Livy

“ From this point they spread devastation far and wide, and congratulated themselves that they had chosen a position of fatal import for the City of Rome; they expected that there would be the same panic and flight as in the Gaulish war. For, they argued, if the Romans regarded with horror even the day which took its name from that spot and was under a curse, how much more would they dread the Alia itself, the memorial of that great disaster. They would most assuredly have the appalling sight of the Gauls before their eyes and the sound of their voices in their ears. ”

“ Let us then, as becomes men filled with sure hopes, who are going to engage an enemy who is no match for us, lay our javelins at our feet and arm ourselves only with our swords. I would not even have any running forward from the line; stand firm and receive the enemy's charge without stirring a foot. When they have hurled their ineffective missiles and their disordered ranks fling themselves upon you, then let your swords flash and let every man remember that it is the gods who are helping the Romans, it is the gods who have sent you into battle with favourable omens. ”

“ If this were a free State, would not hundreds of voices have exclaimed, 'Begone, with your tribuneships and proposals!' What? If you do not bring in reforms which it is to the people's advantage to adopt, is there no one else who will? If any patrician, if even a Claudius - whom they detest still more -were to say, 'Either accept all, or I propose none,' which of you, Quirites, would tolerate it? Will you never have more regard for measures than for men? ”

“ Questions of dignity, however, only concern men; what shall I say about the duties of religion and the auspices, the contempt and profanation of which specially concern the gods? Who is there who knows not that it was under auspices that this City was founded, that only after auspices have been taken is anything done in war or peace, at home or in the field? Who have the right to take the auspices in accordance with the usage of our fathers? The patricians, surely, for not a single plebeian magistrate is elected under auspices. ”

“ When it was beleaguered by the enemy had not he, Manlius, saved the Capitol and the Citadel? Camillus attacked the Gauls while they were off their guard, their minds pre-occupied with obtaining the gold and securing peace; he, on the other hand, had driven them off when they were armed for battle and actually capturing the Citadel. Camillus' glory was shared by every man who conquered with him, whereas no mortal man could obviously claim any part in his victory. ”

“ Is it your pleasure that the plebeians, crushed by debt, should surrender their persons to fetters and punishments sooner than that they should discharge their debts by repaying the principal? That they should be led off in crowds from the Forum as the property of their creditors? That the houses of the nobility should be filled with prisoners, and wherever a patrician lives there should be a private dungeon? ”

“ It seems pretty certain that after Manlius was thrown into prison, a great number of plebeians went into mourning; many let their hair grow, and the vestibule of the prison was beset by a depressed and sorrowful crowd. The Dictator celebrated his triumph over the Volscians, but his triumph increased his unpopularity; men complained that the victory was won at home, not in the field, over a citizen, not over an enemy. One thing alone was lacking in the pageant of tyranny, Manlius was not led in procession before the victor's chariot. ”

“ Was the man whom they almost regarded as a god, whom they at all events placed on a level with Jupiter of the Capitol by giving him the epithet of Capitolinus - was that man to be allowed to drag out his life in chains and darkness at the mercy of the executioner? Had the help of one man sufficed to save all, and was there amongst them all no help to be found for that one man? ”

“ Addressing Camillus, he said: "M. Furius, we cannot resist the impetuosity of the soldiers, and the enemy to whom we have given fresh courage by our hesitation are now showing intolerable contempt for us. You are one against all; yield to the universal desire and allow yourself to be overcome in argument that you may the sooner overcome in battle." In his reply, Camillus said that in all the wars he had waged down to that day, as sole commander, neither he nor the Roman people had had any reason to complain of either his generalship or his good fortune. ”

“ This civilian dress has always been the dress of our order and of our plebs and ever will be, unless at any time we receive from you arms for your defence. We are grateful to your generals and to your armies because they trusted their eyes rather than their ears, and did not make enemies where none existed. We ask of you the peace which we have ourselves observed, and pray you to turn the tide of war where a state of war exists; if we are to learn by painful experience the power which your arms can exert against us, we will learn it without using arms ourselves. ”

“ I feel no craving for the highest authority over you, nor ought you to see in me anything beyond what I am in myself; the Dictatorship has never increased my spirits and energy, nor did my exile diminish them. We are all of us, then, the same that we have ever been, and since we are bringing just the same qualities into this war that we have displayed in all former wars, let us look forward to the same result. ”

“ In this year a serious war broke out, and a still more serious disturbance at home. The war was begun by the Volscians, aided by the revolted Latins and Hernici. The domestic trouble arose in a quarter where it was least to be apprehended, from a man of patrician birth and brilliant reputation - M. Manlius Capitolinus. Full of pride and presumption, he looked down upon the foremost men with scorn; one in particular he regarded with envious eyes, a man conspicuous for his distinctions and his merits - M. Furius Camillus. ”

“ Not to mention Licinius and Sextius, whose years of uninterrupted power you number up as though they were kings in the Capitol, who is there in the State to-day in such humble circumstances as not to find the path to the consulship made easier by the opportunities offered in that measure for him than it is for us and our children? Even when you sometimes wish to elect us you will not have the power; those people you will be compelled to elect, even if you do not wish to do so. ”

“ Here the Antiates had massed not only Volscian troops drawn from a new generation but also an immense body of Latins and Hernicans, nations whose strength had been growing through long years of peace. This coalition of new enemies with old ones daunted the spirits of the Roman soldiers. Camillus was already drawing up his men for battle when the centurions brought reports to him of the discouragement of his troops, the want of alacrity in arming themselves, and the hesitation and unwillingness with which they were marching out of camp. ”

“ In reply to the second charge, I would go so far as to assert, on my own behalf and on that of my ancestors, that neither as individuals nor in our capacity as magistrates have we ever done anything knowingly which was against the interests of the plebs, unless any one should suppose that what is done on behalf of the State as a whole is necessarily injurious to the plebs as though they were living in another city; nor can any act or word of ours be truthfully brought up as opposed to your real welfare, though some may have been opposed to your wishes. ”

“ If they arrived at that, the Roman people would realise that monarchy had been completely banished from the City, and that their freedom was securely established, for in that day everything in which the patricians were pre-eminent would come to the plebs - power, dignity, military glory, the stamp of nobility; great things for themselves to enjoy, but greater still as legacies to their children. ”

“ Probably, in the interval between one war and another, they trained each fresh generation against the renewal of hostilities, as is now done in the enlistment of Roman troops, or their armies were not always drawn from the same districts, though it was always the same nation that carried on the war, or there must have been an innumerable free population in those districts which are barely now kept from desolation by the scanty tillage of Roman slaves, with hardly so much as a miserably small recruiting ground for soldiers left. ”

“ He refused, and said he would not speak at the bidding of his enemies, whereupon the Dictator ordered him to be taken to prison. When apprehended by the officer he exclaimed: "Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Queen Juno, Minerva, all ye gods and goddesses who dwell in the Capitol, do ye suffer your soldier and defender to be thus persecuted by his enemies? Shall this right hand with which I drove the Gauls from your shrines be manacled and fettered?" ”

“ With his head full of these notions and being unfortunately a man of headstrong and passionate nature, he found that his influence was not so powerful with the patricians as he thought it ought to be, so he went over to the plebs - the first patrician to do so - and adopted the political methods of their magistrates. He abused the senate and courted the populace and, impelled by the breeze of popular favour more than by conviction or judgment, preferred notoriety to respectability. ”

“ A feeling of shame at first arrested their disorderly flight, then, when they saw the standards brought round and the line turning to face the enemy, and their leader, illustrious through a hundred triumphs and now venerable through age, showing himself amongst the foremost ranks, where the risk and toil were greatest, mutual reproaches mingled with words of encouragement were heard through the whole field till finally they burst into a ringing cheer. ”

“ He kindly but firmly insisted upon finding out, and she confessed the real cause of her distress; she was united to one who was her inferior in birth, married into a house where neither honour nor political influence could enter. Ambustus consoled his daughter and bade her keep up her spirits; she would very soon see in her own house the same honours which she saw at her sister's. From that time he began to concert plans with his son-in-law; they took into their counsels L. Sextius, a pushing young man who regarded nothing as beyond his ambition except patrician blood. ”

“ Thither the townsmen fled for refuge with their wives and children, after sending messengers to Rome to inform the senate of their plight. With the promptitude which the honour of the Roman people demanded an army was marched to Tusculum under the command of the consular tribunes, L. Quinctius and Ser. Sulpicius. They found the gates of Tusculum closed and the Latins, with the feelings of men who are at once besieging and being besieged, were in one direction defending the walls and in the other attacking the citadel, inspiring terror and feeling it at the same time. ”

“ So great a charm is felt in preying upon other people's fortunes, that it has not occurred to them that by expelling the occupiers from their lands under the one law vast solitudes will be created, whilst by the action of the other all credit will be destroyed and with it all human society abolished. For every reason I consider that these proposals ought to be rejected, and may heaven guide you to a right decision! ”

“ It is all very well to cry in horror, ' The gods will prevent that,' but they will never come down from heaven on my account. You must prevent it; they must give you the courage to do so, as they gave me courage to defend you as a soldier from the barbarian enemy and as a civilian from your tyrannical fellow-citizens. Is the spirit of this great nation so small that you will always remain contented with the aid which your tribunes now afford you against your enemies, and never know any subject of dispute with the patricians, except as to how far you allow them to lord it over you ? ”

“ Why, if the plebs had spirit enough to recall to mind the liberties which their fathers won, they would never suffer a Roman citizen to be made over to his creditors, nor would they permit an army to be raised until an account was taken of the existing debt and some method of reducing it discovered, so that each man might know what he actually owed, and what was left for himself -whether his person was free or whether that, too, was due to the stocks. ”