Roman History, Books I-III

by Livy

Accordingly, Caeso Fabius, having been elected consul with Titus Verginius not more with the good-will of the senators than of the commons, gave no attention either to wars, or levies, or anything else in preference, until, the hope of concord being now in some measure assured, the feelings of the commons should be united with those of the senators at the earliest opportunity. Accordingly, at the beginning of the year he proposed that before any tribune should stand forth as a supporter of the agrarian law, the patricians themselves should be beforehand in bestowing the gift unasked and making it their own: that they should distribute among the commons the land taken from the enemy in as equal a proportion as possible; that it was but just that those should enjoy it by whose blood and labour it had been won. The patricians rejected the proposal with scorn: some even complained that the once vigorous spirit of Caeso was running riot, and decaying through a surfeit of glory. There were afterward no party struggles in the city. The Latins, however, were harassed by the incursions of the Aequans. Caeso being sent thither with an army, crossed into the territory of the Aequans themselves to lay it waste. The Aequans retired into the towns, and kept themselves within the walls: on that account no battle worth mentioning was fought.

However, a reverse was sustained at the hands of the Veientine foe owing to the rashness of the other consul; and the army would have been all cut off, had not Caeso Fabius come to their assistance in time. From that time there was neither peace nor war with the Veientines: their mode of operation had now come very near to the form of brigandage. They retired before the Roman troops into the city; when they perceived that the troops were drawn off, they made incursions into the country, alternately mocking war with peace and peace with war. Thus the matter could neither be dropped altogether, nor brought to a conclusion. Besides, other wars were threatening either at the moment, as from the Aequans and Volscians, who remained inactive no longer than was necessary, to allow the recent smart of their late disaster to pass away, or at no distant date, as it was evident that the Sabines, ever hostile, and all Etruria would soon begin to stir up war: but the Veientines, a constant rather than a formidable enemy, kept their minds in a state of perpetual uneasiness by petty annoyances more frequently than by any real danger to be apprehended from them, because they could at no time be neglected, and did not suffer the Romans to turn their attention elsewhere. Then the Fabian family approached the senate: the consul spoke in the name of the family: "Conscript fathers, the Veientine war requires, as you know, an unremitting rather than a strong defence. Do you attend to other wars: assign the Fabii as enemies to the Veientines. We pledge ourselves that the majesty of the Roman name shall be safe in that quarter. That war, as if it were a family matter, it is our determination to conduct at our own private expense. In regard to it let the republic be spared the expense of soldiers and money." The warmest thanks were returned to them. The consul, leaving the senate-house, accompanied by the Fabii in a body, who had been standing in the porch of the senate-house, awaiting the decree of the senate, returned home. They were ordered to attend on the following day in arms at the consul's gate: they then retired to their homes.

The report spread through the entire city; they extolled the Fabii to the skies: that a single family had undertaken the burden of the state; that the Veientine war had now become a private concern, a private quarrel. If there were two families of the same strength in the city, let them demand, the one the Volscians for itself, the other the Aequans; that all the neighbouring states could be subdued, while the Roman people all the time enjoyed profound peace. The day following, the Fabii took up arms; they assembled where they had been ordered. The consul, coming forth in his military robe, beheld the whole family in the porch drawn up in order of march; being received into the centre, he ordered the standards to be advanced. Never did an army march through the city, either smaller in number, or more distinguished in renown and more admired by all. Three hundred and six soldiers, all patricians, all of one family, not one of whom an honest senate would reject as a leader under any circumstances whatever, proceeded on their march, threatening the Veientine state with destruction by the might of a single family. A crowd followed, one part belonging to themselves, consisting of their kinsmen and comrades, who contemplated no half measures, either as to their hope or anxiety, but everything on a grand scale:[60] the other aroused by solicitude for the public weal, unable to express their esteem and admiration. They bade them proceed in their brave resolve, proceed with happy omens, and render the issue proportionate to the undertaking: thence to expect consulships and triumphs, all rewards, all honours from them. As they passed the Capitol and the citadel, and the other sacred edifices, they offered up prayers to all the gods that presented themselves to their sight, or to their mind, that they would send forward that band with prosperity and success, and soon send them back safe into their country to their parents. In vain were these prayers uttered. Having set out on their luckless road by the right-hand arch of the Carmental gate,[61] they arrived at the river Cremera:[62] this appeared a favourable situation for fortifying an outpost.

Lucius Aemilius and Gaius Servilius were then created consuls. And as long as there was nothing else to occupy them but mutual devastations, the Fabii were not only able to protect their garrison, but through the entire tract, where the Tuscan territory adjoins the Roman, they protected all their own districts and ravaged those of the enemy, spreading their forces along both frontiers. There was afterward a cessation, though not for long, of these depredations: while both the Veientines, having sent for an army from Etruria,[63] assaulted the outpost at the Cremera, and the Roman troops, brought up by the consul Lucius Aemilius, came to a close engagement in the field with the Etruscans; the Veientines, however, had scarcely time to draw up their line: for, during the first alarm, while they were entering the lines behind their colours, and they were stationing their reserves, a brigade of Roman cavalry, charging them suddenly in flank, deprived them of all opportunity not only of opening the fight, but even of standing their ground. Thus being driven back to the Red Rocks [64]. (where they had pitched their camp), as suppliants they sued for peace; and, after it was granted, owing to the natural inconsistency of their minds, they regretted it even before the Roman garrison was withdrawn from the Cremera.

Again the Veientine state had to contend with the Fabii without any additional military armament: and not merely did they make raids into each other's territories, or sudden attacks upon those carrying on the raids, but they fought repeatedly on level ground, and in pitched battles: and one family of the Roman people oftentimes gained the victory over an entire Etruscan state, and a most powerful one for those times. This at first appeared mortifying and humiliating to the Veientines: then they conceived the design, suggested by the state of affairs, of surprising their daring enemy by an ambuscade; they were even glad that the confidence of the Fabii was increasing owing to their great success. Wherefore cattle were frequently driven in the path of the plundering parties, as if they had fallen in their way by accident, and tracts of land left abandoned by the flight of the peasants: and reserve bodies of armed men, sent to prevent the devastations, retreated more frequently in pretended than in real alarm. By this time the Fabii had conceived such contempt for the enemy that they believed that their arms, as yet invincible, could not be resisted either in any place or on any occasion: this presumption carried them so far that at the sight of some cattle at a distance from Cremera, with an extensive plain lying between, they ran down to them, in spite of the fact that some scattered bodies of the enemy were visible: and when, anticipating nothing, and in disorderly haste, they had passed the ambuscade placed on either side of the road itself, and, dispersed in different directions, had begun to carry off the cattle that were straying about, as is usual when frightened, the enemy started suddenly in a body from their ambuscade, and surrounded them both in front and on every side. At first the noise of their shouts, spreading, terrified them; then weapons assailed them from every side: and, as the Etruscans closed in, they also were compelled, hemmed in as they were by an unbroken body of armed men, to form themselves into a square of narrower compass the more the enemy pressed on: this circumstance rendered both their own scarcity of numbers noticeable and the superior numbers of the Etruscans, whose ranks were crowded in a narrow space. Then, having abandoned the plan of fighting, which they had directed with equal effort in every quarter, they all turned their forces toward one point; straining every effort in that direction, both with their arms and bodies, and forming themselves into a wedge, they forced a passage. The way led to a gradually ascending hill: here they first halted: presently, as soon as the higher ground afforded them time to gain breath, and to recover from so great a panic, they repulsed the foe as they ascended: and the small band, assisted by the advantages of the ground, was gaining the victory, had not a party of the Veientines, sent round the ridge of the hill, made their way to the summit: thus the enemy again got possession of the higher ground; all the Fabii were cut down to a man, and the fort was taken by assault: it is generally agreed that three hundred and six were slain; that one only, who had nearly attained the age of puberty, survived, who was to be the stock for the Fabian family, and was destined to prove the greatest support of the Roman people in dangerous emergencies on many occasions both at home and in war.[65]

At the time when this disaster was sustained, Gaius Horatius and Titus Menenius were consuls. Menenius was immediately sent against the Tuscans, now elated with victory. On that occasion also an unsuccessful battle was fought, and the enemy took possession of the Janiculum: and the city would have been besieged, since scarcity of provisions distressed them in addition to the war—for the Etruscans had passed the Tiber—had not the consul Horatius been recalled from the Volscians; and so closely did that war approach the very walls, that the first battle was fought near the Temple of Hope[66] with doubtful success, and a second at the Colline gate. There, although the Romans gained the upper hand by only a trifling advantage, yet that contest rendered the soldiers more serviceable for future battles by the restoration of their former courage.

Aulus Verginius and Spurius Servilius were next chosen consuls. After the defeat sustained in the last battle, the Veientines declined an engagement.[67] Ravages were committed, and they made repeated attacks in every direction upon the Roman territory from the Janiculum, as if from a fortress: nowhere were cattle or husbandmen safe. They were afterward entrapped by the same stratagem as that by which they had entrapped the Fabii: having pursued cattle which had been intentionally driven on in all directions to decoy them, they fell into an ambuscade; in proportion as they were more numerous,[68] the slaughter was greater. The violent resentment resulting from this disaster was the cause and beginning of one still greater: for having crossed the Tiber by night, they attempted to assault the camp of the consul Servilius; being repulsed from thence with great slaughter, they with difficulty made good their retreat to the Janiculum. The consul himself also immediately crossed the Tiber, and fortified his camp at the foot of the Janiculum: at daybreak on the following morning, being both somewhat elated by the success of the battle of the day before, more, however, because the scarcity of corn forced him to adopt measures, however dangerous, provided only they were more expeditious, he rashly marched his army up the steep of the Janiculum to the camp of the enemy, and, being repulsed from thence with more disgrace than when he had repulsed them on the preceding day, he was saved, both himself and his army, by the intervention of his colleague. The Etruscans, hemmed in between the two armies, and presenting their rear to the one and the other by turns, were completely destroyed. Thus the Veientine war was crushed by a successful piece of audacity. [69]

Together with peace, provisions came in to the city in greater abundance, both by reason of corn having been brought in from Campania, and, as soon as the fear of want, which every one felt was likely to befall himself, left them, by the corn being brought out, which had been stored. Then their minds once more became wanton from plenty and ease, and they sought at home their former subjects of complaint, now that there was none abroad; the tribunes began to excite the commons by their poisonous charm, the agrarian law: they roused them against the senators who opposed it, and not only against them as a body, but against particular individuals. Quintus Considius and Titus Genucius, the proposers of the agrarian law, appointed a day of trial for Titus Menenius: the loss of the fort of Cremera, while the consul had his standing camp at no great distance from thence, was the cause of his unpopularity. This crushed him, though both the senators had exerted themselves in his behalf with no less earnestness than in behalf of Coriolanus, and the popularity of his father Agrippa was not yet forgotten. The tribunes, however, acted leniently in the matter of the fine: though they had arraigned him for a capital offence, they imposed on him, when found guilty, a fine of only two thousand asses. This proved fatal to him. They say that he could not brook disgrace and anguish of mind: and that, in consequence, he was carried off by disease. Another senator, Spurius Servilius was soon after arraigned, as soon as he went out of office a day of trial having been appointed for him by the tribunes, Lucius Caedicius and Titus Statius, immediately at the beginning of the year, in the consulship of Gaius Nautius and Publius Valerius: he did not, however, like Menenius, meet the attacks of the tribunes with supplications on the part of himself and the patricians, but with firm reliance on his own integrity and his personal popularity. The battle with the Tuscans at the Janiculum was also the charge brought against him: but being a man of impetuous spirit, as he had formerly done in time of public peril, so now in the danger which threatened himself, he dispelled it by boldly meeting it, by confuting not only the tribunes but the commons also, in a haughty speech, and upbraiding them with the condemnation and death of Titus Menenius, by the good offices of whose father the commons had formerly been re-established, and now had those magistrates and enjoyed those laws, by virtue of which they then acted so insolently: his colleague Verginius also, who was brought forward as a witness, aided him by assigning to him a share of his own glory: however—so had they changed their mind—the condemnation of Menenius was of greater service to him.

The contests at home were now concluded. A war against the Veientines, with whom the Sabines had united their forces, broke out afresh. The consul Publius Valerius, after auxiliaries had been sent for from the Latins and Hernicans, being despatched to Veii with an army, immediately attacked the Sabine camp, which had been pitched before the walls of their allies, and occasioned such great consternation that, while scattered in different directions, they sallied forth in small parties to repel the assault of the enemy, the gate which he first atacked was taken: then within the rampart a massacre rather than a battle took place. From within the camp the alarm spread also into the city; the Veientines ran to arms in as great a panic as if Veii had been taken: some came up to the support of the Sabines, others fell upon the Romans, who had directed all their force against the camp. For a little while they were disconcerted and thrown into confusion; then they in like manner formed two fronts and made a stand: and the cavalry, being commanded by the consul to charge, routed the Tuscans and put them to flight; and in the self-same hour two armies and two of the most influential and powerful of the neighbouring states were vanquished. While these events were taking place at Veii, the Volscians and Æquans had pitched their camp in Latin territory, and laid waste their frontiers. The Latins, being joined by the Hernicans, without either a Roman general or Roman auxiliaries, by their own efforts, stripped them of their camp. Besides recovering their own effects, they obtained immense booty. The consul Gaius Nautius, however, was sent against the Volscians from Rome. The custom, I suppose, was not approved of, that the allies should carry on wars with their own forces and according to their own plans without a Roman general and troops. There was no kind of injury and petty annoyance that was not practised against the Volscians; they could not, however, be prevailed on to come to an engagement in the field.

Lucius Furius and Gaius Manlius were the next consuls. The Veientines fell to Manlius as his province. No war, however, followed: a truce for forty years was granted them at their request, but they were ordered to provide corn and pay for the soldiers. Disturbance at home immediately followed in close succession on peace abroad: the commons were goaded by the spur employed by the tribunes in the shape of the agrarian law. The consuls, no whit intimidated by the condemnation of Menenius, nor by the danger of Servilius, resisted with their utmost might; Gnæus Genucius, a tribune of the people, dragged the consuls before the court on their going out of office. Lucius Æmilius and Opiter Verginius entered upon the consulate. Instead of Verginius I find Vopiscus Julius given as consul in some annals. In this year (whoever were the consuls) Furius and Manlius, being summoned to trial before the people, in sordid garb solicited the aid of the younger patricians as much as that of the commons: they advised, they cautioned them to keep themselves from public offices and the administration of public affairs, and indeed to consider the consular fasces, the toga prætexta and curule chair, as nothing else but a funeral parade: that when decked with these splendid insignia, as with fillets, [70] they were doomed to death. But if the charms of the consulate were so great they should even now rest satisfied that the consulate was held in captivity and crushed by the tribunician power; that everything had to be done by the consul, at the beck and command of the tribune, as if he were a tribune's beadle. If he stirred, if he regarded the patricians at all, if he thought that there existed any other party in the state but the commons, let him set before his eyes the banishment of Gnæeus Marcius, the condemnation and death of Menenius. Fired by these words, the patricians from that time held their consultations not in public, but in private houses, and remote from the knowledge of the majority, at which, when this one point only was agreed on, that the accused must be rescued either by fair means or foul, the most desperate proposals were most approved; nor did any deed, however daring, lack a supporter.[71] Accordingly, on the day of trial, when the people stood in the forum on tiptoe of expectation, they at first began to feel surprised that the tribune did not come down; then, the delay now becoming more suspicious, they believed that he was hindered by the nobles, and complained that the public cause was abandoned and betrayed. At length those who had been waiting before the entrance of the tribune's residence announced that he had been found dead in his house. As soon as rumour spread the news through the whole assembly, just as an army disperses on the fall of its general, so did they scatter in different directions. Panic chiefly seized the tribunes, now taught by their colleague's death how utterly ineffectual was the aid the devoting laws afforded them.[72] Nor did the patricians display their exultation with due moderation; and so far was any of them from feeling compunction at the guilty act, that even those who were innocent wished to be considered to have perpetrated it, and it was openly declared that the tribunician power ought to be subdued by chastisement.