[64.1] This accusation caused a great shift in sentiment to the other side. For those who were more reasonable and were zealously working for the acquittal of Marcius, upon hearing these things, grew less confident, and all the malevolent, who constituted the larger part of the Potomac and were of course eager to destroy him at all costs, were still more encouraged in their purpose now that they had got hold of an important and clear ground for their attack. [2] For the distribution of the spoils was a fact, though it had been made without any evil intent and not for the setting up of a tyranny, as Decius charged, but from only the best of motives and for the correction of the evils that beset the commonwealth. For as the sedition still continued at that time and the populace was then divided from the patricians, their enemies, despising them, made raids into their country and plundered it without intermission; and whenever the senate decided to send out an army to stop these raids, none of the plebeians would serve in it, but rejoiced at what was happening and permitted it to continue; and the force of the patricians alone was inadequate. [3] Marcius, observing this, promised the consuls that he would march against the enemy with an army of volunteers if they would give him the command of it, and would soon take revenge on them; and having received authority to do so, he called together his clients and friends and such of the citizens as wished to share in the advantages expected from the general’s good fortune in war and his valour. When he thought an adequate force had assembled, he led them against the enemy, who had no previous knowledge of his purpose. [4] And making an incursion into their country, which was well stocked with many good things, and capturing a vast amount of booty, he permitted his soldiers to divide up all the spoils among themselves, to the end that both those who had assisted him in this expedition, by receiving the fruit of their labours, might cheerfully engage in the service upon other occasions, and the others who had declined it, considering all the benefits they had lost through their sedition, when they might have shared in them, might act with greater prudence in the case of future expeditions. [5] Such was the intention of Marcius in this affair; but to the festering anger and envy of enemies the action, when considered by itself, appeared a kind of flattery of the people and a bribery tending toward tyranny. As a result the whole Forum was full of clamour and tumult and neither Marcius himself nor the consul nor anyone else had any answer to make to the charge, so incredible and unexpected did it appear to them. [6] When nothing further was said in his defence, the tribunes called upon the tribes to cast their votes, and fixed perpetual banishment as the penalty in the case. This, I suspect, was due to their fear that he could not be convicted if death were set as the penalty. After they had all voted and the votes were counted, the difference was found to be slight. For out of the twenty-one tribes that were then in existence and gave their votes Marcius had nine in favour of his acquittal; so that if two more tribes had joined his side, he would have been acquitted as the result of the equal division of the votes, as the law prescribed.
[65] This was the first summoning of a patrician before the tribunal of the plebeians; and from this time it became customary for those who afterwards assumed the patronship of the people to summon to stand trial before the people any of the citizens they thought fit. From this beginning the people rose to great power, while the aristocracy lost much of its ancient dignity by admitting the plebeians into the senate and allowing them to stand as candidates for magistracies, by not opposing their presiding over sacrifices, and by sharing with all the citizens the other privileges that were most highly prized and had been the special prerogatives of the patricians, some of which concessions they made because of necessity and against their will, and others through foresight and wisdom; but of these matters I shall speak at the proper time. [2] However, this custom of summoning the men of power at Rome to a trial where the populace were always in control, would afford rich material for comment to those who are disposed either to commend or to blame it. For many good and worthy men have already been treated in a manner unworthy of their merits and have been put to a shameful and miserable death at the instigation of the tribunes, while many men of arrogant and tyrannical dispositions, being compelled to give an accounting of their lives and conduct, have suffered the punishment they deserved. [3] Whenever these verdicts were rendered with the best motives and the pride of the mighty was justly humbled, this institution appeared a great and admirable thing, and met with general praise, but when a virtuous and able statesman incurred hatred and was unjustly done away with, the rest of the world was shocked at the institution and the authors of it were condemned. The Romans have often deliberated whether they should repeal this institution or preserve it as they received it from their ancestors, but have never come to any final decision. [4] If I am to express an opinion myself concerning matters of so great moment, I believe that the institution, considered by itself, is advantageous, and absolutely necessary to the Roman commonwealth, but that it becomes better or worse according to the character of the tribunes. For when this power falls into the hands of just and prudent men, who prefer the interest of the public to their own, the punishing as he deserves of one who has injured his country strikes terror into the minds of all who are prepared to mankind similar offences, while the good man who enters public life with the best intentions neither incurs the disgrace of being brother to trial nor is accused of wrongdoing inconsistent with his habits. [5] But when wicked, intemperate and avaricious men gain so great power, the contrary of all this happens. Hence, instead of reforming the institution as faulty, they ought to consider by what means good and worthy men may become protectors of the people, and positions of the greatest importance may not be conferred at random on the first who chance to turn up.
[66.1] Such were the causes and such was the outcome of the first sedition that arose among the Romans after the expulsion of the kings. I have related these at length, to the end that no one may wonder how the patricians ever consented to entrust the populace with so great power, when there had been no slaying or banishing of the best citizens, as has happened in many other states. For everyone, upon hearing of extraordinary events, desires to know the cause that produced them and considers that alone as the test of their credibility. [2] I reflected, accordingly, that my account of this affair would gain little or no credit if I contented myself with saying that the patricians resigned their power to the plebeians and that, though they might have continued to live under an aristocracy, they put the populace in control of the most important matters, and if I left out the motives for their making these concessions; and for this reason I have related them all. [3] And since they did not make this change in their government by using compulsion upon one another and the force of arms, but by the persuasion of words, I thought it necessary above all things to report the speeches which the heads of both parties made upon that occasion. I might express my surprise that some historians, though they think themselves obliged to give an exact account of military actions and sometimes expend a great many words over a single battle, describing the terrains, the peculiarities of armament, the ways the lines were drawn up, the exhortations of the generals, and every other circumstance that contributed to the victory of one side or the other, yet when they come to give an account of civil commotions and seditions, do not consider it necessary to report the speeches by which the extraordinary and remarkable events were brought to pass. [4] For if there is anything about the Roman commonwealth that is worthy of great praise and deserving of imitation by all mankind, or, rather, anything that surpasses in its lustre all the many things which deserve our admiration, it is in my opinion this fact — that neither the plebeians in contempt of the patricians took up arms against them, and after murdering many of the best men, seized all their fortunes, nor, on the other hand, the men in positions of dignity either by themselves alone or with the aid of foreign troops destroyed all the plebeians and after that lived in the city free from fear, [5] but conferring together about what was fair and just, like brothers with brothers
or children with their parents in a well-governed family, they settled their controversies by persuasion and reason and never allowed themselves to commit any irreparable or wicked deeds against one another, such as the Corcyraeans committed at the time of their sedition, and also the Argives, the Milesians, and all Sicily, as well as many other states. For these reasons, therefore, I have chosen to make my narration accurate rather than brief; but let everyone judge of the matter as he thinks fit.
[67] On the occasion in question, then, when the trial had resulted as I have related, the populace when dismissed had acquired a spirit of frantic jubilation and thought they had destroyed the aristocracy, whereas the patricians were cast down and dejected, and blamed Valerius, by whose persuasion they had been induced to entrust the trial to the populace; and there were lamentations and tears on the part of those who pitied Marcius and escorted him to his home. [2] But Marcius himself was not seen either to bewail or to lament his own fate or to say or do the least thing unworthy of his greatness of soul; and he showed still greater nobility and resolution when he reached home and saw his wife and mother rending their robes, beating their breasts, and uttering the lamentations natural in such calamities to women who are being separated from their dearest relations by death or banishment. [3] For he was not moved at all by the tears and lamentations of the women, but merely saluted them and exhorted them to bear their misfortunes with firmness; then, recommending his sons to them (the elder son was ten years old and the younger still a child in arms) and without showing any other mark of tenderness or making provision for what would be needed in his banishment, he departed in haste to the gates of the city, informing no one to what place he proposed to retire.
[68.1] A few days after this the time came for the election of magistrates, and Quintus Sulpicius Camerinus and Spurius Larcius Flavus were chosen consuls by the people, the latter for the second time. Sundry disturbances fell upon the commonwealth as the result of prodigies, and these were many; for unusual sights appeared to many, and voices too were heard, though no one uttered them; births of children and cattle, so very abnormal as to approach the incredible and the monstrous, were reported; oracles were uttered in many places; and women possessed with a divine frenzy foretold lamentable and dreadful misfortunes to the commonwealth. [2] A kind of pestilence also visited the population and destroyed great numbers of cattle; however, not many persons died of it, the mischief going no farther than sickness. Some thought that these things had occurred by the will of Heaven, which was angry with them for having banished from the country the most deserving of all their citizens, while others held that nothing that took place was the work of Heaven, but that both these and all other human events were due to chance. [3] Afterwards, a certain man named Titus Latinius, being ill, was brought to the senate-chamber in a litter; he was a man advanced in years and possessed of a competent fortune, a farmer who did his own work and passed the greater part of his life in the country. This man, having been carried into the senate, said that Jupiter Capitolinus had, as he thought, appeared to him in a dream and said to him: “Go, Latinius, and tell your fellow-citizens that in the recent procession they did not give me an acceptable leader of the dance, in order that they may renew the rites and perform them over again; for I have not accepted these.” [4] He added that after awaking he had disregarded the vision, looking upon it as one of the deceitful dreams that are so common. Later, he said, the same vision of the god, appearing to him again in his sleep, was angry and displeased with him for not having reported to the senate the orders he had received, and threatened him that, if he did not do so promptly, he should learn by the experience of some great calamity not to neglect supernatural injunctions. After seeing this second dream also he had formed the same opinion of it, and at the same time had felt ashamed, being a farmer who did his own work and old, to report to the senate dreams full of foreboding and terrors, for fear of being laughed at. [5] But a few days later, he said, his son, who was young and handsome, had been suddenly snatched away by death without any sickness or any other obvious cause. And once more the vision of the god had appeared to him in his sleep and declared that he had already been punished in part for his contempt and neglect of the god’s words by the loss of his son, and should soon suffer the rest of his punishment. [6] When he heard this, he said, he had received the threats with pleasure, in the hope that death would come to him, weary of life as he was; but the god did not inflict this punishment upon him, but sent such intolerable and cruel pains into all his limbs that he could not move a joint without the greatest effort. Then at last he had informed his friends of what had happened, and by their advice had now come to the senate. While he was giving this account his pains seemed to leave him by degrees; and after he had related everything, he rose from the litter, and having invoked the god, went home on foot through the city in perfect health.
[69.1] Upon this the senators were filled with fear and everyone was speechless with astonishment, being at a loss to guess what the god’s message meant, and who was the leader of the dance in the procession who appeared unacceptable to him. At least one of them, recalling the incident, related it to the rest and all of them confirmed it by their testimony. It was this. A Roman citizen of no obscure station, having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death, delivered him to his fellow-slaves to be led away, and in order that his punishment might be witnessed by all, directed them to drag him through the Forum and every other conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him, and that he should go ahead of the procession which the Romans were at that time conducting in honour of the god. [2] The men ordered to lead the slave to his punishment, having stretched out both his arms and fastened them to a piece of wood which extended across his breast and shoulders as far as his wrists, followed him, tearing his naked body with whips. The culprit, overcome by such cruelty, not only uttered ill-omened cries, forced from him by the pain, but also made indecent movements under the blows. This man, accordingly, they all thought to be the unacceptable dancer signified by the god.
[70.1] Since I have come to this part of my history, I believe I ought not to omit mention of the rites performed by the Romans on the occasion of this festival. I do this, not in order to render my narration more agreeable by dramatic embellishments and flowery descriptions, but to win credence for an essential matter of history, namely, that the peoples which joined in founding the city of Rome were Greek colonies sent out from the most famous places, and not, as some believe, barbarians and vagabonds. [2] For I promised at the end of the first Book, which I composed and published concerning their origin, that I would demonstrate this thesis by countless proofs, by citing time-honoured customs, laws and institutions which they preserve down to my time just as they received them from their ancestors. For I believe that it is not enough that those who write the early histories of particular lands should relate them in a trustworthy manner as they have received them from the inhabitants of the country, but that these accounts require also for their support numerous and indisputable testimonies, if they are to appear credible. [3] Among such testimonies I am convinced that the first and the most valid of all are the ceremonies connected with the established worship of the gods and other divinities which are performed in the various states. These both the Greeks and barbarian world have preserved for the greatest length of time and have never thought fit to make any innovation or intrenchment, being restrained from doing so by their fear of the divine anger. [4] This has been the experience of the barbarians in particular, for many reasons which this is not the proper occasion for mentioning; and no lapse of time has thus far induced either the Egyptians, the Libyans, the Gauls, the Scythians, the Indians, or any other barbarian nation whatever to forget or transgress anything relating to the rites of their gods, unless some of them have been subdued by a foreign power and compelled to exchange their own institutions for those of their conquerors. Now it has not been the fate of the Roman commonwealth ever to experience such a misfortune, but she herself always
gives laws to others. [5] If, therefore, the Romans had been originally barbarians, they would have been so far from forgetting their ancestral rites and the established customs of their country, by which they had attained to so great prosperity, that they would even have made it to the interest of all their subjects as well to honour the gods according to the customary Roman ceremonies; and nothing could have hindered the whole Greek world, which is now subject to the Romans for already the seventh generation, from being barbarized if the Romans had indeed been barbarians.
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 69