15
When the business of recruiting the legions in the provinces was under consideration, it was suggested by certain senators that now was the time, when, by the favour of the gods, their fears were removed, to put a stop to certain things, however they might have been tolerated in perilous circumstances. The senators, being intent in expectation, subjoined, that the twelve Latin colonies which had refused to furnish soldiers to the consuls, Quintus Fabius and Quintus Fulvius, were enjoying, for now the sixth year, exemption from military service, as though it had been granted to them a mark of honour and favour; while in the mean time their good and dutiful allies, in return for their fidelity and obedience to the Roman people, had been exhausted by continual levies every year. By these words the recollection of the senate was renewed touching a matter which was now almost obliterated, and their indignation equally excited. Accordingly, without allowing the consuls to lay any other business before the senate in priority, they decreed, "that the consuls should summon to Rome the magistrates, and ten principal inhabitants, from each of the colonies, Xepete, Sutrium, Ardea, Cales, Alba, Carseoli, Sora, Suessa, Setia, Circeii, Narnia, and Interamna; for these were the colonies implicated in this affair; and command them that each of those colonies should furnish double the greatest number of foot soldiers which they had ever provided for the Roman people since the enemy had been in Italy, and one hundred and twenty horsemen each. If any of them was unable to make up that number of horsemen, that it should be allowed to furnish three foot soldiers for every horseman deficient. That both the foot and horse soldiers should be chosen from the wealthiest of the inhabitants, and should be sent out of Italy wheresoever there was want of recruits. If any of them refused to comply, it was their pleasure that the magistrates and ambassadors of such should be detained; and that, if they requested it, they should not be allowed an audience of the senate till they had obeyed these orders. Moreover, that an annual tax should be imposed upon them, and collected after the rate of one as for every thousand; and that a census should be taken in those colonies, according to a formula appointed by the Roman censors, which should be the same which was employed in the case of the Roman people; and that a return should be made at Rome by sworn censors of the colonies, before they retired from their office." The magistrates and principal men of these colonies having been summoned to Rome, when the consuls imposed upon them the contribution of men, and the management of the tax, they vied with each other in making excuses, and remonstrating against it. They said "it was impossible that so large a number of men could be raised. That they could scarcely accomplish it, if even the simple contribution only, according to the established ratio, were required of them. They entreated and besought them that they might be allowed to appear before the senate and deprecate their resolution. They had committed no crime for which they deserved to be ruined; but, even if they were to be ruined, neither their own crime nor the resentment of the Roman people could make them furnish a greater number of soldiers than they had got." The consuls, persisting, ordered the ambassadors to remain at Rome, and the magistrates to go home to make the levies; observing, that "unless the amount of soldiers enjoined were brought to Rome, no one would give them an audience of the senate." All hope of appearing before the senate, and deprecating their decision, being then cut off, the levies were completed in the twelve colonies without difficulty, as the number of their youth had increased during their long exemption from service.
16
Another affair, likewise, which had been passed over in silence for an almost equally long period, was laid before the senate by Marcus Valerius Laevinus; who said, "that equity required that the monies which had been contributed by private individuals, when he and Marcus Claudius were consuls, should now at length be repaid. Nor ought any one to feel surprised that a case, where the public faith was pledged, should have engaged his attention in an especial manner; for, besides that the matter appertained, in some degree, peculiarly to the consul of that year in which the money was contributed, he was himself the author of the measure, as the treasury was drained, and the people unable to pay the taxes." This suggestion was well received by the senate, and, bidding the consuls to propose the question, they decreed, "that this money should be paid by three instalments; that the present consuls should make the first payment immediately, and the third and fifth consuls, from that time, the two remaining."
After this, all their other cares gave place to one alone when the sufferings of the Locrians, of which they had been ignorant up to that day, were made known by the arrival of their ambassadors. Nor was it the villany of Pleminius so much as the partiality or negligence of Scipio in that affair, which excited the resentment of the people. While the consuls were sitting in the comitium, ten ambassadors of the Locrians, covered with filth, and in mourning, and extending branches of olive, the badges of suppliants, according to the Grecian custom, prostrated themselves on the ground before the tribunal, with loud lamentations. In answer to the inquiry of the consuls, they said, "that they were Locrians, who had suffered such things at the hands of Pleminius the lieutenant-general, and the Roman soldiers, as the Roman people would not wish even the Carthaginians to experience. They requested that they would allow them to appear before the senate, and complain of their sufferings."
17
An audience having been granted, the eldest of them thus spoke: "I know, conscript fathers, that the importance you will attach to the complaints we make before you must depend, in a very great degree, upon your accurately knowing the manner in which Locri was betrayed to Hannibal, and placed again under your dominion after the expulsion of his garrison. Inasmuch as if the guilt of defection does not rest upon the public, and it is made apparent that our restoration to your dominion was effected, not only in concurrence with our wishes, but by our own co-operation and valour, you will be the more indignant that such atrocious and shameful injuries should have been inflicted upon good and faithful allies by your lieutenant-general and soldiers. But I think it proper that the subject of our changing sides, in both instances, should be deferred to another time, on two accounts: first, that it may be discussed in the presence of Publius Scipio, who retook Locri, and who witnessed all our acts, both good and bad; and secondly, because, whatever we are, we ought not to have suffered what we have. We cannot conceal, conscript fathers, that when we had a Carthaginian garrison in our citadel we were exposed to many sufferings, of a shocking and shameful kind, from Hamilcar, the captain of the garrison, and the Numidians and Africans. But what are they compared with what we endure this day? I request, conscript fathers, that you will hear without offence what I am reluctant to mention. All mankind are now in a state of anxious suspense, whether they are to see you or the Carthaginians lords of the world. If an estimate is to be formed of the Roman and Carthaginian governments from what we Locrians have suffered from the Carthaginians on the one hand, or on the other, from what we are suffering, at the present time especially, from your garrison; there is no one who would not wish the Carthaginians to be his masters rather than the Romans. And yet observe what are the feelings which the Locrians have entertained towards you. When we were suffering injuries of much less magnitude from the Carthaginians, we fled for protection to your general; now we are suffering more than hostile indignities from your garrison, we have carried our complaints to no others than yourselves. Conscript fathers! either you will consider our forlorn condition or there is no other resource left us for which we can even pray to the immortal gods. Quintus Pleminius, the lieutenant-general, was sent with a body of troops to recover Locri from the Carthaginians, and was left there in command of the same as a garrison. In this your lieutenant-general there is neither any thing of a man, conscript fathers, but the figure and outward appearance, (for the extremity of our misery prompts me to speak freely,) nor of a Roman citizen, but the attire and dress, and the sound of the Latin language. He is a pest and savage monster, such as are fabled to have beset the strait by which we are separated from Sicily, for the destruction of mariners. And yet if he had been content to be the only person to vent his villany, his lust, and rapacity upon your allies, that one gulf, deep as it was, we would however have filled up by our patience. But the case is, he has made every one of your centurions and soldiers a Pleminius, so indiscriminately has he willed that licentiousness and wickedness should be practised. All plunder, spoil, beat, wound, and slay; all defile matrons, virgins, and free-born youths torn from the embraces of their parents. Our city is captured daily, plundered daily. Day and night, every place indiscriminately rings with the lamentations of women and children, seized and carried away. Any one, acquainted with our sufferings, might be astonished how it is that we are capable of bearing them, or that the authors of them are not yet satiated with inflicting such enormous cruelties. Neither am I able to go through with them, nor is it worth your while to listen to the particulars of our sufferings. I will embrace them all in a general description. I declare that there is not a house or a man at Locri exempt from injury. I say that there cannot be found any species of villany, lust, or rapacity which has not been exercised on every one capable of being the object of them. It would be difficult to determine in which case the city was visited with the more horrible calamity, whether when it was captured by an enemy, or when a sanguinary tyrant crushed it by violence and arms. Every evil, conscript fathers, which captured cities suffer, we have suffered, and do now as much as ever suffer. All the enormities which the most cruel and savage tyrants are wont to perpetrate upon their oppressed subjects, Pleminius has perpetrated upon ourselves, our children, and our wives.