LITMIR.BIZ

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it was now rumoured were forming into a body; and also concerning a revolt of the Hernicians. When all business was purposely deferred, so that nothing should be transacted through means of the plebeian consul, silence was observed on all matters, and a state of inaction like to a justitium; except that, the tribunes not suffering it to pass unnoticed that the nobility had arrogated to themselves three patrician magistracies as a compensation for one plebeian consul, sitting in curule chairs, clad in the prætexta like consuls; the prætor, too, administering justice, and as if colleague to the consuls, and elected under the same auspices, the senate were in consequence made ashamed to order the curule ædiles to be elected from among the patricians. It was at first agreed, that they should be elected from the commons every second year: afterwards the matter was left open. Then, in the consulate of Lucius Genucius and Quintus Servilius, affairs being tranquil both at home and abroad, that they might at no period be exempt from fear and danger, a great pestilence arose. They say that a prætor, a curule ædile, and three plebeian tribunes died of it, and that several other deaths took place in proportion among the populace; and that pestilence was made memorable chiefly by the death of Marcus Furius, which, though occurring at an advanced age, was still much lamented. For he was a truly extraordinary man under every change of fortune; the first man in the state in peace and war, before he went into exile; still more illustrious in exile, whether by the regret felt for him by the state, which, when in captivity, implored his aid when absent; or by the success with which, when restored to his country, he restored that country along with himself. For five and twenty years afterwards (for so many years afterwards did he live) he uniformly preserved his claims to such great glory, and was deemed deserving of their considering him, next after Romulus, a second founder of the city of Rome.

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      The pestilence continued both for this and the following year, Caius Sulpicius Peticus and Caius Licinius Stolo being consuls. During that year nothing worth recording took place, except that for the purpose of imploring the favour of the gods, there was a Lectisternium, the third time since the building of the city. And when the violence of the disease was alleviated neither by human measures nor by divine interference, their minds being broken down by superstition, among other means of appeasing the wrath of heaven, scenic plays also are said to have been instituted, a new thing to a warlike people (for hitherto there had been only the shows of the circus). But the matter was trivial, (as all beginnings generally are,) and even that itself from a foreign source. Without any poetry, or gesticulating in imitation of such poetry, actors were sent for from Etruria, dancing to the measures of a musician, and exhibited, according to the Tuscan fashion, movements by no means ungraceful. The young men afterwards began to imitate these, throwing out at the same time among each other jocular expressions in uncouth verses; nor were their gestures irrelevant to their language. Wherefore the matter was received with approbation, and by frequent use was much improved. To the native performers the name of histriones was given, because hister, in the Tuscan vocabulary, was the name of an actor, who did not, as formerly, throw out alternately artless and unpolished verses like the Fescennine at random, but represented medleys complete with metre, the music being regularly adjusted for the musician, and with appropriate gesticulation. Livius, who several years after, giving up medleys, was the first who ventured to digest a story with a regular plot, (the same being, forsooth, as all were at that time, the actor of his own pieces,) after having broken his voice from having been too repeatedly called on, and after having sought permission, is said to have placed a boy before the musician to chaunt, and to have performed the gesticulations with considerably freer movement, because the employment of his voice was no impediment to him. Thence commenced the practice of chaunting to the actors according to their manual gesticulations, and the dialogues only were left to their voice. When by this arrangement the business of the scenic performances was called away from laughter and intemperate mirth, and the amusement became gradually converted into an art, the young men, leaving to regular actors the performance of plays, began themselves, according to the ancient usage, to throw out ludicrous jests comprised in verses, which from that time were called exodia, and were collected chiefly from the Atellan farces. Which kind of amusement, received from the Osci, the young kept to themselves, nor did they suffer it to be debased by regular players. Hence it remains an established usage that the actors of the Atellan farces are neither degraded from their tribe, and may serve in the army, as if having no connexion with the profession of the stage. Among the trifling beginnings of other matters, it seemed to me that the first origin of plays also should be noticed; that it might appear how from a moderate commencement it has reached its present extravagance, scarcely to be supported by opulent kingdoms.

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      However, the first introduction of plays, intended as a religious expiation, neither relieved their minds from religious awe, nor their bodies from disease. Nay more, when the circus being inundated by the overflowing of the Tiber happened to interrupt the middle of the performance, that indeed, as if the gods were now turned from them, and despised their efforts to soothe their wrath, excited great terror. Accordingly, Cneius Genucius and Lucius Æmilius Mamercinus being a second time consuls, when the searching for expiations harassed their minds, more than the diseases did their bodies, it is said to have been collected from the memory of the more aged, that a pestilence had formerly been relieved, on the nail being driven by a dictator. Induced by this superstitious circumstance, the senate ordered a dictator to be appointed for the purpose of driving the nail. Lucius Manlius Imperiosus being appointed, named Lucius Pinarius master of the horse. There is an ancient law written in antique letters and words, that whoever is supreme officer should drive a nail on the ides of September. It was driven into the right side of the temple of Jupiter supremely good and great, on that part where the temple of Minerva is. They say that the nail was a mark of the number of years elapsed, because letters were rare in those times, and that the law was referred to the temple of Minerva, because number is the invention of that goddess. Cincius, a careful writer on such monuments, asserts that there were seen at Volsinii also nails fixed in the temple of Nortia, a Tuscan goddess, as indices of the number of years. Marcus Horatius, being consul, according to law dedicated the temple of Jupiter the best and greatest the year after the expulsion of kings; the solemnity of fixing the nail was afterwards transferred from the consuls to the dictators, because theirs was a superior office. The custom being afterwards dropped, it seemed a matter of sufficient importance in itself, on account of which a dictator should be appointed. For which reason Lucius Manlius being appointed, just as if he had been appointed for the purpose of managing the business of the state in general, and not to acquit it of a religious obligation, being ambitious to manage the Hernician war, harassed the youth by a severe levy, and at length, all the plebeian tribunes having risen up against him, whether overcome by force or shame, he resigned the dictatorship.

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      Notwithstanding this, in the commencement of the ensuing year, Quintus Servilius Ahala, Lucius Genucius being consuls, a day of trial is appointed for Manlius, by Marcus Pomponius, tribune of the commons. His severity in the levies, carried not only to the fining of the citizens, but even to the laceration of their bodies, those who had not answered to their names being some beaten with rods, others thrown into prison, was hateful; and more hateful than all was his violent temper, and the surname of Imperiosus, offensive to a free state, adopted by him from an ostentation of severity, which he exercised not more against strangers than his nearest friends, and even those of his own blood. And among other things, the tribune alleged as a charge against him that "he had banished his son, a youth convicted of no improper conduct, from the city, home, household gods, forum, light, from the society of his equals, and consigned him in a manner to a prison or workhouse; where a youth of dictatorian rank, born of a very high family, should learn by his daily suffering that he was descended of a truly imperious father. And for what offence? because he was not eloquent, nor ready in discourse. Which defect of nature, whether ought it to be treated with leniency if there were a particle of humanity in him, or ought it to be punished, and rendered more remarkable by harsh treatment? The dumb beasts even, if any of their offspring happen to be badly formed, are not the less careful in nourishing and cherishing them. But Lucius Manlius aggravated the misfortune of his son by severity, and further clogged the slowness of his intellects; and if there were in him even the least spark of natural

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