[61.1] 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 affairs, accusing them of having betrayed their allies. And a general assembly being 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; [2] 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. [3] 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, 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. [4] 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. [5] 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 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.
[62.1] 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. [2] 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. [3] 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 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. [4] 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.
[63.1] 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 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. [2] 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.
[64.1] 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: [2] “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 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. [3] 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.
[65.1] 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 of the man who persuaded them do so. [2] 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? [3] 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. [4] 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 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. [5] 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 hatred.
[66.1] 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. [2] For it was plain enough to everyone that those who were to be deprived of their 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. [3] 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. [4] For none of the rich would throw away their money to supply those 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.
[67.1] 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. [2] And since the desires of the unintelligent mob are insatiable and boundless, it is necessary, he said, to check them 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. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5] 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 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.
[68.1] H
e 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. [2] 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 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. [3] 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. [4] 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. [5] 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 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.
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 48