Livy

“ Come, when you have blockaded the senate-house here, and have made the forum the seat of war, and filled the prison with the leading men of the state, march forth through the Esquiline gate, with that same determined spirit; or, if you do not even venture thus far, behold from your walls your lands laid waste with fire and sword, booty driven off, houses set on fire in every direction and smoking. But, I may be told, it is only the public weal that is in a worse condition through this: the land is burned, the city is besieged, the glory of the war rests with the enemy. ”

“ Then, when Marcus Claudius proceeded to seize the maiden, while the matrons stood around, and was met by the piteous lamentations of the women, Verginius, menacingly stretching forth his hands toward Appius, said: "To Icilius, and not to you, Appius, have I betrothed my daughter, and for matrimony, not for prostitution, have I brought her up. Would you have men gratify their lust promiscuously, like cattle and wild beasts? Whether these persons will endure such things, I know not; I do not think that those will do so who have arms in their hands." ”

“ The aid of tribunes, right of appeal to the people, the acts of the commons made binding on the patricians under the pretext of equalizing the laws, the subversion of our privileges, we have endured and still endure. What end is there to be to our dissensions? When shall it be allowed us to have a united city, one common country? We, when defeated, submit with greater resignation than you when victorious. Is it enough for you, that you are objects of terror to us? The Aventine is taken against us: against us the Sacred Mount is seized. ”

“ What power is that of yours, decemvirs, which you embrace and hold so firmly? Do you mean to administer justice to walls and houses? Are you not ashamed that an almost greater number of your lictors is to be seen in the forum than of the other citizens? What are you going to do, in case the enemy should approach the city? What, if the commons should come presently in arms, in case we show ourselves little affected by their secession? Do you mean to end your power by the fall of the city? Well, then, either we must not have the commons, or they must have their tribunes. ”

“ In particular, Marcius Coriolanus, an enemy to tribunician power, said: "If they desire corn at its old price, let them restore to the senators their former rights. Why do I, like a captive sent under the yoke, as if I had been ransomed from robbers, behold plebeian magistrates, and Sicinius invested with power? Am I to submit to these indignities longer than is necessary? Am I, who have refused to endure Tarquin as king, to tolerate Sicinius? Let him now secede, let him call away the commons. The road lies open to the Sacred Mount and to other hills. ”

“ Go then, lictor, bind those hands, which but a little while since, armed, won sovereignty for the Roman people. Go, cover the head of the liberator of this city: hang him on the accursed tree: scourge him, either within the pomerium, so it be only amid those javelins and spoils of the enemy, or without the pomerium, so it be only amid the graves of the Curiatii. For whither can you lead this youth, where his own noble deeds will not redeem him from such disgraceful punishment? ”

“ Does it not behoove all patricians and plebeians, consuls, tribunes, gods, and men of all classes, to bring aid with arms in their hands, to hurry into the Capitol, to liberate and restore to peace that most august residence of Jupiter, best and greatest? O Father Romulus! Do thou inspire thy progeny with that determination of thine, by which thou didst formerly recover from these same Sabines this citadel, when captured by gold. Order them to pursue this same path, which thou, as leader, and thy army, pursued. ”

“ Having hastily summoned Servius, after she had shown him her husband almost at his last gasp, holding his right hand, she entreated him not to suffer the death of his father-in-law to pass unavenged, nor to allow his mother-in-law to be an object of scorn to their enemies. "Servius," said she, "if you are a man, the kingdom belongs to you, not to those, who, by the hands of others, have perpetrated a most shameful deed. Rouse yourself, and follow the guidance of the gods, who portended that this head of yours would be illustrious by formerly shedding a divine blaze around it. ”

“ That with his son Caeso, valour, constancy, all the splendid qualifications of youth in war and in peace, had been driven and exiled from the city of Rome: that talkative and turbulent men, sowers of discord, twice and even thrice re-elected tribunes by the vilest intrigues, lived in the enjoyment of regal irresponsibility. "Does that Aulus Verginius," said he, "deserve less punishment than Appius Herdonius, because he was not in the Capitol? Considerably more, by Hercules, if any one will look at the matter fairly. ”

“ Let the patricians serve as soldiers; let the patricians take up arms, so that those who reaped the advantages of war should also undergo its dangers. But the senate, dejected and confounded by the double alarm they felt, inspired both by their own countryman and by the enemy, entreated the consul Servilius, whose disposition was more inclined to favour the people, that he would extricate the commonwealth, beset as it was with so great terrors. ”

“ When you served under the command of us consuls, not under tribunes, in the camp and not in the forum, and the enemy trembled at your shout in the field of battle, not the Roman patricians in the assembly, having gained booty and taken land from the enemy, loaded with wealth and glory, both public and private, you used to return home in triumph to your household gods: now you allow the enemy to go off laden with your property. Continue fast bound to your assemblies, live in the forum; the necessity of taking the field, which you strive to escape, still follows you. ”

“ You longed for decemvirs; we suffered them to be created. You became weary of decemvirs; we compelled them to resign office. Your resentment against these same persons when they became private citizens still continuing, we suffered men of the highest family and rank to die or go into exile. You wished asecond time to create tribunes of the commons; you created them. You wished to elect consuls attached to your party; and, although we saw that it was unjust to the patricians, we have even resigned ourselves to see a patrician magistracy conceded as an offering to the people. ”

“ Mettius Curtius, on the side of the Sabines, had rushed down from the citadel at the head of his troops and driven the Romans in disordered array over the whole space of ground where the Forum now is. He had almost reached the gate of the Palatium, crying out: "We have conquered our perfidious friends, our cowardly foes: now they know that fighting with men is a very different thing from ravishing maidens." Upon him, as he uttered these boasts, Romulus made an attack with a band of his bravest youths. ”

“ It was hard on you to march against the Æquans and the Volscians: the war is at your gates: if it is not driven from thence, it will soon be within your walls, and will scale the citadel and Capitol, and follow you into your very houses. Two years ago the senate ordered a levy to be held, and an army to be marched out to Algidum; yet we sit down listless at home, quarrelling with each other like women, delighting in present peace, and not seeing that after that short-lived inactivity war will return with interest. ”

“ There were among the Roman youth several young men—and these of no no rank—who, while the regal government lasted, had enjoyed greater license in their pleasures, being the equals in age, boon companions of the young Tarquins, and accustomed to live after the fashion of princes. Missing that freedom, now that the privileges of all were equalized, [2] they complained among themselves that the liberty of others had turned out slavery for them: that a king was a human being, from whom one could obtain what one wanted, whether the deed might be an act of justice or of wrong ”

“ That it was for themselves they were about to conquer, not to become, when victorious, the prize of the decemvirs. That it was not under the command of Appius that operations were being conducted, but under their consul Valerius, descended from the liberators of the Roman people, himself their liberator. Let them show that in former battles it had been the fault of the generals and not of the soldiers, that they did not conquer. That it was shameful to have exhibited more courage against their own countrymen than against their enemies, and to have dreaded slavery more at home than abroad. ”

“ When they entered Roman territory, the consuls marched to meet the enemy. Valerius led the infantry in a square battalion: Brutus marched in front with the cavalry to reconnoitre. In like manner the enemy's horse formed the van of the army: Arruns Tarquinius, the king's son, was in command: the king himself followed with the legions. Arruns, when he knew at a distance by the lictors that it was a consul, and on drawing nearer more surely discovered that it was Brutus by his face, inflamed with rage, cried out: "Yonder is the man who has driven us into exile from our native country! ”

“ To think that a man whose image would be held in highest honour by posterity, the framer of their laws and the founder of Roman jurisprudence, should be lying manacled amongst nocturnal thieves and robbers! Let them turn their thoughts for a moment from feelings of exasperation to calm examination and reflection, and forgive one man at the intercession of so many of the Claudii, rather than through their hatred of one man despise the prayers of many. ”

“ Your resentment we must rather pardon than indulge, seeing that from your hatred of cruelty you rush into cruelty, and almost before you are free yourselves, already wish to lord it over your opponents. Shall our state never enjoy rest from punishments, inflicted either by the patricians on the Roman commons, or by the commons on the patricians? You need a shield rather than a sword. He is sufficiently and abundantly humbled who lives in the state on an equal footing with his fellow-citizens, neither inflicting nor suffering injury. ”

“ I would indeed like to meet with your approval, Quirites; but I am much more anxious that you should be preserved, whatever sentiments you shall entertain toward me. It has been so ordained by nature, that he who addresses a crowd for his own private interest, is more welcome than the man whose mind has nothing in view but the public interest unless perhaps you suppose that those public sycophants those flatterers of the commons, who neither suffer you to take up arms nor to live in peace, excite and work you up for your own interests. ”

“ Without orders they faced about, and with a sorrowful air (one would have thought them defeated) they returned to camp, execrating at one time their general, at another the vigour displayed by the cavalry. Nor did the general know where to look for any remedies for so harmful a precedent: so true is it that the most distinguished talents will be more likely found deficient in the art of managing a countryman, than in that of conquering an enemy. The consul returned to Rome, not having so much increased his military glory as irritated and exasperated the hatred of his soldiers toward him. ”

“ Their wealth was itself the actual occasion of the war: for the Roman king, whose resources had been drained by the magnificence of his public works, was desirous of enriching himself, and also of soothing the minds of his subjects by a large present of booty, as they, independently of the other instances of his tyranny, were incensed against his government, because they felt indignant that they had been kept so long employed by the king as mechanics, and in labour only fit for slaves. ”

“ When the consul ascertained that the soldiers loudly expressed these sentiments in the camp, having summoned an assembly, he spoke as follows: "How matters have fared in Algidum, I suppose that you, soldiers, have already heard. As became the army of the free people to behave, so have they behaved; through the good judgment of my colleague and the valour of the soldiers, the victory has been gained. For my part, I shall display the same judgment and determination as you yourselves, O soldiers, display. The war may either be prolonged with advantage, or be brought to a speedy conclusion. ”

“ Thus, while long-standing animosity stimulated the one and recent resentment the other, they concerted schemes for bringing about a war with Rome. They did not readily believe that their own people could be persuaded to take up arms, so often unsuccessfully tried, seeing that by many frequent wars, and lastly, by the loss of their youth in the pestilence, their spirits were now broken; they felt that in a case where animosity had now died away from length of time they must proceed by scheming, that their feelings might become exasperated under the influence of some fresh cause for resentment. ”