LITMIR.BIZ

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circumstance rendered striking both their own paucity of numbers, and the superior numbers of the enemy, the ranks being crowded in a narrow space. Then the plan of fighting, which they had directed equally against every part, being now relinquished, they all incline their forces towards one point; in that direction straining every effort both with their bodies and arms, they forced a passage by forming a wedge. The way led to a hill of moderate acclivity; here they first halted: presently, as soon as the higher ground afforded them time to gain breath, and to recover from so great a panic, they repulsed them as they advanced up; and the small band by the advantage of the ground was gaining the victory, had not a party of the Veientians, sent round the ridge of the hill, made their way to the summit; thus again the enemy obtained the higher ground; all the Fabii were killed to a man, and the fort was taken: it is agreed on all hands that the three hundred and six were cut off; that one98 only, who nearly attained the age of puberty, was left as a stock for the Fabian race; and that he was destined to prove the greatest support in the dangerous emergencies of the Roman people both at home and in war.

      51

      At the time when this disaster was received, C. Horatius and T. Menenius were consuls. Menenius was immediately sent against the Etrurians, elated with victory. Then too an unsuccessful battle was fought, and the enemy took possession of the Janiculum: and the city would have been besieged, scarcity of provisions bearing hard upon them in addition to the war, (for the Etrurians had passed the Tiber,) had not the consul Horatius been recalled from the Volsci; and so closely did that war approach the very walls, that the first battle was fought near the temple of Hope with doubtful success, and a second time at the Colline gate. There, although the Romans had the advantage in a slight degree only, yet that contest rendered the soldiers better for future battles by restoring to them their former courage. Aulus Virginius and Sp. Servilius are created consuls. After the defeat sustained in the last battle, the Veientians declined an engagement. Ravages were committed, and they made incursions in every direction on the Roman territory from the Janiculum as if from a fortress; no where were the cattle or the husbandmen safe. They were afterwards entrapped by the same stratagem as that by which they had entrapped the Fabii: having pursued some cattle that had been driven on designedly for the purpose of decoying them, they fell into an ambuscade; in proportion as they were more numerous, the slaughter was greater. The violent resentment resulting from this disaster was the cause and commencement of one still greater: for having crossed the Tiber by night, they attempted to assault the camp of the consul Servilius; being repulsed from thence with great slaughter, they with difficulty made good their retreat into the Janiculum. The consul himself also crosses the Tiber, fortifies his camp at the foot of the Janiculum: at break of day on the following morning, both from being somewhat elated by the success of the battle of the day before, more however because the scarcity of corn forced him into measures which, though dangerous, (he adopted) because they were more expeditious, he rashly marched his army up the steep of the Janiculum to the camp of the enemy, and being repulsed from thence with more disgrace than he had repulsed them on the preceding day, he was saved, both himself and his army, by the intervention of his colleague. The Etrurians (hemmed in) between the two armies, when they presented their rear to the one and the other by turns, were entirely cut off. Thus the Veientian war was crushed by a fortunate act of temerity.

      52

      Together with the peace, provisions returned to the city in greater abundance, both by reason of corn having been brought in from Campania, and, as soon as the fear felt by each of future famine left them, that corn being brought forward which had been hoarded up. Then their minds once more became licentious from their present abundance and ease, and their former subjects of complaint, now that there were none abroad, they sought for at home; the tribunes began to excite the commons by their poison, the agrarian law: they roused them against the senators who opposed it, and not only against them as a body, but also against particular individuals. Q. Considius and T. Genucius, the proposers of the agrarian law, appoint a day of trial for T. Menenius: the loss of the fort of Cremera, whilst the consul had his standing camp at no great distance from thence, was the charge against him. They crushed him, though both the senators had exerted themselves in his behalf with no less earnestness than in behalf of Coriolanus, and the popularity of his father Agrippa was not yet forgotten. The tribunes, however, went no further than a fine: though they had arraigned him for a capital offence, they imposed on him, when found guilty, a fine of two thousand asses. This proved fatal. They say that he could not submit to the disgrace, and to the anguish of mind (occasioned by it): that, in consequence, he was taken off by disease. Another senator, Sp. Servilius, being soon after arraigned, as soon as he went out of office, a day of trial having been appointed for him by the tribunes, L. Cædicius and T. Statius, at the very commencement of the year, in the consulship of C. Nautius and P. Valerius, did not, like Menenius, meet the attacks of the tribunes with supplications from himself and the patricians, but with firm reliance on his own integrity, and his personal influence. The battle with the Etrurians at the Janiculum was the charge against him also: but being a man of an intrepid spirit, as he had formerly acted in the case of public peril, so now in that which was personal to himself, he dispelled the danger by boldly facing it, by confuting not only the tribunes but the commons also, by a bold speech, and upbraiding them with the condemnation and death of T. Menenius, by the good offices of whose father the commons were formerly re-established, and were now in possession of those laws and those magistrates, by means of which they then exercised their insolence; his colleague Virginius also, who was brought forward as a witness, aided him by assigning to him a share of his own deserts; the condemnation of Menenius however was of greater service to him (so much had they changed their minds).

      53

      The contests at home were now concluded. A Veientian war broke out, with whom the Sabines had united their forces. The consul P. Valerius, after auxiliaries were sent for from the Latins and Hernicians, being despatched to Veii with an army, immediately attacks the Sabine camp, which had been pitched before the walls of their allies: and occasioned such great consternation, that while, dispersed in different directions, they sally forth to repel the assault of the enemy, the gate which the Romans first attacked was taken; then within the rampart there was rather a carnage than a battle. From the camp the alarm spreads into the city; the Veientians run to arms in as great a panic as if Veii had been taken: some come up to the support of the Sabines, others fall upon the Romans, who had directed all their force against the camp. For a little while they were disconcerted and thrown into confusion; then they too forming two fronts make a stand: and the cavalry, being commanded by the consul to charge, routs the Etrurians and puts them to flight; and in the same hour two armies and two of the most influential and powerful of the neighbouring states were vanquished. Whilst these transactions are going on at Veii, the Volsci and Æqui had pitched their camp in the Latin territory, and laid waste their frontiers. The Latins, by their own exertions, being joined by the Hernicians, without either a Roman general or Roman auxiliaries, stripped them of their camp. Besides recovering their own effects, they obtained immense booty. The consul C. Nautius, however, was sent against the Volsci from Rome. The custom, I suppose, was not pleasing for allies to carry on wars with their own forces and under their own direction without a Roman general and troops. There was no kind of injury or indignity that was not practised against the Volsci; nor could they be prevailed on however to come to an engagement in the field.

      54

      Lucius Furius and Caius Manlius were the next consuls. The Veientians fell to Manlius as his province. War however did not take place: a truce for forty years was granted them at their request, corn and pay for the soldiers being demanded of them. Disturbance at home immediately succeeds to peace abroad: the commons were goaded by the tribunes with the excitement of the agrarian law. The consuls, nothing intimidated by the condemnation of Menenius, nor by the danger of Servilius, resist with their utmost might; Cn. Genucius, a tribune of the people, arraigned the consuls on their going out of office. Lucius Æmilius and Opiter Virginius enter on the consulate. Instead of Virginius I find Vopiscus Julius consul in some annals. In this year (whatever consuls it had) Furius and Manlius, being summoned to trial before the people, go about in suppliant garb not more to the commons than to the younger patricians; they advise,

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