LITMIR.BIZ

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he expelled from thence the Roman colonists, and delivered that city in a state of freedom to the Volscians. From thence passing across the country through by-roads into the Latin way, he deprived the Romans of their recently acquired towns, Satricum, Longula, Polusca, Corioli. He next retook Lavinium: he then took in succession Corbio, Vitellia, Trebia, Lavici, and Pedum: Lastly he marches from Pedum to the city,95 and having pitched his camp at the Cluilian trenches five miles from the city, he from thence ravages the Roman territory, guards being sent among the devastators to preserve the lands of the patricians intact; whether as being incensed chiefly against the plebeians, or in order that dissension might arise between the senators and the people. And this certainly would have arisen, so powerfully did the tribunes, by inveighing against the leading men of the state, incite the plebeians, already sufficiently violent of themselves; but their apprehensions of the foe, the strongest bond of concord, united their minds, distrustful and rancorous though they were. The only matter not agreed on was this, that the senate and consuls rested their hopes on nothing else than on arms; the plebeians preferred any thing to war. Sp. Nautius and Sex. Furius were now consuls. Whilst they were reviewing the legions, posting guards along the walls and other places where they had determined that there should be posts and watches, a vast multitude of persons demanding peace terrified them first by their seditious clamour; then compelled them to convene the senate, to consider the question of sending ambassadors to C. Marcius. The senate entertained the question, when it became evident that the spirits of the plebeians were giving way, and ambassadors being sent to Marcius concerning peace, brought back a harsh answer: "If their lands were restored to the Volscians, that they might then consider the question of peace; if they were disposed to enjoy the plunder of war at their ease, that he, mindful both of the injurious treatment of his countrymen, as well as of the kindness of strangers, would do his utmost to make it appear that his spirit was irritated by exile, not crushed." When the same persons are sent back a second time, they are not admitted into the camp. It is recorded that the priests also, arrayed in their insignia, went as suppliants to the enemy's camp; and that they did not influence his mind more than the ambassadors.

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      Then the matrons assemble in a body around Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and his wife, Volumnia: whether that was the result of public counsel, or of the women's fear, I cannot ascertain. They certainly carried their point that Veturia, a lady advanced in years, and Volumnia, leading her two sons by Marcius, should go into the camp of the enemy, and that women should defend by entreaties and tears a city which men were unable to defend by arms. When they reached the camp, and it was announced to Coriolanus, that a great body of women were approaching, he, who had been moved neither by the majesty of the state in its ambassadors, nor by the sanctity of religion so strikingly addressed to his eyes and understanding in its priests, was much more obdurate against the women's tears. Then one of his acquaintances, who recognised Veturia, distinguished from all the others by her sadness, standing between her daughter-in-law and grand-children, says, "Unless my eyes deceive me, your mother, children, and wife, are approaching." When Coriolanus, almost like one bewildered, rushing in consternation from his seat, offered to embrace his mother as she met him, the lady, turning from entreaties to angry rebuke, says, "Before I receive your embrace, let me know whether I have come to an enemy or to a son; whether I am in your camp a captive or a mother? Has length of life and a hapless old age reserved me for this—to behold you an exile, then an enemy? Could you lay waste this land, which gave you birth and nurtured you? Though you had come with an incensed and vengeful mind, did not your resentment subside when you entered its frontiers? When Rome came within view, did it not occur to you, within these walls my house and guardian gods are, my mother, wife, and children? So then, had I not been a mother, Rome would not be besieged: had I not a son, I might have died free in a free country. But I can now suffer nothing that is not more discreditable to you than distressing to me; nor however wretched I may be, shall I be so long. Look to these, whom, if you persist, either an untimely death or lengthened slavery awaits." Then his wife and children embraced him: and the lamentation proceeding from the entire crowd of women, and their bemoaning themselves and their country, at length overcame the man; then, after embracing his family, he sends them away; he moved his camp farther back from the city. Then, after he had drawn off his troops from the Roman territory, they say that he lost his life, overwhelmed by the odium of the proceeding: different writers say by different modes of death: I find in Fabius, far the most ancient writer, that he lived even to old age; he states positively, that advanced in years he made use of this phrase, "That exile bore much heavier on the old man." The men of Rome were not remiss in awarding their praises to the women, so truly did they live without detracting from the merit of others; a temple was built also and dedicated to female Fortune, to serve as a monument. The Volscians afterwards returned in conjunction with the Æqui into the Roman territory: but the Æqui would no longer have Attius Tullus as their leader; hence from dispute, whether the Volscians or the Æqui should give a general to the allied army, a sedition, and afterwards a furious battle arose. There the good fortune of the Roman people destroyed the two armies of the enemy, by a contest no less bloody than obstinate. T. Sicinius and C. Aquillius were made consuls. The Volsci fell as a province to Sicinius; the Hernici (for they too were in arms) to Aquillius. That year the Hernici were defeated; they came off with respect to the Volscians on equal terms.

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      Sp. Cassius and Proculus Virginius were next made consuls; a treaty was struck with the Hernici; two-thirds of their land were taken from them: of this the consul Cassius was about to distribute one half among the Latins, the other half among the commons. To this donation he was adding a considerable portion of land, which, though public property, he alleged was possessed by private individuals. This proceeding alarmed several of the senators, the actual possessors, at the danger of their property; the senators felt, moreover, a solicitude on public grounds, that the consul by his donation was establishing an influence dangerous to liberty. Then, for the first time, the Agrarian law was proposed, which even down to our own recollection was never agitated without the greatest commotions in the state. The other consul resisted the donation, the senators seconding him, nor were all the commons opposed to him; they had at first begun to despise a gift which was extended from citizens to allies: in the next place they frequently heard the consul Virginius in the assemblies as it were prophesying—"that the gift of his colleague was pestilential—that those lands were sure to bring slavery to those who should receive them; that the way was paving to a throne." For why was it that the allies were included, and the Latin nation? What was the object of a third of the land that had been taken being given back to the Hernici so lately our enemies, except that instead of Coriolanus being their leader they may have Cassius? The dissuader and opposer of the agrarian law now began to be popular. Both consuls then vied with each other in humouring the commons. Virginius said that he would suffer the lands to be assigned, provided they were assigned to no one but to a Roman citizen. Cassius, because in the agrarian donation he sought popularity among the allies, and was therefore lowered in the estimation of his countrymen, in order that by another donation he might conciliate their affections, ordered that the money received for the Sicilian corn should be refunded to the people. That indeed the people rejected as nothing else than a present bribe for regal authority: so strongly were his gifts spurned in the minds of men, as if they possessed every thing in abundance, in consequence of their inveterate suspicions of his aiming at sovereign power. As soon as he went out of office, it is certain that he was condemned and put to death. There are some who represent his father as the person who inflicted the punishment: that he, having tried him at home, scourged him and put him to death, and consecrated his son's private property to Ceres; that out of this a statue was set up and inscribed, "given from the Cassian family." In some authors I find it stated, and that is more probable, that a day of trial was assigned him for high treason, by the questors, Kæso Fabius and Lucius Valerius; and that he was condemned by the decision of the people; that his house was demolished by a public decree: this is the area before the temple of Tellus. But whether that trial was private or public, he was condemned in the consulship of Ser. Cornelius and Q. Fabius.

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      The resentment of the people against Cassius was not of long duration. The allurements of the agrarian law, now that its proposer was gone, were of themselves gaining

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