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by exiles and slaves. Quintius Cincinnatus called from the cultivation of his farm in the country, made dictator, and appointed to conduct the war against the Æquans. He conquers the enemy, and makes them pass under the yoke. The number of the tribunes increased to ten. Decemvirs, appointed for the purpose of digesting and publishing a body of laws. These having promulgated a code of laws contained in ten tables, obtain a continuation of their authority for another year, during which they add two more to the former ten tables. Refusing to resign their office, they retain it a third year. Their conduct at first equitable and just; afterwards arbitrary and tyrannical. The commons, in consequence of the base attempt of Appius Claudius, one of them, to debauch the daughter of Virginius, seize on the Aventine mount, and oblige them to resign. Appius and Oppius, two of the most obnoxious, are thrown into prison, where they put an end to their own lives; the rest are driven into exile. War with the Sabines, Volscians, and Æquans.—Unfair decision of the Roman people, who being chosen arbitrators between the people of Ardea and Aricia concerning some disputed lands, adjudge them to themselves.

      1

      After the taking of Antium, Titus Æmilius and Quintus Fabius are elected consuls. This was the Fabius Quintus who alone had survived the family cut off at Cremera. Already, in his former consulate, Æmilius had been an adviser of giving land to the people. Accordingly in his second consulate also both the abettors of the agrarian law had raised themselves to the hope of carrying the measure, and the tribunes, supposing that a matter frequently attempted in opposition to both consuls might be obtained with the assistance at least of one consul, take it up, and the consul remained stedfast in his sentiments. The possessors and a considerable part of the patricians complaining that a person at the head of the state was recommending himself by his tribunitial proceedings, and that he was making himself popular by giving away other persons' property, had transferred the odium of the entire affair from the tribunes to the consul. A violent contest was at hand, had not Fabius set the matter straight, by an expedient disagreeable to neither party, "that under the conduct and auspices of Titus Quintius, there was a considerable tract of land taken the preceding year from the Volscians; that a colony might be sent to Antium, a neighbouring, convenient, and maritime city; that the commons might come in for lands without any complaints of the present occupiers, that the state might remain in quiet." This proposition was accepted. He appoints as triumvirs for distributing the land, Titus Quintius, Aulus Virginius, and Publius Furius: those who wished to obtain land were ordered to give in their names. The gratification of their aim begat disgust, as usually happens; so few gave in their names that Volscian colonists were added to fill up the number: the rest of the people preferred clamouring for land in Rome, rather than receive it elsewhere. The Æquans sued for peace from Quintus Fabius, (he was sent thither with an army,) and they themselves broke it by a sudden incursion into the Latin territory.

      2

      In the following year Quintus Servilius, (for he was consul with Spurius Posthumius,) being sent against the Æquans, fixed his camp in the Latin territory: inaction necessarily kept the army within the camp, involved as they were in a distemper. The war was protracted to the third year, Quintus Fabius and Titus Quintius being consuls. To Fabius, because he, as conqueror, had granted105 peace to the Æquans, that province was assigned by an extraordinary commission: who, setting out with certain hope that the fame of his name would reduce the Æquans to submission, sent ambassadors to the council of the nation, and ordered them to say "that Quintus Fabius, the consul, stated that he had brought peace to Rome from the Æquans, that from Rome he now brought war to the Æquans, that same right hand being armed, which he had formerly given to them in amity; that the gods were now witnesses, and would presently be avengers of those by whose perfidy and perjury that was brought to pass. That he, however, be matters as they might, would even now prefer that the Æquans should repent of their own accord than be subject to the vengeance of an enemy. If they repent, that there would be a safe retreat in that clemency already experienced; but if they still delighted in perjury, they would wage war with the angry gods rather than with enemies." This statement had so little effect on any of them, that the ambassadors were near being ill-treated, and an army was sent to Algidum against the Romans. When these tidings were brought to Rome, the indignity of the affair, rather than the danger, called out the other consul from the city; thus two consular armies advanced against the enemy in order of battle, so that they might at once engage. But as it so happened that much of the day did not now remain, a person from the advanced guard of the enemy cries out, "This is making a display of war, Romans, not waging it; you draw up your army in line of battle, when night is at hand; we require a greater length of day-light for the contest which is to come on. To-morrow by sun-rise return to the field: you shall have an opportunity of fighting, never fear." The soldiers, stung by these threats, are marched back into the camp till the following day; thinking that the approaching night was tedious, which would cause delay to the contest. Then indeed they refresh their bodies with food and sleep: on the following day, when it was light, the Roman army took their post considerably sooner. At length the Æquans also came forward. The battle was obstinate on both sides, because both the Romans fought under the influence of resentment and hatred; and a consciousness of danger brought on by misconduct, and despair of obtaining future confidence afterwards, obliged the Æquans to exert and have recourse to the most desperate efforts. The Æquans however did not withstand the Roman troops, and when on being beaten they had betaken themselves to their own territories, the outrageous multitude, with dispositions not at all more disposed to peace, began to chide their leaders: "that their interest was committed to the hazard of a pitched battle, in which mode of fighting the Romans were superior. That the Æquans were better fitted for depredations and incursions, and that several parties acting in different directions conducted wars more successfully than the unwieldy mass of one single army."

      3

      Having left therefore a guard on the camp, they marched out and attacked the Roman frontiers with such fury, as to carry terror even to the city: the unexpected nature of the thing also caused more alarm, because nothing could be less apprehended, than that an enemy, vanquished and almost besieged in their camp, should entertain a thought of depredation: and the peasants, in a panic pouring in at the gates, cried out, that it was not mere plundering, nor small parties of depredators, but, exaggerating every thing through groundless fear, that whole armies and legions of the enemy were advancing, and that they were pushing forward to the city determined for an assault. Those who were nearest (the gates) carried to others the accounts heard from these, uncertain as they were, and therefore the more groundless; and the hurry and confused clamour of those calling to arms bore no distant resemblance to the panic of a city taken by storm. It so happened that the consul Quintius had returned to Rome from Algidum; this was some relief for their terror; and the tumult being calmed, and after chiding them for being in dread of a vanquished enemy, he posted a guard on the gates. Then having convened the senate, when he set out to defend the frontiers, a suspension106 of civil business having been proclaimed by a decree of the senate, leaving Quintus Servilius behind as prefect of the city, he found no enemy in the country. Matters were conducted with distinguished success by the other consul; who having attacked the enemy, wherever he knew that they were to come, laden with booty, and proceeding therefore with their army the more encumbered, made their depredation prove fatal to them. Few of the enemy escaped from the ambuscade; all the booty was recovered; thus the return of the consul Quintius to the city put a termination to the justitium, which lasted only four days. A census was then held, and the lustrum was closed by Quintius: the number of citizens rated are said to have been one hundred and twenty-four thousand two hundred and fourteen, besides orphans of both sexes. Nothing memorable occurred afterwards among the Æquans; they betook themselves into their towns, suffering their possessions to be consumed by fire and to be devastated. The consul, after he had repeatedly carried depredation through the entire country of the enemy, returned to Rome with great glory and booty.

      4

      Then Aulus Posthumius Albus and Spurius Furius Fusus were consuls. Furii some writers have written Fusii; this I mention, lest any one may imagine that the change, which is only in the names, may be in the persons themselves. There was no doubt but that one of the consuls would commence hostilities against

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