[5,0] BOOK V.

[5,1] The Roman monarchy, therefore, after having continued for the space of two 
hundred and forty-four years from the founding of Rome and having under the last 
king become a tyranny, was overthrown for the reasons stated and by the men 
named, at the beginning of the sixty-eighth Olympiad  (the one in which Ischomachus 
of Croton won the foot-race), Isagoras being the annual archon at Athens.  An 
aristocracy being now established, while there still remained about four months to 
complete that year, Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus were the 
first consuls invested with the royal power; the Romans, as I have said,  call them in 
their own language consules or "counsellors." These men, associating with 
themselves many others, now that the soldiers from the camp had come to the city 
after the truce they had made with the Ardeates, (p5) called an assembly of the people a 
few days after the expulsion of the tyrant, and having spoken at length upon the 
advantages of harmony, again caused them to pass another vote confirming 
everything which those in the city had previously voted when condemning the 
Tarquinii to perpetual banishment. After this they performed rites of purification for 
the city and entered into a solemn covenant; and they themselves, standing over the 
parts of the victims, first swore, and then prevailed upon the rest of the citizens 
likewise to swear, that they would never restore from exile King Tarquinius or his 
sons or their posterity, and that they would never again make anyone king of Rome or 
permit others who wished to do so; and this oath they took not only for themselves, 
but also for their children and their posterity. However, since it appeared that the 
kings had been the authors of many great advantages to the commonwealth, they 
desired to preserve the name of that office for as long a time as the city should 
endure, and accordingly they ordered the pontiffs and augurs to choose from among 
them the older men the most suitable one for the office, who should have the 
superintendence of religious observances and of naught else, being exempt from all 
military and civil duties, and should be called the king of sacred rites. The first 
person appointed to this office was Manius Papirius, one of the patricians, who was a 
lover of peace and quiet. 

[5,2] After the consuls had settled these matters, fearing, as I suspect, that the masses 
might gain a false impression of their new form of government and (p7) imagine that 
two kings had become masters of the state instead of one, since each of the consuls 
had the twelve axes, like the kings, they resolved to quiet the fears of the citizens and 
to lessen the hatred of their power by ordering that one of the consuls should be 
preceded by the twelve axes and the other by twelve lictors with rods only, or, as some 
relate, with clubsa also, and that they should receive the axes in rotation, each consul 
possessing them in turn one month. By this and not a few other measures of like 
nature they caused the plebeians and the lower class to be eager for a continuance of 
the existing order. For they restored the laws introduced by Tullius concerning 
contracts, which seemed to be humane and democratic, but had all been abrogated by 
Tarquinius; and they restored to the people the right of holding assemblies 
concerning affairs of the greatest moment, of giving their votes, and of doing all the 
other things they had been wont to do according to former custom. These acts of the 
consuls pleased the masses, who had come out of long slavery into unexpected 
liberty; nevertheless, there were found among them some, and these no obscure 
persons, who from either simplicity or greed longed for the evils existing under a 
tyranny, and these formed a (p9) conspiracy to betray the city, agreeing together, not 
only to restore Tarquinius, but also to kill the consuls. Who the heads of this 
conspiracy and by what unexpected good fortune they were detected, though they 
imagined they had escaped the notice of everybody, shall now be related, after I have 
first gone back and mentioned a few things that happened earlier. 

[5,3] Tarquinius, after being driven from the throne, remained a short time in the city of 
Gabii, both to receive such as came to him from Rome, to whom tyranny was a more 
desirable thing than liberty, and to await the event of the hopes he placed in the 
Latins of being restored to the sovereignty by their aid. But when their cities paid no 
heed to him and were unwilling to make war upon the Roman state on his account, he 
despaired of any assistance from them and took refuge in Tarquinii, a Tyrrhenian 
city, from whence his family on his mother's side had originally come. And having 
bribed the magistrates of the Tarquinienses with gifts and been brought by them 
before the assembly of the people, he renewed the ties of kinship which existed 
between him and their city, recounted the favours his grandfather had conferred on 
all the Tyrrhenian cities, and reminded them of the treaties they had made with him. 
After all this, he lamented the calamities which had overtaken him, showing how, 
after having fallen in one day from the height of felicity, he had been compelled, as a 
wanderer in want (p11) of the necessaries of life, to fly for refuge, together with his three 
sons, to those who had once been his subjects. Having thus recounted his 
misfortunes with many lamentations and tears, he prevailed upon the people, first of 
all to send ambassadors to Rome to possess terms of accommodation on his behalf, 
assuring them that the men in power there were working in his interest and would aid 
in his restoration. Ambassadors, of his own selection, having then been appointed, 
he instructed them in everything they were to say and do; and giving them letters 
from the exiles who were with him, containing entreaties to their relations and 
friends, he gave them some gold also and sent them on their way. 

[5,4] When these men arrived in Rome, they said in the senate that Tarquinius desired 
leave to come there under a safe-conduct, together with a small retinue, and to 
address himself, first to the senate, as was right and proper, and after that, if he 
received permission from the senate, to the assembly of the people also, and there 
give an account of all his actions from the time of his accession to the sovereignty, 
and if anyone accused him, to submit himself to the judgment of all the Romans. 
And after he had made his defence and convinced them all that he had done nothing 
worthy of banishment, he would then, if they gave him the sovereignty again, reign 
upon such conditions as the citizens should determine; or, if they preferred no longer 
to live under a monarchy, as formerly, but to establish some other form of 
government, he would remain in Rome, which was his native city, and enjoying his 
private property, would live on an equality with all the others, (p13) and thus have done 
with exile and a life of wandering. Having stated their case, the ambassadors begged 
of the senate that they would preferably, on the principle of the right, recognized by 
all men, that no one should be deprived of the opportunity of defending himself and 
of being tried, grant him leave to make his defence, of which the Romans themselves 
would be the judges; but if they were unwilling to grant this favour to him, then they 
asked them to act with moderation out of regard for the city that interceded on his 
behalf, by granting her a favour from which they would suffer no harm themselves 
and yet would be looked upon as conferring great honour upon the city that received 
it. And they asked them, as being men, not to think thoughts too lofty for human 
nature or to harbour undying resentment in mortal bodies, but to consent to perform 
an act of clemency even contrary to their inclination, for the sake of those who 
entreated them, bearing in mind that it is the part of wise men to waive their enmities 
in the interest of their friendships and the part of stupid men and barbarians to 
destroy their friends together with their enemies. 

[5,5] After they had done speaking, Brutus rose up and said: "Concerning a return of the 
Tarquinii to this city, Tyrrhenians, say no more. For a vote has already been passed 
condemning them to perpetual banishment, and we have all sworn by the gods 
neither to restore the tyrants ourselves nor to permit others to restore them. But if 
you desire anything else of us that is reasonable which were not prevented from doing 
by the laws or by our oaths, declare it." Thereupon the ambassadors came forward 
and said: "Our first efforts have not turned out as we (p15) expected. For, though we 
have come as ambassadors on behalf of a suppliant who desires to give you an 
account of his actions, and though we ask as a private favour the right that is common 
to all men, we have not been able to obtain it. Since, then, this is your decision, we 
plead no longer for the return of the Tarquinii, but we do call upon you to perform an 
act of justice of another kind, concerning which our country has given us instructions 
— and there is neither law nor oath to hinder you from doing it — namely, to restore 
to the king the property formerly possessed by his grandfather, who however got 
anything of yours either by force or by fraud, but inherited his wealth from his father 
and brought it to you. For it is enough for him to recover what belongs to him and to 
live happily in some other place, without causing you any annoyance." 
After the ambassadors had said this, they withdrew. Of the two consuls, Brutus 
advised retaining the fortunes of the tyrants, both as a penalty for the injuries they 
had done to the commonwealth, which were many and great, and for the advantage 
that would result from depriving them of these resources for war; for he showed that 
the Tarquinii would not be contented with the recovery of their possessions nor 
submit to leading a private life, but would bring a foreign war upon the Romans and 
attempt by force to get back into power. But Collatinus advised the contrary, saying 
that it was not the possessions of the tyrants, but the tyrants themselves, that had 
injured the commonwealth, and he asked them to guard against two things: first, not 
to incur the bad opinion of the world as having driven the Tarquinii from power for 
the sake of their riches, (p17) and, secondly, not to give the tyrants themselves a just 
cause for war as having been deprived of their private property. For it was uncertain, 
he said, whether, if they got back their possessions, they would any longer attempt to 
make war upon them in order to secure their return from exile, but it was perfectly 
clear, on the other hand, that they would not consent to keep the peace if they were 
deprived of their property. 

[5,6] As the consuls expressed these opinions and many spoke in favour of each, the 
senate was at a loss what to do and spent many days in considering the matter; for 
while the opinion of Brutus seemed more expedient, the course urged by Collatinus 
was more just. At last they determined to make the people the judges between 
expediency and justice. After much had been said by each of the consuls, the curiae, 
which were thirty in number, upon being called to give their votes, inclined to one 
side by so small a margin that the curiae in favour of restoring the possessions 
outnumbered by only one those that were for retaining them. The Tyrrhenians, 
having received their answer from the consuls and given great praise to the 
commonwealth for having preferred justice to expediency, wrote to Tarquinius to 
send some persons to receive his possessions, while they themselves remained in the 
city, pretending to be employed in collecting his furniture and disposing of the effects 
that could not be driven or carried away, whereas in reality they were stirring up 
trouble in the city and carrying on (p19) intrigues, pursuant to the instructions the 
tyrant had sent them. For they employed themselves in delivering letters from the 
exiles to their friends in the city and in receiving others from these for the exiles; and 
engaging in conversation with many of the citizens and sounding their sentiments, if 
they found any easy to be ensnared through the feebleness of conviction, lack of 
means, or a longing for the advantages they had enjoyed under the tyranny, they 
endeavoured to corrupt them by holding out fair hopes and giving them money. And
in a large and populous city there were sure to be found, as we may suppose, some 
who would prefer a worse to a better form of government, and that not only among 
the obscure, but even among the men of distinction. Of this number were the two 
Junii, Titus and Tiberius, the sons of Brutus the consul, then just coming to 
manhood, and with them the two Vitellii, Marcus and Manius, brothers of the wife of 
Brutus, men capable of administering public affairs, and also the Aquilii, Lucius and 
Marcus, sons of the sister of Collatinus, the other consul, of the same age with the 
sons of Brutus. It was at the house of the Aquilii, whose father was no longer living, 
that the conspirators generally held their meetings and laid their plans for bringing 
back the tyrants. 

[5,7] Not only from many other circumstances has it seemed to me to be due to the 
providence of the gods that the affairs of the Romans have come to such a flourishing 
condition, but particularly by what happened upon this occasion. For so great a folly 
and (p21) infatuation possessed those unfortunate youths that they consented to write 
letters to the tyrant in their own hand, informing him not only of the number of their 
accomplices, but also of the time when they proposed to make the attack upon the 
consuls. They had been persuaded to do so by the letters that came to them from the 
tyrant, in which he desired to know beforehand the names of the Romans whom he 
ought to reward after he had regained the sovereignty. The consuls got possession of 
these letters by the following chance. The principal conspirators used to hold night 
sessions at the house of the Aquilii, the sons of the sister of Collatinus, being invited 
there ostensibly for some religious rites and a sacrifice. After the banquet they first 
ordered the servants to go out of the room and to withdraw from before the door of 
the men's apartment, and then proceeded to discuss together the means of restoring 
the tyrants and to set down in the letters in their own handwriting the decisions 
arrived at; these letters the Aquilii were to deliver to the Tyrrhenian ambassadors, 
and they in turn to Tarquinius. In the mean time one of the servants, who was their 
cup-bearer and a captive taken at Caenina, Vindicius by name, suspecting, from their 
ordering the servants to withdraw, that they were plotting some mischief, remained 
alone outs the door, and not only heard their conversation, but, by applying his eye to 
a crevice of the door that afforded a glimpse inside, saw the letters they were all 
writing. And setting out from the house while it was still the dead of night, as if he 
had been sent by his (p23) masters upon some business, he hesitated to go to the 
consuls, lest, in their desire the keep the matter quiet out of goodwill for their 
kinsmen, they might do away with the one who gave information of the conspiracy, 
but went to Publius Valerius, one of the four who had taken the lead in overthrowing 
the tyranny; and when this man had given him assurance of his safety by offering his 
hand and swearing oaths, he informed him of all that he had both heard and seen. 
Valerius, upon hearing this story, made no delay, but went to the house of the Aquilii 
about daybreak, attended by a large number of clients and friends; and getting inside 
the door without hindrance, as having come upon some other business, while the lads 
were still there, he got possession of the letters, and seizing the youths, took them 
before the consuls. 

[5,8] I am afraid that the subsequent noble and astonishing behaviour of Brutus, one of 
the consuls, which I am now to relate and in which the Romans take the greatest 
pride, may appear cruel and incredible to the Greeks, since it is natural for all men to 
judge by their own experience whatever is said of others, and to determine what is 
credible and incredible with reference to themselves. Nevertheless, I shall relate it. 
As soon, then, as it was day, Brutus seated himself upon the tribunal and examined 
the letters of the conspirators; and when he found those written by his sons, each of 
which he recognized by the seals, and, after he had broken the seals, by the 
handwriting, (p25) he first ordered both letters to be read by the secretary in the hearing 
of all who were present, and then commanded his sons to speak if they had anything 
to say. But when neither of them dared resort to shameless denial, but both wept, 
having long since convicted themselves, Brutus, after a short pause, rose up and 
commanding silence, while everyone was waiting to learn what sentence he would 
pronounce, said he condemned his sons to death. Whereupon they all cried out, 
indignant that such a man should be punished by the death of his sons, and they 
wished to spare the lives of the youths as a favour to their father. But he, paying no 
heed to either their cries or their lamentations, ordered the lictors to lead the youths 
away, though they wept and begged and called upon him in the most tender terms. 
Even this seemed astonishing to everybody, that he did not yield at all to either the 
entreaties of the citizens or the laments of his sons; but much more astonishing still 
was his relentlessness with regard to their punishment. For he neither permitted his 
sons to be led away to any other place and put to death out of sight of the public, nor 
did he himself, in order to avoid the dreadful spectacle, withdraw from the Forum till 
after they had been punished; nor did he allow them to undergo the doom 
pronounced against them without ignominy, but he caused every detail of the 
punishment established by the laws and customs against malefactors to be observed, 
and only after they had been (p27) scourged in the Forum in the sight of all the citizens, 
he himself being present when all this was done, did he then allow their heads to be 
cut off with the axes. But the most extraordinary and the most astonishing part of his 
behaviour was that he did not once avert his gaze nor shed a tear, and while all the 
rest who were present at this sad spectacle wept, he was the only person who was 
observed not to lament the fate of his sons, nor to pity himself for the desolation that 
was coming upon his house, nor to betray any other signs of weakness, but without a 
tear, without a groan, without once shifting his gaze, he bore his calamity with a stout 
heart. So strong of will was he, so steadfast in carrying out the sentence, and so 
completely the master of all the passions that disturb the reason. 

[5,9] After he had caused his sons to be put to death, he at once summoned the nephews 
of his colleague, the Aquilii, at whose house the meetings of the conspirators against 
the state had been held; and ordering the secretary to read out their letters, that all 
present might hear them, he told them they might make their defence. When the 
youths were brought before the tribunal, either acting on the suggestion of one of 
their friends or having agreed upon it themselves, they threw themselves at the feet of 
their uncle in hopes of being saved by him. And when Brutus ordered the lictors to 
drag them away (p29) and lead them off to death, unless they wished to make a defence, 
Collatinus, ordering the lictors to forbear a little while till he had talked with his 
colleague, took him aside and earnestly entreated him to spare the lads, now excusing 
them on the ground that through the ignorance of their youth and evil associations 
with friends they had fallen into this madness, and again begging him to grant him as 
a favour the lives of his kinsmen, the only favour he asked of him and the only trouble 
he should ever give him, and still again showing him that there was danger that the 
whole city would be thrown into an uproar if they attempted to punish with death all 
who were believed to have been working with the exiles for their return, since there 
were many such and some of them were of no obscure families. But being unable to 
persuade him, he at last asked him not to condemn them to death, but to impose a 
moderate punishment on them, declaring that it was absurd, after punishing the 
tyrants with banishment only, to punish the friends of the tyrants with death. And 
when Brutus opposed even the equitable punishment that he suggested and was 
unwilling even to put off the trials of the accused (for this was the last request his 
colleague made), but threatened and swore he would put them all to death that very 
day, Collatinus, distressed at obtaining naught that he was asking, exclaimed: "Well 
then, since you are boorish and harsh, I, who possess the same authority as you, set 
the lads free." And Brutus, exasperated, replied: "Not while I am alive, Collatinus, 
shall you be able to free those who are traitors to their country. Nay, but you too shall 
pay the fitting penalty, and that right soon." 

[5,10] (p31) Having said this and stationed a guard over the lads, he called an assembly of 
the people, and when the Forum was filled with a crowd (for the fate of his sons had 
been noised abroad through the whole city), he came forward and placing the most 
distinguished members of the senate near him, spoke as follows: "I could wish, 
citizens, that Collatinus, my colleague here, held the same sentiments as I do in 
everything and that he showed his hatred and enmity towards the tyrants, not by his 
words only, but by his actions as well. But since it had become clear to me that his 
sentiments are the opposite of my own and since he is related to the Tarquinii, not 
alone by blood, but also by inclination, both working for a reconciliation with them 
and considering his private advantage instead of the public good, I have not only 
made my own preparations to prevent him from carrying out the mischievous designs 
he has in mind, but I have also summoned you for this same purpose. I shall inform 
you, first, of the dangers to which the commonwealth has been exposed and then in 
what manner each of us has dealt with those dangers. Some of the citizens, 
assembling at the house of the Aquilii, who are sons of the sister of Collatinus, among 
them my two sons and the brothers of my wife, and some others with them, no 
obscure men, entered into an agreement and conspiracy to kill me and restore 
Tarquinius to the sovereignty. And having written letters concerning these matters in 
their own handwriting and sealed them with their own seals, they were intending to 
send them to the (p33) exiles. These things, by the favour of some god, have become 
known to us through information given by this man — he is a slave belonging to the 
Aquilii, at whose house they held a session last night and wrote the letters — and the 
letters themselves have come into our possession. As for Titus and Tiberius, my own 
sons, I have punished them, and neither the law nor our oath has in any degree been 
violated through clemency on my part. But Collatinus is trying to take the Aquilii out 
of my hands and declares that, even though they have taken part in the same counsels 
as my sons, he will not allow them to meet with the same punishment. But if these 
are not to suffer any penalty, then it will be impossible for me to punish either the 
brothers of my wife or the other traitors to their country. For what just charge shall I 
be able to bring against them if I let these off? Of what, then, do you think these 
actions of his are indications? Of loyalty to the commonwealth, or of a reconciliation 
with the tyrants? Of a confirmation of the oaths which you, following us, all took, or 
of a violation of those oaths, yes, of perjury? And if he had escaped discovery by us, 
he would have been subject to the curses we then invoked and he would have paid the 
penalty to the gods by whom he had sworn falsely; but since he has been found out, it 
is fitting that he should be punished by us — this man who but a few days ago 
persuaded you to restore their possessions to the tyrants, to the end that the 
commonwealth might not make use of them in the war against our enemies, but that 
our enemies might use them against the commonwealth. And now he thinks that 
those who have conspired to restore the tyrants (p35) ought to be let off from 
punishment, with a view no doubt of sparing their lives as a favour to the tyrants, so 
that, if these should after all return as the result of either treachery or war, he may, by 
reminding them of these favours, obtain from them, as being a friend, everything that 
he chooses. After this, shall I, who have not spared my own sons, spare you, 
Collatinus, who are with us indeed in person, but with our enemies in spirit, and are 
trying to save those who have betrayed their country and to kill me who am fighting 
in its defence? Far from it! On the contrary, to prevent you from doing anything of the 
kind in future, I now deprive you of your magistracy and command you to retire to 
some other city. And as for you, citizens, I shall assemble you at once by your 
centuries and take your votes, in order that you may decide whether this action of 
mine should be ratified. Be assured, however, that you will have only one of us two for 
your consul, either Collatinus or Brutus." 

[5,11] While Brutus was thus speaking, Collatinus kept crying out and loudly protesting 
and at every word calling him a plotter and a betrayer of his friends, and now by 
endeavouring to clear himself of the accusations against him, and now by pleading for 
his nephews, and by refusing to allow the matter to be put to the vote of the citizens, 
he made the people still angrier and caused a terrible uproar at everything he said. 
The citizens being now exasperated against him and refusing either to hear his 
defence or to listen to his entreaties, but calling (p37) for their votes to be taken, Spurius 
Lucretius, his father-in-law, a man esteemed by the people, feeling concern about the 
situation, lest Collatinus should be ignominiously driven from office and from his 
country, asked and obtained from both consuls leave to speak. He was the first person 
who ever obtained this privilege, as the Roman historians relate, since it was not yet 
customary at that time for a private citizen to speak in an assembly of the people. And 
addressing his entreaties to both consuls jointly, he advised Collatinus not to persist 
so obstinately in his opposition nor to retain against the will of the citizens the 
magistracy which he had received by their consent, but if those who had given it 
thought fit to take back the magistracy, to lay it down voluntarily, and to attempt to 
clear himself of the accusations against him, not by his words, but by his actions, and 
to remove with all his goods to some other region till the commonwealth should be in 
a state of security, since the good of the people seemed to require this. For he should 
bear in mind that, whereas in the case of other crimes all men are wont to show their 
resentment after the deed has been committed, in the case of treason they do so even 
when it is only suspected, regarding it as more prudent, though their fears may be 
vain, to guard against the treason than, by giving way to contempt, to be undone. As 
for Brutus, he endeavoured to persuade him not to expel from his country with shame 
and vituperation his colleague with whom he had concerted the best measures for the 
commonwealth, but if Collatinus himself was willing to resign the magistracy and 
leave the country voluntarily, not only to give him leave to get together all his 
substance (p39) at his leisure, but also to add some gift from the public treasury, to the 
end that this favour conferred upon him by the people might be a comfort to him in 
his affliction. 

[5,12] When Lucretius thus advised both consuls and the citizens had voiced their 
approval, Collatinus, uttering many lamentations over his misfortune in being 
obliged, because of the compassion he had shown to his kinsmen, to leave his 
country, though he was guilty of no crime, resigned his magistracy. Brutus, praising 
him for having taken the best and the most advantageous resolution for both himself 
and the commonwealth, exhorted him not to entertain any resentment either against 
him or against his country, but after he had taken up his residence elsewhere, to 
regard as his country the home he was now leaving, and never to join with her 
enemies in any action or speech directed against her; in fine, to consider his change 
of residence as a sojourn abroad, not as an expulsion or a banishment, and while 
living in body with those who had received him, to dwell in spirit with those who now 
sent him on his way. After this exhortation to Collatinus he prevailed upon the people 
to make him a present of twenty talents, and he himself added five more from his 
own means. So Tarquinius Collatinus, having met with this fate, retired to Lavinium, 
the mother-city of the Latin nation, where he died at an advanced age. And Brutus, 
thinking that he ought not to continue alone in the magistracy or to give occasion to 
the citizens to suspect that it was because of a desire to rule alone that he had 
banished his colleague from the country, summoned the people to the field where it 
was their custom to elect their (p41) kings and other magistrates, and chose for his 
colleague Publius Valerius, a descendant, as I have stated earlier, of the Sabine 
Valerius, a man worthy of both praise and admiration for many other qualities, but 
particularly for his frugal manner of life. For there was a kind of self-taught 
philosophy about him, which he displayed upon many occasions, of which I shall 
speak a little later.

[5,13] After this Brutus and his colleague, acting in everything with a single mind, 
immediately put to death all who had conspired to restore the exiles, and also 
honoured the slave who had given information of the conspiracy, not only with his 
freedom, but also by the bestowal of citizenship and a large sum of money. Then they 
introduced three measures, all most excellent and advantageous to the state, by which 
they brought about harmony among all the citizens and weakened the factions of 
their enemies. Their measures were as follows: In the first place, choosing the best 
men from among the plebeians, they made them patricians, and thus rounded out the 
membership of the senate to three hundred. Next, they brought out and exposed in 
public the goods of the tyrants for the benefit of all the citizens, permitting everyone 
to have as large a portion of them as he could seize; and the lands the tyrants had 
possessed they divided among those who had no allotments, reserving only one field, 
which lies between the city and the river. This field their ancestors had by a public 
decree consecrated to Mars as a meadow for (p43) horses and the most suitable drill-field 
for the youth to perform their exercises in arms. The strongest proof, I think, 
that even before this the field had been consecrated to this god, but that Tarquinius 
had appropriated it to his own use and sown it, was the action then taken by the 
consuls in regard to the corn there. For though they had given leave to the people to 
drive and carry away everything that belonged to the tyrants, they would not permit 
anyone to carry away the grain which had grown in this field and was still lying upon 
the threshing-floors whether in the straw or threshed, but looking upon it as accursed 
and quite unfit to be carried into their houses, they caused a vote to be passed that it 
should be thrown into the river. And there is even now a conspicuous monument of 
what happened on that occasion, in the form of an island of goodly size consecrated 
to Aesculapius and washed on all sides by the river, an island which was formed, they 
say, out of the heap of rotten straw and was further enlarged by the silt which the 
river kept adding. The consuls also granted to all the Romans who had fled with the 
tyrant leave to return to the city with impunity and under a general amnesty, setting a 
time-limit of twenty days; and if they did not return within this fixed time, the 
penalties set in their case were perpetual banishment and the confiscation of their 
estates. These measures of the consuls caused those who had (p45) enjoyed any part 
whatever of the possessions belonging to the tyrants to submit to any danger rather 
than be deprived again of the advantages they had obtained; and, on the other hand, 
by freeing from their fear those who, through dread of having to stand trial for the 
crimes they had committed under the tyranny, had condemned themselves to 
banishment, they caused them to favour the side of the commonwealth rather than 
that of the tyrants. 

[5,14] After they had instituted these measures and made the necessary preparations 
for the war, they for some time kept their forces assembled in the plains under the 
walls of the city, disposed under their various standards and leaders and performing 
their warlike exercises. For they had learned that the exiles were raising an army 
against them in all the cities of Tyrrhenia and that two of these cities, Tarquinii and 
Veii, were openly assisting them toward their restoration, both of them with 
considerable armies, and that from the other cities volunteers were coming to their 
aid, some of them being sent by their friends and some being mercenaries. When the 
Romans heard that their enemies had already taken the field, they resolved to go out 
and meet them, and before the others could cross the river they led their own forces 
across, and marching forward, encamped near the Tyrrhenians in the Naevian 
Meadow, as it was called, near a grove consecrated to the hero Horatius. Both 
armies, as it chanced, were nearly equal in (p47) numbers and advanced to the conflict 
with the same eagerness. The first engagement was a brief cavalry skirmish, as soon 
as they came in sight of one another, before the foot were encamped, in which they 
tested each other's strength and then, without either winning or losing, retired to 
their respective camps. Afterwards the heavy-armed troops and the horse of both 
armies engaged, both sides having drawn up their lines in the same manner, placing 
the solid ranks of foot in the centre and stationing the horse on both wings. The right 
wing of the Romans was commanded by Valerius, the newly-elected consul, who 
stood opposite to the Veientes, and the left by Brutus, in the sector where the forces 
of the Tarquinienses were, under the command of the sons of King Tarquinius. 

[5,15] When the armies were ready to engage, one of the sons of Tarquinius, named 
Arruns, the most remarkable of the brothers both for the strength of his body and the 
brilliance of his mind, advanced before the ranks of the Tyrrhenians, and riding up so 
close to the Romans that all of them would recognize both his person and his voice, 
hurled abusive taunts at Brutus, their commander, calling him a wild beast, one 
stained with the blood of his sons, and reproaching him with cowardice and 
cravenness, and finally challenged him to decide the general quarrel by fighting with 
him in single combat. Then Brutus, unable to bear these reproaches and deaf also to 
the remonstrances of his friends, spurred forward from (p49) the ranks, rushing upon 
the death that was decreed for him by fate. For both men, urged on by a like fury and 
taking thought, not of what they might suffer, but only of what they desired to do, 
rode full tilt at each other, and clashing, delivered unerring blows against each other 
with their pikes, piercing through shield and corslet, so that the point was buried in 
the flank of one and in the loins of the other; and their horses, crashing together 
breast to breast, rose upon their hind legs through the violence of the charge, and 
throwing back their heads, shook off their riders. These champions, accordingly, 
having fallen, lay there in their death agony, while streams of blood gushed from their 
wounds. But the two armies, when they saw that their leaders had fallen, pressed 
forward with shouts and the clash of arms, and the most violent of all battles ensued 
on the part of both foot and horse, the fortune of which was alike to both sides. For 
those of the Romans who were on the right wing, which was commanded by Valerius, 
the other consul, were victorious over the Veientes, and pursuing them to their camp, 
covered the plain with dead bodies; while those of the Tyrrhenians who were posted 
on the enemy's right wing and commanded by Titus and Sextus, the sons of King 
Tarquinius, put the left wing of the Romans the son of flight, and advancing close to 
their camp, did not fail to attempt to take it by storm; but after receiving many 
wounds, since those inside stood their ground, they desisted. These guards were the 
triarii, as they are called; they are veteran (p51) troops, experienced in many wars, and 
are always the last employed in the most critical fighting, when every other hope is lost. 

[5,16] The sun being now near setting, both armies retired to their camps, not so much 
elated by their victory as grieved at the numbers they had lost, and believing that, if it 
should be necessary for them to have another battle, those of them now left would be 
insufficient to carry on the struggle, the major part of them being wounded. But 
there was greater dejection and despair of their cause on the side of the Romans 
because of the death of their leader; and the thought occurred to many of them that it 
would be better for them to quit their camp before break of day. While they were 
considering these things and discussing them among themselves, about the time of 
the first watch a voice was heard from the grove near which they were encamped, 
calling aloud to both armies in such a manner as to be heard by all of them; it may 
have been the voice of the hero to whom the precinct was consecrated, or it may have 
been that of Faunus, as he is called. For the Romans attribute panics to this 
divinity; and whatever apparitions come to men's sight, now in one shape and now in 
another, inspiring terror, or whatever supernatural voices come to their ears to 
disturb them are the work, they say, of this god. The voice of the divinity exhorted the 
Romans to be of good courage, as having gained the victory, and declared that the 
enemy's dead exceeded theirs by one man. They say that Valerius, encouraged by this 
voice, pushed on to the Tyrrhenians' entrenchments while it was still the dead of 
night, and having slain many of (p53) them and driven the rest out of the camp, made 
himself master of it. 

[5,17] Such was the outcome of the battle. The next day the Romans, having stripped 
the enemy's dead and buried their own, returned home. The bravest of the knight 
took up the body of Brutus and with many praises and tears bore it back to Rome, 
adorned with crowns in token of his superior valour. They were met by the senate, 
which had decreed a triumph in honour of their leader, and also by all the people, 
who received the army with bowls of wine and tables spread with viands. When they 
came into the city, the consul triumphed according to the custom followed by the 
kings when they conducted the trophy-bearing processions and the sacrifices, and 
having consecrated the spoils to the gods, he observed that day as sacred and gave a 
banquet to the most distinguished of the citizens. But on the next day he arrayed 
himself in dark clothing, and placing the body of Brutus, suitably adorned, upon a 
magnificent bier in the Forum, he called the people together in assembly, and 
advancing to the tribunal, delivered the funeral oration in his honour. Whether 
Valerius was the first who introduced this custom among the Romans or whether he 
found it already established by the kings and adopted it, I cannot say for certain; but 
I do know from my acquaintance with universal history, as handed down by the most 
ancient poets and the most celebrated historians, that it was an ancient custom 
instituted by the Romans to celebrate the virtues of illustrious men at their funerals 
and that the Greeks were not the authors of it. For (p55) although these writers have 
given accounts of funeral games, both gymnastic and equestrian, held in honour of 
famous men by their friends, as by Achilles for Patroclus and, before that, by Heracles 
for Pelops, yet none of them makes any mention of eulogies spoken over the deceased 
except the tragic poets at Athens, who, out of flattery to their city, invented this 
legend also in the case of those who were buried by Theseus. For it was only at some 
late period that the Athenians added to their custom the funeral oration, having 
instituted it either in honour of those who died in defence of their country at 
Artemisium, Salamis and Plataea, or on account of the deeds performed at Marathon. 
But even the affair at Marathon — if, indeed, the eulogies delivered in honour of the 
deceased really began with that occasion — was later than the funeral of Brutus by 
sixteen years. However, if anyone, without stopping to investigate who were the first 
to introduce these funeral orations, desires to consider the custom in itself and to 
learn in which of the two nations it is seen at its best, he will find that it is observed 
more wisely among the Romans than among the Athenians. For, whereas the 
Athenians seem to have ordained that these orations should be pronounced at the 
funerals of those only who have died in war, believing that one should determine who 
are good men solely on the basis of the valour they show at their death, even though 
in other respects they are without merit, 6the Romans, on the other hand, appointed 
this honour to be paid to all their illustrious men, whether as commanders in war or 
as leaders in the civil (p57) administration they have given wise counsels and performed 
noble deeds, and this not alone to those who have died in war, but also to those who 
have met their end in any manner whatsoever, believing that good men deserve 
praise for every virtue they have shown during their lives and not solely for the single 
glory of their death. 

[5,18] Such, then, was the death of Junius Brutus, who overthrew the monarchy and 
was appointed the first consul. Though he attained late to a place of distinction and 
flourished in it but a brief moment, yet he was looked upon as the greatest of all the 
Romans. He left no issue, either sons or daughters, according to the writers who have 
investigated the history of the Romans most accurately; of this they offer many 
proofs, and this one in particular, which is not easily refuted, that he was of a 
patrician family, whereas those who have claimed to be descended from that family, 
as the Junii and Bruti, were all plebeians and were candidates for those magistracies 
only which were open by law to the plebeians, namely, the aedileship and 
tribuneship, but none of them stood for the consulship, to which the patricians only 
were eligible. Yet at a late period they obtained this magistracy also, when the 
plebeians too were allowed to hold it. But I leave the consideration of these matters to 
those whose business and interest it is to discover the precise facts. 

[5,19] After the death of Brutus his colleague Valerius became suspected by the people 
of a design (p59) to make himself king. The first ground of their suspicion was his 
continuing alone in the magistracy, when he ought immediately to have chosen a 
colleague as Brutus had done after he had expelled Collatinus. Another reason was 
that he had built his house in an invidious place, having chosen for that purpose a 
fairly high and steep hill, called by the Romans Velia, which commands the Forum. 
But the consul, being informed by his friends that these things displeased the people, 
appointed a day for the election and chose for his colleague Spurius Lucretius, who 
died after holding the office for only a few days. In his place he then chose Marcus 
Horatius, and removed his house from the top to the bottom of the hill, in order that 
the Romans, as he himself said in one of his speeches to the people, might stone him 
from the hill above if they found him guilty of any wrongdoing. And desiring to give 
the plebeians a definite pledge of their liberty, he took the axes from the rods and 
established it as a precedent for his successors in the consulship — a precedent which 
continued to be followed down to my day — that, when they were outside the city, 
they should use the axes, but inside the city they should be distinguished by the rods 
only. He also introduced most beneficent laws which gave relief to the plebeians. By 
one of these he expressly forbade that anyone should be a magistrate over the 
Romans who did not receive the office from the people; and he fixed death as the 
penalty for transgressing the law, and granted impunity to the one who should kill 
any such transgressor. In a second law it is provided: "If a magistrate shall desire to 
have any Roman put to death, scourged, (p61) or fined a sum of money, the private 
citizen may summon the magistrate before the people for judgment, and in the mean 
time shall be liable to no punishment at the hands of the magistrate till the people 
have given their vote concerning him." These measures gained him the esteem of the 
plebeians, who gave him the nickname of Publicola, which means in the Greek 
language dêmokêdês or "the People's Friend." These were the achievements of the 
consuls that year. 

[5,20] The next year Valerius was appointed consul for the second time, and with him 
Lucretius. In their consulship nothing worthy of note occurred except that a census 
was taken and war taxes were levied according to the plan introduced by King Tullius, 
which had been discontinued during all the reign of Tarquinius and was then 
renewed for the first time by these consuls. By this census it appeared that the 
number of Roman citizens who had reached manhood amounted to about 130,000. 
After this an army of Romans was sent to a place called Signurium in order to 
garrison that stronghold, which stood as an outpost against the cities both of the 
Latins and of the Hernicans, from whence they expected war. 

[5,21] After Publius Valerius, surnamed Publicola, had been appointed to the same 
magistracy for the third time, and with him Marcus Horatius Pulvillus for the second 
time, the king of the Clusians in Tyrrhenia, named Lars and surnamed Porsenna, 
declared war on the Romans. He had promised the Tarquinii, who had fled to him, 
that he would either effect a reconciliation between them and the Romans upon the 
terms that they should return home and receive back the sovereignty, or that he 
would recover and restore to them the possessions of which they had been deprived; 
but upon sending ambassadors the year before to Rome with appeals mingled with 
threats, he had not only failed to obtain a reconciliation and return for the exiles, the 
senate basing its refusal on the curses and oaths by which they had bound themselves 
not to receive them, but he had also failed to recover their possessions, the persons to 
whom they had been distributed and allotted refusing to restore them. And declaring 
that he was insulted by the Romans and treated outrageously in that he could obtain 
neither one of his demands, this arrogant man, whose mind was corrupted by both 
his wealth and possessions and the greatness of his power, thought he now had 
excellent grounds for overthrowing the power of the Romans, a thing which he had 
long since been desiring to do, and he accordingly declared war against them. He 
was assisted in this war by Octavius Mamilius, the son-in-law of Tarquinius, who was 
eager to display (p65) all possible zeal and marched out of Tusculum at the head of all 
the Camerini and Antemnates, who were of the Latin nation and had already openly 
revolted from the Romans; and from among the other Latin peoples that were not 
willing to make open war upon an allied and powerful state, unless for compelling 
reasons, he attracted numerous volunteers by his personal influence. 

[5,22] The Roman consuls, being informed of these things, in the first place ordered all 
the husbandmen to remove their effects, cattle, and slaves from the fields to the 
neighbouring mountains, in the fastnesses of which they constructed forts sufficiently 
strong to protect those who flee thither. After that they strengthened with more 
effectual fortifications and guards the hill called Janiculum, which is a high mount 
near Rome lying on the other side of the river Tiber, taking care above all things that 
such an advantageous position should not serve the enemy as an outpost against the 
city; and they stored their supplies for the war there. Affairs inside the city they 
conducted in a more democratic manner, introducing many beneficent measures in 
behalf of the poor, lest these, induced by private advantage to betray the public 
interest, should go over to the tyrants. Thus they had a vote passed that they should 
be exempt from all the public taxes which they had paid while the city was under the 
kings, and also from all contributions for military purposes and wars, looking upon it 
as a great advantage to the (p67) state merely to make use of their persons in defending 
the country. And with their army long since disciplined and ready for action, they 
were encamped in the field that lies before the city. 
But King Porsena, advancing with his forces, took the Janiculum by storm, having 
terrified those who were guarding it, and placed there a garnison of Tyrrhenians. After 
this he proceeded against the city in expectation of reducing that also without any 
trouble; but when he came near the bridge and saw the Romans drawn up before the 
river, he prepared for battle, thinking to overwhelm them with his numbers, and led 
on his army with great contempt of the enemy. His left wing was commanded by the 
sons of Tarquinius, Sextus and Titus, who had with them the Roman exiles together 
with the choicest troops from the city of Gabii and no small force of foreigners and 
mercenaries; the right was led by Mamilius, the son-in-law of Tarquinius, and here 
were arrayed the Latins who had revolted from the Romans; King Porsena had taken 
his place in the centre of the battle-line. On the side of the Romans the right wing 
was commanded by Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius, who stood opposite to the 
Tarquinii; the left by Marcus Valerius, brother to Publicola, one of the consuls, and 
Titus Lucretius, the consul of the previous year, who were to engage Mamilius and 
the Latins; the centre of the line between the wings was commanded by the two consuls. 

[5,23] When the armies engaged, they both fought bravely and sustained the shock for a 
considerable time, the Romans having the advantage of (p69) their enemies in both 
experience and endurance, and the Tyrrhenians and Latins being much superior in 
numbers. But when many had fallen on both sides, fear fell upon the Romans, and 
first upon those who occupied the left wing, when they saw their two commanders, 
Valerius and Lucretius, carried off the field wounded; and then those also who were 
stationed on the right wing, though they were already victorious over the forces 
commanded by the Tarquinii, were seized by the same terror upon seeing the flight of 
the others. While they were all fleeing to the city and endeavouring to force their way 
in a body over a single bridge, the enemy made a strong attack upon them; and the 
city came very near being taken by storm, and would surely have fallen if the pursuers 
had entered it at the same time with those who fled. Those who checked the enemy's 
attack and saved the whole army were three in number, two of them older men, 
Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius, who commanded the right wing, and one a 
younger man, Publius Horatius, who was called Cocles from an injury to his sight, 
and one of his eyes having been struck out in a battle, and was the fairest of men in 
philosophical appearance and the bravest in spirit. This man was nephew to Marcus 
Horatius, one of the consuls, and traced his descent from Marcus Horatius, one of the 
triplets who conquered the Alban triplets when the two cities, having become 
involved in war over the leadership, agreed not to (p71) risk a decision with all their 
forces, but with three men on each side, as I have related in one of the earlier books.
These three men, then, all alone, with their backs to the bridge, barred the passage of 
the enemy for a considerable time and stood their ground, though pelted by many 
foes with all sorts of missiles and struck with swords in hand-to-hand conflict, till the 
whole army had crossed the river. 

[5,24] When they judged their own men to be safe, two of them, Herminius and 
Larcius, their defensive arms being now rendered useless by the continual blows they 
had received, began to retreat gradually. But Horatius alone, though not only the 
consuls but the rest of the citizens as well, solicitous above all things that such a man 
should be saved to his country and his parents, called to him from the city to retire, 
could not be prevailed upon, but remained where he had first taken his stand, and 
directed Herminius and Larcius to tell the consuls, as from him, to cut away the 
bridge in all haste at the end next the city (there was but one bridge in those days, 
which was built of wood and fastened together with the timbers alone, without iron, 
which the Romans preserve even to my day in the same condition), and to bid them, 
when the greater part of the bridge had been broken down and little of it remained, to 
give him notice of it by some signals or by shouting in a louder voice than usual; the 
rest, he said, would be his concern. Having given these (p73) instructions to the two 
men, he stood upon the bridge itself, and when the enemy advanced upon him, he 
struck some of them with his sword and beat down others with his shield, repulsing 
all who attempted to rush upon the bridge. For the pursuers, looking upon him as a 
madman who was courting death, dared no longer come to grips with him. At the 
same time it was not easy for them even to come near him, since he had the river as a 
defence on the right and left, and in front of him a heap of arms and dead bodies. But 
standing massed at a distance, they hurled spears, javelins, and large stones at him, 
and those who were not supplied with these threw the swords and bucklers of the 
slain. But he fought on, making use of their own weapons against them, and hurling 
these into the crowd, he was bound, as may well be supposed, to find some mark 
every time. Finally, when he was overwhelmed with missiles and had a great number 
of wounds in many parts of his body, and one in particular inflicted by a spear which, 
passing straight through one of his buttocks above the hip-joint, weakened him with 
the pain and impeded his steps, he heard those behind him shouting out that the 
greater part of the bridge was broken down. Thereupon he leaped with his arms into 
the river and swimming across the stream with great difficulty (for the current, being 
divided by the piles, ran swift and formed large eddies), he emerged upon the shore 
without having lost any of his arms in swimming. 

[5,25] This deed gained him immortal glory. For the Romans immediately crowned him 
and conducted (p75) him into the city with songs, as one of the heroes; and all the 
inhabitants poured out of their houses, desiring to catch the last sight of him while he 
was yet alive, since they supposed he would soon succumb to his wounds. And when 
he escaped death, the people erected a bronze statue of him fully armed in the 
principal part of the Forum and gave him as much of the public land as he himself 
could plough round in one day with a yoke of oxen. Besides these things bestowed 
upon him by the public, every person, both man and woman, at a time when they 
were all most sorely oppressed by a dreadful scarcity of provisions, gave him a day's 
ratio of food; and the number of people amounted to more than three hundred 
thousand in all. Thus Horatius, who had shown so great valour upon that occasion, 
occupied as enviable a position as any Roman who ever lived, but he was rendered 
useless by his lameness for further services to the state; and because of this 
misfortune he obtained neither the consulship nor any military command either. 
4This was one man, therefore, who for the wonderful deed he performed for the 
Romans in that engagement deserves as great praise as any of those who have ever 
won renown for valour. And besides him there was also Gaius Mucius, surnamed 
Cordus, a man of distinguished ancestry, who also undertook to perform a great deed; 
but of him I shall speak a little later, after first relating in what dire circumstances the 
state found itself at that time. 

[5,26] (p77)  After the battle that has been described the king of the Tyrrhenians, 
encamping on the neighbouring hill, from whence he had driven the garrison of 
Rome, was master of all the country on that side of the river Tiber. The sons of 
Tarquinius and his son-in-law, Mamilius, having transported their forces in rafts and 
boats to the other, or Roman, side of the river, encamped in a strong position. And 
making excursions from there, they laid waste the territory of the Romans, 
demolished their farm houses, and attacked their herds of cattle when they went out 
of the strongholds to pasture. All the open country being in the power of the enemy 
and no food supplies being brought into the city by land and but small quantities even 
by the river, a scarcity of provisions was speedily felt as the many thousands of people 
consumed the stores previously laid in, which were inconsiderable. Thereupon the 
slaves, leaving their masters, deserted in large numbers daily, and the worst element 
among the common people went over to the tyrants. The consuls, seeing these things, 
resolved to ask those of the Latins who still respected the tie of kinship and seemed to 
be continuing in their friendship to send troops promptly to their assistance; and also 
resolved to send ambassadors both to Cumae in Campania and to the cities in the 
Pomptine plain to ask leave to import grain from there. The Latins, for their part, 
refused to send the desired assistance, on the ground that it was not right for them to 
make war against either the Tarquinii or the Romans, since they had made their 
treaty of (p79) friendship jointly with both of them. But Larcius and Herminius, the 
ambassadors who had been sent to convey the grain from the Pomptine plain, filled a 
great many boats with all sorts of provisions and brought them from the sea up the 
river on a moonless night, escaping the notice of the enemy. When these supplies 
also had soon been consumed and the people were oppressed by the same scarcity as 
before, the Tyrrhenian, learning from the deserters that the inhabitants were 
suffering from famine, sent a herald to them commanding them to receive Tarquinius 
if they desired to be rid of both war and famine. 

[5,27] When the Romans would not listen to this command, but chose rather to bear 
any calamities whatever, Mucius, foreseeing that one of two things would befall them, 
either that they would not adhere long to their resolution through want of the 
necessaries of life, or, if they held firmly to their decision, that they would perish by 
the most miserable of deaths, asked the consuls to assemble the senate for him, as he 
had something important and urgent to lay before them; and when they were met, he 
spoke as follows: 
"Fathers, having it in my mind to venture upon an undertaking by which the city will 
be freed from the present evils, I feel great confidence in the success of the plan and 
believe I shall easily carry it out; but as for my own life, I have small hopes of 
surviving the accomplishment of the deed, or, to say the truth, none at all. As I am 
about to expose myself, then, to so great a danger, I do not think it right that the 
world should remain in ignorance of the high stakes for which I have played — in case 
it (p81) should be my fate to fail after all in the undertaking — but I desire in return for 
noble deeds to gain great praise, by which I shall exchange this mortal body for 
immortal glory. It is not safe, of course, to communicate my plan to the people, lest 
some one for his own advantage should inform the enemy of a thing which ought to 
be concealed with the same care as an inviolable mystery. But you, who, I am 
persuaded, will keep the secret inviolate, are the first and the only persons to whom 
I am disclosing it; and from you the rest of the citizens will learn of it at the proper 
season. My enterprise is this: I propose to go to the camp of the Tyrrhenians in the 
guise of a deserter. If I am disbelieved by them and put to death, the number of you 
citizens who remain will be only one less. But if I can enter the enemy's camp, 
I promise you to kill their king; and when Porsena is dead, the war will be at an end. 
As for myself, I shall be ready to suffer whatever Heaven may see fit. In the assurance 
that you are privy to my purpose and will bear witness of it to the people, I go my 
way, making the better fortune of my country the guide of my journey." 

[5,28] After he had received the praises of the senators and obtained favourable omens 
for his enterprise, he crossed the river. And arriving at the camp of the Tyrrhenians, 
he entered it, having deceived the guard at the gates, who took him for one of their 
own countrymen since he carried no weapon openly and spoke the Tyrrhenian 
language, (p83) which he had been taught when a child by his nurse, who was a 
Tyrrhenian. When he came to the forum and to the general's tent, he perceived a 
man remarkable both for his stature and for his physical strength, clad in a purple 
robe and seated upon the general's tribunal with many armed men standing round 
him. And jumping to a false conclusion, as he had never seen the king of the 
Tyrrhenians, he took this man to be Porsena. But it seems he was the king's secretary, 
who sat upon the tribunal while numbering the soldiers and making a record of the 
pay due them. Making his way, therefore, to this man through the crowd that 
surrounded him and ascending the tribunal (for as he seemed unarmed nobody 
hindered him), he drew the dagger he had concealed under his garment and struck 
the man on the head. And the secretary being killed with one blow, Mucius was 
promptly seize by those who stood round the tribunal and brought before the king, 
who had already been informed by others of his secretary's death. Porsena, upon 
seeing him, said: "Most accursed of all men and destined to suffer the punishment 
you deserve, tell who you are and from whence you come and what assistance you 
counted on when you dared to commit such a deed? Did you propose to kill my 
secretary only, or me also? And who are your accomplices in this attempt, or privy to 
it? Conceal no part of the truth, les you be forced to declare it under torture." 

[5,29] Mucius, without showing any sign of fear, either by a change of colour or by an 
anxious countenance, (p85) or experiencing any other weakness common to men who 
are about to die, said to him: "I am a Roman, and no ordinary man as regards birth; 
and having conceived a desire to free my country from the war, I came into your 
camp as a deserter with the purpose of killing you. I knew well that, whether 
I succeeded or failed in the attempt, death would be my portion; yet I resolved to give 
my life to my country from which I received it and in place of my mortal body to leave 
behind me immortal glory. But being cheated of my hope, I slew, instead of you, your 
clerk, whom I had no cause to slay, misled by the purple, the chair of state, and the 
other insignia of power. As for death, therefore, to which I condemned myself when 
I was planning to set out on this undertaking, I do not ask to escape that; but if you 
would remit for me the tortures and the other indignities and give me assurances of 
this by the gods, I promise to reveal to you a matter of great moment which concerns 
your own safety." This he said with the purpose of tricking the other; and the king, 
being out of his wits and at the same time conjuring up imaginary perils as 
threatening him from many people, gave him upon oath the pledge he desired. 
Thereupon Mucius, having thought of a most novel kind of deceit that could not be 
put to an open test, said to him: "O king, three hundred of us Romans, all of the same 
age and all of patrician birth, met together and formed a plot to kill you; and we took 
pledges from one another under oath. And when we were considering what form our 
plot should (p87) take, we resolved not to set about the business all together, but one at 
a time, nor yet to communicate to one another when, how, where, or by what 
expedients each of us was to attack you, to the end that it might be easier for us to 
escape discovery. After we had settled these matters, we drew lots and it fell to my lot 
to make the first attempt. Since, therefore, you know in advance that many brave men 
will have the same purpose as I, induced by a thirst for glory, and that some one of 
them presumably will meet with better fortune than I, consider how you may 
sufficiently guard yourself against them all." 

[5,30] When the king heard this, he commanded his bodyguards to lead Mucius away 
and bind him, guarding him diligently. He himself assembled the most trustworthy of 
his friends, and causing his son Arruns to sit beside him, considered with them what 
he should do to escape the plots of these men. All the rest proposed such simple 
precautionary measures that they seemed to have no understanding of what was 
needed; but his son, who expressed his opinion last, showed a wisdom beyond his 
years. For he advised his father not to consider what precautions he should take in 
order to meet with no misfortune, but what he should do in order to have no need of 
precaution/precautions. When all had marvelled at his advice and desired to know 
how this might be accomplished, he said, "If you would make these men friends 
instead of enemies and would set a greater value of your own life than on the 
restoration of the exiles (p89) with Tarquinius." The king said his advice was most 
excellent, but that it was a matter calling for deliberation how an honourable peace 
could be made with them; for he said it would be a great disgrace if, after he had 
defeated them in battle and kept them shut up within their walls, he should then 
retire without having effected anything he had promised to the Tarquinii, just as if he 
had been conquered by those he had overcome and had fled from those who dared no 
longer even set foot outside their gates; and he declare days that there would be one 
and only one honourable way of ending this war, namely, if some persons should 
come to him from the enemy to treat for friendship. 

[5,31] This is what the king then said to his son and to the others present. But a few 
days later he was obliged to take the initiative himself in proposing terms of 
accommodation, for the following reason: While his soldiers were dispersed about the 
country and plundering the provisions that were being conveyed to the city, and 
doing this continually, the Roman consuls lay in wait for them in a favourable place 
and destroying a goodly number, took even more of them prisoners than they slew. 
Upon this the Tyrrhenians were angered and talked matters over with one another as 
they gathered in knots, blaming both the king and the other commanders for the 
prolonging of the war, and desiring to be dismissed to their homes. The king, 
therefore, believing that an accommodation would be acceptable to them all, sent the 
closest of his personal friends as ambassadors. Some, indeed, say that (p91) Mucius 
also was sent with them, having given the king his pledge upon oath that he would 
return; but others say that he was kept in the camp as a hostage till peace should be 
concluded, and this may perhaps be the truer account. The instructions given by the 
king to the ambassadors were these: Not to make the least mention of the restoration 
of the Tarquinii, but to demand the restitution of their property, preferably of all that 
the elder Tarquinius had left and they themselves had justly acquired and possessed, 
or, if that could not be, then to demand so far as possible the value of their lands, 
houses and cattle, and of the produce taken from the land, leaving it to the Romans to 
determine whether it was to their advantage that this should be paid by those who 
were in the possession and enjoyment of the land or defrayed by the public treasury. 
4So far their instructions related to the Tarquinii. Then, for himself, they were to 
demand, upon his putting an end to the war, the so-called Seven Districts (this 
territory had formerly belonged to the Tyrrhenians, but the Romans had taken it from 
them in war and occupied it), and, in order that the Romans should remain firm 
friends of the Tyrrhenians, they were to demand of them the sons of their most 
illustrious families to serve as hostages for the state. 

[5,32] When the embassy came to Rome, the senate, by the advice of Publicola, one of 
the consuls, voted to grant everything that the Tyrrhenian demanded, believing that 
the crowd of plebeians and poor people, oppressed by the scarcity of provisions, 
(p93) would cheerfully accept the termination of the war upon any terms whatever. But 
the people, though they ratified every other article of the senate's decree, would not 
hear of restoring the property. On the contrary, they voted that no resolution should 
be made to the tyrants either from private sources or from the public funds, and that 
ambassadors should be sent to King Porsena concerning these matters, to ask him to 
accept the hostages and the territory he demanded, but as regarded the property, that 
he himself, acting as judge between the Tarquinii and the Romans, should determine, 
after hearing both sides, what was just, being influenced by neither favour nor 
enmity. The Tyrrhenians returned to the king with this answer, and with them the 
ambassadors appointed by the people, taking with them twenty children of the 
leading families to serve as hostages for their country; the consuls had been the first 
to give their children for that purpose, Marcus Horatius delivering his son to them 
and Publius Valerius his daughter, who had reached the age for marriage. When 
these arrived at the camp, the king was pleased, and heartily commending the 
Romans, have made a truce with them for a specified number of days and undertook 
to act as judge of the controversy himself. But the Tarquinii were aggrieved at finding 
themselves disappointed of the greater hopes they had been placing in the king, 
having expected to be restored by him to the sovereignty; however, they were obliged 
to be content with the present state of things and to accept the terms that were 
offered. And when the (p95) men who were sent to defend the cause of the 
commonwealth, - - - and the oldest of the senators had come from the city at the 
appointed time, the king seated himself upon the tribunal with his friends, and 
ordering his son to sit as judge with him, he gave them leave to speak. 

[5,33] While the cause was still pleading, a messenger brought word of the flight of the 
maidens who were serving as hostages. It seems that they had asked leave of their 
guards to go to the river and bathe, and after obtaining it they had told the men to 
withdraw a little way from the river till they had bathed and dressed themselves 
again, so that they should not see them naked; and the men having done this also, the 
maidens, following the advice and example of Cloelia, swam across the river and 
returned to the city. Then indeed Tarquinius was vehement in accusing the Romans 
of a breach of their oaths and of perfidy, and in goading the king, now that he had 
been deceived by treacherous persons, to pay no heed to them. But when the consul 
defended the Romans, declaring that the maidens had done this thing of themselves 
without orders from their fathers and that he would soon offer convincing proof that 
the consuls had not been guilty of any treachery, the king was persuaded and gave 
him leave to go to Rome and bring back the maidens, as he kept promising to do. 
Valerius, accordingly, departed in order to bring them to the (p97) camp. But 
Tarquinius and his son-in-law, in contempt of all that was right, formed a wicked 
plot, sending out secretly a party of horse to lie in wait on the road, in order to seize 
not only the maidens as they were being brought back, but also the consul and the 
others who were coming to the camp. Their purpose was to hold these persons as 
pledges for the property the Romans had taken from Tarquinius, and not to wait any 
longer for the outcome of the hearing. But Heaven did not permit their plot to go 
according to their wish. For even as the horsemen who were intending to attack them 
upon their return were going out of the camp of the Latins, the consul was arriving 
with the maidens in time to forestall them, and he was already at the very gates of the 
Tyrrhenian camp when he was overtaken by the horsemen from the other camp who 
had pursued him. When the encounter between them occurred here, the Tyrrhenians 
quickly perceived it; and the king's son came in haste with a squadron of horse to 
their assistance and those of the foot who were posted before the camp also rushed up. 

[5,34] Porsena, resenting this attempt, assembled the Tyrrhenians and informed them 
that after the Romans had appointed him judge of the accusations brought against 
them by Tarquinius, but before the cause was determined, the exiles justly expelled 
by the Romans had during a truce been guilty of a lawless attempt upon the inviolable 
persons both of ambassadors and of hostages; for which reason, he said, the 
Tyrrhenians now acquitted the Romans of those charges and at the same time 
(p99) renounced all friendly relations with the Tarquinii and Mamilius; and he ordered 
them to depart that very day from the camp. Thus the Tarquinii, who at first had 
entertained excellent hopes either of exercising their tyranny again in the city with 
the assistance of the Tyrrhenians or of getting their property back, were disappointed 
in both respects in consequence of their lawless attempt against the ambassadors and 
hostages, and departed from the camp with shame and the detestation of all. Then 
the king of the Tyrrhenians, ordering the Roman hostages to be brought up to the 
tribunal, returned them to the consul, saying that he considered the good faith of the 
commonwealth as worth more than any hostages. And praising one maiden among 
them, by whom the others had been persuaded to swim across the river, as possessing 
a spirit superior both to her sex and age, and congratulating the commonwealth for 
producing not only brave men but also maidens the equals of men, he made her a 
present of a war-horse adorned with magnificent trappings. After the assembly he 
made a treaty of peace and friendship with the Roman ambassadors, and having 
entertained them, he returned to them without ransom all the prisoners, who were 
very numerous, as a present to take to the commonwealth. He also gave them the 
place where he was encamped, which was not laid out, like a camp, for a short stay in 
a foreign country, but, like a city, was adequately equipped with buildings both 
private and public,— though it is not the custom of the Tyrrhenians, when (p101) they 
break camp and quit the enemy's country, to leave these buildings standing, but to 
burn them. Thereby he made a present to the commonwealth of no small value in 
money, as appeared from the sale made by the quaestors after the king's departure. 
Such, then, was the outcome of the Romans' war with the Tarquinii and Lars 
Porsena, king of the Clusians, a war which brought the commonwealth into great dangers. 

[5,35] After the departure of the Tyrrhenians the Roman senate voted to send to 
Porsena a throne of ivory, a sceptre, a crown of gold, and a triumphal robe, which had 
been the insignia of the kings. And to Mucius, who had resolved to die for his country 
and was looked upon as the chief instrument in putting an end to the war, they voted 
that a portion of the public land bey the Tiber should be given (just as previously in 
the case of Horatius, who had fought in front of the bridge), as much, namely, as he 
could plough round in one day; and this place even to my day is called the Mucian 
Meadows.40 These were the rewards they gave to the men. In honour of Cloelia, the 
maiden, they ordered a bronze statue to be set up, which was erected accordingly by 
the fathers of the maidens on the Sacred Way, that leads to the Forum. This statue 
I found no longer standing; it was said to have been destroyed when a fire broke out 
in the adjacent houses. 
(p103) In this year was completed the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, of which I gave a 
detailed description in the preceding Book. This temple was dedicated by Marcus 
Horatius, one of the consuls, and inscribed with his name before the arrival of his 
colleague; for at that time it chanced that Valerius had set out with an army to the aid 
of the country districts. For as soon as the people had left the fortresses and returned 
to the fields, Mamilius had sent bands of robbers and done great injury to the 
husbandmen. These were the achievements of the third consulship. 

[5,36] The consuls for the fourth year, Spurius Larcius and Titus Herminius, went 
through their term of office without war. In their consulship Arruns, the son of 
Porsena, king of the Tyrrhenians, died while besieging the city of Aricia for the second 
year. For as soon as peace was made with the Romans, he got from his father one 
half of the army and led an expedition against the Aricians, with a view of 
establishing a dominion of his own. When he had all but taken the city, aid came to 
the Aricians from Antium, Tusculum, and Cumae in Campania; nevertheless, 
arraying his small army against a superior force, he put most of them to flight and 
drove them back to the city. But he was defeated by the Cumaeans under the 
command of Aristodemus, surnamed the Effeminate, and lost his (p105) life, and the 
Tyrrhenian army, no longer making a stand after his death, turned to flight. Many of 
them were killed in the pursuit by the Cumaeans, but many more, dispersing 
themselves about the country, fled into the fields of the Romans, which were not far 
distant, having lost their arms and being unable by reason of their wounds to proceed 
farther. There, some of them half dead, the Romans brought from the fields into the 
city upon wagons and mule-carts and upon beasts of burden also, and carrying them 
to their own houses, restored them to health with food and nursing every other sort of 
kindness that great compassion can show; so that many of them, induced by these 
kindly services, no longer felt any desire to return home but wished to remain with 
their benefactors. To these the senate gave, as a place in the city for build houses, the 
valley which extends between the Palatine and Capitoline hills for a distance of about 
four stades; in consequence of which even down to my time the Romans in their own 
language give the name of Vicus Tuscus or "the habitation of the Tyrrhenians," to the 
thoroughfare that leads from the Forum to the Circus Maximus. In consideration of 
these services the Romans received from the Tyrrhenian king a gift of no slight value, 
but one which gave them the greatest satisfaction. This was the territory beyond the 
river which they had ceded when they put an end to the war. And they now performed 
sacrifices to the gods at great expense which they had vowed to offer up (p107) whenever 
they should again be masters of the Seven Districts. 

[5,37] The46 fifth year after the expulsion of the king occurred the sixty-ninth 
Olympiad, at which Ischomachus of Croton won the foot-race for the second time, 
Acestorides being archon at Athens, and Marcus Valerius, brother of Valerius 
Publicola, and Publius Postumius, surnamed Tubertus, consuls at Rome. In their 
consulship another war awaited the Romans, this one stirred up by their nearest 
neighbours. It began with acts of brigandage and developed into many important 
engagements; however, it ended in an honourable peace in the third consulship after 
this one, having been carried on during that whole interval without intermission. For 
some of the Sabines, deciding that the commonwealth was weakened by the defeat 
she had received from the Tyrrhenians and would never be able to recover her 
ancient prestige, attacked those who came down into the wood fields from the 
strongholds by organizing bands of robbers, and they caused many injuries to the 
husbandmen. For these acts the Romans, sending an embassy before resorting to 
arms, sought satisfaction and demanded that for the future they should commit no 
lawless acts against those who cultivated the land; and having received a haughty 
answer, they declared war against them. First an expedition was conducted by one of 
the consuls, (p109) who with the horse and the flower of the light-armed foot fell 
suddenly upon those who were laying waste the country; and there was great 
slaughter among the many men surprised most their plundering, as may well be 
imagined, since they were keeping no order and had no warning of the attack. 
Afterwards, when the Sabines sent a large army against them commanded by a 
general experienced in war, the Romans made another expedition against them with 
all their forces, led by both consuls. Postumius encamped on heights near Rome, 
fearing lest some sudden attempt might be made upon the city by the exiles; and 
Valerius posted himself not far from the enemy, on the bank of the river Anio, which 
after passing through the city of Tibur pours in a vast torrent from a high rock, and 
running through the plain belonging to both the Sabines and the Romans, serves as a 
boundary to both their territories, after which this river, which is fair to look upon 
and sweet to drink, mingles its stream with the Tiber. 

[5,38] On the other side of the river was placed the camp of the Sabines, this too at no 
great distance from the stream, upon a gently sloping hill that was not very strongly 
situated. At first both armies observed one another with caution and were unwilling 
to cross the river and begin an engagement. But after a time they were no longer 
guided by reason and a prudent regard for their advantage, but becoming inflamed 
with anger and rivalry, they joined battle. For, going to the river for water and 
(p111) leading their horses there to drink, they advanced a good way into the stream, 
which was then low, not yet being swollen with the winter's rains, so that they crossed 
it without having the water much above their knees. And first, when a skirmish 
occurred between small parties, some ran out of each camp to assist their comrades, 
then others again from one camp or the other to aid those who were being 
overpowered. And at times the Romans forced the Sabines back from the river, at 
times the Sabines kept the Romans from it. Then, after many had been killed and 
wounded and a spirit of rivalry had possessed them all, as is apt to happen when 
skirmishes occur on the spur of the mot, the generals of both armies felt the same 
eagerness to cross the river. But the Roman consul got the start of the enemy, and 
after getting his army across, was already close upon the Sabines while they were still 
arming themselves and taking their positions. However, they too were not backward 
in engaging, but, elated with a contempt of their foes, since they were not going to 
fight against both consuls nor the whole Roman army, they joined battle with all the 
boldness and eagerness imaginable. 

[5,39] A vigorous action ensuing and the right wing of the Romans, commanded by the 
consul, attacking the enemy and gaining ground, while their left was already in 
difficulties and being forced towards the river by the enemy, the consul, who 
commanded the other camp, being informed of what (p113) was passing, proceeded to 
lead out his army. And while he himself with the solid ranks of the foot followed at a 
normal pace, he sent ahead in all haste his legate, Spurius Larcius, who had been 
consul the year before, together with all the horse. Larcius, urging the horse forward 
at full speed, crossed the river with ease, as no one opposed him, and riding past the 
right wing of the enemy, charged the Sabine horse in fact; and there and then 
occurred a severe battle between the horse on both sides, who fought hand-to-hand 
for a long time. In the mean time Postumius also drew near the combatants with the 
foot, and attacking that of the enemy, killed many in the conflict and threw the rest 
into confusion. And if night had not intervened, the whole army of the Sabines, being 
surrounded by the Romans, who had now become superior in horse, would have been 
totally destroyed. But as it was, the darkness saved those who fled from the battle 
unarmed and few in number, and brought them home in safety. The consuls, without 
meeting any resistance, made themselves masters of their camp, which had been 
abandoned by the troops inside as soon as they saw the rout of their own army; and, 
capturing much booty there, which they permitted the soldiers to drive or carry away, 
they returned home with their forces. Then for the first time the commonwealth, 
recovering from the defeat received at the hands of the Tyrrhenians, recovered its 
former spirit and dared as before to aim at the supremacy over its neighbours. The 
Romans decreed a triumph jointly (p115) to both the consuls, and, as a special 
gratification to one of them, Valerius, ordered that a site should be given him for his 
habitation on the best part of the Palatine Hill and that the cost of the building should 
be defrayed from the public treasury. The folding doors of this house, near which 
stands the brazen bull, are the only doors in Rome either of public or private 
buildings that open outwards.

[5,40] These men were succeeded in the consulship by Publius Valerius, surnamed 
Publicola, chosen to hold the office for the fourth time, and Titus Lucretius, now 
colleague to Valerius for the second time. In their consulship all the Sabines, holding 
a general assembly of their cities, resolved upon a war against the Romans, alleging 
that the treaty they had made with them was dissolved, since Tarquinius, to whom 
they had sworn their oaths, had been driven from power. They had been induced to 
take this step by Sextus, one of the sons of Tarquinius, who by privately courting 
them and importuning the influential men in each city had roused them all to united 
hostility against the Romans, and had won over two cities, Fidenae and Cameria, 
detaching them from the Romans and persuading them to become allies of the 
Sabines. In return for these services they appointed him general with absolute power 
and gave him leave to raise forces in every city, looking upon the defeat they had 
received (p117) in the last engagement as due to the weakness of their army and the 
stupidity of their general. While they were employed in these preparations, some 
good fortune, designing to balance the losses of the Romans with corresponding 
advantages, gave them, in place of the allies who had deserted them, an unexpected 
accession of strength from among their enemies, of the following nature: A certain 
man of the Sabine nation who lived in a city called Regillum, a man of good family 
and influential for his wealth, Titus Claudius by name, deserted to them, bringing 
with him many kinsmen and friends and a great number of clients, who removed with 
their whole households, not less than five hundred in all who were able to bear arms. 
The reason that compelled him to remove to Rome is said to have been this: The 
men in power in the principal cities, being hostile to him because of their political 
rivalry, were bringing him to trial on a charge of treason, because he was not eager to 
make war against the Romans, but both in the general assembly alone opposed those 
who maintained that the treaty was dissolved, and would not permit the citizens of 
his own town to regard as valid the decrees which had been passed by the rest of the 
nation. Dreading this trial, then, (for it was to be conduct by the other cities), he took 
his goods and his friends and came over to the Romans; and by adding no small 
weight to their cause he was looked upon as the principal instrument in the success of 
this war. In consideration of this, the senate and people enrolled him among the 
patricians and gave him leave to take as large a (p119) portion of the city as he wished for 
building houses; they also granted to him from the public land the region that lay 
between Fidenae and Picetia, so that he could give allotments to all his followers. 
Out of these Sabines was formed in the course of time a tribe called the Claudian 
tribe, a name which it continued to preserve down to my time. 

[5,41] After all the necessary preparations had been made on both sides, the Sabines 
first led out their forces and formed two camps, one of which was in the open not far 
from Fidenae, and the other in Fidenae itself, to serve both as a guard for the citizens 
and as a refuge for those who lay encamped without the city, in case any disaster 
should befall them. Then, when the Roman consuls learned of the Sabines' expedition 
against them, they too led out all their men of military age and encamped apart from 
each other, Valerius near the camp of the Sabines that lay in the open, and Lucretius 
not far distant, upon a hill from which the other camp was clearly in view. It was the 
opinion of the Romans that the fate of the war would quickly be decided by an open 
battle; but the general of the Sabines, dreading to engage openly against the boldness 
and constancy of men prepared to face every danger, resolved to attack them by 
night, and having prepared everything that would be of use for filling up the ditch 
and scaling the wall, he was intending, now that all was in readiness for the 
(p121) attack, to rouse up the flower of his army after the first watch and lead them 
against the entrenchments of the Romans. He also gave notice to the troops 
encamped in Fidenae that, as soon as they perceived that their comrades were come 
out of the camp, they also should march out of the city, with light equipment; and 
then, after setting ambuscades in suitable places, if any reinforcements should come 
to Valerius from the other army, they were to rise up and, getting behind them, attack 
them with shouts and a great din. This was the plan of Sextus, who communicated it 
to his centurions; and when they also approved of it, he waited for the proper 
moment. But a deserter came to the Roman camp and informed the consul of the 
plan, and a little later a party of horse came in bringing some Sabine prisoners who 
had been captured while they were out to get wood. These, upon being questioned 
separately as to what their general was preparing to do, said that he was ordering 
ladders and gang-boards to be constructed; but where and when he proposed to make 
use of them, they professed not to know. After learning this, Valerius sent his legate 
Larcius to the other camp to acquaint Lucretius, who had the command of it, with 
weight intention of the enemy and to advise him in what way they ought to attack the 
enemy. He himself summoned the tribunes and the centurions, and informing them 
of what he had learned both from the deserter and from the prisoners, exhorted them 
to acquit themselves as brave men, confident that they had got the best 
(p123) opportunity they could wish for to take a glorious revenge upon their enemies; 
and after advising them what each of them should do and giving the watchword, he 
dismissed them to their commands. 

[5,42] It was not yet midnight when the Sabine general roused up the flower of his army 
and led them to the enemy's camp, after ordering them all to keep silence and to 
make no noise with their arms, that the enemy might not be apprised of their 
approach till they arrived at the entrenchments. When those in front drew near the 
camp and neither saw the lights of watch-fires nor heard the voices of sentinels, they 
thought the Romans guilty of great folly in leaving their sentry-posts unguarded and 
sleeping inside their camp; and they proceeded to fill up the ditches in many places 
with brushwood and to cross over without opposition. But the Romans were lying in 
wait by companies between the ditches and the palisades, being unperceived by 
reason of the darkness; and they kept killing those of the enemy who crossed over, as 
soon as they came within reach. For some time the destruction of those who led the 
way was not perceived by their companions in the rear; but when it became light, 
upon the rising of the moon, and those who approached the ditch saw not only heaps 
of their own men lying dead near it but also strong bodies of the enemy advancing to 
attack them, they threw down their arms and fled. Thereupon the Romans, giving a 
great shout, which (p125) was the signal to those in the other camp, rushed out upon 
them in a body. Lucretius, hearing the shout, sent the horse ahead to reconnoitre, lest 
there might be an ambuscade of the enemy, and he himself followed presently with 
the flower of the foot. And at one and the same time the horse, meeting with those 
from Fidenae who were lying in ambush, put them to flight, and the foot pursued and 
slew those who had come to their camp but were now keeping neither their arms nor 
their ranks. In these actions about 13,500 of the Sabines and their allies were slain 
and 4200 were made prisoners; and their camp was taken the same day. 

[5,43] Fidenae after a few days' siege was taken in that very part which was thought to 
be the most difficult of capture and was for that reason guarded by only a few men. 
Nevertheless, the inhabitants were not made slaves nor was the city demolished; nor 
were many people put to death after the city was taken. For the consuls thought that 
the seizing of their goods and their slaves and the loss of their men who had perished 
in the battle was a sufficient punishment for an erring city belonging to the same 
race, and that to prevent the captured from lightly resorting to arms again, a 
moderate precaution and one customary with the Romans would be to punish the 
authors of the revolt. Having, therefore, assembled all the captured Fidenates in the 
forum and inveighed strongly against their folly, declaring that all of them, from 
youths to old men, deserved to be put to death, since they neither showed gratitude 
for the favours they received nor (p127) were chastened by their misfortunes, they 
ordered the most prominent of them to be scourged with rods and put to death in the 
sight of all; but the rest they permitted to live in the city as before, though they left a 
garrison, as large as the senate decided upon, to live in their midst; and taking away 
part of their land, they gave it to this garrison. After they had settled these matters, 
they returned home with the army from the enemy's country and celebrated the 
triumph which the senate had voted to them. These were the achievements of their 
consulship. 

[5,44] When Publius Postumius, who was called Tubertus, had been chosen consul for 
the second time, and with him Agrippa Menenius, called Lanatus, the Sabines made a 
third incursion into the Roman territory with a larger army, before the Romans were 
aware of their setting out, and advanced up to the walls of Rome. In this incursion 
there was great loss of life on the side of the Romans, not only among the 
husbandmen, on whom the calamity fell suddenly and unexpectedly, before they 
could take refuge in the nearest fortresses, but also among those who were living in 
the city at the time. For Postumius, one of the consuls, looking upon this insolence of 
the enemy as intolerable, hastily took the first men he came upon and marched out to 
the rescue with greater eagerness than prudence. The Sabines, seeing the Romans 
advance against them very contemptuously, without order and separated from one 
another, and wishing to increase their contempt, (p129) fell back at a fast walk, as if 
fleeing, till they came into thick woods where the rest of their army lay in wait. Then, 
facing about, they engaged with their pursuers, and at the same time the others came 
out of the wood with a great shout and fell upon them. The Sabines, who were very 
numerous and were advancing in good order against men who were not keeping their 
ranks but were disordered and out of breath with running, killed such of them as 
came to close quarters, and when the rest turned to flight, they barred the roads 
leading to the city and hemmed them in on the unfortified ridge of a hill. Then, 
encamping near them (for night was now coming on), they kept guard throughout the 
whole night to prevent them from stealing away undiscovered. When the news of 
this misfortune was brought to Rome, there was a great tumult and a rush to the 
walls, and fear on the part of all lest the enemy, elated be you their success, should 
enter the city in the night. there were lamentations for the slain and compassion for 
the survivors, who, it was believed, would be promptly captured for want of 
provisions unless some assistance should reach them quickly. That night, 
accordingly, they passed in a sorry state of mind and without sleep; but the next day 
the other consul, Menenius, having armed all the men of military age, marched out 
with them in good order and discipline to the assistance of those upon the hill. When 
the Sabines saw them approaching, they remained no longer, but roused up their 
army and withdrew from the hill, feeling that their (p131) present good fortune was 
enough; and without tarrying much longer, they returned home in great elation, 
taking with them a rich booty in cattle, slaves, and money. 

[5,45] The Romans, resenting this defeat, for which they blamed Postumius, one of the 
consuls, resolved to make an expedition against the territory of the Sabines speedily 
with all their forces; they were not only eager to retrieve the shameful and unexpected 
defeat they had received, but were also angered at the very insolent and haughty 
embassy that had recently come to them from the enemy. For, as if already 
victorious and having it in their power to take Rome without any trouble if the 
Romans refused to do as they commanded, they had ordered them to grant a return 
to the Tarquinii, to yield the leadership to the Sabines, and to establish such a form of 
government and such laws as the conquerors should prescribe. Replying to the 
ambassadors, they bade them report to their general council that the Romans 
commanded the Sabines to lay down their arms, to deliver up their cities to them, and 
to be subject to them once more as they had been before, and after they had complied 
with these demands, then to come and stand trial for the injuries and damage they 
had done them in their former incursions, if they desired to obtain peace and 
friendship: and in case they refused to carry out these orders, they might expect to see 
the war (p133) soon brought home to their cities. Such demands having been given and 
received, both sides equipped themselves with everything necessary for the war and 
led out their forces. The Sabines brought the flower of their youth out of every city 
armed with splendid weapons; and the Romans drew out all their forces not only 
from the city but also from the fortresses, looking upon those above the military age 
and the multitude of domestic servants as a sufficient guard for both the city and the 
fortresses in the country. And the two armies, approaching each other, pitched their 
camps a little distance apart near the city of eretum, which belongs to the Sabine nation. 

[5,46] When each side observed the enemy's condition, of which they judged by the size 
of the camps and the information given by prisoners, the Sabines were inspired with 
confidence and felt contempt for the small numbers of the enemy, while the Romans 
were seized with fear by reason of the multitude of their opponents. But they took 
courage and entertained no small hopes of victory because of various omens sent to 
them by the gods, and particularly from a final portent which they saw when they 
were about to array themselves for battle. It was as follows: From the javelins that 
were fixed in the ground beside their tents (these javelins are Roman weapons which 
they hurl and having pointed iron heads, not less than three feet in length, projecting 
(p135) straight forward from one end, and with the iron they are as long as spears of 
moderate length) — from these javelins flames issued forth round the tips of the 
heads and the glare extended through the whole camp like that of torches and lasted a 
great part of the night. From this portent they concluded, as the interpreters of 
prodigies informed them and as was not difficult for anyone to conjecture, that 
Heaven was portending to them a speedy and brilliant victory, because, as we know, 
everything yields to fire and there is nothing that is not consumed by it. And 
inasmuch as this fire issued from defensive weapons, they came out with great 
boldness from their camp, and engaging the Sabines, fought, few in number, with 
enemies many times superior, placing their reliance in their own good courage. 
Besides, their long experience joined to their willingness to undergo toil encouraged 
them to despise every danger. First, then, Postumius, who commanded the left wing, 
desiring to repair his former defeat, forced back the enemy's right, taking no thought 
for his own life in comparison with gaining the victory, but, like those who are mad 
and court death, hurling himself into the midst of his enemies. Then those also with 
Menenius on the other wing, though they were already in distress and being forced to 
give ground, when they found that the forces under Postumius were victorious over 
those who confronted them, took courage and advanced against the enemy. And now, 
as both their wings gave way, the Sabines were utterly routed. For (p137) not even those 
who were posted in the centre of the line, when once their flanks were left bare, stood 
their ground any longer, but being hard pressed by the Roman horse that charged 
them in separate troops, they were driven back. And when they all fled toward their 
entrenchments, the Romans pursued them, and entering with them, captured both 
camps. All that saved the army of the enemy from being totally destroyed was that 
night came on and their defeat happened in their own land. For those who fled got 
safely home more easily because of their familiarity with the country. 

[5,47] The next day the consuls, after burning their own dead, gathered up the spoils 
(there were even found some arms belonging to the living, which they had thrown 
away in their flight) and carried off the captives, whom they had taken in 
considerable numbers, and the booty, in addition to the plunder taken by the soldiers. 
This booty having been sold at public auction, all the citizens received back the 
amount of the contributions which they had severally paid for the equipment of the 
expedition. Thus the consuls, having gained a most glorious victory, returned home. 
They were both honoured with triumphs by the senate, Menenius with the greater 
and more honourable kind, entering the city in a royal chariot, and Postumius with 
the lesser and inferior triumph which they call g-ouastehn  or "ovation," perverting the 
name, which is Greek, to an unintelligible (p139) form. For it was originally called 
g-euastehs, from what actually took place, according to both my own conjecture and 
what I find stated in many native histories, the senate, as Licinius relates, having 
then first introduced this sort of triumph. It differs from the other, first, in this, that 
the general who triumphs in the manner called the ovation enters the city on foot, 
followed by the army, and not in a chariot like the other; and, in the next place, 
because he does not don the embroidered robe decorated with gold, with which the 
other is adorned, nor does he have the golden crown, but is clad in a white toga 
bordered with purple, the native dress of the consuls and praetors, and wears a crown 
of laurel; he is also inferior to the other in not holding a sceptre, but everything else is 
the same. The reason why this inferior honour was decreed to Postumius, though he 
had distinguished himself more than any man in the last engagement, was the severe 
and shameful defeat he had suffered earlier, in the sortie he made against the enemy, 
in which he not only lost many of his men, but narrowly escaped being taken prisoner 
himself together with the troops that had survived that rout. 

[5,48] In the consulship of these men Publius Valerius, surnamed Publicola, fell sick 
and died, a man esteemed superior to all the Romans of his time in every virtue. 
I need not relate all the achievements of this man which he deserves to be both 
admired and remembered, because most of them (p141) have been already narrated in 
the beginning of this Book; but I think I should not omit one thing which most 
deserves admiration of all that can be said in his praise and has not yet been 
mentioned. For I look upon it as the greatest duty of the historian not only to relate 
the military achievements of illustrious generals and any excellent and salutary 
measures that they have devised and put into practice for the benefit of their states, 
but also to note their private lives, whether they have lived with moderation and self-
control and in strict adherence to the traditions of their country. This man, then, 
though he had been one of the first four patricians who expelled the kings and 
confiscated their fortunes, though he had been invested four times with the consular 
power, had been victorious in two wars to greatest consequence and celebrated 
triumphs for both — the first time for his victory over the Tyrrhenian nation and the 
second time for that over the Sabines — and though he had such opportunities for 
amassing riches, which none could have traduced as shameful and wrong, 
nevertheless was not overcome by avarice, the vice which enslaves all men and forces 
them to act unworthily; but he continued to live on the small estate he had inherited 
from his ancestors, leading a life of self-control and frugality superior to every desire, 
and with his small means he brought up his children in a manner worthy of their 
birth, making it plain to all men that he is rich, not who possesses many things, but 
who requires few. A sure and incontestable proof of the frugality he had shown 
during his whole lifetime was the poverty that (p143) was revealed after his death. For in 
his whole estate he did not leave enough even to provide for his funeral and burial in 
such a manner as became a man of his dignity, but his relations were intending to 
carry his body out of the city in a shabby manner, and as one would that of an 
ordinary man, to be burned and buried. The senate, however, learning how 
impoverished they were, decreed that the expenses of his burial should be defrayed 
from the public treasury, and appointed a place in the city near the Forum, at the foot 
of the Velia, where his body was burned and buried, an honour paid to him alone of 
all the illustrious men down to my time. This place is, as it were, sacred and 
dedicated to his posterity as a place of burial, an advantage greater than any wealth or 
royalty, if one measures happiness, not by shameful pleasures, but by the standard of 
honour. Thus Valerius Publicola, who had aimed at the acquisition of nothing more 
than wanted supply his necessary wants, was honoured by his country with a splendid 
funeral, like one of the richest kings. And all the Roman matrons with one consent, 
mourned for him during a whole year, as they had done for Junius Brutus, by laying 
aside both their gold and purple; for thus it is the custom for them to mourn after the 
funeral rites of their nearest relations. 

[5,49] The next year Spurius Cassius, surnamed (p145) Vecellinus, and Opiter Verginius 
Tricostus were appointed consuls. In their consulship the war with the Sabines was 
ended by one of them, Spurius, after a hard battle fought near the city of Cures; in 
this battle about 10,300 Sabines were killed and nearly 4000 taken prisoners. 
Overwhelmed by this final misfortune, the Sabines sent ambassadors to the consul 
to treat for peace. Then, upon being referred to the senate by Cassius, they came to 
Rome, and after many entreaties obtained with difficulty a reconciliation and 
termination of the war by giving, not only as much grain to the army as Cassius 
ordered, but also a certain sum of money per man and ten thousand acres63 of land 
under cultivation. Spurius Cassius celebrated a triumph for his victory in this war; 
but the other consul, Verginius, led an expedition against the city of Cameria, which 
had withdrawn from its alliance with the Romans during this war. He took half the 
other army with him, telling no one whither he was marching, and covered the 
distance during the night, in order that he might fall upon the inhabitants while they 
were unprepared and unapprised of his approach; and so it fell out. For he was 
already close to their walls, without having been discovered by anybody, just as day 
was breaking; and before encamping he brought up battering-rams and scaling 
(p147) ladders, and made use of every device used in sieges. The Camerini were 
astounded at his sudden arrival and some of them thought they ought to open the 
gates and receive the consul, while others insisted upon defending themselves with all 
their power and not permitting the enemy to enter the city; and while this confusion 
and dissension prevailed, the consul, having broken down the gates and scaled the 
lowest parts of the ramparts by means of ladders, took the city by storm. That day 
and the following night he permitted his men to pillage the town; but the next day he 
ordered the prisoners to be brought together in one place, and having put to death all 
the authors of the revolt, he sold the rest of the people and razed the city. 

[5,50] In the seventieth Olympiad (the one in which Niceas of Opus in Locris won the 
foot-race), Smyrus being archon at Athens, Postumus Cominius and Titus Larcius 
took over the consulship. In their year of office the cities of the Latins withdrew from 
the friendship of the Romans, Octavius Mamilius, the son-in-law of Tarquinius, 
having prevailed upon the most prominent men of every city, partly by promises of 
gifts and partly by entreaties, to assist in restoring the exiles. And a general assembly 
was held of all the cities that were wont to meet at Ferentinum except Rome (for this 
was the only city they had not notified as usual to be present), at which the cities were 
to give their votes concerning war, to choose generals, and to consider the other 
(p149) preparations. Now it happened that at this time Marcus Valerius, a man of 
consular rank, had been sent as ambassador by the Romans to the neighbouring cities 
to ask them not to begin any revolt; for some of their people sent out by the men in 
power were plundering the neighbouring fields and doing great injury to the Roman 
husbandmen. This man, upon learning that the general assembly of the cities was 
being held so that all might give their votes concerning the war, came to the 
assembly; and requesting of the presidents leave to speak, he said that he had been 
sent as ambassador by the commonwealth to the cities that were sending out the 
bands of robbers, to ask of them that they would seek out the men who were guilty of 
these wrongs and deliver them up to be punished according to the provision which 
they had laid down in the treaty when they entered into their league of friendship, 
and also to demand that they take care for the future that no fresh offence should 
occur to disrupt their friendship and kinship. But, observing that all the cities had 
met together in order to declare war against the Romans — a purpose which he 
recognized, not only from many other evidences, but particularly because the Romans 
were the only persons they had not notified to be present at the assembly, although it 
was stipulated in the treaty that all the cities of the Latin race should be represented 
at the general assemblies when summoned by the presidents — he said he wondered 
what provocation or what cause of complaint against the commonwealth had caused 
the deputies to omit Rome from the cities they had invited to the assembly, when she 
ought to have been the first of all to be represented and the first (p151) to be asked her 
opinion, inasmuch as she held the leadership of the nation, which she had received 
from them with their own consent in return for many great benefits she had 
conferred upon them. 

[5,51] Following him, the Aricians, having asked leave to speak, accused the Romans of 
having, though kinsmen, brought upon them the Tyrrhenian war and of having 
caused all the Latin cities, as far as lay in their power, to be deprived of their liberty 
by the Tyrrhenians. And King Tarquinius, renewing the treaty of friendship and 
alliance that he had made with the general council of their cities, asked those cities to 
fulfil their oaths and restore him to the sovereignty. The exiles also from Fidenae and 
Cameria, the former lamenting the taking of their city and their own banishment 
from it, and the latter the enslaving of their countrymen and the razing of their city, 
exhorted them to declare war. Last of all, Tarquinius' son-in-law, Mamilius, a man 
most powerful at that time among the Latins, rose up and inveighed against the 
Romans in a long speech. And, Valerius answering all his accusations and seeming to 
have the advantage in the justice of his cause, the deputies spent that day in hearing 
the accusations and the defences without reaching any conclusion to their 
deliberations. But on the following day the presidents would no longer admit the 
Roman ambassadors to the assembly, but gave a hearing to Tarquinius, Mamilius, the 
Arician, and all the others who wished to make charges against the Romans, and after 
hearing them all through, they voted that the treaty had been dissolved by the 
Romans, and gave this answer to the embassy of Valerius: that inasmuch as the 
Romans had by their acts of injustice (p153) dissolved the ties of kinship between them, 
they would consider at leisure in what manner they ought to punish them. 
3While this was going on, a conspiracy was formed against the state, numerous slaves 
having agreed together to seize the heights and to set fire to the city in many places. 
But, information being given by their accomplices, the gates were immediately closed 
by the consuls and all the strong places in the city were occupied by the knights. And 
straightway all those whom the informers declared to have been concerned in the 
conspiracy were either seized in their houses or brought in from the country, and 
after being scourged and tortured they were all crucified. These were the events of 
this consulship. 

[5,52] Servius Sulpicius Camerinus and Manius Tullius Longus having taken over the 
consulship, some of the Fidenates, after sending for soldiers from the Tarquinii, took 
possession of the citadel at Fidenae, and putting to death some of those who were not 
of the same mind and banishing others, caused the city to revolt again from the 
Romans. And when a Roman embassy arrived, they were inclined to treat the men 
like enemies, but being hindered by the elders from doing so, they drove them out of 
the city, refusing either to listen to them or to say anything to them. The Roman 
senate, being informed of this, did not desire as yet to make war upon the whole 
nation of the Latins, (p155) because they understood that they did not all approve of the 
resolutions taken by the deputies in the assembly, but that the common people in 
every city shrank from the war, and that those who demanded that the treaty should 
remain in force outnumbered those who declared it had been dissolved. But they 
voted to send one of the consuls, Manius Tullius, against the Fidenates with a large 
army; and he, having laid waste their country quite unmolested, as none offered to 
defend it, encamped near the walls and placed guards to prevent the inhabitants from 
receiving provisions, arms, or any other assistance. The Fidenates, being thus shut 
up within their walls, sent ambassadors to the cities of the Latins to ask for prompt 
assistance; whereupon the presidents of the Latins, holding an assembly state of 
things cities and again giving leave to the Tarquinii and to the ambassadors from the 
besieged to speak, called upon the deputies, beginning with the oldest and the most 
distinguished, to give their opinion concerning the best way to make war against the 
Romans. And many speeches having been made, first, concerning the war itself, the 
most turbulent of the deputies were for restoring the king to power and advised 
assisting the Fidenates, being desirous of getting into positions of command in the 
armies and engaging in great undertakings; and this was the case particularly with 
those who yearned for domination and despotic power in their own cities, in gaining 
which they expected the assistance of the Tarquinii when these had recovered the 
sovereignty over the Romans. On the other hand, the men of the greatest means and 
of the greatest reasonableness maintained (p157) that the cities ought to adhere to the 
treaty and not hastily resort to arms; and these were the most influential with the 
common people. Those who pressed for war, being thus defeated by the advisers of 
peace, at last persuaded the assembly to do this much at least — to send ambassadors 
to Rome to invite and at the same time to advise the commonwealth to receive the 
Tarquinii and the other exiles upon the terms of impunity and a general amnesty, and 
after making a covenant concerning these matters, to restore their traditional form of 
government and to withdraw their army from Fidenae, since the Latins would not 
permit their kinsmen and friends to be despoiled of their country; and in case the 
Romans should consent to do neither of these things, they would then deliberate 
concerning war. They were not unaware that the Romans would consent to neither 
of these demands, but they desired to have a specious pretence for their hostility, and 
they expected to win over their opponents in the meantime by courting them and 
doing them favours. The deputies, having passed this vote and set a year's time for 
the Romans in which to deliberate and for themselves to make their preparations, 
and having appointed such ambassadors as Tarquinius wished, dismissed the assembly. 

[5,53] When the Latins had dispersed to their several cities, Mamilius and Tarquinius, 
observing that the enthusiasm of most of the people had flagged, began to abandon 
their hopes of foreign assistance as not very certain, and changing their minds, they 
formed plans to stir up in Rome itself a civil war, against (p159) which their enemies 
would not be on their guard, by fomenting a sedition of the poor against the rich. 
Already the greater part of the common people were uneasy and disaffected, 
especially the poor and those who were compelled by their debts no longer to have 
the best interests of the commonwealth at heart. For the creditors showed no 
moderation in the use of their power, but haling their debtors to prison, treated them 
like slaves they had purchased. Tarquinius, hearing of this, sent some persons who 
free from suspicion to Rome with money, in company with the ambassadors of the 
Latins, and these men, engaging in conversation with the needy and with those who 
were boldest, and giving them some money and promising more if the Tarquinii 
returned, corrupted a great many of the citizens. And thus a conspiracy was formed 
against the aristocracy, not only by needy freemen, but also by unprincipled slaves 
who were beguiled by hopes of freedom. The latter, because of the punishment of 
their fellow-slaves the year before, were hostile toward their masters and in a mood to 
plot against them, since they were distrusted by them and suspected of being ready 
themselves also to attack them at some time if the opportunity should offer; and 
accordingly they hearkened willingly to those who invited them to make the attempt. 
The plan of their conspiracy was as follows: The leaders of the undertaking were to 
wait for a moonless night and then seize the heights and the other strong places in the 
city; and the slaves, when they perceived that the others were in possession of those 
places of advantage (which was to be made known to them by raising a shout), 
(p161) were to kill their masters while they slept, and having done this, to plunder the 
houses of the rich and open the gates to the tyrants. 

[5,54] But the divine Providence, which has on every occasion preserved this city and 
down to my own times continues to watch over it, brought their plans to light, 
information being given to Sulpicius, one of the consuls, by two brothers, Publius and 
Marcus Tarquinius of Laurentum, who were among the heads of the conspiracy and 
were forced by the compulsion of Heaven to reveal it. For frightful visions haunted 
them in their dreams whenever they slept, threatening them with dire punishments if 
they did not desist and abandon their attempt; and at last they thought that they were 
pursued and beaten by some demons, that their eyes were gouged out, and that they 
suffered many other cruel torments. In consequence of which they would wake with 
fear and trembling, and they could not even sleep because of these terrors. At first 
they endeavoured, by means of certain propitiatory and expiatory sacrifices, to avert 
the anger of the demons who haunted them; but accomplishing naught, they had 
recourse to divination, keeping secret the purpose of their enterprise and asking only 
to know whether it was yet the time to carry out their plan; and when the soothsayer 
answered that they were travelling an evil and fatal road, and that if they did not 
change their plans they would perish in the most shameful manner, fearing lest 
others should anticipate them in revealing (p163) the secret, they themselves gave 
information of the conspiracy to the consul who was then at Rome. He, having 
commended them and promised them great rewards if they made their actions 
conform to their words, kept them in his house without telling anyone; and 
introducing to the senate the ambassadors of the Latins, whom he had hitherto kept 
putting off, delaying his answer, he now gave them the answer that the senators had 
decided upon. "Friends and kinsmen," he said, "go back and report to the Latin 
nation that the Roman p did not either in the first instance grant the request of the 
Tarquinienses for the restoration of the tyrants or afterwards yield to all the 
Tyrrhenians, led by King Porsena, when they interceded in behalf of these same exiles 
and brought upon the commonwealth the most grievous of all wars, but submitted to 
seeing their land laid waste, their farm-houses set on fire, and themselves shut up 
within their walls for the sake of liberty and of not having to act otherwise than they 
wished at the command of another. And they wonder, Latins, that though you are 
aware of this, you have nevertheless come to them with orders to receive the tyrants 
and to raise the siege of Fidenae, and, if they refuse to obey you, threaten them with 
war. Cease, then, putting forward these stupid and improbable excuses for enmity; 
and if for these reasons you are determined to dissolve your ties of kinship and to 
declare war, defer it no longer." 

[5,55] Having given this answer to the ambassadors (p165) and ordered them to be 
conduct out of the city, he then told the senate everything relating to the secret 
conspiracy which he had learned from the informers. And receiving from the senate 
full authority to seek out the participants in the conspiracy and to punish those who 
should be discovered, he did not pursue the arbitrary and tyrannical course that 
anyone else might have followed under the like necessity, but resorted to the 
reasonable and safe course that was consistent with the form of government then 
established. Thus he was unwilling, in the first place, that citizens should be seized 
in their own houses and haled thence to death, torn from the embraces of their wives, 
children and parents, but considered the compassion which the relations of the 
various culprits would feel at the violent snatching away of those who were closest to 
them, and also feared that some of the guilty, if they were driven to despair, might 
rush to arms, and those who were forced to turn to illegal methods might engage in 
civil bloodshed. nor, again, did he think he ought to appoint tribunals to try them, 
since he reasoned that they would deny all guilty and that no certain and 
incontrovertible proof of it, besides the information he had just received, could be 
laid before the judges to which they would give credit and condemn the citizens to 
death. But he devised a new method of outwitting those who were stirring up 
sedition, a method by which, in the first place, the leaders of the conspiracy would of 
themselves, without any compulsion, meet in one place, and then would be convicted 
by incontrovertible proofs, so that they would be left without any defence whatever; 
furthermore, as they would not then be (p167) assembled in an unfrequented place nor 
convicted before a few witnesses only, but their guilt would be made manifest in the 
Forum before the eyes of all, they would suffer the punishment they deserved, and 
there would be no disturbance in the city nor uprisings on the part of others, as often 
happens when the seditious are punished, particularly in dangerous times. 

[5,56] Another historian, now, might have thought it sufficient to state merely the gist 
of this matter, namely, that the consul apprehended those who had taken part in the 
conspiracy and point them to death, as if the facts needed little explanation. But 
I, since I regarded the manner also of their apprehension as being worthy of history, 
decided not to omit it, considering that the readers of histories do not derive 
sufficient profit from learning the bare outcome of events, but that everyone demands 
that the causes of events also be related, as well as the ways in which things were 
done, the motives of those who did them, and the instances of divine intervention, 
and that they be left uninformed of none of the circumstances that naturally attend 
those events. And for statesmen I perceive that the knowledge of these things is 
absolutely necessary, to the end that they may have precedents for their use in the 
various situations that arise. Now the manner of apprehending the conspirators 
devised by the consul was this: From among the senators he selected those who were 
in the vigour of their age and ordered that, as soon as the signal should be given, they, 
together with their most trusted friends and relations, should seize the strong places 
of the (p169) city where each of them chanced to dwell; and the knights he commanded 
to wait, equipped with their swords, in the most convenient houses round the Forum 
and to do whatever he should command. And to the end that, while he was 
apprehending the citizens,67 neither their relations nor any of the other citizens 
should create a disturbance and that there might be no civil bloodshed by reason of 
this commotion, he sent a letter to the consul who had been appointed to conduct the 
siege of Fidenae, bidding him come to the city at the beginning of night with the 
flower of his army and to encamp upon a height near the walls. 

[5,57]  Having made these preparations, he ordered those who had given information of 
the plot to send word - - - to the heads of the conspiracy to come to the Forum about 
midnight bringing with them their most trusted friends, there to learn their 
appointed place and station and the watch-word and what each of them was to do. 
This was done. And when all the leaders among the conspirators had assembled in 
the Forum, signals, not perceived by them, were given, and immediately the heights 
were filling with men who had taken up arms in defence of the state and all the parts 
round the Forum were under guard by the knights, not a single outlet being left for 
any who might desire to leave. And at the same time (p171) Manius, the other consul, 
having broken camp at Fidenae, arrived in the Field with his army. As soon as day 
appeared, the consuls, surrounded by armed men, advanced to the tribunal and 
ordered the heralds to go through all the streets and summon the people to an 
assembly; and when the entire populace of the city had flocked thither, they 
acquainted them with the conspiracy formed to restore the tyrant, and produced the 
informers. After that they gave the accused an opportunity of making their defence if 
any of them had any objections to offer to the information. When none attempted to 
resort to denial, they withdrew from the Forum to the senate-house to ask the 
opinion of the senators concerning them; and having caused their decision to be 
written out, they returned to the assembly and read the decree, which was as follows: 
To the Tarquinii who had given information of the attempt should be granted 
citizenship and ten thousand drachmae of silver to each and twenty acres of the 
public land; and the conspirators should be seized and put to death, if the people 
concurred. The assembled crowd having confirmed the decree of the senate, the 
consuls ordered those who had come together for the assembly to withdraw from the 
Forum; then they summoned the lictors, who were equipped with their swords, and 
these, surrounding the guilty men in the place where they were hemmed in, put them 
all to death. After the consuls had caused these men to be executed, they received no 
more informations against any who had participated in the plot, but acquitted of the 
charges (p173) everyone who had escaped summary punishment, to the end that all 
cause of disturbance might be removed from the city. In such fashion were those 
who had formed the conspiracy put to death. The senate then ordered all the citizens 
to be purified because they had been under the necessity of giving their votes about 
shedding the blood of citizens, on the ground that it was not lawful for them to be 
present at the sacred rites and take part in the sacrifices before they had expiated the 
pollution and atoned for the calamity by the customary lustrations. After everything 
that was required by divine law had been performed by the interpreters71 of religious 
matter according to the custom of the country, the senate voted to offer sacrifices of 
thanksgiving and to celebrate games, and set aside three days as sacred for this 
purpose. And when Manius Tullius, one of the consuls, fell from the sacred chariot in 
the Circus itself during the procession at the sacred games called after the name of 
the city, and died the third day after, Sulpicius continued alone in the magistracy 
during the rest of the time, which was not long. 

[5,58] Publius Veturius Geminus and Publius Aebutius Elva were appointed consuls 
for the following year. Of these Aebutius was put in charge of the civil affairs, which 
seemed to require no small attention, lest some fresh uprising should be made by the 
poor. And Veturius, marching out with one half of the army, laid waste the lands of 
the Fidenates (p175) without opposition, and sitting down before the town, delivered 
attacks without ceasing; but not being able to take the wall by siege, he proceeded to 
surround the town with palisades and a ditch, intending to reduce the inhabitants by 
famine. The Fidenates were already in great distress when assistance from the Latins 
arrived, sent by Sextus Tarquinius, together with grain, arms and other supplies for 
the war. Encouraged by this, they made bold to come out of the town with an army of 
no small size and encamped in the open. The line of contravallation was now of no 
further use to the Romans, but a battle seemed necessary; and an engagement took 
place near the city, the outcome of which for some time remained indecisive. Then, 
forced back by the stubborn endurance of the Romans, in which they excelled because 
of their long training, the Fidenates, though more numerous, were put to flight by the 
smaller force. They did not suffer any great loss, however, since their retreat into the 
city was over a short distance and the men who manned the walls repulsed the 
pursuers. After this action the auxiliary troops dispersed and returned home, without 
having been of any service to the inhabitants; and the city found itself once more in 
the same distress and laboured under a scarcity of provisions. About the same time, 
Sextus Tarquinius marched with an army of Latins to Signia, then in the possession of 
the Romans, in expectation of taking the place by storm. When the garrison made a 
brave resistance, he was prepared to force them by famine to quit the place, and he 
remained there a considerable time without accomplishing anything worth 
mentioning; but finding (p177) himself disappointed of this hope also when provisions 
and assistance from the consuls reached the garrison, he raised the siege and 
departed with his army. 

[5,59] The following year the Romans created Titus Larcius Flavus and Quintus 
Cloelius Siculus consuls. Of these, Cloelius was appointed by the senate to conduct 
the civil administration and with one half of the army to guard against any who might 
be inclined to sedition; for he was looked upon as fair-minded and democratic. 
Larcius, on his part, set out for the war against the Fidenates with a well-equipped 
army, after getting ready everything necessary for a siege. And to the Fidenates, who 
were in dire straits owing to the length of the war and in want of all the necessaries of 
life, he proved a sore affliction by undermining the foundations of the walls, raising 
mounds, bringing up his engines of war, and continuing the attacks night and day, in 
the expectation of taking the city in a short time by storm. Nor were the Latin cities, 
on which alone the Fidenates had relied in undertaking the war, ably any longer to 
save them; for not one of their cities had sufficient strength by itself to raise the siege 
for them, and as yet no army had been raised jointly by the whole nation. But to the 
ambassadors who came frequently from Fidenae the leading men of the various cities 
kept giving the same answer, that aid would soon come to them; no action, however, 
followed corresponding to the promises, but the hopes of assistance they held out 
went no farther than (p179) words. Notwithstanding this, the Fidenates had not 
altogether despaired of help from the Latins, but supported themselves with 
constancy under all their dreadful experiences by their confidence in those hopes. 
Above all else, the famine was what they could not cope with and this caused the 
death of many inhabitants. When at last they gave way to their calamities, they sent 
ambassadors to the consul to ask for a truce for a definite number of days, in order to 
deliberate during that time concerning the conditions upon which they should enter 
into a league of friendship with the Romans. But this time was not sought by them 
for deliberating, but for securing reinforcements, as was revealed by some of the 
deserters who had lately come over to the Romans. For the night before they had sent 
the most important of their citizens and such as had the greatest influence in the 
cities of the Latins to their general council bearing the tokens of suppliants. 

[5,60] Larcius, being aware of this beforehand, ordered those who asked for a truce to 
lay down their arms and open their gates first, and then to treat with him. Otherwise, 
he told them, they would get neither peace nor a truce nor any other humane or 
moderate treatment from Rome. He also, by stationing more diligent guards along all 
the roads leading to the city, took care that the ambassadors sent to the Latin nation 
should not get back inside the walls. Consequently the besieged, despairing of the 
hoped for assistance from their allies, were compelled to have recourse to 
supplicating their enemies. And meeting in assembly, they decided to submit to such 
conditions of peace as the conqueror prescribed. But the commanders at that 
(p181) time, it seems, were in their whole behaviour so obedient to the civil power and so 
far removed from tyrannical presumption (which only a few of the commanders in 
our days, elated by the greatness of their power, have been able to avoid), that the 
consul, after taking over the city, did nothing on his own responsibility, but ordering 
the inhabitants to lay down their arms and leaving a garrison in the citadel, went 
himself to Rome, and assembling the senate, left it to them to consider how those 
who had surrendered themselves ought to be treated. Thereupon the senators, 
admiring him for the honour he had shown them, decided that the most prominent of 
the Fidenates and those who had been the authors of the revolt — these to be named 
by the consul — should be scourged with rods and beheaded; but concerning the rest, 
they gave him authority to do everything he thought fit. Larcius, having thus been 
given full power in all matters, ordered some few of the Fidenates, who were accused 
by those of the opposite party, to be put to death before the eyes of all and confiscated 
their fortunes; but all the others he permitted to retain both their city and their 
goods. Nevertheless, he took from them one half of their territory, which was divided 
by lot among those Romans who were left in the city as a garrison for the citadel. 
Having settled these matters, he returned home with his army. 

[5,61]  When the Latins heard of the capture of Fidenae, every city was in a state of the 
utmost excitement and fear, and all the citizens were angry with those who were at 
the head of federal (p183) affairs, accusing them of having betrayed their allies. And a 
general assembly be held at Ferentinum, those who urged a recourse to arms, 
particularly Tarquinius and his son-in-law Mamilius, together with the heads of the 
Arician state, inveighed bitterly against those who opposed the war; and by their 
harangues all the deputies of the Latin nation were persuaded to undertake the war 
jointly against the Romans. And to the end that no city might either betray the 
common cause or be reconciled to the Romans without the consent of all, they swore 
oaths to one another and voted that those who violated this agreement should be 
excluded from their alliance, be accursed and regarded as the enemies of all. The 
deputies who subscribed to the treaty and swore to its observance were from the 
following cities: Ardea, Aricia, Bovillae, Bubentum, Cora, Carventum, Circeii, 
Corioli, Corbio, Cabum, Fortinea, Gabii, Laurentum, Lanuvium, Lavinium, Labici, 
Nomentum, Norba, Praeneste, (p185) Pedum, Querquetula, Satricum, Scaptia, Setia, 
Tibur, Tusculum, Tolerium, Tellenae, Velitrae. They voted that as many men of 
military age from all these cities should take part in the campaign as their 
commanders, Octavius Mamilius and Sextus Tarquinius, should require; for they had 
appointed these to be their generals with absolute power. And in order that the 
grounds they offered for the war might appear plausible, they sent the most 
prominent men from every city to Rome as ambassadors. These, upon being 
introduced to the senate, said that the Arician state preferred the following charges 
against the Roman state: When the Tyrrhenians had made war upon the Aricians, the 
Romans had not only granted them a safe passage through their territory, but had 
also assisted them with everything they required for the war, and having received 
such of the Tyrrhenians as fled from the defeat, they had saved them when they all 
were wounded and without arms, though they could not be ignorant that they were 
making war against the whole nation in common, and that if they had once made 
themselves masters of the city of Aricia nothing could have hindered them from 
enslaving all the other cities as well. If, therefore, the Romans would consent to 
appear before the general tribunal of the Latins and answer there the accusations 
brought against them by the Aricians, and would abide by the decision of all the 
members, they said the Romans would not need to have a war; but if they persisted in 
their usual arrogance and refused (p187) to make any just and reasonable concessions to 
their kinsmen, they threatened that all the Latins would make war upon them with all 
their might. 

[5,62] This was the proposal made by the ambassadors; but the senate was unwilling to 
plead its cause with the Aricians in a controversy in which their accusers would be the 
judges, and they did not imagine that their enemies would even confine their 
judgment to these charges alone, but would add other demands still more grievous 
than these; and accordingly they voted to accept war. So far, indeed, as bravery and 
experience in warfare were concerned, they did not suppose any misfortune would 
befall the commonwealth, but the multitude of their enemies alarmed them; and 
sending ambassadors in many directions, they invited the neighbouring cities to an 
alliance, while the Latins in their turn sent counter-embassies to the same cities and 
bitterly assailed Rome. The Hernicans, meeting together, gave suspicious and 
insincere answers to both embassies, saying that they would not for the present enter 
into an alliance with either, but would consider at leisure which of the two nations 
made the juster claims, and that they would give a year's time to that consideration. 
The Rutulians openly promised the Latins that they would send them assistance, and 
assured the Romans that, if they would consent to give up their enmity, they through 
their influence would cause the Latins to moderate their demands and would mediate 
a peace between them. The Volscians said they even wondered at the shamelessness 
of the Romans, who, though conscious of the many injuries they had done them, and 
(p189) particularly of the latest, in taking from them the best part of their territory and 
retaining it, had nevertheless had the effrontery to invite them, who were their 
enemies, to an alliance; and they advised them first to restore their lands and then to 
ask satisfaction from them as from friends. The Tyrrhenians put obstacles in the way 
of both sides by alleging that they had lately made a treaty with the Romans and that 
they had ties of kinship and friendship with the Tarquinii. Notwithstanding these 
answers, the Romans abated nothing of their spirit, which would have been a natural 
thing for those who were entering upon a dangerous war and had given up hope of 
any assistance from their allies; but trusting to their own forces alone, they grew 
much more eager for the contest, in the confidence that because of their necessity 
they would acquit themselves as brave men in the face of danger, and that if they 
succeeded according to their wish and won the war by their own valour, the glory of it 
would not have to be shared with anyone else. Such spirit and daring had they 
acquired from their many contests in the past. 

[5,63] While they were preparing everything that was necessary for the war and 
beginning to enrol their troops, they fell into great perplexity when they found that all 
the citizens did not show the same eagerness for the service. For the needy, and 
particularly those who were unable to discharge their debts to their creditors — and 
there were many such — when called to arms refused to obey and were unwilling to 
join with the patricians in any undertaking unless they passed a vote for the 
remission (p191) of their debts. On the contrary, some of them threatened even to leave 
the city and exhorted one another to give up their fondness for living in a city that 
allowed them no share in any thing that was good. At first the patricians 
endeavoured by entreaties to prevail upon them to change their purpose, but finding 
that in response to their entreaties they showed no greater moderation, they then 
assembled in the senate-house to consider what would be the most seemly method of 
putting an end to the disturbance that was troubling the state. Those senators, 
therefore, who were fair-minded and of moderate fortunes advised them to remit the 
debts of the poor and to purchase for a small price the goodwill of their fellow-citizens, 
from which they were sure to derive great advantages both private and public. 

[5,64] The author of this advice was Marcus Valerius, the son of Publius Valerius, one 
of those who had overthrown the tyranny and from his goodwill toward the common 
people had been called Publicola. He showed them that those who fight for equal 
rewards are apt to be inspired to action by an equal spirit of emulation, whereas it 
never occurs to those who are to reap no advantage to entertain any thought of 
bravery. He said that all the poor people were exasperated and were going about the 
Forum saying: "What advantage shall we gain by overcoming our foreign enemies if 
we are liable to be haled to prison for debt by the money-lenders, or by gaining the 
leadership for the commonwealth if we ourselves cannot maintain even the liberty of 
our own persons?" He then showed them that this was not the only danger which had 
been brought (p193) upon them in case the people should become hostile to the senate, 
namely, that they would abandon the city in the midst of its perils — a possibility at 
which all who desired the preservation of the commonwealth must shudder — but 
that there was the further danger, still more formidable than this, that, seduced by 
favours from the tyrants, they might take up arms against the patricians and aid in 
restoring Tarquinius to power. Accordingly, while it was still only a matter of words 
and threats, and no mischievous deed had been committed by the people as yet, he 
advised them to act in time and reconcile the people to the situation by affording 
them this relief; for they were neither the first to adopt such a measure nor would 
they incur any great disgrace on account of it, but could point to many others who 
had submitted, not only to this, but to other demands much more grievous, when 
they had no alternative. For necessity, he said, is stronger than human nature, and 
people insist on considering appearances only when they have already gained safety. 

[5,65] After he had enumerated many examples taken from many cities, he at last 
offered them that of the city of Athens, then in the greatest repute for wisdom, which 
not very long before, but in the time of their fathers, had under the guidance of Solon 
voted a remission of debts to the poor; and no one, he said, censured the city for this 
measure or called its author a flatterer of the people or a knave, but all bore witness 
both to the great prudence of those who were persuaded to enact it and to the great 
wisdom (p195) of the man who persuaded them do so. As for the Romans, whose 
perilous situation was due to no trivial differences, but to the danger of being 
delivered up again to a cruel tyrant more savage than any wild beast, what man in his 
senses could blame them if by this instance of humanity they should cause the poor to 
become joint supporters, instead of enemies, of the commonwealth? After 
enumerating these foreign examples he ended with a reference to their own actions, 
reminding them of the straits to which they had been lately reduced when, their 
country being in the power of the Tyrrhenians and they themselves shut up within 
their walls and in great want of the necessaries of life, they had not taken the foolish 
resolutions of madmen courting death, but yielding to the emergency that was upon 
them and allowing necessity to teach them their interest, had consented to deliver up 
to King Porsena their most prominent children as hostages, a thing to which they had 
never submitted before, to be deprived of part of their territory by the cession of the 
Seven Districts to the Tyrrhenians, to accept the enemy as the judge of the 
accusations brought against them by the tyrant, and to furnish provisions, arms, and 
everything else the Tyrrhenians required as the condition of their putting an end to 
the war. Having made use of these examples, he went on to show that it was not the 
part of the same prudence first to refuse no terms insisted on by their enemies and 
then to make war over a trivial difference upon their own (p197) citizens who had fought 
many glorious battles for Rome's supremacy while the kings held sway, and had 
shown great eagerness in assisting the patricians to free the state from the tyrants, 
and would show still greater zeal in what remained to be done, if invited to do so; for, 
though they lacked the means of existence, they would freely expose their persons 
and lives, which were all they had left, to any dangers for her sake. In conclusion he 
said that, even if these men from a sense of shame forbore to say or demand anything 
of this kind, the patricians ought to take proper account of them and to give them 
readily whatever they knew they needed, whether as a class or individually, bearing in 
mind that they, the patricians, were doing an arrogant thing in asking of them their 
persons while refusing them money, and in publishing to all the world that they were 
making war to preserve the common liberty even while they were depriving of liberty 
those who had assisted them in establishing it, though they could reproach them with 
no wrongdoing, but only with poverty, which deserved compassion rather than hated. 

[5,66] After Valerius had spoken to this effect and many had approved of his advice, 
Appius Claudius Sabinus, being called upon at the proper time, advised the opposite 
course, declaring that the seditious spirit would not be removed from the state if they 
decreed an abolition of debts, but would become more dangerous by being 
transferred from the poor to the rich. For it was plain enough to everyone that those 
who were to be deprived of their (p199) money would resent it, as they were not only 
citizens in possession of all civil rights, but had also served their country in all the 
campaigns that fell to their lot, and would regard it as unjust that the money left them 
by their fathers, together with what they themselves had by their industry and 
frugality acquired, should be confiscated for the benefit of the most unprincipled and 
the laziest of the citizens. It would be the part of great folly for them, in their desire to 
gratify the worse part of the citizenry, to disregard the better element, and in 
confiscating the fortunes of others for the benefit of the most unjust of the citizens, to 
take them away from those who had justly acquired them. He asked them also to 
bear in mind that states are not overthrown by those who are poor and without 
power, when they are compelled to do justice, but by the rich and such as are capable 
of administering public affairs, when they are insulted by their inferiors and fail to 
keep justice. And even if those who were to be deprived of the benefit of their 
contracts were not going to harbour any resentment but would submit with some 
degree of meekness and indifference to their losses, yet even in that case, he said, it 
would be neither honourable nor safe for them to gratify the poor with such a gift, by 
which the life of the community would be devoid of all intercourse, full of mutual 
hatred, and lacking in the necessary employments without which cities cannot be 
inhabited, since neither the husbandmen would any longer sow and plant their lands, 
nor the merchants sail the sea and trade in foreign markets, nor the poor employ 
themselves in any other just occupation. For none of the rich would throw away their 
money to supply those (p201) who needed the means of carrying on any of these 
occupations; and in consequence wealth would be hated and industry destroyed, and 
the prodigal would be in a better condition than the frugal, the unjust than the just, 
and those who appropriated to themselves the fortunes of others would have the 
advantage over those who guarded their own. These were the things that created 
seditions in states, mutual slaughter without end, and every other sort of mischief, by 
which the most prosperous of them had lost their liberty and those whose lot was less 
fortunate had been totally destroyed. 

[5,67] But, above all, he advised them, in instituting a new form of government, to take 
care that no bad custom should gain admittance there. For he declared that of 
whatever nature the public principles of states were, such of necessity would be the 
lives of the individual citizens. And there was no worse practice, he said, either for 
states or for families, than for everyone to live always according to his own pleasure 
and for everything to be granted to inferiors by their superiors, whether out of favour 
or from necessity. For the desires of the unintelligent are not satisfied when they 
obtain what they demand, but they immediately covet other and greater things, and 
so on without end; and this is the case particularly with the masses. For the lawless 
deeds which each one by himself is either ashamed or afraid to commit, being 
restrained by the more powerful, they are more ready to engage in when they have got 
together and gained strength for their own inclinations from those who are like 
minded. And since the desires of the unintelligent mob are insatiable and boundless, 
it is necessary, he said, to check them (p203) at the very outset, while they are weak, 
instead of trying to destroy them after they have become great and powerful. For all 
men feel more violent anger when deprived of what has already been granted to them 
than when disappointed of what they merely hope for. He cited many examples to 
prove this, relating the experiences of various Greek cities which, having become 
weakened because of certain critical situations and having given admittance to the 
beginnings of evil practices, had no longer had the power to put an end to them and 
abolish them, in consequence of which they had been compelled to go on into 
shameful and irreparable calamities. He said the commonwealth resembled each 
particular man, the senate bearing some resemblance to the soul of a man and the 
people to his body. If, therefore, they permitted the unintelligent populace to govern 
the senate, they would fare the same as those who subject the soul to the body and 
live under the influence, not of their reason, but of their passions; whereas, if they 
accustomed the populace to be governed and led by the senate, they would be doing 
the same as those who subject the body to the soul and lead lives directed toward 
what is best, not most pleasant. He showed them that no great mischief would befall 
the state if the poor, dissatisfied with them for not granting an abolition of debts, 
should refuse to take up arms in its defence, declaring that there were few indeed who 
had nothing left but their persons, and these would neither offer any remarkable 
advantage to the state when present on its expeditions, nor, by their absence to do 
any great harm. For those who (p205) had the lowest rating in the census, he reminded 
them, were posted in the rear in battle and counted as a mere appendage to the forces 
that were arrayed in the battle-line, being present merely to strike the enemy with 
terror, since they had no other arms but slings, which are of the least use in action. 

[5,68] He said that those who thought it proper to pity the poverty of the citizens and 
who advised relieving such of them as were unable to pay their debts ought to inquire 
what it was that had made them poor, when they had inherited the lands their fathers 
had left them and had gained much booty from their campaigns, and, last of all, when 
each of them had received his share of the confiscated property of the tyrants; and 
after that they ought to look upon such of them as they found had lived for their 
bellies and the most shameful pleasures, and by such means had lost their fortunes, 
as a disgrace and injury to the city, and to regard it as a great benefit to the common 
weal if they would voluntarily get to the devil out of the city. But in the case of such as 
they found to have lost their fortunes through an unkind fate, he advised them to 
relieve these with their private means. Their creditors, he said, not only understood 
this best, but would attend to it best, and would themselves relieve their misfortunes, 
not under compulsion from others, but voluntarily, to the end that gratitude, instead 
of their money, might accrue to them as a noble debt. But to extend the relief to all 
alike, when the worthless would share it equally with the deserving, and to confer 
(p207) benefits on certain persons, not at their own expense, but at that of others, and 
not to leave to those whose money they took away even the gratitude owed for these 
services, was in no wise consistent with the virtue of Romans. But above all these 
and the other considerations, it was a grievous and intolerable thing for the Romans, 
who were laying claim to the leadership — a leadership which their ancestors had 
acquired through many hardships and left to their posterity — if they could not do 
what was best and most advantageous for the commonwealth also, by their own 
choice, or when convinced by argument, or at the proper time, but, just as if the city 
had been captured or were expecting to suffer that fate, must do things contrary to 
their own judgment from which they would receive very little benefit, if any, but 
would run the risk of suffering the very worst of ills. For it was far better for them to 
submit to the commands of the Latins, as being more moderate, and not even to try 
the fortune of war, than by yielding to the pleas of those who were of no use upon any 
occasion, to abolish from the south the public faith, which their ancestors had 
appointed to be honoured by the erection of a temple and by sacrifices performed 
throughout the year — and this when they were merely going to add a body of 
slingers to their forces for the war. The sum and substance of his advice was this: to 
take for the business in hand such citizens as were willing to share the fortune of the 
war upon the same terms as every other Roman, and to let those who insisted upon 
any special terms whatever for taking up arms for their country go hang, since they 
would be of no use (p209) even if they did arm. For if they knew this, he said, they would 
yield and show themselves prompt to obey those who took the wisest counsel for the 
commonwealth; since all the unintelligent are generally wont, when flattered, to be 
arrogant, and when terrified, to show restraint. 

[5,69]  These were the extreme opinions delivered upon that occasion, but there were 
many which took the middle ground between the two. For some of the senators 
favoured remitting the debts of those only who had nothing, permitting the money-
lenders to seize the goods of the debtors, but not their persons. Others advised that 
the public treasury should discharge the obligations of the insolvents, in order both 
that the credit of the poor might be preserved by this public favour and their creditors 
might suffer no injustice. Certain others thought that they ought to ransom the 
persons of those who were already being held for debt or were going to be deprived of 
their liberty, by substituting captives in their stead and assigning these to their 
creditors. After various views such as these had been expressed, the opinion that 
prevailed was that they should pass no decree for the time being concerning these 
matters, but that after the wars were ended in the most satisfactory manner, the 
consuls should then bring them up for discussion and take the votes of the senators; 
and that in the meantime there should be no money exacted by virtue of either any 
contract or any judgment, that all other suits should be dropped, and that neither the 
courts of justice should sit nor the magistrates take cognizance of anything but what 
related to the war. When this decree was brought to the people, it allayed in 
(p211) some measure the civil commotion, yet it did not entirely remove the spirit of 
sedition from the state. For some of the labouring class did not look upon the hope 
held out by the senate, which contained nothing express or certain, as a sufficient 
relief; but they demanded that the senate should do one of two things, either grant 
them the remission of debts immediately, if it wanted to have them as partners in the 
dangers of the war, or not delude them by deferring it to another occasion. For men's 
sentiments, they said, were very different when they were making requests and after 
their requests had been satisfied. 

[5,70] While the public affairs were in this condition, the senate, considering by what 
means it could most effectually prevent the plebeians from creating any fresh 
disturbances, resolved to abolish the consular power for the time being and to create 
some other magistracy with full authority over war and peace and every other matter, 
possessed of absolute power and subject to no accounting for either its counsels or its 
actions. The term of this new magistracy was to be limited to six months, after the 
expiration of which time the consuls were again to govern. The reasons that 
compelled the senate to submit to a voluntary tyranny in order to put an end to the 
war brought upon them by their tyrant were many and various, but the chief one was 
the law introduced by the consul Publius Valerius, called Publicola (concerning which 
I stated in the beginning that it rendered invalid the decisions of the consuls), 
(p213) providing that no Roman should be punished before he was tried, and granting to 
any who were haled to punishment by their orders the right to appeal from their 
decision to the people, and until the people had given their vote concerning them, the 
right to enjoy security for both their persons and their fortunes; and it ordained that 
if any person attempted to do anything contrary to these provisions he might be put 
to death with impunity. The senate reasoned that while this law remained in force 
the poor could not be compelled to obey the magistrates, because, as it was 
reasonable to suppose, they would scorn the punishments which they were to 
undergo, not immediately, but only after they had been condemned by the people, 
whereas, when this law had been repealed, all would be under the greatest necessity 
of obeying orders. And to the end that the poor might offer no opposition, in case an 
open attempt were made to repeal the law itself, the senate resolved to introduce into 
the government a magistracy of equal power with a tyranny, which should be superior 
to all the laws. And they passed a decree by which they deceived the poor and, 
without being detected, repealed the law that secured their liberty. The decree was to 
this effect; that Larcius and Cloelius, who were the consuls at the time, should resign 
their power, and likewise any other person who held a magistracy or had the 
oversight of any public business; and that a single person, to be chosen by the senate 
and approved of by the people, should be invested with the whole authority of the 
commonwealth and exercise it for a period not longer than six months, having power 
superior to that of the consuls. The plebeians, being unaware of the real (p215)  import 
of this proposal, ratified the resolutions of the senate, although, in fact, a magistracy 
that was superior to a legal magistracy was a tyranny; and they gave the senators 
permission to deliberate by themselves and choose the person who was to hold it. 

[5,71] After this the leading men of the senate devoted much earnest thought to 
searching for the man who should be entrusted with the command. For they felt that 
the situation required a man both vigorous in action and of wide experience in 
warfare, a man, moreover, possessed of prudence and self-control, who would not be 
led into folly by the greatness of his power; but, above all these qualities and the 
others essential in good generals, a man was required who knew how to govern with 
firmness and would show no leniency toward the disobedient, a quality of which they 
then stood particularly in need. And though they observed that all the qualities they 
demanded were to be found in Titus Larcius, one of the consuls (for Cloelius, who 
excelled in all administrative virtues, was not a man of action nor fond of war, nor 
had he the ability to command others and to inspire fear, but was a mild punisher of 
the disobedient), they were nevertheless ashamed to deprive one of the consuls of the 
magistracy of which he was legally possessed and to confer upon the other the power 
of both, a power which was being created greater than the kingly authority. Besides, 
they were under some secret apprehensions lest Cloelius, taking to heart his removal 
from office and considering (p217) it a dishonour put upon him by the senate, might 
change his sentiments and, becoming a patron of the people, overthrow the whole 
government. And when all were ashamed to lay their thoughts before the senate, and 
this situation had continued for a considerable time, at last the oldest and most 
honoured of the men of consular rank delivered an opinion by which he preserved an 
equal share of honour to both the consuls and yet found out from those men 
themselves the one who was the more suitable to command. He said that, since the 
senate had decreed and the people in confirm thereof had voted that the power of this 
magistracy should be entrusted to a single person, and since two matters remained 
that required no small deliberation and thought, namely, who should be the one to 
receive this magistracy that was of equal power with a tyranny, and by what legal 
authority he should be appointed, it was his opinion that one of the present consuls, 
either by consent of his colleague or by recourse to the lot, should choose among all 
the Romans the person he thought would govern the commonwealth in the best and 
most advantageous manner. They had no need on the present occasion, he said, of 
interreges, to whom it had been customary under the monarchy to give the sole 
power of appointing those who were to reign, since the commonwealth was already 
provided with the lawful magistrate. 

[5,72] This opinion being applauded by all, another senator rose up and said: "I think, 
senators, this also ought to be added to the motion, namely, (p219) that as two persons 
of the greatest worth have at present the administration of the public affairs, men 
whose superiors you could not find, one of them should be empowered to make the 
nomination and the other should be appointed by his colleague, after they have 
considered together which of them is the more suitable person, to the end that, as the 
honour is equal between them, so the satisfaction may be equal also, to the one, in 
having declared his colleague to be the best man, and to the other, in having been 
declared the best by his colleague; for each of these things is pleasing and 
honourable. I know, to be sure, that even if this amendment were not made to the 
motion, they themselves would have thought proper to act in this manner; but it is 
better it should appear that you likewise approve of no other course." This proposal 
also seemed to meet with the approval of all, and the motion was then passed without 
further amendment. When the consuls had received the authority to decide which of 
them was the more suitable to command, they did a thing both admirable in itself and 
passing all human belief. For each of them declared, as worthy of the command, not 
himself, but the other; and they continued all that day enumerating one another's 
virtues and begging that they themselves might not receive the command, so that all 
who were present in the senate were in great perplexity. When the senate had been 
dismissed, the kinsmen of each and the most honoured among the senators at large 
came to Larcius and continued to entreat him till far into the night, informing him 
that the senate had placed all its hopes in him and declaring that his indifference 
toward the command was prejudicial to the commonwealth. But Larcius (p221) was 
unmoved, and in his turn continued to address many prayers and entreaties to each 
of them. The next day, when the senate had again assembled, and he still resisted 
and, in spite of the advice of all the senators, would not change his mind, Cloelius 
rose up and nominated him, according to the practice of the interreges, and then 
abdicated the consulship himself. 

[5,73] Larcius was the first man to be appointed sole ruler at Rome with absolute 
authority in war, in peace, and in all other matters. They call this magistrate a 
dictator, either from his power of issuing whatever orders he wishes and of 
prescribing for the others rules of justice and right as he thinks proper (for the 
Romans call commands and ordinances respecting what is right and wrong edicta or 
"edicts")81 so, as some write, from the form of nomination which was then introduced, 
since he was to receive the magistracy, not from the people, according to ancestral 
usage, but by the appointment of one man. For they did not think they ought to give 
an invidious and obnoxious title to any magistracy that had the oversight of a free 
people, as well as for the sake of the governed, lest they should be alarmed by the 
odious terms of address, as from a regard for the men who were assuming the 
magistracies, lest they should unconsciously either suffer some injury from others or 
themselves commit against others acts of injustice of the sort that positions of such 
authority bring in their train. For the extent of the power which the dictator possesses 
is by no means indicated by the (p223) title; for the dictatorship is in reality an elective 
tyranny. The Romans seem to me to have taken this institution also from the Greeks. 
For the magistrates anciently called among the Greeks g-Aisymnehtai or "regulators," as 
Theophrastus writes in his treatise On Kingship, were a kind of elective tyrants. 
They were chosen by the cities, not for a definite time nor continuously, but for 
emergencies, as often and for as long a time as seemed convenient; just as the 
Mitylenaeans, for example, once chose Pittacus to oppose the exiles headed by 
Alcaeus, the poet. 

[5,74] The first men who had recourse to this institution had learned the advantage of it 
by experience. For in the beginning all the Greek cities were governed by kings, 
though not despotically, like the barbarian nations, but according to certain laws and 
time-honoured customs, and he was the best king who was the most just, the most 
observant of the laws, and did not in any wise depart from the established customs. 
This appears from Homer, who calls kings dikaspoloi or "ministers of justice," and 
themispoloi or "ministers of the laws." And kingships continued to be carried on for a 
long time subject to certain stated conditions, like that of the Lacedaemonians. But as 
some of the kings began to abuse their powers and made little use of the laws, but 
settled most matters according to their own judgment, people in general grew 
dissatisfied with the whole institution and abolished the kingly governments; and 
enacting laws and choosing magistrates, they used (p225) these as the safeguards of 
their cities. But when neither the laws they had made were sufficient to ensure 
justice nor the magistrates who had undertaken the oversight of them able to uphold 
the laws, and times of crisis, introducing many innovations, compelled them to 
choose, not the best institutions, but such as were best suited to the situations in 
which they found themselves, not only in unwelcome calamities, but also in 
immoderate prosperity, and when their forms of government were becoming 
corrupted by these conditions and required speedy and arbitrary correction, they 
were compelled to restore the kingly and tyrannical powers, though they concealed 
them under more attractive titles. Thus, the Thessalians called these officials archoi84 
or "commanders," and the Lacedaemonians harmosati or "harmonizers," fearing to 
call them tyrants or kings, on the ground that it was not right for them to confirm 
those powers again which they had abolished with oaths and imprecations, under the 
approbation of the gods. My opinion, therefore, is, as I said, that the Romans took 
this example from the Greeks; but Licinius believes they took the dictatorship from 
the Albans, these being, as he says, the first who, when the royal family had become 
extinct upon the death of Amulius and Numitor, created annual magistrates with the 
same power the kings had enjoyed and called these magistrates dictators. For my 
part, I have not thought it worth while to inquire from whence the Romans took the 
name but (p227) from whence they took the example of the power comprehended under 
that name. But perhaps it is not worth while to discuss the matter further. 

[5,75] I shall now endeavour to relate in a summary manner how Larcius handled 
matters when he had been appointed the first dictator, and show with what dignity he 
invested the magistracy, for I look upon these matters as being most useful to my 
readers, since they will afford a great abundance of noble and profitable examples, 
not only to lawgivers and leaders of the people, but also to all others who aspire to 
take part in public life and to govern the state. For it is no mean and humble state of 
which I am going to relate the institutions and manners, nor were the men nameless 
outcasts whose counsels and actions I shall record, so that my zeal for small and 
trivial details might to some appear tedious and trifling; but I am writing the history 
of the state which prescribes rules of right and justice for all mankind, and of the 
leaders who raised her to that dignity, matters concerning which any philosopher or 
statesman would earnestly strive not to be ignorant. As soon, therefore, as Larcius 
had assumed this power, he appointed as his Master of the Horse Spurius Cassius, 
who had been consul about the seventieth Olympiad. This custom has been observed 
by the Romans down to my generation and no one appointed dictator has thus far 
gone through his magistracy without a Master of the Horse. After that, desiring to 
show how great was the extent of his power, he ordered the lictors, more to inspire 
terror than for any actual use, to carry the axes with the (p229) bundles of rods through 
the city, thereby reviving once more a custom that had been observed by the kings but 
abandoned by the consuls after Valerius Publicola in his first consulship had lessened 
the hatred felt for that magistracy. Having by this and the other symbols of royal 
power terrified the turbulent and the seditious, he first ordered all the Romans, 
pursuant to the best of all the practices established by Servius Tullius, the most 
democratic of the kings, to return valuations of their property, each in their respective 
tribes, adding the names of their wives and children as well as the ages of themselves 
and their children. And all of them having registered in a short time by reason of the 
severity of the penalty (for the disobedient were to lose both their property and their 
citizenship), the Romans who had arrived at the age of manhood were found to 
number 150,700. After that he separated those who were of military age from the 
older men, and distributing the former into centuries, he formed four bodies of foot 
and horse, of which he kept one, the best, about his person, while of the remaining 
three bodies, he ordered Cloelius, who had been his colleague in the consulship, to 
choose the one he wished, Spurius Cassius, the Master of the Horse, to take the third, 
and Spurius Larcius, his brother, the remaining one; this last body together with the 
older men was ordered to guard the city, remaining inside the walls. 

[5,76] When he had got everything ready that was necessary for the war, he took the 
field with his forces and established three camps in the places (p231) where he suspected 
the Latins would be the most likely to make their invasion. He considered that it is 
the part of a prudent general, not only to strengthen his own position, but also to 
weaken that of the enemy, and, above all, to bring wars to an end without a battle or 
hardship, or, if that cannot be done, then with the least expenditure of men; and 
regarding as the worse of all wars and the most distressing those which men are 
forced to undertake against kinsmen and friends, he thought they ought to be settled 
by an accommodation in which clemency outweighed the demands of justice. 
Accordingly, he not only sent secretly to the most important men among the Latins 
some persons who were free from suspicion and attempted to persuade them to 
establish friendship between the two states, but he also sent ambassadors openly 
both to the several cities and to their league and by that means easily brought it about 
that they no longer entertained the same eagerness for the war. But in particular he 
won them over and set them against their leaders by the following service. The men 
who had received the supreme command over the Latins, namely, Mamilius and 
Sextus, keeping their forces all together in the city of Tusculum, were preparing to 
march on Rome, but were consuming much time in delay, either waiting for the cities 
which were slow in joining them or because the sacrificial victims were not 
favourable. During this time some of their men, scattering abroad from the camp, 
proceeded to plunder the territory of the Romans. Larcius, being informed of this, 
sent Cloelius against them with the most valiant, both of the horse and light-armed 
troops; and he, coming (p233) upon them unexpectedly, killed a few in the action and 
took the rest prisoners. These Larcius caused to be cured of their wounds, and having 
gained their affection by many other instances of kindness, he sent them to Tusculum 
safe and sound without ransom, and with them the most distinguished of the Romans 
as ambassadors. Through their efforts the army of the Latins was disbanded and a 
year's truce concluded between the two states. 

[5,77] After Larcius had effected these things, he brought the army home from the field, 
and having appointed consuls, laid down his magistracy before the whole term of his 
power had expired, without having put any of the Romans to death, banished any, or 
inflicted any other severity on any of them. This enviable example set by Larcius was 
continued by all who afterwards received this same power till the third generation 
before ours. Indeed, we find no instance of any one of them in history who did not use 
it with moderation and as became a citizen, though the commonwealth has often 
found it necessary to abolish the legal magistracies and to put the whole 
administration under one man. If, now, in foreign wars alone those who held the 
dictatorship had shown themselves brave champions of the fatherland, quite 
uncorrupted by the greatness of their power, it would not be so remarkable; but as it 
was, all who obtained this great power, whether in times of civil dissensions, which 
were many and serious, or in order to overthrow those who were suspected of aiming 
at monarchy or tyranny, or to prevent numberless other calamities, acquitted 
themselves in a manner free (p235) from reproach, like the first man who received it; so 
that all men gained the same opinion, and the last hope of safety when all others had 
been snatched away by some crisis, was the dictatorship. But in the time of our 
fathers, a full four hundred years after Titus Larcius, the institution became an object 
of reproach and hatred to all men under L. Cornelius Sulla, the first and only dictator 
who exercised his power with harshness and cruelty; so the Romans then perceived 
for the first time what they had along been ignorant of, that the dictatorship is a 
tyranny. For Sulla composed the senate of commonplace men, reduced the power of 
the tribunes to the minimum, depopulated whole cities, abolished some kingdoms 
and established others himself, and was guilty of many other arbitrary acts, which it 
would be a great task to enumerate. As for the citizens, besides those slain in battle, 
he put no fewer than forty thousand to death after they had surrendered to him, and 
some of these after he had first tortured them. 6Whether all these acts of his were 
necessary or advantageous to the commonwealth the present is not the time to 
inquire; all I have undertaken to show is that the name of dictator was rendered 
odious and terrible because of them. This is wont to be the case, not only with 
positions of power, but also with the other advantages which are eagerly contended 
for and admired in everyday life. For they all appear noble and profitable to those 
who hold them when they are used nobly, but base and (p237) unprofitable when they 
find unprincipled champions. For this result Nature is responsible, which to all good 
things has attached some congenital evils. But another occasion may be more suitable 
for discussing this subject.