The pay of the Romans was from of old a hundred asses per month for one man, which was in a fair proportion to his wants. Such a pay is to be met with among the Athenians since Pericles’ days, but scarcely ever before. The pay of a hoplite at Athens was immense; in Rome, where the allies paid no contributions, it could not but be much less. The sum of one hundred asses continued to be paid also in later times; when the asses were made too light, they were calculated in silver at the rate of ten to one. Every third day, the soldier got a denarius (as much as one drachma), which is two obols daily. The stipendium was considered as a unit; yet it was multiplied afterwards (multiplex stipendium: Domitian added a quartum stipendium). But this is always to be understood of one month only. The excellent Radbod Hermann Schele makes the mistake here of drawing from authorities which are not worth any thing, the impossible conclusion that the stipendia were annua, which would have been to no purpose whatever: his practical turn of mind failed him in this instance. The pay was only for the time when one was really in the field; if the war lasted for one year, a year’s pay was, of course, allowed. When Appius Claudius says in Livy, annua æra habes, annuam operam ede, this is likewise an incorrect opinion of Livy.
This innovation was of the utmost importance for the republic, as without a national army Rome could never have become great. If the money for the purpose could be supplied without entailing any fresh tax, it answered perfectly; but if the patrician did not pay the tithe from the ager publicus, or the revenue of the state was otherwise insufficient, the war was exceedingly burthensome for the plebeian, as the pay had to be defrayed by a property tax, and the service might last for an unusually long period. This injustice was an unavoidable necessity. That the plebeians had not been taxed before, was, very likely, owing to their inability to pay; but for twenty years Rome had been increasing in welfare, so that it now became possible, although new distress was thus created, and prosperity blighted, until there was even a return of the old system of oppression for debt. But, on the other hand, it also became possible, to keep an army in the field throughout the whole of the year.
About the same time, there was a change in the art of war. Postquam stipendiarii facti sunt, says Livy, scuta pro clupeis habebant; he seems to take it for granted that this alteration in the arms was called forth by the introduction of pay. The first step towards it may indeed have been already taken before the Gallic invasion.
The Romans entered upon the last Veientine war with the determination to conquer Veii. The republic, which had extended itself as far as Anxur, began to feel its own strength, as with the Sabines it was at least on friendly terms, and it had conquered the Æquians. How far the Latins took part in this war, is uncertain; their co-operation may not perhaps have reached beyond the Tiber. According to a statement which bears the appearance of truth, Circeii also was retaken by the Romans soon after Anxur: on the outskirts of the mountains, however, Privernum still maintained itself as a Volscian town. The weakness of the Ausonian peoples arose from the spread of the Samnites, and must have inclined them to make peace with the Romans. Thus Rome had leisure for permanently enlarging its territory, which in all probability it had no more to share with the Latins.
The last Veientine war had been followed by a twenty years’ truce. The Etruscans, like very many other nations of antiquity, had the custom of ending their wars only by armistices for a certain number of years, which were years of ten months. This may be proved by the fact, that in almost every instance hostilities break out again earlier than might be expected from the fixed number of years of twelve months, and never sooner than after the same number of years calculated at ten months. The truce between Rome and Veii was concluded in 330, and in 347 it had already run out (induciæ exierant, is the literal expression). The use of these years of ten months is on the whole very common among the Romans; such a year was reckoned for mourning, and for all matters connected with money and interest. In sales of corn a credit of ten months was an understood thing. Loans for a long term of years there were none; but all business was done for short periods, and on the security of personal credit, as debts on bills of exchange. The Veientines, quite contrary to what they did in former times, try to evade the war in every possible manner. Without doubt, Veii had formerly been the chief of many Etrurian towns; probably from its situation, as in the earlier wars the power of that city appears to have been very great. Yet the irruption of the Gauls had this effect with regard to the towns southward of the Apennines, as Arretium, Fæsulæ, &c., that they were summoned to assist their countrymen on the other side of the mountains. This assistance was fruitless. The loss was great, and Etruria shed its lifeblood in the plains of Lombardy. Tarquinii and Capena alone came to the help of Veii; and also the Æqui Falisci, not indeed as an Etruscan people, but because they considered Veii as their bulwark.
At first, the Romans thought that the war could be quickly brought to an end; they built strong forts in the Ager Veientanus, (which the Greeks call ἐπιτειχίζειν) as Agis did in the second half of the Peloponnesian war; and from thence they hindered the Veientines from tilling their fields, or they set fire to the ripe corn, so that famine and distress soon made their appearance in the town. This system of warfare is designated here by the term obsessio. Once only the Romans undertook a siege in the simple fashion of that age. Between two redoubts, and parallel with the wall of the town, a line of rubbish, sand bags, and fascines was thrown up; wooden scaffoldings (plutei) were then erected on both sides, in order to give the rubbish firmness; and, what was the chief difficulty, they were pushed further and further in advance. These wooden works were raised to about the height of the wall; bridges and scaling ladders were laid on it (aggerem muro injungebant); and then the machines were brought up, first the battering rams, in aftertimes the catapults and ballistæ,—for these, which in that age were yet unknown at Rome, were invented at Syracuse for Dionysius. The people of the town tried on their side to countermine. Yet the neighbouring nations defeated the Romans, and destroyed their works. Since then, several years passed without any camp being again pitched before Veii.
The war of Veii was for the ancients a parallel to that of Troy. They pictured to themselves another ten years’ siege, and a conquest quite as marvellous as that of Troy by the wooden horse. Yet not the whole of the war is poetical fiction; but the old lays were linked to detached historical points which they embellished, differing in this from the epics of the earliest history. By the side of these, there is an old annalistic narrative which is by no means incredible. The defeat of the tribunes Virginius and Sergius is historical; but the particulars concerning the Alban lake, and such like things, belong to the old poem. Whether this was written in prose or in verse is all the same to me. The account given was as follows.
After Rome had already for eight years worn herself out against Veii, and the most perfect tranquility reigned with the Æquians and Volscians, a prodigium came to pass. The waters of the Alban lake, which otherwise stood always below the brink of the old crater, now began to swell, and threatened to overflow. This is the general tenor of the old tradition: with regard to the details the accounts differ. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Dio Cassius in Zonaras, the stream ran straight from the lake into the sea; according to others, it merely threatened to overflow its banks. The Romans did not know what to do. They had stationed outposts before Veii, but when there was no actual fighting, a sort of armistice was kept. On this, an Etruscan haruspex laughed at the Romans for giving themselves so much trouble to conquer Veii, saying, that, so long as they were not masters of the Alban lake, they would not be able to take the town. A Roman, bearing this in mind, sent for the haruspex under the pretext of a procuratio rei domesticæ, who was then seized by the enemy, and compelled to tell them, what was to be done. He answered that they ought to drain the waters of the Alban lake, so that a stream from thence might reach the sea by a neighbouring river. The same thing was told by the Delphian god. The Romans now undertook the work and executed it. When it was all but finished, the Veientines sent an embassy to Rome, adjuring the Romans to receive them in deditionem. But the Romans would not listen to any such prayer; for they knew that the spell was broken. The Veientines said that this was true; yet that it was also stated in their books, that, if Veii were destroyed, Rome would likewise soon be taken by barbarians, and this the haruspex had forborne to tell them. The Romans now ran this risk, and appointed Camillus as dictator, who called upon all the people to share the booty, and undertook the assault. The sacred matters having been attended to, human wisdom was in requisition. He ran a gallery under the Arx of Veii, and led from thence a passage to the temple of Juno; as the fates had decreed, that he who made the offering in the Arx of Veii should be victorious. The Romans rushed in by that passage, slew the Etruscan king, and made the offering. Then the wall was scaled on all sides.
If we now reflect upon the historical absurdity of this account, we cannot doubt for one moment, the existence of a poetical fiction. There are traces of the citadel of Veii to this very day. It is situated on the Aqua rossa, is almost wholly surrounded by water, and rises to a considerable height: it is a rock of tufa. The Romans must then have had to dig a passage under the bed of the river, and to make the gallery with such consummate art, that no one could observe any thing; so that when all was done, they would only have quietly to raise the last stone in the temple and to climb out, as from a trap door.
In all probability, this is what really happened. There were two sorts of sieges. One was that described above, which only consisted in heaping up rubbish against the wall. Or else, with huge toil they undermined its foundations, and shoring it up with a framework of strong beams, set fire to the timber, and burned it, so that the masonry might come down with a crash. A positive mention of battering rams does not occur before the Peloponnesian war; and among the Romans even somewhat later. If Veii was really taken by means of a cuniculus, it is to be explained by the second mode.