menu_book Chapter 10

Part 1. Book 2. From the Founding of the City. Volume 1. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.

From the Foundation of the City. Volume 1. By Titus Livius. Translated by George Baker. Book 2. Part 1.

Henceforward I am the treat of the affairs, civil and military, of a free people. for such the Romans were now become, of annual magistrates, in the authority of the laws, exalted above that of men. What greatly enhanced the public joy on having obtained to this state of freedom was the haughty insolence of the late king, for the former kings governed in such a manner, that all of them in secession might deservedly be reckoned as founders of the

several parts at least of the city, which they added to it, to accommodate the great numbers of inhabitants, whom they themselves introduced. Nor can it be doubted that the same Brutus, who justly merited so great glory for having expelled that haughty king, would have hurt the public interest most materially had he, through an over-hasty zeal for liberty, wrested the government from any one of the former princes. For what must have been the consequence, if that

rabble of shepherds and vagabonds, fugitives from their own countries, having, under the sanction of an inviolable asylum, obtained liberty, or at least impunity, and, uncontrolled by the dread of kingly power, had once been set in commotion by tribunician storms, and had, in a city where they were strangers, engaged in contest with the patricians, before the pledges of wives and children, and an affection for the soil itself, which in length of time is acquired from habit,

and had united their minds in social concord. The state, as yet but a tender shoot, had in that case been torn to pieces by discord, whereas the tranquil moderation of the then government cherished it, and by due nourishment brought it forward to such a condition that its powers being ripened, it was capable of producing the glorious fruits of liberty. The origin of liberty is to be dated from that period, rather on account of the consular government being limited to one year,

than of any diminution made of the power which had been possessed by the kings. The first consuls enjoyed all their privileges, and all their ensigns of authority. In this respect only, care was taken, not to double the objects of terror by giving the facies to both of the consuls. Brutus, with the consent of his colleague, was first honored with the facies, and the zeal which he had shown as the champion of liberty in rescuing it from oppression, was not greater than

that which he afterwards displayed in the character of its guardian. First of all, while the people were in raptures at their new acquisition of freedom, lest they might afterwards be perverted by the importunities or presence of the princes, he bound them by an oath that they would never suffer any man to assume the authority of king at Rome. Next, in order that the fullness of their body, might give the greater weight to the senate, he filled up the numbers of the senators, which

had been diminished by the king's murders, to the amount of three hundred, electing to that body the principal men of equestrian rank, and hence the practice is said to have taken its rise of summoning to the senate those who are fathers, and those who are conscripti, for they called those who were elected into this new senate conscripti. This had a wonderful effect towards producing concord in the senate, and in attaching the affection of the commons to the patricians.

People then turned their attention to matters of religion, and because some public religious rites had usually been performed by the kings in person, in order that these should be no want of one in any occasion, they appointed a king of the sacrifices. This office they made subject to the jurisdiction of the pontiff, fearing lest honor, being joined to the title, might in some shape be injurious to liberty, which was then the first object of their concern. I know not whether they

did not carry to excess their great anxiety to raise bulwarks to it, on all sides, even in points of the most trivial consequence. For the name of one of the consuls, though there was no other cause of dislike, became a subject of jealousy to the people. It was alleged, the Tarquinii had been too long accustomed to the possession of sovereign power. Priscus first began. Next, indeed, reigned Servilius Tullius. Yet, though that interruption occurred, Tarquinius Superbus

never lost sight of the crown, so as to consider it the right of another, but by violence and by flagitious means reclaimed it, as the inheritance of his family. Now that Superbus had been expelled, the government was in the hands of Colatinus. The Tarquinii knew not how to live in a private station. The very name itself was displeasing and dangerous to liberty. These discourses were at first gradually circulated through every part of the city, for the purpose of trying the disposition

of the people. After the suspicions of the commons had, by these suggestions, been sufficiently excited, Brutus called them together. When they were assembled, after first reciting the oath which the people had taken, that they would never suffer a king at Rome, or anything else that might be dangerous to liberty. He told them that they must support this resolution with their utmost power, and that no circumstance of any tendency that way ought to be overlooked, that from his

regard to the person alluded to, he mentioned the matter unwillingly, nor would he have mentioned it at all, did not his affection for the commonwealth outweigh all other considerations. The Roman people did not think that they had recovered entire freedom. The regal family, the regal name, remained, not only in the city, but in the government. This was a circumstance not merely unpropitious, but dangerous to liberty.

Do you, Lucius Tarquinius, of your own accord, remove from us this apprehension? We remember, we acknowledge that you expelled the princes. Complete your kindness. Carry hence your name. Your countrymen, on my recommendation, will not give you up your property,

but if you have occasion for more, will make liberal additions to it. Depart in friendship, deliver the state from this, it may be groundless, apprehension. But the opinion is deeply rooted in their minds that, only with the race of the Tarquinii, will kingly power depart hence. Astonishment at this extraordinary and unexpected affair,

at first deprive the consul of all power of utterance, and when he afterwards began to speak the principal men of the state gathered round him and with earnest importunity urged the same request others affected him less but when spurious lucretius his superior in age and dignity of character and his father-in-law besides began to try every method of persuasion using by turns arguments and entreaties that he would suffer himself to be overcome by the general sense of his countrymen the consul fearing lest hereafter when he should have returned to a private station the same measures might be used against him with the additional perhaps of the confiscation of his property and other marks of ignominy resigned the office of consul and removing all his effects to lavinium withdrew from the territories of the state

brutus in pursuance of a decree of the senate proposed to the people that all who were of the tarquinian family should be banished and in an assembly of the centuries he elected for his colleague publius valerius who had been his assistant in expelling the royal family no person now doubted but war would be immediately commenced by the tarquinii that event however did not take place as soon as was expected but what they entertained no apprehension of liberty was very near being lost by secret machinations and treachery there were among the romans several young men of no inconsiderable families who during the reign of the king had indulged their pleasures too freely and being of the same age and constant companions of the younger tarquinii had been accustomed to live in a princely style the privileges of all ranks being now reduced to one level these grew uneasy at the restraint hereby laid on their irregularities and complained heavily among themselves that the liberty of others had imposed slavery on them

a king was a human being from him a request might be obtained whether right or wrong with him there was room for favor and for acts of kindness he could be angry and he could forgive he knew a distinction between a friend and an enemy but the law was a deaf inexorable being circulated rather for the safety and advantage of the poor than of the rich and admitted of no relaxation or indulgence if its bounds were transgressed men being liable to so many mistakes to have no other security but innocence is a hazardous situation while their minds were in this discontented state ambassadors arrived from the tarquinii who without any mention of their restoration demanded only their effects the senate having granted them an audience continued their deliberations on the subject for several days being apprehensive that a refusal to give them up would afford a plausible reason for a war and the giving them up a fund in aid of it meanwhile the ambassadors were busily employed in schemes of another nature whilst they openly demanded the effects they were secretly forming a plan for recovering the throne and addressing themselves to the young nobles seemingly on the business which they were supposed to have in charge they made trial of their dispositions

to those who lent an ear to their suggestions they delivered letters from the tarquinii and concerted measures with them for receiving those princes privately into the city by night the business was first entrusted to the brothers of the name vitellii and those of the name aquilii a sister of the vitellii had been married to the consul brutus and there were two sons of that marriage now grown up titus and tiberius these were led in by their uncles to take part in the design and several others of the young nobility were drawn into the conspiracy whose names at this distance of time are unknown In the meanwhile, the opinion of those who advised the giving up of the property, having prevailed in the Senate, this afforded the ambassadors a pretext for remaining in the city, because they had been allowed time by the consuls to procure carriages for the conveyance of the effects of the princes, all which time they spent in consultations with the conspirators, and had, by pressing instances, prevailed upon them to send letters for the Tyquinii. for without these how could they be so fully assured as an affair of that high importance required that the report of the ambassadors were not groundless

these letters given as a pledge of their sincerity proved the means of detecting the plot for the day before that on which they were to return to the tarquinii the ambassadors happening to sup with the vitellii and the conspirators having here in private had much conversation as was natural on the subject for their new enterprise their discourse was overheard by one of the slaves who had before this discovered that such a design was in agitation but waited for this opportunity until the letters should be given to the ambassadors because these being seized would furnish full proof of the transaction as soon as he found that they were delivered he made a discovery of the affair to the consuls the consuls setting from home directly and apprehending the ambassadors and conspirators in the fact effectually crushed the affair without any tumult taking particular care with regard to the letters that they should not escape them they instantly threw the traitors into chains but hesitated for some time with regard to proceeding against the ambassadors

and though by their behaviour they had deserved to be treated as enemies yet regard to the law of nations prevailed with respect to the effects of the princes which they had before ordered to be restored the business was now laid before the senate for reconsideration and they actuated entirely by resentment decreed that they should not be restored but converted to the use of the state they were therefore given up to the commons as plunder with the intent that these after such an act of violence against the princes as the seizing of their effects might for ever lose all hope of reconciliation with them the land of the tarquinii which lay between the city and the tiber being consecrated to the god of war has from that time been called the field of mars it happened that there was then on that ground a crop of corn ripe for the sickle and because it would be an impiety to make use of this produce of the field a great number of men were set in at once who having cut it down carried it in baskets

and threw it grain and straw together into the tiber whose waters were low at that time as is generally the case in the middle of summer the heaps of corn then being frequently stopped for a while in the shallows and having contracted a covering of mud sunk and remained fixed and by this means the efflux of other materials from which stream is apt to carry down an island was gradually formed i suppose that mounds were added afterwards and assistance given by art to raise the surface to its present height and give it sufficient firmness to support temples and porticoes after the people had made plunder of the effects of the princes the traitors were condemned and executed and the execution was the more remarkable on this account that his office of consul imposed on a father the severe duty of inflicting punishment on his own sons and that he, who hoped not to have been present as a spectator, was yet the very person whom fortune pitched on to exact the penalty of their offence. The youths, all of the first distinction,

stood tied to stakes, but the sons of the consul entirely engaged the eyes of the spectators, as if the others were persons unknown, and people felt compassion, not only for their punishment, but even for the crime by which they had brought it on themselves. To think that, they could, during that year particularly, have been induced to entertain a design of betraying their country, just delivered from tyranny. Their father, its deliverer, the consulship,

which had commenced in the Junian family, the patricians, commons, in a word, whatever Rome held in its highest veneration, into the hands of one who was formerly a tyrannical king, now in enraged exile. The consuls mounted their throne, and the lictors were sent to inflict the punishment. After stripping the criminals naked, they beat them with rods and beheaded them. Whilst, through the whole process of the affair, the looks and countenance of Brutus afforded an

extraordinary spectacle, the feelings of the father often struggling with the character of the magistrate, enforcing the execution of the laws. Justice done to the offenders, in order to exhibit a striking example for the prevention of crimes in their treatment of the several parties, They gave, as a reward to the discoverer of the treason, a sum of money out of the treasury, his freedom, and the rights of a citizen. This man is said to have been made free by the vindicta.

Some think that the term vindicta was taken from him, his name having been vindicticus. After him it obtained as a rule that whoever was made free in that manner should be considered and admitted a citizen. Tarquinius, on being informed of these transactions, became inflamed, not only with grief for the disappointment of such promising hopes, but with hatred and resentment, and finding every path shut against secret plots, determined to have recourse to open war. And to that end he went

round to all the cities of Etruria, in the character of a suppliant, addressing himself particularly to the people of Weii and Tarquinii, entreating them not to suffer him, who was sprung from themselves, and of the same blood, who was lately possessed of so great a kingdom, now exiled and in want, to perish before their eyes, together with the young men, his sons. Others had been invited from foreign countries to Rome, to fill the throne, but he, when in

possession of the government, and while he was employing its arms and extending the limits of the Roman Empire, was expelled by a villainous conspiracy of men, who were most closely connected with him, who, because no one of their number was qualified to hold the reins of government, had forcibly shared the several parts of it among them, and had given up his property to be plundered by the populace, to the intent that all might be equally guilty. He only wished to be restored to

his own country and crown, and to be avenged on his ungrateful subjects. He besought them to support and assist him, and at the same time to take revenge for the injuries which they themselves had sustained of old, for their legions so often slaughtered, and their lands taken from them. These arguments had the desired effect on the Wayintians, every one of whom earnestly, and with menaces, declared that, ought now at least, with a Roman at their head,

to efface the memory of their disgraces, and recover by arms what had been lost. The people of Tarquinii was moved by his name, and his relation to themselves. They thought it redounded to their honor that their countrymen should reign at Rome. Thus two armies of two states followed Tarquinius to demand his restoration, and to prosecute war against the Romans. When they advanced into the Roman territories, the consuls marched out to meet

the enemy. Valerius led the infantry in order of battle. Brutus with the cavalry marched at some distance from them, in order to procure intelligence. In like manner the vanguard of the enemy was composed of cavalry, under the command of Aruns Tarquinius, the king's son. The king himself followed with the legions. Aruns, perceiving at a distance, by the lictors, that a consul was there, and afterwards on a nearer approach plainly distinguished Brutus by his face, became

inflamed with rage, and cried out, That is the man who has driven us as exiles from our country. See how he marches in state, decorated with our ensigns. Ye gods, avengers of kings, assist me. He then spurred on his horse, and drove furiously against the consul. Brutus perceived that the attack was meant for him, and as it was at that time reckoned not improper for generals themselves to engage in fight, he eagerly offered himself to the combat,

and they advanced against each other with such furious animosity, neither thinking of guarding his own person, but solely intent on wounding his enemy, that, in the violence of the conflict, each of them received his antagonist spear in his body, through his buckler, and being entangled together by the two spears, they both fell lifeless from their horses. At the same time the rest of the cavalry began to engage, and were shortly afterwards

joined by the infantry. A battle then ensued, in which victory seemed alternately to incline to either party, the advantages being nearly equal, for the right wings of both armies got the better, and the left were worsted. At length the Wayantians, accustomed to be vanquished by the Roman troops, were routed and dispersed. The Tarquinians, a new enemy, not only kept their ground, but even on their side made the Romans give way. End of Book Two, Part One.