis parmis, ubi suorum plurimum laborem vident.

When he had shouted in a loud voice that the horsemen who wanted the commonwealth to be safe should leap down from their horses, and with the horsemen of all the squadrons stirred as though at the consul’s command, “unless,” he says, “this shield-bearing cohort halts the enemy’s charge, it is all over with the imperium. Follow my spear as your standard; show to Romans and Volscians that neither to you as horsemen are there any horsemen equal, nor to you as foot-soldiers any foot-soldiers equal.” When his exhortation had been approved with a shout, he goes, bearing his spear high. Wherever they advance, by force they make a way; with shields thrust before them, they throw themselves in where they see the greatest stress upon their own men.

Restituitur omnibus locis pugna, in quae eos impetus tulit; nec dubium erat quin, si tam pauci simul obire omnia possent, terga daturi hostes fuerint.

The battle is restored in all places to which their charge carried them; nor was there doubt that, if so few could face everything at once, the enemies would have turned their backs.

[39] Et cum iam parte nulla sustinerentur, dat signum Volscus imperator, ut parmatis, novae cohorti hostium, locus detur donec impetu inlati ab suis excludantur. Quod ubi est factum, interclusi equites nec perrumpere eadem qua transierant posse, ibi maxime confertis hostibus qua viam fecerant, et consul legionesque Romanae cum quod tegumen modo omnis exercitus fuerat nusquam viderent, ne tot fortissimos viros interclusos opprimeret hostis, tendunt in quemcumque casum. diversi Volsci hinc consulem ac legiones sustinere, altera fronte instare Tempanio atque equitibus; qui cum saepe conati nequissent perrumpere ad suos, tumulo quodam occupato in orbem se tutabantur, nequaquam inulti; nec pugnae finis ante noctem fuit.. Consul quoque nusquam remisso certamine dum quicquam superfuit lucis hostem tenuit.

[39] And when now they were no longer sustained in any quarter, the Volscian commander gives the signal that space be given to the parmati, the new cohort of the enemy, until, borne in by a charge, they are shut off from their own. When this was done, the horsemen, cut off and unable to break through by the same way by which they had passed—since the enemy were most closely packed there where they had made a path—and the consul and the Roman legions, when they saw that what had just now been the covering of the whole army was nowhere to be seen, lest the enemy overwhelm so many very brave men, cut off, push forward into whatever hazard. The Volsci, divided, on the one side hold off the consul and the legions, on the other front press upon Tempanius and the cavalry; and they, though often attempting had not been able to break through to their own, having occupied a certain mound, were defending themselves in a ring, by no means unavenged; nor was there an end of the fight before night.. The consul also, with the struggle relaxed nowhere, held the enemy so long as any light survived.

Nox incertos diremit; tantusque ab imprudentia eventus utraque castra tenuit pavor ut relictis sauciis et magna parte impedimentorum ambo pro victis exercitus se in montes proximos reciperent. Tumulus tamen circumsessus ultra mediam noctem est; quo cum circumsedentibus nuntiatum esset castra deserta esse, victos rati suos et ipsi, qua quemque in tenebris pavor tulit, fugerunt. Tempanius metu insidiarum suos ad lucem tenuit.

Night parted the issue in uncertainty; and so great a panic, arising from unawareness of the outcome, held both camps that, with the wounded left behind and a great part of the baggage, both armies, as if vanquished, betook themselves to the nearest mountains. Nevertheless the mound, being encircled, was held under siege until beyond midnight; and when it was reported to the besiegers that the camps had been deserted, they, thinking their own men defeated, fled likewise, each wherever fear in the darkness carried him. Tempanius, for fear of ambushes, kept his men until daylight.

Digressus deinde ipse cum paucis speculatum, cum ab sauciis hostibus sciscitando comperisset castra Volscorum deserta esse, laetus ab tumulo suos devocat et in castra Romana penetrat. Ubi cum vasta desertaque omnia atque eandem quam apud hostes foeditatem invenisset, priusquam Volscos cognitus error reduceret, quibus poterat sauciis ductis secum, ignarus quam regionem consul petisset, ad urbem proximis itineribus pergit.

Then he himself, having gone aside with a few to reconnoiter, when by inquiring of wounded enemies he had learned that the Volscian camp was deserted, glad, he calls his men down from the mound and penetrates into the Roman camp. There, when he had found all things vast and deserted and the same foulness as among the enemy, before the recognized error might bring the Volsci back, taking along with him such of the wounded as he could, unaware what region the consul had sought, he proceeds toward the city by the nearest routes.

[40] Iam eo fama pugnae adversae castrorumque desertorum perlata erat, et ante omnia deplorati erant equites non privato magis quam publico luctu, Fabiusque consul terrore urbi quoque iniecto stationem ante portas agebat, cum equites procul visi non sine terrore ab dubiis quinam essent, mox cogniti tantam ex metu laetitiam fecere, ut clamor urbem pervaderet gratulantium salvos victoresque redisse equites, et ex maestis paulo ante domibus quae conclamaverant suos, procurreretur in vias, pavidaeque matres ac coniuges, oblitae prae gaudio decoris, obviam agmini occurrerent, in suos quaeque simul corpore atque animo, vix prae gaudio compotes, effusae. Tribunis plebi qui M. Postumio et T. Quinctio diem dixerant, quod ad Veios eorum opera male pugnatum esset, occasio visa est per recens odium Semproni consulis renovandae in eos invidiae. Itaque advocata contione cum proditam Veiis rem publicam esse ab ducibus, proditum deinde, quia illis impune fuerit, in Volscis ab consule exercitum, traditos ad caedem fortissimos equites, deserta foede castra vociferati essent, C. Iunius, unus ex tribunis, Tempanium equitem vocari iussit coramque ei "Sex.

[40] Already to that place the report of an adverse battle and of deserted camps had been conveyed, and before all the cavalry were bewailed, not more with private than with public grief; and Fabius the consul, terror having been cast upon the city as well, was keeping a station before the gates, when horsemen were seen at a distance—not without terror, since it was doubtful who they were; soon recognized, they produced from fear so great a joy that a shout swept through the city of those congratulating that the horsemen had returned safe and as victors, and from houses which a little before had raised the death-cry for their own, people ran forth into the streets, and timorous mothers and wives, forgetful through joy of decorum, ran to meet the column, each one at once in body and mind pouring herself out upon her own, scarcely master of themselves for joy. To the tribunes of the plebs who had named a day for M. Postumius and T. Quinctius, because by their agency it had been fought ill at Veii, an occasion seemed, through the fresh odium of the consul Sempronius, for renewing against them unpopularity. And so, an assembly being called, when they had vociferated that at Veii the commonwealth had been betrayed by the commanders, and then—because it had been with impunity for them—that among the Volsci the army had been betrayed by the consul, that the bravest horsemen had been handed over to slaughter, that the camps had been foully deserted, C. Junius, one of the tribunes, ordered the horseman Tempanius to be summoned, and in his presence said to him, "Six.

Tempani" inquit, "quaero de te arbitrerisne C. Sempronium consulem aut in tempore pugnam inisse aut firmasse subsidiis aciem aut ullo boni consulis functum officio; et tune ipse, victis legionibus Romanis, tuo consilio equitem ad pedes deduxeris restituerisque pugnam; excluso deinde ab acie nostra tibi atque equitibus num aut consul ipse subuenerit aut miserit praesidium; postero denique die ecquid praesidii usquam habueris, an tu cohorsque in castra vestra virtute perruperitis; ecquem in castris consulem, ecquem exercitum inveneritis an deserta castra, relictos saucios milites. Haec pro virtute tua fideque, qua una hoc bello res publica stetit, dicenda tibi sunt hodie; denique ubi C. Sempronius, ubi legiones nostrae sint; desertus sis an deserueris consulem exercitumque; victi denique simus an vicerimus."

"Tempanus," he says, "I ask of you whether you judge that C. Sempronius the consul either entered the fight in time or strengthened the battle-line with reserves, or performed any duty of a good consul; and whether you yourself, when the Roman legions were defeated, by your counsel led the cavalry down to fight on foot and restored the battle; then, when you and the cavalry had been shut out from our line, whether either the consul himself came to help or sent a relief; finally, on the next day, whether you had any support anywhere, or whether you and your cohort by your valor broke through into your camp; whether you found in the camp any consul, any army, or deserted camps and wounded soldiers left behind. These things, on behalf of your valor and good faith, by which alone in this war the commonwealth has stood, must be said by you today; finally, where C. Sempronius is, where our legions are; whether you were deserted or deserted the consul and the army; whether, finally, we were defeated or we conquered."

[41] Adversus haec Tempani oratio incompta fuisse dicitur, ceterum militariter gravis, non suis vana laudibus, non crimine alieno laeta: quanta prudentia rei bellicae in C. Sempronio esset, non militis de imperatore existimationem esse, sed populi Romani fuisse, cum eum comitiis consulem legeret. Itaque ne ab se imperatoria consilia neu consulares artes exquirerent, quae pensitanda quoque magnis animis atque ingeniis essent; sed quod viderit referre posse. Vidisse autem se priusquam ab acie intercluderetur consulem in prima acie pugnantem, adhortantem, inter signa Romana telaque hostium versantem.

[41] In answer to these things, Tempanius’s speech is said to have been unadorned, but, in a soldierly way, weighty, not gladdened by vain praises of himself, nor rejoicing in another’s blame: as to how much prudence in the art of war there was in Gaius Sempronius, that was not a soldier’s estimation about a commander, but had been that of the Roman People, when in the elections they chose him consul. Therefore they were not to seek from him the counsels of a general nor consular arts, which also were to be weighed by great spirits and talents; but that he could report what he had seen. He had seen, however, before he was cut off from the battle-line, the consul fighting in the front line, exhorting, moving among the Roman standards and the missiles of the enemy.

Postea se a conspectu suorum ablatum ex strepitu tamen et clamore sensisse usque ad noctem extractum certamen; nec ad tumulum quem ipse tenuerat prae multitudine hostium credere perrumpi potuisse. Exercitus ubi esset se nescire; arbitrari, velut ipse in re trepida loci praesidio se suosque sit tutatus, sic consulem servandi exercitus causa loca tutiora castris cepisse; nec Volscorum meliores res esse credere quam populi Romani; fortunam noctemque omnia erroris mutui implesse. Precantemque deinde ne se fessum labore ac volneribus tenerent, cum ingenti laude non virtutis magis quam moderationis dimissum.

Afterwards he said that, removed from the sight of his own men, nevertheless from the din and the clamor he had perceived that the contest was prolonged until night; and that he did not believe that a way could have been broken through to the mound which he himself had held, because of the multitude of the enemy. Where the army was, he did not know; he supposed that, just as he himself in a troubled situation had safeguarded himself and his men by the protection of the position, so the consul, for the sake of preserving the army, had taken places safer than the camp; nor did he believe the affairs of the Volsci to be better than those of the Roman People; that fortune and night had filled everything with mutual error. And then, as he was beseeching that they not detain him, wearied with toil and wounds, he was dismissed with great praise, not so much for valor as for moderation.

Cum haec agerentur, iam consul via Labicana ad fanum Quietis erat. Eo missa plaustra iumentaque alia ab urbe exercitum adfectum proelio ac via nocturna excepere. Paulo post in urbem est ingressus consul, non ab se magis enixe amovens culpam quam Tempanium meritis laudibus ferens.

While these things were being transacted, the consul was already on the Labican Way at the Shrine of Quiet. Thither wagons and other draft-animals sent from the city took up the army, worn out by the battle and by the nocturnal road. A little later the consul entered the city, striving not so much to remove blame from himself as to bestow upon Tempanius his merited praises.

Maestae civitati ab re male gesta et iratae ducibus M. Postumius reus obiectus, qui tribunus militum pro consule ad Veios fuerat, decem milibus aeris gravis damnatur. T. Quinctium collegam eius, quia et in Volscis consul auspicio dictatoris Postumi Tuberti et ad Fidenas legatus dictatoris alterius Mam. Aemili res prospere gesserat, totam culpam eius temporis in praedamnatum collegam transferentem omnes tribus absolverunt.

To a sorrowful city over the mismanaged affair and angry at its commanders, M. Postumius—who had been military tribune acting as proconsul at Veii—was arraigned and condemned, with a heavy sentence, to ten thousand asses in bronze. T. Quinctius, his colleague, because he had conducted affairs prosperously both among the Volsci as consul under the auspices of the dictator Postumius Tubertus and at Fidenae as legate of the other dictator Mam. Aemilius, shifting the whole blame of that time onto his previously condemned colleague, was acquitted by all the tribes.

Profuisse ei Cincinnati patris memoria dicitur, venerabilis viri, et exactae iam aetatis Capitolinus Quinctius, suppliciter orans ne se, brevi reliquo vitae spatio, tam tristem nuntium ferre ad Cincinnatum paterentur.

It is said that the memory of his father Cincinnatus, a venerable man, benefited him, and also Capitolinus Quinctius, already of advanced age, humbly beseeching that they not allow him, with only a brief span of life remaining, to bear so sad a message to Cincinnatus.

[42] Plebs tribunos plebi absentes Sex. Tempanium M. Asellium Ti. Antistium Ti. Spurillium fecit, quos et pro centurionibus sibi praefecerant Tempanio auctore equites. Senatus cum odio Semproni consulare nomen offenderet, tribunos militum consulari potestate creari iussit.

[42] The plebs made, as tribunes of the plebs and though absent, Sex. Tempanius, M. Asellius, Ti. Antistius, and Ti. Spurillius—whom the cavalry, at Tempanius’s instigation, had also set over themselves as acting centurions. The Senate, since out of hatred for Sempronius it took offense at the consular name, ordered that military tribunes with consular power be created.

Creati sunt L. Manlius Capitolinus Q. Antonius Merenda L. Papirius Mugillanus. Principio statim anni L. Hortensius tribunus plebis C. Sempronio, consuli anni prioris, diem dixit. Quem cum quattuor collegae inspectante populo Romano orarent ne imperatorem suum innoxium, in quo nihil praeter fortunam reprehendi posset, vexaret, aegre Hortensius pati, temptationem eam credens esse perseverantiae suae, nec precibus tribunorum, quae in speciem modo iactentur, sed auxilio confidere reum.

Lucius Manlius Capitolinus, Quintus Antonius Merenda, and Lucius Papirius Mugillanus were elected. At the very beginning of the year Lucius Hortensius, tribune of the plebs, named a day for Gaius Sempronius, consul of the previous year. As four of his colleagues, with the Roman People looking on, were pleading that he not harass their commander, innocent, in whom nothing could be reproached except fortune, Hortensius could scarcely endure it, believing that this was a test of his perseverance, and that the defendant relied not on the entreaties of the tribunes, which were cast forth only for show, but on intercessory assistance.

Itaque modo ad eum conversus, ubi illi patricii spiritus, ubi subnixus et fidens innocentiae animus esset quaerebat; sub tribunicia umbra consularem virum delituisse; modo ad collegas: "Vos autem, si reum perago, quid acturi estis? an erepturi ius populo et eversuri tribuniciam potestatem?" Cum illi et de Sempronio et de omnibus summam populi Romani potestatem esse dicerent, nec se iudicium populi tollere aut velle aut posse, sed si preces suae pro imperatore, qui sibi parentis esset loco, non valuissent, se vestem cum eo mutaturos, tum Hortensius "Non videbit" inquit, "plebs Romana sordidatos tribunos suos. C. Sempronium nihil moror, quando hoc est in imperio consecutus ut tam carus esset militibus". Nec pietas quattuor tribunorum quam Hortensi tam placabile ad iustas preces ingenium pariter plebi patribusque gratius fuit.

Therefore, now turning to him, he asked where that patrician spirit of his was, where the mind relying on and confident in innocence was; that a consular man had skulked under the tribunician shade; now to his colleagues: “And you, if I proceed with the defendant, what are you going to do? Are you going to snatch the right from the people and overturn the tribunician power?” When they said that with regard to Sempronius and to everyone the supreme power belonged to the Roman people, and that they neither wished nor were able to take away the people’s judgment, but that if their prayers on behalf of the imperator, who was to them in the place of a parent, had not prevailed, they would change garment with him, then Hortensius said, “The Roman plebs will not see their tribunes in soiled garments. As for Gaius Sempronius, I do not concern myself, since he has achieved this in command, that he is so dear to the soldiers.” The pietas of the four tribunes was not more pleasing alike to the plebs and the patres than the disposition in Hortensius, so placable to just entreaties.

Non diutius fortuna Aequis indulsit, qui ambiguam victoriam Volscorum pro sua amplexi fuerant.

Fortune no longer indulged the Aequians, who had embraced the ambiguous victory of the Volsci as their own.

[43] Proximo anno Num. Fabio Vibulano T. Quinctio Capitolini filio Capitolino consulibus ductu Fabii, cui sorte ea provincia evenerat, nihil dignum memoratu actum. Cum trepidam tantum ostendissent aciem Aequi, turpi fuga funduntur, haud magno consulis decore.

[43] In the next year, with Num. Fabius Vibulanus and T. Quinctius Capitolinus, the son of Capitolinus, as consuls, under the leadership of Fabius, to whom by lot that province had fallen, nothing worthy of remembrance was done. Although the Aequi had merely displayed a trembling battle-line, they are routed in a disgraceful flight, with no great distinction to the consul.

Itaque triumphus negatus, ceterum ob Sempronianae cladis levatam ignominiam ut ovans urbem intraret concessum est.

Therefore a triumph was denied; however, because the ignominy of the Sempronian disaster had been alleviated, it was granted that he enter the city in an ovation.

Quemadmodum bellum minore quam timuerant dimicatione erat perfectum, sic in urbe ex tranquillo necopinata moles discordiarum inter plebem ac patres exorta est, coepta ab duplicando quaestorum numero. Quam rem—praeter duos urbanos ut crearentur alii quaestores duo qui consulibus ad ministeria belli praesto essent—a consulibus relatam cum et patres summa ope adprobassent, tribuni plebi certamen intulerunt ut pars quaestorum—nam ad id tempus patricii creati erant—ex plebe fieret. Adversus quam actionem primo et consules et patres summa ope adnisi sunt concedendo deinde ut quemadmodum in tribunis consulari potestate creandis, sic in quaestoribus liberum esset arbitrium populi, cum parum proficerent, totam rem de augendo quaestorum numero omittunt.

Just as the war had been brought to completion with a smaller engagement than they had feared, so in the city, out of calm, an unanticipated mass of discords arose between the plebs and the patres, begun from doubling the number of quaestors. Which measure—besides the two urban quaestors, that two other quaestors should be created who would be at hand to the consuls for the services of war—having been brought forward by the consuls, and as the patres had with the utmost effort approved it, the tribunes of the plebs launched a contest, namely that a share of the quaestors—for up to that time patricians had been elected—be chosen from the plebs. Against which action at first both consuls and patres strove with utmost effort, then by conceding that, just as in creating the tribunes with consular power, so in the quaestors the free choice of the people should prevail; when they were making too little progress, they abandon the whole matter about augmenting the number of quaestors.

Excipiunt omissam tribuni, aliaeque subinde, inter quas et agrariae legis, seditiosae actiones exsistunt; propter quos motus cum senatus consules quam tribunos creari mallet, neque posset per intercessiones tribunicias senatus consultum fieri, res publica a consulibus ad interregnum, neque id ipsum—nam coire patricios tribuni prohibebant—sine certamine ingenti, redit. Cum pars maior insequentis anni per novos tribunos plebi et aliq vot interreges certaminibus extracta esset, modo prohibentibus tribunis patricios coire ad prodendum interregem, modo interregem interpellantibus ne senatus consultum de comitiis consularibus faceret, postremo L. Papirius Mugillanus proditus interrex, castigando nunc patres, nunc tribunos plebi, desertam omissamque ab hominibus rem publicam, deorum providentia curaque exceptam memorabat Veientibus indutiis et cunctatione Aequorum stare. Unde si quid increpet terroris, sine patricio magistratu placere rem publicam opprimi?

The tribunes pick up the dropped measure, and in succession other seditious actions arise, among which even one of an agrarian law; because of which disturbances, since the senate preferred that consuls rather than tribunes be created, and a senatus consultum could not be made owing to tribunician intercessions, the commonwealth returns from consuls to an interregnum—and not even that itself, for the tribunes were forbidding the patricians to assemble—without a vast struggle. When the greater part of the following year had been dragged out in contests by the new tribunes of the plebs and several interreges, now with the tribunes forbidding the patricians to meet to designate an interrex, now interrupting the interrex so that he might not make a senatus consultum about the consular comitia, at last Lucius Papirius Mugillanus, brought forward as interrex, by chastising now the patres, now the tribunes of the plebs, kept reminding them that the commonwealth, deserted and abandoned by men, was being sustained by the providence and care of the gods, that it stood by the truce with the Veientes and by the delay of the Aequians. Whence, if any alarm should peal forth, was it their pleasure that the commonwealth be crushed with no patrician magistracy?

Non exercitum, non ducem scribendo exercitui esse? An bello intestino bellum externum propulsaturos? Quae si in unum conveniant, vix deorum opibus quin obruatur Romana res resisti posse.

Neither an army nor a commander for the enrolling of the army? Or are you going to repel an external war by an intestine war? If these converge into one, scarcely could resistance be made, even by the resources of the gods, to prevent the Roman commonwealth from being overwhelmed.

Quin illi, remittendo de summa quisque iuris mediis consiliis copularent concordiam, patres patiendo tribunos militum pro consulibus fieri, tribuni plebi non intercedendo quo minus quattuor quaestores promisce de plebe ac patribus libero suffragio populi fierent?

Why should they not, each by remitting something from the summit of his right, link concord by mediating counsels—the patres by allowing military tribunes to be made in place of consuls, the tribunes of the plebs by not interceding so that four quaestors, indiscriminately from the plebs and the patres, might be elected by the free suffrage of the people?

[44] Tribunicia primum comitia sunt habita. Creati tribuni consulari potestate omnes patricii, L. Quinctius Cincinnatus tertium L. Furius Medullinus iterum M. Manlius A. Sempronius Atratinus. Hoc tribuno comitia quaestorum habente, petentibusque inter aliq vot plebeios filio A. Antisti tribuni plebis et fratre alterius tribuni plebis Sex.

[44] The tribunician comitia were first held. Tribunes with consular power were created, all patricians: L. Quinctius Cincinnatus for the third time, L. Furius Medullinus for the second time, M. Manlius, A. Sempronius Atratinus. This tribune holding the comitia of the quaestors, and, among several plebeian candidates, the son of A. Antistius, tribune of the plebs, and the brother of another tribune of the plebs, Sex.

Pompili, nec potestas nec suffragatio horum valuit quin quorum patres auosque consules viderant eos nobilitate praeferrent. Furere omnes tribuni plebi, ante omnes Pompilius Antistiusque, repulsa suorum accensi. Quidnam id rei esset?

Pompilius, neither the power nor the suffrage of these availed to prevent their preferring, for nobility, those whose fathers and grandfathers they had seen as consuls. All the tribunes of the plebs were in a fury—above all Pompilius and Antistius—inflamed by the repulse of their own. What, pray, was the matter?

Non suis beneficiis, non patrum iniuriis, non denique usurpandi libidine, cum liceat quod ante non licuerit, si non tribunum militarem, ne quaestorem quidem quemquam ex plebe factum. Non valuisse patris pro filio, fratris pro fratre preces, tribunorum plebis, potestatis sacrosanctae, ad auxilium libertatis creatae. Fraudem profecto in re esse, et A. Sempronium comitiis plus artis adhibuisse quam fidei.

Not by their own benefactions, not by the injuries of the patres, not, finally, by a libido of usurping—now that what formerly was not permitted is permitted—has anyone from the plebs been made, if not a military tribune, then not even a quaestor. The prayers have not prevailed: a father’s for his son, a brother’s for his brother, those of the tribunes of the plebs, of a sacrosanct power created for the aid of liberty. Assuredly there is fraud in the matter, and A. Sempronius, at the comitia, has employed more artifice than good faith.

Eius iniuria queri suos honore deiectos. Itaque cum in ipsum, et innocentia tutum et magistratu, in quo tunc erat, impetus fieri non posset, flexere iras in C. Sempronium, patruelem Atratini, eique ob ignominiam Volsci belli adiutore collega M. Canuleio diem dixere. Subinde ab iisdem tribunis mentio in senatu de agris dividendis inlata est, cui actioni semper acerrime C. Sempronius restiterat, ratis, id quod erat, aut deposita causa leviorem futurum apud patres reum aut perseverantem sub iudicii tempus plebem offensurum.

Eying his injustice, they complained that their own had been cast down from honor. And so, since against him himself—protected both by innocence and by the magistracy in which he then was—an attack could not be made, they turned their wrath upon Gaius Sempronius, cousin of Atratinus, and, on account of the ignominy of the Volscian war, named a day for him, with his colleague Marcus Canuleius as helper. Soon thereafter a mention by these same tribunes was brought in the senate about dividing the lands, to which action Gaius Sempronius had always most acridly resisted, thinking—what in fact was the case—that either, with the cause laid aside, the defendant would be lighter in the eyes of the Fathers, or, if he persevered, he would offend the plebs at the time of the trial.

Adversae invidiae obici maluit et suae nocere causae quam publicae deesse, stetitque in eadem sententia ne qua largitio, cessura in trium gratiam tribunorum, fieret; nec tum agrum plebi, sed sibi invidiam quaeri; se quoque subiturum eam tempestatem forti animo; nec senatui tanti se civem aut quemquam alium debere esse, ut in parcendo uni malum publicum fiat. Nihilo demissiore animo, cum dies venit causa ipse pro se dicta, nequiquam omnia expertis patribus ut mitigarent plebem, quindecim milibus aeris damnatur.

He preferred to be exposed to adverse envy and to harm his own cause rather than fail the public, and he stood fast in the same opinion, that no largess, which would redound to the favor of the three tribunes, be made; that it was not land for the plebs that was then being sought, but ill-will against himself; that he too would undergo that storm with a stout spirit; and that he ought not to be of such value to the senate, or to anyone else, that by sparing a single man a public evil be wrought. With a mind no whit cast down, when the day came, his case having been pleaded by himself, the senators having tried everything in vain to soften the plebs, he was condemned to 15,000 asses.

Eodem anno Postumia virgo vestalis de incestu causam dixit, crimine innoxia, ab suspicione propter cultum amoeniorem ingeniumque liberius quam virginem decet parum abhorrens. Eam ampliatam, deinde absolutam pro collegii sententia pontifex maximus abstinere iocis colique sancte potius quam scite iussit. Eodem anno a Campanis Cumae, quam Graeci tum urbem tenebant, capiuntur.

In the same year, Postumia, a Vestal virgin, stood trial on a charge of incest—innocent of the crime, yet not sufficiently removed from suspicion because of a more agreeable attire and a freer disposition than befits a maiden. Her case having been deferred and then, in accordance with the judgment of the college, she having been acquitted, the pontifex maximus ordered her to abstain from jests and to be treated reverently rather than wittily. In the same year, Cumae—then held by the Greeks—were captured by the Campanians.

Insequens annus tribunos militum consulari potestate habuit Agrippam Menenium Lanatum P. Lucretium Tricipitinum Sp. Nautium Rutulum,

The following year had military tribunes with consular power: Agrippa Menenius Lanatus, Publius Lucretius Tricipitinus, Spurius Nautius Rutulus,

[45] Annus, felicitate populi Romani, periculo potius ingenti quam clade insignis. Servitia urbem ut incenderent distantibus locis coniurarunt, populoque ad opem passim ferendam tectis intento ut arcem Capitoliumque armati occuparent. Avertit nefanda consilia Iuppiter, indicioque duorum comprehensi sontes poenas dederunt.

[45] The year, by the felicity of the Roman people, was notable for a huge peril rather than for a calamity. Slave-bands conspired to set the city ablaze in widely separated places, and, with the people intent on bringing aid everywhere to the houses, that armed men might seize the citadel and the Capitol. Jupiter averted the nefarious designs, and, by the information of two, the guilty, apprehended, paid the penalty.

Indicibus dena milia gravis aeris, quae tum divitiae habebantur, ex aerario numerata et libertas praemium fuit.

To the informers, ten thousand in heavy bronze—which at that time was accounted wealth—were counted out from the treasury, and liberty was the reward.

Bellum inde ab Aequis reparari coeptum; et novos hostes Labicanos consilia cum veteribus iungere, haud incertis auctoribus Romam est allatum. Aequorum iam velut anniuersariis armis adsueuerat civitas; Labicos legati missi cum responsa inde rettulissent dubia, quibus nec tum bellum parari nec diuturnam pacem fore appareret, Tusculanis negotium datum adverterent animos ne quid novi tumultus Labicis oreretur.

War then began to be renewed by the Aequians; and that the new enemies, the Labicans, were joining counsels with the old was brought to Rome on no uncertain authority. The state had by now grown accustomed to the arms of the Aequians as if anniversary; envoys were sent to Labicum, and when they brought back from there doubtful replies, from which it appeared that neither was war then being prepared nor would there be a long-lasting peace, the task was given to the Tusculans to turn their attention, lest any new tumult should arise at Labicum.

Ad insequentis anni tribunos militum consulari potestate, inito magistratu, legati ab Tusculo venerunt, L. Sergium Fidenatem M. Papirium Mugillanum C. Servilium Prisci filium, quo dictatore Fidenae captae fuerant. Nuntiabant legati Labicanos arma cepisse et cum Aequorum exercitu depopulatos agrum Tusculanum castra in Algido posuisse. Tum Labicanis bellum indictum; factoque senatus consulto ut duo ex tribunis ad bellum proficiscerentur, unus res Romae curaret, certamen subito inter tribunos exortum; se quisque belli ducem potiorem ferre, curam urbis ut ingratam ignobilemque aspernari.

To the tribunes of the soldiers with consular power of the following year, after they had entered upon their magistracy, envoys from Tusculum came—to L. Sergius Fidenas, M. Papirius Mugillanus, and C. Servilius, son of Priscus, by whom, when he was dictator, Fidenae had been captured. The envoys announced that the Labicani had taken up arms and, with the army of the Aequians, after ravaging the Tusculan territory, had pitched camp on Mount Algidus. Then war was declared against the Labicani; and, a decree of the senate having been passed that two of the tribunes should set out to the war and one should take care of affairs at Rome, a contest suddenly arose among the tribunes; each claimed himself the more fitting leader for the war, and spurned the charge of the city as ungrateful and ignoble.

Cum parum decorum inter collegas certamen mirabundi patres conspicerent, Q. Servilius "quando nec ordinis huius ulla" inquit, "nec rei publicae est verecundia, patria maiestas altercationem istam dirimet. Filius meus extra sortem urbi praeerit. Bellum utinam, qui adpetunt, consideratius concordiusque quam cupiunt gerant".

When the fathers, marveling, beheld a contest little decorous between colleagues, Q. Servilius said, "since there is no reverence either for this order or for the commonwealth, a father's majesty will settle that altercation. My son, outside the lot, will preside over the city. As for the war, would that those who seek it may wage it more deliberately and more concordantly than they desire".

[46] Dilectum haberi non ex toto passim populo placuit; decem tribus sorte ductae sunt; ex iis scriptos iuniores duo tribuni ad bellum duxere. Coepta inter eos in urbe certamina cupiditate eadem imperii multo impensius in castris accendi; nihil sentire idem, pro sententia pugnare; sua consilia velle, sua imperia sola rata esse; contemnere in vicem et contemni, donec castigantibus legatis tandem ita comparatum est ut alternis diebus summam imperii haberent. Quae cum allata Romam essent, dicitur Q. Servilius, aetate et usu doctus, precatus ab dis immortalibus ne discordia tribunorum damnosior rei publicae esset quam ad Veios fuisset, et velut haud dubia clade imminente, institisse filio ut milites scriberet et arma pararet.

[46] It did not please that a levy be held from the whole populace indiscriminately; ten tribes were drawn by lot; from these the enrolled younger men two tribunes led to the war. The contests begun between them in the city, from the same cupidity for imperium, were inflamed far more intensely in the camp; to agree on nothing, to fight for their own opinion; to want their own plans, to have their own commands alone ratified; to contemn in turn and to be contemned, until, with the legates rebuking, at last it was arranged that on alternate days they should hold the supreme command. When these things were brought to Rome, Q. Servilius, taught by age and by experience, is said to have prayed from the immortal gods that the discord of the tribunes might not be more damaging to the commonwealth than it had been at Veii, and, as though with no doubtful disaster impending, he pressed his son to enroll soldiers and to prepare arms.

Nec falsus vates fuit. Nam ductu L. Sergi, cuius dies imperii erat, loco iniquo sub hostium castris, cum quia simulato metu receperat se hostis ad vallum, spes vana expugnandi castra eo traxisset, repentino impetu Aequorum per supinam vallem fusi sunt, multique in ruina maiore quam fuga oppressi obtruncatique; castraque eo die aegre retenta, postero die circumfusis iam magna ex parte hostibus per aversam portam fuga turpi deseruntur. Duces legatique et quod circa signa roboris de exercitu fuit Tusculum petiere: palati alii per agros passim multis itineribus maioris quam accepta erat cladis nuntii Romam contenderunt.

Nor was the seer false. For under the leadership of Lucius Sergius, whose day of command it was, in an unfavorable position beneath the enemy’s camp—since, because the enemy had withdrawn to the rampart with feigned fear, a vain hope of storming the camp had drawn them there—they were routed by a sudden charge of the Aequi through a downhill valley, and many, in a collapse rather than a flight, were overwhelmed and cut to pieces; and the camp, with difficulty held that day, on the next day, the enemy now encircling them for the most part, was shamefully abandoned in flight through the rear gate. The commanders and legates, and whatever of the army’s strength was around the standards, made for Tusculum: others, scattered here and there through the fields by many routes, hurried to Rome as messengers of a disaster greater than had in fact been sustained.

Minus trepidationis fuit, quod eventus timori hominum congruens fuerat, et quod subsidia quae respicerent in re trepida praeparata erant ab tribuno militum. Iussuque eiusdem per minores magistratus sedato in urbe tumultu, speculatores propere missi nuntiavere Tusculi duces exercitumque esse, hostem castra loco non movisse. Et quod plurimum animorum fecit, dictator ex senatus consulto dictus Q. Servilius Priscus, vir cuius providentiam in re publica cum multis aliis tempestatibus ante experta civitas erat, tum eventu eius belli, quod uni certamen tribunorum suspectum ante rem male gestam fuerat.

There was less trepidation, because the event had been congruent with the fear of the people, and because the subsidies to which they might look in a troubled situation had been prepared by the military tribune. And, by the order of the same man, with the tumult in the city calmed through the lesser magistrates, scouts sent in haste reported that at Tusculum were the commanders and the army, and that the enemy had not moved his camp from its place. And what gave the most heart, a dictator was named by senatorial decree, Quintus Servilius Priscus—a man whose providence in the commonwealth the state had experienced before in many other tempests, and then in the outcome of that war, the strife of the tribunes having seemed suspect to him alone before the affair had gone ill.

Magistro equitum creato, a quo ipse tribuno militum dictator erat dictus, filio suo—ut tradidere quidam; nam alii Ahalam Servilium magistrum equitum eo anno fuisse scribunt,—nouo exercitu profectus ad bellum, accitis qui Tusculi erant, duo milia passuum ab hoste locum castris cepit.

With a master of the horse having been appointed—by whom he himself, when tribune of the soldiers, had been named dictator—his son, as some have handed down; for others write that Servilius Ahala was master of the horse in that year—he set out to the war with a new army, and, having called in those who were at Tusculum, he took a place for a camp two miles from the enemy.

[47] Transierat ex re bene gesta superbia neglegentiaque ad Aequos, quae in Romanis ducibus fuerat. Itaque primo statim proelio cum dictator equitatu immisso antesignanos hostium turbasset, legionum inde signa inferri propere iussit signiferumque ex suis unum cunctantem occidit. Tantus ardor ad dimicandum fuit ut impetum Aequi non tulerint; victique acie cum fuga effusa petissent castra, brevior tempore et certamine minor castrorum oppugnatio fuit quam proelium fuerat.

[47] From the well-conducted affair, arrogance and negligence passed over to the Aequi, which had been in the Roman leaders. And so, in the very first battle, when the dictator, with the cavalry sent in, had thrown the enemy’s vanguard into disorder, he then ordered the standards of the legions to be borne forward promptly, and killed one standard-bearer of his own who was hesitating. So great was the ardor for fighting that the Aequi did not withstand the charge; and, defeated in line of battle, when in a headlong flight they had made for their camp, the assault on the camp was shorter in time and a lesser struggle than the battle had been.

Captis direptisque castris cum praedam dictator militi concessisset, secutique fugientem ex castris hostem equites renuntiassent omnes Labicanos victos, magnam partem Aequorum Labicos confugisse, postero die ad Labicos ductus exercitus oppidumque corona circumdata scalis captum ac direptum est. Dictator exercitu victore Romam reducto, die octavo quam creatus erat, magistratu se abdicavit; et opportune senatus priusquam ab tribunis plebi agrariae seditiones mentione inlata de agro Labicano dividendo fierent, censuit frequens coloniam Labicos deducendam. Coloni ab urbe mille et quingenti missi bina iugera acceperunt.

With the camp taken and plundered, when the dictator had granted the booty to the soldiery, and the cavalry, having pursued the enemy fleeing from the camp, had reported that all the Labicans were defeated and that a great part of the Aequi had taken refuge at Labici, on the next day the army was led to Labici, and the town, encircled with a corona and with ladders set up, was taken and sacked. The dictator, with the victorious army led back to Rome, on the eighth day from when he had been created, abdicated his magistracy; and, opportunely, the senate—before agrarian seditions might arise from the tribunes of the plebs upon a motion brought in about dividing the Labican land—voted in full attendance that a colony should be led out to Labici. Colonists sent from the city, 1,500 in number, received two iugera apiece.

Captis Labicis, ac deinde tribunis militum consulari potestate Agrippa Menenio Lanato et C. Servilio Structo et P. Lucretio Tricipitino, iterum omnibus his, et Sp. Rutilio Crasso, et insequente anno A. Sempronio Atratino tertium, et duobus iterum, M. Papirio Mugillano et Sp. Nautio Rutulo, biennium tranquillae externae res, discordia domi ex agrariis legibus fuit.

With Labici taken, and then the military tribunes with consular power—Agrippa Menenius Lanatus and Gaius Servilius Structus and Publius Lucretius Tricipitinus, all these again, and Spurius Rutilius Crassus; and in the following year Aulus Sempronius Atratinus for the 3rd time, and two again, Marcus Papirius Mugillanus and Spurius Nautius Rutilus— for a biennium external affairs were tranquil, while at home there was discord from the agrarian laws.

[48] Turbatores volgi erant Sp. Maecilius quartum et M. Metilius tertium tribuni plebis, ambo absentes creati. Ei cum rogationem promulgassent ut ager ex hostibus captus viritim divideretur, magnaeque partis nobilium eo plebiscito publicarentur fortunae—nec enim ferme quicquam agri, ut in urbe alieno solo posita, non armis partum erat, nec quod venisset adsignatumue publice esset praeterquam plebs habebat,—atrox plebi patribusque propositum videbatur certamen. Nec tribuni militum, nunc in senatu, nunc conciliis privatis principum cogendis, viam consilii inveniebant, cum Ap. Claudius, nepos eius qui decemvir legibus scribendis fuerat, minimus natu ex patrum concilio, dicitur dixisse vetus se ac familiare consilium domo adferre; proavum enim suum Ap. Claudium ostendisse patribus viam unam dissolvendae tribuniciae potestatis per collegarum intercessionem.

[48] The agitators of the crowd were Sp. Maecilius, for the fourth time, and M. Metilius, for the third, tribunes of the plebs, both elected in their absence. They, when they had promulgated a bill that the land taken from enemies be divided individually, and that by that plebiscite the fortunes of a great part of the nobles be confiscated to the State—for scarcely any land, seeing that the city is set upon another’s soil, had not been won by arms, nor was there anything that had come or been assigned publicly except what the plebs possessed,—a grim contest seemed to be set before the plebs and the patres. Nor did the military tribunes, now in the senate, now by convening private councils of the leading men, find a path of counsel, when Ap. Claudius, the grandson of him who had been decemvir for the writing of the laws, the youngest in age from the council of the patres, is said to have said that he was bringing from home an old and household counsel; for his great‑grandfather Ap. Claudius had shown to the patres the one way of dissolving the tribunician power through the intercession of colleagues.

Facile homines novos auctoritate principum de sententia deduci, si temporum interdum potius quam maiestatis memor adhibeatur oratio. Pro fortuna illis animos esse; ubi videant collegas principes agendae rei gratiam omnem ad plebem praeoccupasse nec locum in ea relictum sibi, haud gravate acclinaturos se ad causam senatus, per quam cum universo ordini, tum primoribus se patrum concilient. Adprobantibus cunctis et ante omnes Q. Servilio Prisco, quod non degenerasset ab stirpe Claudia, conlaudante iuvenem, negotium datur ut quos quisque posset ex collegio tribunorum ad intercessionem perlicerent.

New men are easily led away from their opinion by the authority of the leading men, if an oration be applied that is at times mindful of the times rather than of majesty. Their spirits are according to fortune; when they see that their colleague leaders have preoccupied with the plebs all the favor for the business to be transacted and that no place is left for themselves in it, they will not unwillingly incline to the cause of the senate, through which they may conciliate to themselves both the whole order and especially the foremost of the fathers. With all approving, and before all Q. Servilius Priscus—praising the youth because he had not degenerated from the Claudian stock—the task is given that each should entice whom he could from the college of the tribunes to intercession.

Misso senatu, prensantur ab principibus tribuni. Suadendo monendo pollicendoque, gratum id singulis privatim, gratum universo senatui fore, sex ad intercessionem comparavere. Posteroque die cum ex composito relatum ad senatum esset de seditione quam Maecilius Metiliusque largitione pessimi exempli concirent, eae orationes a primoribus patrum habitae sunt ut pro se quisque iam nec consilium sibi suppetere diceret, nec se ullam opem cernere aliam usquam praeterquam in tribunicio auxilio; in eius potestatis fidem circumventam rem publicam, tamquam privatum inopem, confugere; praeclarum ipsis potestatique esse, non ad vexandum senatum discordiamque ordinum movendam plus in tribunatu virium esse quam ad resistendum improbis collegis.

With the senate dismissed, the tribunes are taken in hand by the leading men. By persuading, admonishing, and promising that this would be pleasing to individuals privately and to the whole senate, they prepared six for intercession. And on the following day, when by prearrangement it had been reported to the senate about the sedition which Maecilius and Metilius were stirring up by a largess of the worst precedent, such speeches were delivered by the foremost of the patres that each, for his own part, now said that neither counsel was at his command, nor did he discern any aid anywhere except in tribunician assistance; to the good faith of that power the commonwealth, like an indigent private person, was fleeing for refuge; it would be illustrious for themselves and for the very power that there be not more strength in the tribunate for harassing the senate and for moving discord of the orders than for resisting wicked colleagues.

Fremitus deinde universi senatus ortus, cum ex omnibus patribus curiae tribuni appellarentur. Tum silentio facto ii qui praeparati erant gratia principum, quam rogationem a collegis promulgatam senatus censeat dissolvendae rei publicae esse, ei se intercessuros ostendunt. Gratiae intercessoribus ab senatu actae.

Then a murmur arose from the whole senate, as the tribunes were appealed to by all the fathers of the curia. Then, silence having been made, those who had been prepared through the favor of the leading men show that they will interpose their intercession against the rogation promulgated by their colleagues, which the senate judges to be for the dissolution of the commonwealth. Thanks were rendered to the intercessors by the senate.

Latores rogationis contione advocata proditores plebis commodorum ac servos consularium appellantes aliaque truci oratione in collegas invecti, actionem deposuere.

With an assembly summoned, the proposers of the bill, calling them traitors to the plebeian interests and slaves of the consulars, and inveighing with other truculent oratory against their colleagues, laid down the action.

[49] Duo bella insequens annus habuisset, quo P. Cornelius Cossus C. Valerius Potitus Q. Quinctius Cincinnatus Num. Fabius Vibulanus tribuni militum consulari potestate fuerunt, ni Veiens bellum religio principum distulisset, quorum agros Tiberis super ripas effusus maxime ruinis villarum vastavit. Simul Aequos triennio ante accepta clades prohibuit Bolanis, suae gentis populo, praesidium ferre.

[49] The following year would have had two wars, in which Publius Cornelius Cossus, Gaius Valerius Potitus, Quintus Quinctius Cincinnatus, and Numerius Fabius Vibulanus were military tribunes with consular power, had not the Veientine war been deferred by the religious scruple of the leading men, whose fields the Tiber, having overflowed beyond its banks, devastated, especially through the ruin of country villas. At the same time, a defeat sustained three years earlier kept the Aequians from bringing aid to the Bolani, a people of their own race.

Excursiones inde in confinem agrum Labicanum factae erant novisque colonis bellum inlatum. Quam noxam cum se consensu omnium Aequorum defensuros sperassent, deserti ab suis, ne memorabili quidem bello, per obsidionem levemque unam pugnam et oppidum et fines amisere. Temptatum ab L. Decio tribuno plebis ut rogationem ferret qua Bolas quoque, sicut Labicos, coloni mitterentur, per intercessionem collegarum qui nullum plebi scitum nisi ex auctoritate senatus passuros se perferri ostenderunt, discussum est.

Raids were then made into the neighboring Labican territory, and war was brought upon the new colonists. When they had hoped that they would defend that injury by the consensus of all the Aequians, deserted by their own, not even by a memorable war, but through a siege and a single light engagement, they lost both the town and the borders. It was attempted by L. Decius, tribune of the plebs, to bring a rogation by which colonists would be sent to Bolae also, just as to Labici; but it was quashed by the intercession of his colleagues, who showed that they would allow no plebiscite to be carried except by the authority of the senate.

Bolis insequente anno receptis Aequi coloniaque eo deducta novis viribus oppidum firmarunt, tribunis militum Romae consulari potestate Cn. Cornelio Cosso L. Valerio Potito Q. Fabio Vibulano iterum M. Postumio Regillensi. Huic bellum adversus Aequos permissum est, pravae mentis homini, quam tamen victoria magis quam bellum ostendit. Nam exercitu impigre scripto ductoque ad Bolas cum levibus proeliis Aequorum animos fregisset, postremo in oppidum inrupit.

With Bolas recovered in the following year and a colony led thither, the Aequians with new forces made the town strong, while at Rome the military tribunes with consular power were Cn. Cornelius Cossus, L. Valerius Potitus, Q. Fabius Vibulanus for the second time, and M. Postumius Regillensis. To this man the war against the Aequians was entrusted—a man of crooked mind, which, however, victory showed more than the war. For, after he promptly enrolled the army and led it to Bolas and had broken the spirits of the Aequians with light skirmishes, in the end he burst into the town.

Deinde ab hostibus in cives certamen vertit et cum inter oppugnationem praedam militis fore edixisset, capto oppido fidem mutavit. Eam magis adducor ut credam irae causam exercitui fuisse, quam quod in urbe nuper direpta coloniaque nova minus praedicatione tribuni praedae fuerit. Auxit eam iram, postquam ab collegis arcessitus propter seditiones tribunicias in urbem revertit, audita vox eius in contione stolida ac prope vecors, qua M. Sextio tribuno plebis legem agrariam ferenti, simul Bolas quoque ut mitterentur coloni laturum se dicenti—dignum enim esse qui armis cepissent, eorum urbem agrumque Bolanum esse—"Malum quidem militibus meis" inquit, "nisi quieuerint." Quod auditum non contionem magis quam mox patres offendit.

Then he turned the contest from the enemy upon the citizens; and although during the assault he had proclaimed that the booty would be the soldier’s, once the town was captured he changed his pledge. I am more induced to believe that this was the cause of anger to the army, rather than that, in a city lately sacked and with a new colony planted, there had been less booty than the tribune’s proclamation had promised. He increased that anger after, having been summoned by his colleagues on account of tribunician seditions, he returned to the city, when a remark of his was heard in the assembly, doltish and almost demented, in which, to M. Sextius, tribune of the plebs, proposing an agrarian law and at the same time saying that he would also carry a measure that colonists be sent to Bolas—for it was fitting that those who had taken it by arms should have the city and the Bolan land—he said, “There will indeed be trouble for my soldiers, unless they keep quiet.” This, when heard, offended not so much the assembly as soon thereafter the senators.

Et tribunus plebis, vir acer nec infacundus, nactus inter adversarios superbum ingenium immodicamque linguam, quam inritando agitandoque in eas impelleret voces quae invidiae non ipsi tantum sed causae atque universo ordini essent, neminem ex collegio tribunorum militum saepius quam Postumium in disceptationem trahebat. Tum vero secundum tam saevum atque inhumanum dictum "Auditis" inquit, "Quirites, sicut servis malum minantem militibus? Tamen haec belua dignior vobis tanto honore videbitur quam qui vos urbe agrisque donatos in colonias mittunt, qui sedem senectuti vestrae prospiciunt, qui pro vestris commodis adversus tam crudeles superbosque adversarios depugnant?

And the tribune of the plebs, a keen man and not ineloquent, having found among his adversaries a proud disposition and an immoderate tongue—whom by provoking and stirring he would drive into those utterances that would bring odium not only upon himself but upon the cause and upon the whole order—dragged no one from the college of the military tribunes into dispute more often than Postumius. Then indeed, following upon such a savage and inhuman saying: "Do you hear," he says, "Quirites, him threatening ‘the lash’ to the soldiers as to slaves? Yet will this brute seem to you more worthy of so great an honor than those who send you out into colonies, endowed with city and fields, who provide a settlement for your old age, who fight it out for your interests against such cruel and proud adversaries?"

Incipite deinde mirari cur pauci iam vestram suscipiant causam. Quid ut a vobis sperent? An honores, quos adversariis vestris potius quam populi Romani propugnatoribus datis?

Then begin, therefore, to marvel why few now take up your cause. What are they to hope for from you? Is it honors, which you give to your adversaries rather than to the champions of the Roman people?

Ingemuistis modo voce huius audita. Quid id refert? Iam si suffragium detur, hunc qui malum vobis minatur, iis qui agros sedesque ac fortunas stabilire volunt praeferetis".

You have just groaned, his voice having been heard. What does that matter? Now, if suffrage be given, you will prefer this man who threatens harm to you to those who wish to stabilize your fields, homes, and fortunes".

[50] Perlata haec vox Postumi ad milites multo in castris maiorem indignationem movit: praedaene interceptorem fraudatoremque etiam malum minari militibus? Itaque cum fremitus aperte esset, et quaestor P. Sestius eadem violentia coerceri putaret seditionem posse qua mota erat, misso ad vociferantem quendam militem lictore cum inde clamor et iurgium oreretur, saxo ictus turba excedit, insuper increpante qui volneraverat habere quaestorem quod imperator esset militibus minatus. Ad hunc tumultum accitus Postumius asperiora omnia fecit acerbis quaestionibus, crudelibus suppliciis.

[50] When this utterance of Postumius was carried to the soldiers, it stirred far greater indignation in the camp: is the interceptor of booty and defrauder even to threaten harm to the soldiers? And so, since the murmuring was open, and the quaestor P. Sestius thought that the sedition could be restrained by the same violence by which it had been stirred, a lictor having been sent to a certain vociferating soldier, when thereupon shouting and quarrel arose, he, struck by a stone, withdrew from the crowd; and moreover the man who had wounded him jeered that the quaestor “had it coming,” because the commander had threatened the soldiers. Summoned to this tumult, Postumius made everything harsher with bitter interrogations and cruel punishments.

Postremo cum modum irae nullum faceret, ad vociferationem eorum quos necari sub crate iusserat concursu facto, ipse ad interpellantes poenam vecors de tribunali decurrit. Ibi cum submoventes passim lictores centurionesque vexarent turbam, eo indignatio erupit ut tribunus militum ab exercitu suo lapidibus cooperiretur. Quod tam atrox facinus postquam est Romam nuntiatum, tribunis militum de morte collegae per senatum quaestiones decernentibus tribuni plebis intercedebant.

At last, since he set no limit to his anger, when a rush had been made at the shouting of those whom he had ordered to be killed under the hurdle, he himself, mad, ran down from the tribunal against those interrupting the punishment. There, as the lictors and centurions, driving them back everywhere, were harassing the crowd, indignation burst out to such a point that a tribune of the soldiers was covered with stones by his own army. After this so atrocious a deed was reported to Rome, when the military tribunes were decreeing inquiries through the Senate about the death of their colleague, the tribunes of the plebs interposed veto.

Sed ea contentio ex certamine alio pendebat quod cura incesserat patres ne metu quaestionum plebs iraque tribunos militum ex plebe crearet, tendebantque summa ope ut consules crearentur. Cum senatus consultum fieri tribuni plebis non paterentur, iidem intercederent consularibus comitiis, res ad interregnum rediit. Victoria deinde penes patres fuit.

But that contention depended on another contest, because anxiety had seized the patricians lest, from fear of prosecutions and in anger, the plebs should elect military tribunes from the plebs; and they strained with the utmost effort that consuls be elected. Since the tribunes of the plebs would not allow a senatorial decree to be made, and those same men interceded against the consular elections, the matter returned to an interregnum. Victory then was in the hands of the patricians.

[51] Q. Fabio Vibulano interrege comitia habente consules creati sunt A. Cornelius Cossus L. Furius Medullinus. His consulibus principio anni senatus consultum factum est, ut de quaestione Postumianae caedis tribuni primo quoque tempore ad plebem ferrent, plebesque praeficeret quaestioni quem vellet. A plebe consensu populi consulibus negotium mandatur; qui, summa moderatione ac lenitate per paucorum supplicium, quos sibimet ipsos conscisse mortem satis creditum est, transacta re, nequivere tamen consequi ut non aegerrime id plebs ferret: iacere tam diu inritas actiones quae de suis commodis ferrentur, cum interim de sanguine ac supplicio suo latam legem confestim exerceri et tantam vim habere.

[51] With Q. Fabius Vibulanus as interrex holding the comitia, A. Cornelius Cossus and L. Furius Medullinus were created consuls. Under these consuls, at the beginning of the year, a senatus consultum was made that, concerning the quaestio of the Postumian slaughter, the tribunes should bring it to the plebs at the earliest opportunity, and that the plebs should appoint over the quaestio whom it wished. By the plebs, with the consensus of the people, the business is entrusted to the consuls; who, with the highest moderation and lenity, the matter settled by the punishment of a few—of whom it was sufficiently believed that they had taken their own lives—nevertheless were not able to achieve that the plebs should not take it most bitterly: that measures which were being proposed concerning their own advantages should lie so long ineffectual, while meanwhile a law concerning their blood and punishment, once carried, was immediately being enforced and had such power.

Aptissimum tempus erat, vindicatis seditionibus, delenimentum animis Bolani agri divisionem obici, quo facto minuissent desiderium agrariae legis quae possesso per iniuriam agro publico patres pellebat; tunc haec ipsa indignitas angebat animos: non in retinendis modo publicis agris quos vi teneret pertinacem nobilitatem esse, sed ne vacuum quidem agrum, nuper ex hostibus captum plebi dividere, mox paucis, ut cetera, futurum praedae.

It was a most apt time, the seditions having been quelled, to set forth as a solace for minds the division of the Bolanus land; by doing this they would have diminished the desire for the agrarian law, which was driving the patres off the public land held by wrongful possession; then this very indignity was vexing their spirits: that the nobility was not only pertinacious in retaining the public lands which it held by force, but would not even divide to the plebs land lying vacant, lately captured from the enemies—soon to be booty for a few, like the rest.

Eodem anno adversus Volscos populantes Hernicorum fines legiones ductae a Furio consule cum hostem ibi non invenissent, Ferentinum quo magna multitudo Volscorum se contulerat cepere. Minus praedae quam speraverant fuit, quod Volsci postquam spes tuendi exigua erat sublatis rebus nocte oppidum reliquerunt; postero die prope desertum capitur. Hernicis ipsum agerque dono datus.

In the same year, against the Volsci ravaging the borders of the Hernici, the legions were led by the consul Furius; when they had not found the enemy there, they took Ferentinum, to which a great multitude of Volsci had betaken themselves. There was less booty than they had hoped, because the Volsci, after the hope of holding out was slight, with their goods carried off, left the town by night; on the following day it is taken almost deserted. To the Hernici the town itself and the territory were given as a gift.

[52] Annum modestia tribunorum quietum excepti tribunus plebis L. Icilius, Q. Fabio Ambusto C. Furio Paculo consulibus. Is cum principio statim anni, velut pensum nominis familiaeque, seditiones agrariis legibus promulgandis cieret, pestilentia coorta, minacior tamen quam perniciosior, cogitationes hominum a foro certaminibusque publicis ad domum curamque corporum nutriendorum avertit; minusque eam damnosam fuisse quam seditio futura fuerit credunt. Defuncta civitate plurimorum morbis, perpaucis funeribus, pestilentem annum inopia frugum, neglecto cultu agrorum, ut plerumque fit, excepit, M. Papirio Atratino C. Nautio Rutulo consulibus.

[52] A year, quiet through the modesty of the tribunes, was taken up by the tribune of the plebs L. Icilius, Q. Fabius Ambustus and C. Furius Paculus being consuls. He, straightway at the beginning of the year, as if it were the assigned task of his name and family, stirred up seditions by promulgating agrarian laws; but when a pestilence arose—more menacing, however, than destructive—it turned men’s thoughts from the forum and public contests to home and the care of nourishing their bodies; and they believe that it was less damaging than the sedition would have been. With the state bereft of very many by diseases, with very few funerals, a scarcity of grain, the cultivation of the fields having been neglected, as commonly happens, succeeded the pestilential year, M. Papirius Atratinus and C. Nautius Rutilus being consuls.

Iam fames quam pestilentia tristior erat, ni, dimissis circa omnes populos legatis qui Etruscum mare quique Tiberim accolunt ad frumentum mercandum, annonae foret subuentum. Superbe ab Samnitibus qui Capuam habebant Cumasque legati prohibiti commercio sunt, contra ea benigne ab Siculorum tyrannis adiuti; maximos commeatus summo Etruriae studio Tiberis devexit. Solitudinem in civitate aegra experti consules sunt, cum in legationes non plus singulis senatoribus invenientes coacti sunt binos equites adicere.

By now famine was more grievous than the pestilence, if the grain-supply had not been succored by sending envoys around to all the peoples who border the Etruscan Sea and who dwell along the Tiber to purchase grain. Arrogantly, by the Samnites who held Capua and Cumae, the envoys were prohibited from commerce; on the contrary, they were kindly aided by the tyrants of the Sicilians; the Tiber, with Etruria’s utmost zeal, carried down the greatest convoys. The consuls experienced a solitude in the ailing city, since, finding for embassies no more than single senators, they were compelled to add two knights apiece.

Praeterquam ab morbo annonaque nihil eo biennio intestini externiue incommodi fuit. At ubi eae sollicitudines discessere, omnia, quibus turbari solita erat civitas, domi discordia, foris bellum exortum.

Except for sickness and the grain-supply, there was no internal or external trouble in that two-year period. But when those anxieties departed, everything by which the state was wont to be disturbed broke out—discord at home, war abroad.

[53]M. Aemilio C. Valerio Potito consulibus bellum Aequi parabant, Volscis, quamquam non publico consilio capessentibus arma, voluntariis mercede secutis militiam. Ad quorum famam hostium—iam enim in Latinum Hernicumque transcenderant agrum—dilectum habentem valerium consulem M. Menenius tribunus plebis legis agrariae lator cum impediret auxilioque tribuni nemo invitus sacramento diceret, repente nuntiatur arcem Carventanam ab hostibus occupatam esse. Ea ignominia accepta cum apud patres invidiae Menenio fuit, tum ceteris tribunis, iam ante praeparatis intercessoribus legis agrariae, praebuit iustiorem causam resistendi collegae.

[53] In the consulship of M. Aemilius and C. Valerius Potitus, the Aequi were preparing war, the Volsci—although not taking up arms by public counsel—following the soldiery as volunteers for pay. At the report of these enemies—for they had already crossed into Latin and Hernican territory—while the consul Valerius was holding a levy, M. Menenius, tribune of the plebs, proposer of the agrarian law, since he was obstructing it and, by the aid of the tribune, no one unwilling would take the military oath, suddenly it is announced that the Carventine citadel had been seized by the enemy. With that ignominy received, while odium attached to Menenius among the Fathers, so too for the other tribunes, already beforehand prepared as intercessors against the agrarian law, it supplied a more just cause for resisting their colleague.

Itaque cum res diu ducta per altercationem esset, consulibus deos hominesque testantibus quidquid ab hostibus cladis ignominiaeque aut iam acceptum esset aut immineret culpam penes Menenium fore qui dilectum impediret, Menenio contra vociferante, si iniusti domini possessione agri publici cederent, se moram dilectui non facere, decreto interposito novem tribuni sustulerunt certamen pronuntiaveruntque ex collegii sententia: C. Valerio consuli se, damnum aliamque coercitionem adversus intercessionem collegae dilectus causa detractantibus militiam inhibenti, auxilio futuros esse. Hoc decreto consul armatus cum paucis appellantibus tribunum collum torsisset, metu ceteri sacramento dixere. Ductus exercitus ad Carventanam arcem, quamquam invisus infestusque consuli erat, impigre primo statim adventu deiectis qui in praesidio erant arcem recipit; praedatores ex praesidio per neglegentiam dilapsi occasionem aperuere ad invadendum.

Accordingly, when the matter had long been spun out through altercation, the consuls calling gods and men to witness that whatever disaster and disgrace from the enemies had either already been incurred or was impending, the blame would rest with Menenius, who was impeding the levy; Menenius, on the contrary, vociferating that, if the unjust owners would relinquish possession of the public land, he would not cause delay to the levy; a decree having been interposed, nine tribunes removed the contest and pronounced, by the judgment of the college, that to the consul Gaius Valerius they would bring aid—against their colleague’s intercession—to the infliction of loss and other coercition upon those who, for the sake of the levy, were shirking military service and hindering it. On the strength of this decree, the consul, under arms, with a few while they were appealing to the tribune, twisted his neck; from fear the rest swore the military oath. The army was led to the Carventan citadel, and although it was hateful and hostile to the consul, energetically at the very first arrival, with those who were in the garrison cast down, he retook the citadel; marauders, having slipped away from the garrison through negligence, opened an opportunity for an assault.

Praedae ex adsiduis populationibus, quod omnia in locum tutum congesta erant, fuit aliquantum. Venditum sub hasta consul in aerarium redigere quaestores iussit, tum praedicans participem praedae fore exercitum cum militiam non abnuisset. Auctae inde plebis ac militum in consulem irae.

There was a considerable amount of booty from the continual depredations, because everything had been heaped together into a safe place. The consul ordered the quaestors to pay into the aerarium what had been sold under the spear at auction, then proclaiming that the army would be a participant in the booty when it had not refused military service. Thence the anger of the plebs and the soldiers against the consul was increased.

Itaque cum ex senatus consulto urbem ovans introiret, alternis inconditi versus militari licentia iactati quibus consul increpitus, Meneni celebre nomen laudibus fuit, cum ad omnem mentionem tribuni favor circumstantis populi plausuque et adsensu cum vocibus militum certaret. Plusque ea res quam prope sollemnis militum lascivia in consulem curae patribus iniecit; et tamquam haud dubius inter tribunos militum honos Meneni si peteret consularibus comitiis est exclusus.

Accordingly, when, by decree of the senate, he entered the city in an ovation, crude, unpolished verses were flung out in alternation by military license, in which the consul was reproached, while the celebrated name of Menenius was in praises; and at every mention of the tribune the favor of the surrounding populace, with applause and assent, vied with the voices of the soldiers. This matter threw upon the senators more concern than the almost customary wantonness of the soldiers against the consul; and, on the assumption that the honor of the military tribuneship for Menenius, if he should seek it, was not in doubt, he was excluded from the consular comitia.

[54] Creati consules sunt Cn. Cornelius Cossus L. Furius Medullinus iterum. Non alias aegrius plebs tulit tribunicia comitia sibi non commissa. Eum dolorem quaestoriis comitiis simul ostendit et ulta est tunc primum plebeiis quaestoribus creatis, ita ut in quattuor creandis uni patricio, K. Fabio Ambusto, relinqueretur locus, tres plebeii, Q. Silius P. Aelius P. Papius, clarissimarum familiarum iuvenibus praeferrentur.

[54] The consuls were elected: Cn. Cornelius Cossus and L. Furius Medullinus again. Never at any other time did the plebs bear more painfully that the tribunician elections had not been entrusted to themselves. That grievance it both displayed at the quaestorian elections as well and avenged, with plebeian quaestors then for the first time being created, such that, in creating four, a place was left for one patrician, K. Fabius Ambustus; the three plebeians, Q. Silius, P. Aelius, and P. Papius, were preferred to young men of the most illustrious families.

Auctores fuisse tam liberi populo suffragii Icilios accipio, ex familia infestissima patribus tres in eum annum tribunos plebis creatos, multarum magnarumque rerum molem avidissimo ad ea populo ostentantes, cum adfirmassent nihil se moturos si ne quaestoriis quidem comitiis, quae sola promiscua plebei patribusque reliquisset senatus, satis animi populo esset ad id quod tam diu vellent et per leges liceret. Pro ingenti itaque victoria id fuit plebi, quaesturamque eam non honoris ipsius fine aestimabant, sed patefactus ad consulatum ac triumphos locus novis hominibus videbatur. Patres contra non pro communicatis sed pro amissis honoribus fremere; negare, si ea ita sint, liberos tollendos esse, qui pulsi maiorum loco cernentesque alios in possessione dignitatis suae, salii flaminesque nusquam alio quam ad sacrificandum pro populo sine imperiis ac potestatibus relinquantur.

I take it that the Icilii were the authors of so free a suffrage for the people, men of a family most hostile to the patricians, three of whom were elected tribunes of the plebs for that year, ostentating to the people—most eager for such things—a mass of many and great measures, since they had affirmed that they would set nothing in motion if not even at the quaestorian elections, which alone the senate had left common to plebeians and patricians, the people had spirit enough for that which they had so long wanted and which by the laws was permitted. Therefore this was, for the plebs, as a huge victory, and they did not appraise that quaestorship by the limit of the honor itself, but an opening to the consulship and triumphs seemed to be made for new men. The fathers, on the contrary, murmured not as over honors shared but over honors lost; they declared that, if these things are so, children ought not to be reared—who, driven from the station of their ancestors and seeing others in possession of their dignity, would be left as Salii and flamines, nowhere else than for sacrificing for the people, without commands and powers.

Inritatis utriusque partis animis cum et spiritus plebs sumpsisset et tres ad popularem causam celeberrimi nominis haberet duces, patres omnia quaestoriis comitiis ubi utrumque plebi liceret similia fore cernentes, tendere ad consulum comitia quae nondum promiscua essent: Icilii contra tribunos militum creandos dicere et tandem aliquando impertiendos plebi honores.

With the spirits of both parties provoked, since the plebs too had taken on spirit and had three leaders of a most celebrated name for the popular cause, the patricians, perceiving that at the quaestorian comitia—where both offices were permitted to the plebs—everything would turn out similarly, pressed toward the consular comitia, which were not yet common; the Icilii, on the contrary, said that military tribunes should be created and that honors should at length at last be imparted to the plebs.

[55] Sed nulla erat consularis actio quam impediendo id quod petebant exprimerent, cum mira opportunitate Volscos et Aequos praedatum extra fines exisse in agrum Latinum Hernicumque adfertur. Ad quod bellum ubi ex senatus consulto consules dilectum habere occipiunt, obstare tunc enixe tribuni, sibi plebique eam fortunam oblatam memorantes. Tres erant, et omnes acerrimi viri generosique iam, ut inter plebeios.

[55] But there was no consular action by obstructing which they might squeeze out what they were demanding, when, with wondrous opportuneness, it is reported that the Volsci and the Aequians have gone out beyond the borders to plunder into the Latin and Hernican territory. For which war, when, by decree of the senate, the consuls begin to hold a levy, then the tribunes earnestly oppose it, reminding that that opportunity had been offered to themselves and to the plebs. They were three, and all most keen men, and now of noble stock, as for plebeians.

Duo singuli singulos sibi consules adservandos adsidua opera desumunt; uni contionibus data nunc detinenda, nunc concienda plebs. Nec dilectum consules nec comitia quae petebant tribuni expediebant. Inclinante deinde se fortuna ad causam plebis, nuntii veniunt arcem Carventanam, dilapsis ad praedam militibus qui in praesidio erant, Aequos interfectis paucis custodibus arcis invasisse; alios recurrentes in arcem, alios palantes in agris caesos.

Two, each for himself, take one consul apiece to be kept under watch with assiduous effort; to one the plebs was assigned, by public assemblies now to be held back, now to be stirred up. Neither were the consuls carrying out the levy, nor the tribunes the comitia which they were seeking. Then, fortune inclining to the cause of the plebs, messengers come that the Carventan citadel, the soldiers who were in garrison having slipped away to plunder, the Aequians had seized the citadel, a few guards having been slain; some, as they were running back to the citadel, and others, wandering in the fields, were cut down.

Ea adversa civitati res vires tribuniciae actioni adiecit. Nequiquam enim temptati ut tum denique desisterent impediendo bello, postquam non cessere nec publicae tempestati nec suae invidiae, peruincunt ut senatus consultum fiat de tribunis militum creandis, certo tamen pacto ne cuius ratio haberetur qui eo anno tribunus plebis esset, neue quis reficeretur in annum tribunus plebis, haud dubie Icilios denotante senatu, quos mercedem seditiosi tribunatus petere consulatum insimulabant. Tum dilectus haberi bellumque omnium ordinum consensu apparari coeptum.

That adverse affair for the commonwealth added strength to the tribunician action. For they were tried in vain to desist at last from obstructing the war; after they yielded neither to the public tempest nor to their own odium, they prevail that a senatorial decree be passed for the creating of military tribunes, yet with a fixed pact that no one’s candidacy be taken into account who in that year was a tribune of the plebs, and that no one be reappointed tribune of the plebs for the next year—the senate, without doubt, signaling the Icilii, whom they accused of seeking the consulship as the wage of a seditious tribunate. Then a levy began to be held, and the war to be prepared by the consensus of all the orders.

Consules ambo profecti sint ad arcem Carventanam, an alter ad comitia habenda substiterit, incertum diversi auctores faciunt; illa pro certo habenda, in quibus non dissentiunt, ab arce Carventana, cum diu nequiquam oppugnata esset, recessum, verruginem in Volscis eodem exercitu receptam, populationesque et praedas et in Aequis et in Volsco agro ingentes factas.

Different authors make it uncertain whether both consuls set out for the Carventan citadel, or whether one remained to hold the elections; those things, however, are to be held as certain, in which they do not disagree: that from the Carventan citadel, since it had been long assaulted to no avail, there was a withdrawal; that the stronghold of Verrugo among the Volsci was recovered by the same army; and that immense devastations and plunderings were carried out both in Aequian and in Volscian territory.

[56] Romae sicut plebis victoria fuit in eo ut quae mallent comitia haberent, ita eventu comitiorum patres vicere; namque tribuni militum consulari potestate contra spem omnium tres patricii creati sunt, C. Iulius Iulus P. Cornelius Cossus C. Servilius Ahala. Artem adhibitam ferunt a patriciis, cuius eos Icilii tum quoque insimulabant, quod turbam indignorum candidatorum intermiscendo dignis taedio sordium in quibusdam insignium populum a plebeiis avertissent.

[56] At Rome, just as the victory of the plebs was in this, that they had the comitia which they preferred, so in the outcome of the comitia the patres won; for as military tribunes with consular power, contrary to everyone’s expectation, three patricians were created, C. Julius Iulus, P. Cornelius Cossus, C. Servilius Ahala. They say a contrivance was employed by the patricians, for which the Icilii then also accused them: that by intermixing a crowd of unworthy candidates among the worthy, through disgust at the squalor—conspicuous in certain men—they had turned the people away from the plebeians.

Volscos deinde et Aequos, seu Carventana arx retenta in spem seu verrugine amissum praesidium ad iram cum impulisset, fama adfertur summa vi ad bellum coortos; caput rerum Antiates esse; eorum legatos utriusque gentis populos circumisse, castigantes ignaviam quod abditi intra muros populabundos in agris vagari Romanos priore anno et opprimi verruginis praesidium passi essent. Iam non exercitus modo armatos sed colonias etiam in suos fines mitti; nec ipsos modo Romanos sua divisa habere, sed Ferentinum etiam de se captum Hernicis donasse. Ad haec cum inflammarentur animi, ut ad quosque ventum erat, numerus iuniorum conscribebatur.

Then as for the Volsci and the Aequi, whether the Carventine citadel retained had pushed them to hope, or the garrison lost at the outwork had driven them to anger, a report is brought that they had risen to war with the utmost force; that the people of Antium were the head of the affair; that their legates had gone around the peoples of both nations, castigating their ignavia because, skulking within walls, they had allowed the Romans to roam plundering through the fields the previous year and the garrison of the outwork to be overwhelmed. Now not only armed armies were being sent into their borders, but colonies as well; and not only did the Romans themselves hold their own allotments divided up, but they had even granted Ferentinum, captured from them, to the Hernicans. At these things their spirits were inflamed, and, as each community was reached, the number of the younger men was conscripted.

Ita omnium populorum iuventus Antium contracta castris positis hostem opperiebantur. Quae ubi tumultu maiore etiam quam res erat nuntiantur Romam, senatus extemplo, quod in rebus trepidis ultimum consilium erat, dictatorem dici iussit. Quam rem aegre passos Iulium Corneliumque ferunt, magnoque certamine animorum rem actam, cum primores patrum, nequiquam conquesti non esse in auctoritate senatus tribunos militum, postremo etiam tribunos plebi appellarent et consulibus quoque ab ea potestate vim super tali re inhibitam referrent, tribuni plebi, laeti discordia patrum nihil esse in se iis auxilii dicerent, quibus non civium, non denique hominum numero essent: si quando promiscui honores, communicata res publica esset, tum se animadversuros ne qua superbia magistratuum inrita senatus consulta essent: interim patricii soluti legum magistratuumque viverent verecundia, per se quoque tribuni agerent.

Thus the youth of all the peoples, gathered to Antium, with a camp pitched, were awaiting the enemy. When these things are announced at Rome with a tumult greater even than the matter was, the senate forthwith, which in panic-stricken affairs was the last resort, ordered that a dictator be proclaimed. They say that Julius and Cornelius took this hard, and that the matter was carried on with a great contention of spirits, when the foremost of the fathers, complaining in vain that the military tribunes were not under the authority of the senate, at last even appealed to the tribunes of the plebs and alleged that even to consuls coercive force had been inhibited by that power in a matter of this kind. The tribunes of the plebs, glad at the discord of the patricians, said that there was no aid in themselves for those by whom they were reckoned not in the number of citizens, not, in fine, in the number of men: if ever honors were common and the commonwealth shared, then they would take care that no arrogance of magistrates should make the senate’s decrees void; meanwhile let the patricians live loosed from reverence for laws and magistrates, and let the tribunes also act on their own.

[57] Haec contentio minime idoneo tempore, cum tantum belli in manibus esset, occupaverat cogitationes hominum, donec ubi diu alternis Iulius Corneliusque cum ad id bellum ipsi satis idonei duces essent, non esse aequum mandatum sibi a populo eripi honorem disseruere, tum Ahala Servilius, tribunus militum, tacuisse se tam diu ait, non quia incertus sententiae fuerit—quem enim bonum civem secernere sua a publicis consilia?—sed quia maluerit collegas sua sponte cedere auctoritati senatus quam tribuniciam potestatem adversus se implorari paterentur. Tum quoque si res sineret, libenter se daturum tempus iis fuisse ad receptum nimis pertinacis sententiae; sed cum belli necessitates non exspectent humana consilia, potiorem sibi collegarum gratia rem publicam fore, et si maneat in sententia senatus, dictatorem nocte proxima dicturum; ac si quis intercedat senatus consulto, auctoritate se fore contentum. Quo facto cum haud immeritam laudem gratiamque apud omnes tulisset, dictatore P. Cornelio dicto ipse ab eo magister equitum creatus exemplo fuit collegas eumque intuentibus, quam gratia atque honos opportuniora interdum non cupientibus essent.

[57] This contention at a most unseasonable time, when so great a war was in hand, had preoccupied men’s thoughts, until, after Julius and Cornelius for a long time in alternation argued that, since they themselves were sufficiently suitable leaders for that war, it was not equitable that the honor mandated to them by the people be snatched away, then Ahala Servilius, tribune of the soldiers, said that he had kept silent so long not because he was uncertain in judgment—for what good citizen separates his own counsels from public counsels?—but because he had preferred that his colleagues yield of their own accord to the authority of the senate rather than allow tribunician power to be implored against themselves. Then too, if the situation allowed, he would gladly have given them time for a retreat from a too pertinacious opinion; but since the necessities of war do not await human counsels, he would hold the commonwealth preferable to the favor of his colleagues, and, if the senate’s opinion should stand, he would name a dictator on the next night; and if anyone should intercede against the senatorial decree, he would be content with his own authority. This being done, since he had borne not undeserved praise and favor among all, with P. Cornelius named dictator he himself was by him created master of the horse, and was an example, for those looking upon his colleagues and himself, of how favor and honor are sometimes more opportune for those who do not desire them.

Bellum haud memorabile fuit. Uno atque eo facili proelio caesi ad Antium hostes; victor exercitus depopulatus Volscum agrum. Castellum ad lacum Fucinum vi expugnatum, atque in eo tria milia hominum capta, ceteris Volscis intra moenia compulsis nec defendentibus agros.

The war was by no means memorable. In a single—and an easy—battle the enemies were cut down at Antium; the victorious army laid waste the Volscian land. A fort by Lake Fucinus was taken by force, and in it three thousand men were captured, the rest of the Volsci having been driven within their walls and not defending their fields.

Dictator bello ita gesto ut tantum non defuisse fortunae videretur, felicitate quam gloria maior in urbem redit magistratuque se abdicavit. Tribuni militum, mentione nulla comitiorum consularium habita, credo, ob iram dictatoris creati, tribunorum militum comitia edixerunt. Tum vero gravior cura patribus incessit, quippe cum prodi causam ab suis cernerent.

The dictator, the war having been conducted in such a way that it seemed that only fortune had not been lacking, returned to the city greater in felicity than in glory and abdicated his magistracy. The military tribunes, no mention having been made of the consular comitia, I believe on account of anger at a dictator having been created, proclaimed comitia of the military tribunes. Then indeed a graver concern seized the Fathers, since they perceived that their cause was being betrayed by their own.

Itaque sicut priore anno per indignissimos ex plebeiis candidatos omnium, etiam dignorum, taedium fecerant, sic tum primoribus patrum splendore gratiaque ad petendum praeparatis omnia loca obtinuere, ne cui plebeio aditus esset. Quattuor creati sunt, omnes iam functi eo honore, L. Furius Medullinus C. Valerius Potitus Num. Fabius Vibulanus C. Servilius Ahala, hic refectus continuato honore cum ab alias virtutes, tum ob recentem favorem unica moderatione partum.

And so, just as in the previous year they had produced tedium for all—even for the worthy—by the most unworthy candidates from the plebeians, so then, with the chiefs of the patricians prepared for seeking office by their splendor and favor, they secured all the places, so that there was no access for any plebeian. Four were elected, all already having discharged that honor: L. Furius Medullinus, C. Valerius Potitus, Num. Fabius Vibulanus, C. Servilius Ahala; this last was renewed with the honor continued, both for his other virtues and because of the recent favor produced by his singular moderation.

[58] Eo anno quia tempus indutiarum cum Veiente populo exierat, per legatos fetialesque res repeti coeptae. Quibus venientibus ad finem legatio Veientium obvia fuit. Petiere ne priusquam ipsi senatum Romanum adissent, Veios iretur.

[58] In that year, because the time of the truce with the Veientine people had expired, restitution began to be demanded through legates and the fetial priests. As they were coming to the boundary, a delegation of the Veientes met them. They requested that they not go to Veii before they themselves had approached the Roman senate.

Ab senatu impetratum, quia discordia intestina laborarent Veientes, ne res ab iis repeterentur; tantum afuit ut ex incommodo alieno sua occasio peteretur. Et in Volscis accepta clades amisso verrugine praesidio; ubi tantum in tempore fuit momenti ut cum precantibus opem militibus, qui ibi a Volscis obsidebantur, succurri si maturatum esset potuisset, ad id venerit exercitus subsidio missus ut ab recenti caede palati ad praedandum hostes opprimerentur. Tarditatis causa non in senatu magis fuit quam tribunis, qui, quia summa vi restari nuntiabatur, parum cogitaverunt nulla virtute superari humanarum virium modum.

It was obtained from the senate, because the Veientes were laboring under internal discord, that claims should not be demanded back from them; so far were they from seeking their own opportunity out of another’s disadvantage. And among the Volsci a calamity was sustained with the loss of the Verrugo garrison; where timeliness had so much weight that, while the soldiers there besieged by the Volsci and begging for help could have been relieved, if there had been haste, the army sent as succor came only to this: that the enemies, scattered to plunder after the recent slaughter, were overpowered. The cause of the delay lay not so much in the senate as in the tribunes, who, because it was reported that resistance was being made with the utmost force, too little considered that by no virtue is the limit of human powers overcome.

Fortissimi milites non tamen nec vivi nec post mortem inulti fuere.

The bravest soldiers, however, were not left unavenged, neither alive nor after death.

Insequenti anno, P. et Cn. Corneliis Cossis Num. Fabio Ambusto L. Valerio Potito tribunis militum consulari potestate, Veiens bellum motum ob superbum responsum Veientis senatus, qui legatis repetentibus res, ni facesserent propere urbe finibusque, daturos quod Lars Tolumnius dedisset responderi iussit. Id patres aegre passi decrevere ut tribuni militum de bello indicendo Veientibus primo quoque die ad populum ferrent.

In the following year, with P. and Cn. Cornelius Cossi, Num. Fabius Ambustus, and L. Valerius Potitus as military tribunes with consular power, the Veientine war was set in motion on account of the proud answer of the Veientine senate, which ordered this to be replied to the envoys demanding the return of property: that, unless they promptly departed from the city and its borders, they would be given what Lars Tolumnius had given. The Fathers, taking this badly, decreed that the military tribunes should bring before the people, on the very first day, the declaring of war against the Veientes.

Quod ubi primo promulgatum est, fremere iuventus nondum debellatum cum Volscis esse; modo duo praesidia occidione occisa, cetera cum periculo retineri; nullum annum esse quo non acie dimicetur; et tamquam paeniteat laboris, novum bellum cum finitimo populo et potentissimo parari qui omnem Etruriam sit concitaturus.

When this was first promulgated, the youth began to murmur that the war with the Volsci had not yet been brought to an end; that only just now two garrisons had been slain with wholesale slaughter, the rest being held only with peril; that there was no year in which set battle was not joined; and, as though they repented of toil, a new war was being prepared with a neighboring and most powerful people, who would stir up all Etruria.

Haec sua sponte agitata insuper tribuni plebis accendunt; maximum bellum patribus cum plebe esse dictitant; eam de industria vexandam militia trucidandamque hostibus obici; eam procul urbe haberi atque ablegari, ne domi per otium memor libertatis coloniarum aut agri publici aut suffragii libere ferendi consilia agitet. Prensantesque veteranos stipendia cuiusque et volnera ac cicatrices numerabant, quid iam integri esset in corpore loci ad nova volnera accipienda, quid super sanguinis, quod dari pro re publica posset rogitantes. Haec cum in sermonibus contionibusque interdum agitantes avertissent plebem ab suscipiendo bello, profertur tempus ferundae legis quam si subiecta invidiae esset antiquari apparebat.

These things, agitated of their own accord, the tribunes of the plebs moreover inflame; they keep saying that the greatest war is between the patricians and the plebs; that the plebs is deliberately to be harried by military service and to be thrown to the enemies to be butchered; that it is kept far from the city and sent away, lest at home, through leisure, it might turn over counsels of liberty—of colonies, or of the public land, or of freely casting their suffrage. And, grasping the veterans by the hand, they would count the terms of service of each and the wounds and scars, asking what place still intact there was on the body for receiving new wounds, what remained of blood that could be given for the commonwealth. When, by agitating these things in conversations and in assemblies from time to time, they had turned the plebs away from taking up the war, the time is brought forward for proposing the law, which it was apparent would be annulled if subjected to odium.

[59] Interim tribunos militum in Volscum agrum ducere exercitum placuit; Cn. Cornelius unus Romae relictus. Tres tribuni, postquam nullo loco castra Volscorum esse nec commissuros se proelio apparuit, tripertito ad devastandos fines discessere. Valerius Antium petit, Cornelius Ecetras; quacumque incessere, late populati sunt tecta agrosque, ut distinerent Volscos; Fabius, quod maxime petebatur, ad Anxur oppugnandum sine ulla populatione accessit.

[59] Meanwhile it was decided that the military tribunes should lead the army into Volscian territory; Cn. Cornelius alone was left at Rome. The three tribunes, after it appeared that nowhere were there camps of the Volsci and that they would not commit themselves to battle, in three parts departed to devastate the borders. Valerius made for Antium, Cornelius for Ecetra; wherever they advanced, they widely ravaged houses and fields, in order to distract the Volsci; Fabius, what was most sought, approached Anxur to assault it, without any devastation.

Anxur fuit, quae nunc Tarracinae sunt, urbs prona in paludes. Ab ea parte Fabius oppugnationem ostendit; circummissae quattuor cohortes cum C. Servilio Ahala cum imminentem urbi collem cepissent, ex loco altiore, qua nullum erat praesidium, ingenti clamore ac tumultu moenia invasere. Ad quem tumultum obstupefacti qui adversus Fabium urbem infimam tuebantur locum dedere scalas admovendi, plenaque hostium cuncta erant, et immitis diu caedes pariter fugientium ac resistentium, armatorum atque inermium fuit.

Anxur was the city which is now Tarracina, a town sloping down into the marshes. From that side Fabius exhibited the assault; four cohorts, sent around, when they had seized the hill overhanging the city together with Gaius Servilius Ahala, from a higher position, where there was no garrison, with immense clamor and tumult stormed the walls. At this tumult, those who were defending the lower city against Fabius, stupefied, gave a chance for ladders to be applied, and everything was full of enemies, and for a long time there was a pitiless slaughter alike of those fleeing and those resisting, of the armed and the unarmed.

Cogebantur itaque victi, quia cedentibus spei nihil erat, pugnam inire, cum pronuntiatum repente ne quis praeter armatos violaretur, reliquam omnem multitudinem voluntariam exuit armis, quorum ad duo milia et quingenti vivi capiuntur. A cetera praeda Fabius militem abstinuit, donec collegae venirent, ab illis quoque exercitibus captum Anxur dictitans esse, qui ceteros Volscos a praesidio eius loci avertissent. Qui ubi venerunt, oppidum vetere fortuna opulentum tres exercitus diripuere; eaque primum benignitas imperatorum plebem patribus conciliavit.

Accordingly the defeated were compelled—since for those yielding there was no hope—to enter the battle, when it was suddenly proclaimed that no one except the armed should be violated; the entire remaining multitude, of their own will, he stripped of arms, of whom 2,500 were taken alive. From the rest of the booty Fabius restrained the soldiery until his colleagues should come, repeatedly saying that Anxur had been captured by those armies also, which had turned the other Volsci away from the garrison of that place. When they arrived, the three armies plundered the town, wealthy with its ancient fortune; and this benignity of the commanders first reconciled the plebs to the Fathers.

Additum deinde omnium maxime tempestivo principum in multitudinem munere, ut ante mentionem ullam plebis tribunorumue decerneret senatus, ut stipendium miles de publico acciperet, cum ante id tempus de suo quisque functus eo munere esset.

Then there was added, above all, a most timely benefaction of the leaders toward the multitude: that, before any mention at all of the plebs or the tribunes, the Senate should decree that the soldier receive a stipend from the public treasury, since before that time each man had discharged that duty from his own means.

[60] Nihil acceptum unquam a plebe tanto gaudio traditur. Concursum itaque ad curiam esse prensatasque exeuntium manus et patres vere appellatos, effectum esse fatentibus ut nemo pro tam munifica patria, donec quicquam virium superesset, corpori aut sanguini suo parceret. Cum commoditas iuvaret rem familiarem saltem adquiescere eo tempore quo corpus addictum atque operatum rei publicae esset, tum quod ultro sibi oblatum esset, non a tribunis plebis unquam agitatum, non suis sermonibus efflagitatum, id efficiebat multiplex gaudium cumulatioremque gratiam rei.

[60] It is handed down that nothing ever received by the plebs was with such great joy. Therefore there was a running together to the Curia, and the hands of those coming out were grasped, and the Fathers were truly addressed, the people confessing that it had been brought about that no one, for so munificent a fatherland, so long as any strength remained, would spare his body or his blood. Since the convenience helped the household estate at least to take repose at that time when the body was assigned and employed to the Republic, then too the fact that it had been offered to them unbidden, never agitated by the tribunes of the plebs, not demanded by their own speeches, produced manifold joy and a more heaped-up gratitude for the measure.

Tribuni plebis, communis ordinum laetitiae concordiaeque soli expertes, negare, tam id laetum patribus civibus universis nec prosperum fore quam ipsi crederent. Consilium specie prima melius fuisse quam usu appariturum. Unde enim eam pecuniam confici posse nisi tributo populo indicto?

The tribunes of the plebs, alone devoid of the common joy and concord of the orders, said that this thing, so gladsome to the Fathers and to all the citizens, would not be as prosperous as they themselves believed. The plan, in first appearance, had been better than it would prove in use. For whence, indeed, could that money be gotten together, unless by a tribute (tax) proclaimed upon the people?

Ex alieno igitur aliis largitos. Neque id etiamsi ceteri ferant passuros eos, quibus iam emerita stipendia essent, meliore condicione alios militare quam ipsi militassent, et eosdem in sua stipendia impensas fecisse et in aliorum facere. His vocibus moverunt partem plebis; postremo, indicto iam tributo, edixerunt etiam tribuni auxilio se futuros si quis in militare stipendium tributum non contulisset.

They had therefore been lavish to some out of another’s property. Nor—even if the rest should endure it—would those whose stipends were already earned out permit others to soldier on better terms than they themselves had soldiered, and the same men both to have made outlays for their own stipend and to make them for others. By these words they moved a part of the plebs; finally, when the tribute had already been proclaimed, the tribunes even declared that they would give assistance if anyone did not contribute the tribute for the military stipend.

Patres bene coeptam rem perseveranter tueri; conferre ipsi primi; et quia nondum argentum signatum erat, aes grave plaustris quidam ad aerarium convehentes speciosam etiam conlationem faciebant. Cum senatus summa fide ex censu contulisset, primores plebis, nobilium amici, ex composito conferre incipiunt. Quos cum et a patribus conlaudari et a militari aetate tamquam bonos cives conspici volgus hominum vidit, repente, spreto tribunicio auxilio, certamen conferendi est ortum.

The Fathers perseveringly to guard the well-begun matter; to contribute themselves the first; and because silver had not yet been struck, certain men, conveying heavy bronze by wagons to the treasury, were even making a splendid contribution. When the senate had contributed from the census with the highest good faith, the foremost of the plebs, friends of the nobles, by concert begin to contribute. When the common crowd saw these both being commended by the Fathers and being regarded by those of military age as good citizens, suddenly, the tribunician aid being spurned, a contest of contributing arose.

Et lege perlata de indicendo Veientibus bello, exercitum magna ex parte voluntarium novi tribuni militum consulari potestate Veios duxere.

And, with the law having been passed for declaring war on the Veientes, the new military tribunes with consular power led an army, in great part voluntary, to Veii.

[61] Fuere autem tribuni T. Quinctius Capitolinus Q. Quinctius Cincinnatus C. Iulius Iulus iterum A. Manlius L. Furius Medullinus tertium M". Aemilius Mamercus. Ab iis primum circumsessi Veii sunt; sub cuius initium obsidionis cum Etruscorum concilium ad fanum voltumnae frequenter habitum esset, parum constitit bellone publico gentis universae tuendi Veientes essent. Ea oppugnatio segnior insequenti anno fuit, parte tribunorum exercitusque ad Volscum avocata bellum.

[61] Moreover the tribunes were T. Quinctius Capitolinus, Q. Quinctius Cincinnatus, C. Iulius Iulus for the second time, A. Manlius, L. Furius Medullinus for the third time, M". Aemilius Mamercus. By them Veii were for the first time besieged; at the beginning of which siege, since a council of the Etruscans was being frequently held at the shrine of Voltumna, it was scarcely settled whether they should defend the Veientes by a public war of the whole nation. That assault was more sluggish in the following year, a part of the tribunes and of the army having been drawn away to the Volscian war.

Tribunos militum consulari potestate is annus habuit C. Valerium Potitum tertium M". Sergium Fidenatem P. Cornelium Maluginensem Cn. Cornelium Cossum C. Fabium Ambustum Sp. Nautium Rutulum iterum. Cum Volscis inter Ferentinum atque Ecetram signis conlatis dimicatum; Romanis secunda fortuna pugnae fuit. Artena inde, Volscorum oppidum, ab tribunis obsideri coepta.

That year had as military tribunes with consular power C. Valerius Potitus for the third time, M'. Sergius Fidenas, P. Cornelius Maluginensis, Cn. Cornelius Cossus, C. Fabius Ambustus, and Sp. Nautius Rutilus again. A battle was fought with the Volsci between Ferentinum and Ecetra, the standards having been joined; the Romans had favorable fortune in the fight. Then Artena, a town of the Volsci, began to be besieged by the tribunes.

Inde inter eruptionem temptatam compulso in urbem hoste, occasio data est Romanis inrumpendi, praeterque arcem cetera capta; in arcem munitam natura globus armatorum concessit; infra arcem caesi captique multi mortales. Arx deinde obsidebatur; nec aut vi capi poterat, quia pro spatio loci satis praesidii habebat, aut spem dabat deditionis, omni publico frumento priusquam urbs caperetur in arcem convecto; taedioque recessum inde foret ni seruus arcem Romanis prodidisset. Ab eo milites per locum arduum accepti cepere; a quibus cum custodes trucidarentur, cetera multitudo repentino pavore oppressa in deditionem venit.

From there, in the midst of an attempted sortie, with the enemy driven back into the city, an occasion was given to the Romans for breaking in, and, the citadel excepted, the rest was taken; into the citadel, fortified by nature, a mass of armed men withdrew; beneath the citadel many men were slain and captured. The citadel was then besieged; nor could it be taken by force, because, in proportion to the size of the place, it had sufficient garrison, nor did it offer hope of surrender, since all the public grain had been conveyed into the citadel before the city was captured; and they would have withdrawn from there out of weariness, had not a slave betrayed the citadel to the Romans. By him soldiers, admitted by a steep place, seized it; and when the guards were butchered by them, the rest of the multitude, crushed by sudden fear, came to a surrender.

Diruta et arce et urbe Artena, reductae legiones ex Volscis, omnisque vis Romana Veios conversa est. Proditori praeter libertatem duarum familiarum bona in praemium data; Servius Romanus vocitatus. Sunt qui Artenam Veientium, non Volscorum fuisse credant.

With both the citadel and the city of Artena razed, the legions were led back from the Volsci, and all the Roman might was directed against Veii. To the betrayer, besides freedom, the goods of two households were given as a reward; he was called Servius Romanus. There are those who believe that Artena belonged to the Veientes, not to the Volsci.

Praebet errorem quod eiusdem nominis urbs inter Caere atque Veios fuit; sed eam reges Romani deleuere, Caeretumque, non Veientium fuerat; altera haec nomine eodem in Volsco agro fuit, cuius excidium est dictum.

It gives rise to error that there was a city of the same name between Caere and Veii; but the Roman kings destroyed that one, and it had been of the Caeretans, not of the Veientes; this other, with the same name, was in Volscian territory, the destruction of which has been said.