LITMIR.BIZ

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thither for the sake of a safe post, and a fruitful spot, (and such it really was,) secured his camp with strong works. Furnishing it with magazines of every thing useful, he left a strong guard to defend it; and at the third watch, led away the legions lightly accoutred, by the shortest road which he could take, to join his colleague, who lay opposite to his foe. There, by advice of Postumius, Minucius came to an engagement with the enemy; and when the fight had continued doubtful through a great part of the day, Postumius, with his fresh legions, made an unexpected attack on the enemy's line, spent by this time with fatigue: thus, weariness and wounds having rendered them incapable even of flying, they were cut off to a man, and twenty-one standards taken. The Romans then proceeded to Postumius's station, where the two victorious armies falling upon the enemy, already dismayed by the news of what had passed, routed and dispersed them: twenty-six military standards were taken here, and the Samnite general, Statius Gellius, with a great number of other prisoners, and both the camps were taken. Next day Bovianum was besieged, and soon after taken. Both the consuls were honoured with a triumph, with high applause of their excellent conduct. Some writers say, that the consul Minucius was brought back to the camp grievously wounded, and that he died there; that Marcus Fulvius was substituted consul in his place, and that it was he who, being sent to command Minucius's army, took Bovianum. During the same year, Sora, Arpinum, and Censennia were recovered from the Samnites. The great statue of Hercules was erected in the Capitol, and dedicated.

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      In the succeeding consulate of Publius Sulpicius Saverrio and Publius Sempronius Sophus, the Samnites, desirous either of a termination or a suspension of hostilities, sent ambassadors to Rome to treat of peace; to whose submissive solicitations this answer was returned, that, "had not the Samnites frequently solicited peace, at times when they were actually preparing for war, their present application might, perhaps, in the course of negotiating, have produced the desired effect. But now, since words had hitherto proved vain, people's conduct must be guided by facts: that Publius Sempronius the consul would shortly be in Samnium with an army: that he could not be deceived in judging whether their dispositions inclined to peace or war. He would bring the senate certain information respecting every particular, and their ambassadors might follow the consul on his return from Samnium." When the Roman army accordingly marched through all parts of Samnium, which was in a state of peace, provisions being liberally supplied, a renewal of the old treaty was, this year, granted to the Samnites. The Roman arms were then turned against the Aequans, their old enemies, but who had, for many years past, remained quiet, under the guise of a treacherous peace, because, while the Hernicians were in a state of prosperity, these had, in conjunction with them, frequently sent aid to the Samnites; and after the Hernicians were subdued, almost the whole nation, without dissembling that they acted by public authority, had revolted to the enemy; and when, after the conclusion of the treaty with the Samnites at Rome, ambassadors were sent to demand satisfaction, they said, that "this was only a trial made of them, on the expectation that they would through fear suffer themselves to be made Roman citizens. But how much that condition was to be wished for, they had been taught by the Hernicians; who, when they had the option, preferred their own laws to the freedom of the Roman state. To people who wished for liberty to choose what they judged preferable, the necessity of becoming Roman citizens would have the nature of a punishment." In resentment of these declarations, uttered publicly in their assemblies, the Roman people ordered war to be made on the Aequans; and, in prosecution of this new undertaking, both the consuls marched from the city, and sat down at the distance of four miles from the camp of the enemy. The troops of the Aequans, like tumultuary recruits, in consequence of their having passed such a number of years without waging war on their own account, were all in disorder and confusion, without established officers and without command. Some advised to give battle, others to defend the camp; the greater part were influenced by concern for the devastation of their lands, likely to take place, and the consequent destruction of their cities, left with weak garrisons. Among a variety of propositions, one, however, was heard which, abandoning all concern for the public interest, tended to transfer every man's attention to the care of his private concerns. It recommended that, at the first watch, they should depart from the camp by different roads, so as to carry all their effects into the cities, and to secure them by the strength of the fortifications; this they all approved with universal assent. When the enemy were now dispersed through the country, the Romans, at the first dawn, marched out to the field, and drew up in order of battle; but no one coming to oppose them, they advanced in a brisk pace to the enemy's camp. But when they perceived neither guards before the gates, nor soldiers on the ramparts, nor the usual bustle of a camp,--surprised at the extraordinary silence, they halted in apprehension of some stratagem. At length, passing over the rampart, and finding the whole deserted, they proceeded to search out the tracks of the enemy. But these, as they scattered themselves to every quarter, occasioned perplexity at first. Afterwards discovering their design by means of scouts, they attacked their cities, one after another, and within the space of fifty days took, entirely by force, forty-one towns, most of which were razed and burnt, and the race of the Aequans almost extirpated. A triumph was granted over the Aequans. The Marrucinians, Marsians, Pelignians, and Ferentans, warned by the example of their disasters, sent deputies to Rome to solicit peace and friendship; and these states, on their submissive applications, were admitted into alliance.

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      In the same year, Cneius Flavius, son of Cneius, grandson of a freed man, a notary, in low circumstances originally, but artful and eloquent, was appointed curule aedile. I find in some annals, that, being in attendance on the aediles, and seeing that he was voted aedile by the prerogative tribe, but that his name would not be received, because he acted as a notary, he threw down his tablet, and took an oath, that he would not, for the future, follow that business. But Licinius Macer contends, that he had dropped the employment of notary a considerable time before, having already been a tribune, and twice a triumvir, once for regulating the nightly watch, and another time for conducting a colony. However, of this there is no dispute, that against the nobles, who threw contempt on the meanness of his condition, he contended with much firmness. He made public the rules of proceeding in judicial causes, hitherto shut up in the closets of the pontiffs; and hung up to public view, round the forum, the calendar on white tablets, that all might know when business could be transacted in the courts. To the great displeasure of the nobles, he performed the dedication of the temple of Concord, in the area of Vulcan's temple; and the chief pontiff, Cornelius Barbatus, was compelled by the united instances of the people, to dictate to him the form of words, although he affirmed, that, consistently with the practice of antiquity, no other than a consul, or commander-in-chief, could dedicate a temple. This occasioned a law to be proposed to the people, by direction of the senate, that no person should dedicate a temple, or an altar, without an order from the senate, or from a majority of the plebeian tribunes. The incident which I am about to mention would be trivial in itself, were it not an instance of the freedom assumed by plebeians in opposition to the pride of the nobles. When Flavius had come to make a visit to his colleague, who was sick, and when, by an arrangement between some young nobles who were sitting there, they did not rise on his entrance, he ordered his curule chair to be brought thither, and from his honourable seat of office enjoyed the sight of his enemies tortured with envy. However, a low faction, which had gathered strength during the censorship of Appius Claudius, had made Flavius an aedile; for he was the first who degraded the senate, by electing into it the immediate descendants of freed men; and when no one allowed that election as valid, and when he had not acquired in the senate-house that influence in the city which he had been aiming at, by distributing men of the meanest order among all the several tribes, he thus corrupted the assemblies both of the forum and of the field of Mars; and so much indignation did the election of Flavius excite, that most of the nobles laid aside their gold rings and bracelets in consequence of it. From that time the state was split into two parties. The uncorrupted part of the people, who favoured and supported the good, held one side; the faction of the rabble, the other; until Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius were made censors; and Fabius, both for the sake of concord, and at the same time to prevent the elections remaining in the hands of the lowest of the people, purged the rest of the tribes of all the rabble of the forum, and threw it into four, and called them city tribes. And this procedure, we are told, gave such universal

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