Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79)

by Dionysius of Halicarnassus

  [77.1] “Citizens, as I am going to speak to you upon urgent matters of general interest, I desire first to say a few words about myself. For by some, perhaps, or more accurately, as I know, by many of you, I shall be thought to be disordered in my intellect when I, a man of unsound mind, attempt to speak upon matters of the greatest importance — a man who, as being not mentally sound, has need of guardians. [2] Know, then, that the general opinion you all entertained of me as of a fool was false and contrived by me and by me alone. That which compelled me to live, not as my nature demanded or as beseemed me, but as was agreeable to Tarquinius and seemed likely to be to my own advantage, was the fear I felt for my life. [3] For my father was put to death by Tarquinius upon his accession to the sovereignty, in order that he might possess himself of his property, which was very considerable, and my elder brother, who would have avenged his father’s death if he had not been put out of the way, was secretly murdered by the tyrant; nor was it clear that he would spare me, either, now left destitute of my nearest relations, if I had not pretended a folly that was not genuine. [4] This fiction, finding credit with the tyrant, saved me from the same treatment that they had experienced and has preserved me to this day; but since the time has come at last which I have prayed for and looked forward to, I am now laying it aside for the first time, after maintaining it for twenty-five years. So much concerning myself.

  [78] “The state of public affairs, because of which I have called you together, is this: Inasmuch as Tarquinius neither obtained the sovereignty in accordance with our ancestral customs and laws, nor, since he obtained it — in whatever manner he got it — has he been exercising it in an honourable or kingly manner, but has surpassed in insolence and lawlessness all the tyrants the world ever saw, we patricians met together and resolved to deprive him of his power, a thing we ought to have done long ago, but are doing now when a favourable opportunity has offered. And we have called you together, plebeians, in order to declare our own decision and then ask for your assistance in achieving liberty for our country, a blessing which we night have hitherto been able to enjoy since Tarquinius obtained the sovereignty, nor shall hereafter be able to enjoy if we show weakness now. [2] Had I as much time as I could wish, or were I about to speak to men unacquainted with the facts, I should have enumerated all the lawless deeds of the tyrant for which he deserves to die, not once, but many times, at the hands of all. But since the time permitted me by the circumstances is short, and in this brief time there is little that needs to be said but much to be done, and since I am speaking to those who are acquainted with the facts, I shall remind you merely of those of his deeds that are the most heinous and the most conspicuous and do not admit of any excuse.

  [79.1] “This is that Tarquinius, citizens, who, before he took over the sovereignty, destroyed his own brother Arruns by poison because he would not consent to become wicked, in which abominable crime he was assisted by his brother’s wife, the sister of his own wife, whom this enemy of the gods had even long before debauched. [2] This is the man who on the same days and with the same poisons killed his wedded wife, a virtuous woman who had also been the mother of children by him, and did not even deign to clear himself of the blame for both of these poisonings and make it appear that they were not his work, by assuming a mourning garb and some slight pretence of grief; nay, close upon the heels of his committing those monstrous deeds and before the funeral-pyre which had received those miserable bodies had died away, he gave a banquet to his friends, celebrated his nuptials, and led the murderess of her husband as a bride to the bed of her sister, thus fulfilling the abominable contract he had made with her and being the first and the only man who ever introduced into the city of Rome such impious and execrable crimes unknown to any nation in the world, either Greek or barbarian. [3] And how infamous and dreadful, plebeians, were the crimes he committed against both his parents-in-law when they were already in the sunset of their lives! Servius Tullius, the most excellent of your kings and your greatest benefactor, he openly murdered and would not permit his body to be honoured with either the funeral or the burial that were customary; [4] and Tarquinia, the wife of Tullius, whom, as she was the sister of his father and had always shown great kindness to him, it was fitting that he should honour as a mother, he destroyed, unhappy woman, by the noose, without allowing her time to mourn her husband under the sod and to perform the customary sacrifices for him. Thus he treated those by whom he had been preserved, by whom he had been reared, and whom after their death he was to have succeeded if he had waited but a short time till death came to them in the course of nature.

  [80.1] “But why do I censure these crimes committed against his relations and his kin by marriage when, apart from them, I have so many other unlawful acts of which to accuse him, which he has committed against his country and against us all — if, indeed, they ought to be called merely unlawful acts and not rather the subversion and extinction of all that is sanctioned by our laws and customs? Take, for instance, the sovereignty — to begin with that. How did he obtain it? Did he follow the example of the former kings? Far from it! [2] The others were all advanced to the sovereignty by you according to our ancestral customs and laws, first, by a decree of the senate, which body has been given the right to deliberate first concerning all public affairs; next, by the appointment of interreges, whom the senate entrusts with the selection of the most suitable man from among those who are worthy of the sovereignty; after that, by a vote of the people in the comitia, by which vote the law requires that all matters of the greatest moment shall be ratified; and, last of all, by the approbation of the auguries, sacrificial victims and other signs, without which human diligence and foresight would be of no avail. [3] Well, then, which of these things does any one of you know to have been done when Tarquinius was obtaining the sovereignty? What preliminary decree of the senate was there? What decision on the part of the interreges? What vote of the people? What favourable auguries? I do not ask whether all these formalities were observed, though it was necessary, if all was to be well, that nothing founded either in custom or in law should have been omitted; but if it can be shown that any one of them was observed, I am content not to quibble about those that were omitted. How, then, did he come to the sovereignty? By arms, by violence, and by the conspiracies of wicked men, according to the custom of tyrants, in spite of your disapproval and indignation. [4] Well, but after he had obtained the sovereignty — in whatever manner he got it — did he use it in a fashion becoming a king, in imitation of his predecessors, whose words and actions were invariably such that they handed down the city to their successors more prosperous and greater than they themselves had received it? When man in his senses could say so, when he sees to what a pitiable and wretched state we all have been brought by him?

  [81.1] “I shall say nothing of the calamities we who are patricians have suffered, of which no one even of our enemies could hear without tears, since we are left but few out of many, have been brought low from having been exalted, and have come to poverty and dire want after being stripped of many enviable possessions. Of all those illustrious men, those great and able leaders because of whom our city was once distinguished, some have been put to death and others banished. [2] But what is your condition, plebeians? Has not Tarquinius taken away your laws? Has he not abolished your assemblages for the performance of religious rites and sacrifices? Has he not put an end to your electing of magistrates, to your voting, and to your meeting in assembly to discuss public affairs? Does he not force you, like slaves purchased with money, to endure shameful hardships in quarrying stone, hewing timber, carrying burdens, and wasting your strength in deep pits and caverns, without allowing you the least respite from your miseries? [3] What, then, will be the limit of our calamities? And when shall we recover the liberty our fathers enjoyed? When Tarquinius dies? To be sure! And how shall we be in a better condition then? Why should it not be a worse? For we shall have three Tarquinii sprung from the one, all far more abominable than the
ir sire. [4] For when one who from a private station has become a tyrant and has begun late to be wicked, is an expert in all tyrannical mischief, what kind of men may we expect those to be who are sprung from him, whose parentage has been depraved, whose nurture has been depraved, and who never had an opportunity of seeing or hearing of anything done with the moderation befitting free citizens? In order, therefore, that you may not merely guess at their accursed natures, but may know with certainty what kind of whelps the tyranny of Tarquinius is secretly rearing up for your destruction, behold the deed of one of them, the eldest of the three.

  [82.1] “This woman is the daughter of Spurius Lucretius, whom the tyrant, when he went to the war, appointed prefect of the city, and the wife of Tarquinius Collatinus, a kinsman of the tyrant who has undergone many hardships for their sake. Yet this woman, who desired to preserve her virtue and loved her husband as becomes a good wife, could not, when Sextus was entertained last night at her house as a kinsman and Collatinus was absent at the time in camp, escape the unbridled insolence of tyranny, but like a captive constrained by necessity, had to submit to indignities that it is not right any woman of free condition should suffer. [2] Resenting this treatment and looking upon the outrage as intolerable, she related to her father and the rest of her kinsmen the straits to which she had been reduced, and after earnestly entreating and adjuring them to avenge the wrongs she had suffered, she drew out the dagger she had concealed under the folds of her dress and before her father’s very eyes, plebeians, plunged the steel into her vitals. [3] O admirable woman and worthy of great praise for your noble resolution! You are gone, you are dead, being unable to hear the tyrant’s insolence and despising all the pleasures of life in order to avoid suffering any such indignity again. After this example, Lucretia, when you, who were given a woman’s nature, have shown the resolution of a brave man, shall we, who were born men, show ourselves inferior to women in courage? To you, because you had been deprived by force of your spotless chastity by submission to a tyrant during one night, death appeared sweeter and more blessed than life; and shall not the same feelings sway us, whom Tarquinius, by a tyranny, and of one day only, but of twenty-five years, has deprived of all the pleasures of life in depriving us of our liberty? [4] Life is intolerable to us, plebeians, while we wallow amid such wretchedness — to us who are the descendants of those men who thought themselves worthy to give laws to others and exposed themselves to many dangers for the sake of power and fame. Nay, but we must all choose one of two things — life with liberty or death with glory. [5] An opportunity has come such as we have been praying for. Tarquinius is absent from the city, the patricians are the leaders of the enterprise, and naught will be lacking to us if we enter upon the undertaking with zeal — neither men, money, arms, generals, nor any other equipment of warfare, for the city is full of all these; and it would be disgraceful if we, who aspire to rule the Volscians, the Sabines and countless other peoples, should ourselves submit to be slaves of others, and should undertake many wars to gratify the ambition of Tarquinius but not one to recover our own liberty.

  [83.1] “What resources, therefore, what assistance shall we have for our undertaking? For this remains to be discussed. First there are the hopes we place in the gods, whose rites, temples and altars Tarquinius pollutes with hands stained with blood and defiled with every kind of crime against his own people every time he begins the sacrifices and libations. Next, there are the hopes that we place in ourselves, who are neither few in number nor unskilled in war. Besides these advantages there are the forces of our allies, who, so long as they are not called upon by us, will not presume to busy themselves with our affairs, but if they see us acting the part of brave men, will gladly assist us in the war; for tyranny is odious to all who desire to be free. [2] But if any of you are afraid that the citizens who are in the camp with Tarquinius will assist him and make war upon us, their fears are groundless. For the tyranny is grievous to them also and the desire of liberty is implanted by Nature in the minds of all men, and every excuse for a change is sufficient for those who are compelled to bear hardships; and if you by your votes order them to come to the aid of their country, neither fear nor favour, nor any of the other motives that compel or persuade men to commit injustice, will keep them with the tyrants. [3] But if by reason of an evil nature or a bad upbringing the love of tyranny is, after all, rooted in some of them — though surely there are not many such — we will bring strong compulsion to bear upon these men too, so that they will become good citizens instead of bad. For we have, as hostages for them in the city, their children, wives and parents, who are dearer to every man than his own life. By promising to restore these to them if they will desert the tyrants, and by passing a vote of amnesty for the mistakes they have made, we shall easily prevail upon them to join us. [4] Advance to the struggle, therefore, plebeians, with confidence and with good hopes for the future; for this war which you are about to undertake is the most glorious of all the wars you have ever waged. Ye gods of our ancestors, kindly guardians of this land, and ye other divinities, to whom the care of our fathers was allotted, and thou City, dearest to the gods of all cities, the city in which we received our birth and nurture, we shall defend you with our counsels, our words, our hands and our lives, and we are ready to suffer everything that Heaven and Fate shall bring. [5] And I predict that our glorious endeavours will be crowned with success. May all here present, emboldened by the same confidence and united in the same sentiments, both preserve us and be preserved by us!”

  [84.1] While Brutus was thus addressing the people everything he said was received by them with continual acclamations signifying both their approval and their encouragement. Most of them even wept with pleasure at hearing these wonderful and unexpected words, and various emotions, in no wise resembling one another, affected the mind of each of his hearers. For pain was mingled with pleasure, the former arising from the terrible experiences that were past and the latter from the blessings that were anticipated; and anger went hand in hand with fear, the former encouraging them to despise their own safety in order to injure the objects of their hatred, while the latter, occasioned by the thought of the difficulty of overthrowing the tyranny, inspired them with reluctance toward the enterprise. [2] But when he had done speaking, they all cried out, as from a single mouth, to lead them to arms. Then Brutus, pleased at this, said: “On this condition, that you first hear the resolution of the senate and confirm it. For we have resolved that the Tarquinii and all their posterity shall be banished both from the city of Rome and from all the territory ruled by the Romans; that no one shall be permitted to say or do anything about their restoration; and that if anyone shall be found to be working contrary to these decisions he shall be put to death. [3] If it is your pleasure that this resolution be confirmed, divide yourselves into your curiae and give your votes; and let the enjoyment of this right be the beginning of your liberty.” This was done; and all the curiae having given their votes for the banishment of the tyrants, Brutus again came forward and said: “Now that our first measures have been confirmed in the manner required, hear also what we have further resolved concerning the form of our government. [4] It was our decision, upon considering what magistracy should be in control of affairs, not to establish the kingship again, but to appoint two annual magistrates to hold the royal power, these men to be whomever you yourselves shall choose in the comitia, voting by centuries. If, therefore, this also is your pleasure, give your votes to that effect.” The people approved of this resolution likewise, not a single vote being given against it. [5] After that, Brutus, coming forward, appointed Spurius Lucretius as interrex to preside over the comitia for the election of magistrates, according to ancestral custom. And he, dismissing the assembly, ordered all the people to go promptly in arms to the field where it was their custom to elect their magistrates. When they were come thither, he chose two men to perform the functions which had belonged to the kings — Brutus and Collatinus; and the people, being called by c
enturies, confirmed their appointment. Such were the measures taken in the city at that time.

  [85.1] As soon as King Tarquinius heard by the first messengers who had found means to escape from the city before the gates were shut that Brutus was holding the assembled people enthralled, haranguing them and summoning the citizens to liberty, which was all the information they could give him, he took with him his sons and the most trustworthy of his friends, and without communicating his design to any others, rode at full gallop in hopes of forestalling the revolt. But finding the gates shut and the battlements full of armed men, he returned to the camp as speedily as possible, bewailing and complaining of his misfortune. [2] But his cause there also was now lost. For the consuls, foreseeing that he would quickly come to the city, had sent letters by other roads to those in the camp, in which they exhorted them to revolt from the tyrant and acquainted them with the resolutions passed by those in the city. [3] Titus Herminius and Marcus Horatius, who had been left by the king to command in his absence, having received these letters, read them in an assembly of the soldiers; and asking them by their centuries what they thought should be done, when it was their unanimous opinion the regard the decisions reached by those in the city as valid, they no longer would admit Tarquinius when he returned. [4] After the king found himself disappointed of this hope also, he fled with a few companions to the city of Gabii, over which, as I said before, he had appointed Sextus, the eldest of his sons, to be king. He was now grown grey with age and had reigned twenty-five years. In the meantime Herminius and Horatius, having made a truce with the Ardeates for fifteen years, led their forces home.