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

by Dionysius of Halicarnassus

  [27.1] 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. [2] 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 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. [3] 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. [4] 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.”

  [28.1] 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, which he had been taught when a child by his nurse, who was a Tyrrhenian. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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.”

  [29.1] Mucius, without showing any sign of fear, either by a change of colour or by an anxious countenance, 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. [2] 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.” [3] 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. [4] And when we were considering what form our plot should 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.”

  [30.1] 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. [2] 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 with Tarquinius.” [3] 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.

  [31.1] 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. [2] 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 Mucius also was sent with them, having give
n 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. [3] 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. [4] So 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.

  [32.1] 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, would cheerfully accept the termination of the war upon any terms whatever. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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 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.

  [33.1] 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. [2] 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. [3] Valerius, accordingly, departed in order to bring them to the 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. [4] 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.

  [34.1] 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 renounced all friendly relations with the Tarquinii and Mamilius; and he ordered them to depart that very day from the camp. [2] 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. [3] 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. [4] 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 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. [5] 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.

  [35.1] 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. These were the rewards they gave to the men. [2] 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.

  [3] 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.

  [36.1] 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. [2] 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 life, and the Tyrrhenian army, no longer making a stand after his death, turned to flight. [3] 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. [4] 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 whenever they should again be masters of the Seven Districts.