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

by Dionysius of Halicarnassus

  [48.1] Having said this and sworn the strongest oath in use among the Romans that he would either get the law ratified or abandon life, the multitude meanwhile having become silent and being in an agony of expectation concerning what he was going to do, he ordered Appius to leave the assembly. And when Appius, instead of obeying, placed the lictors about him, together with the crowd which he had brought from home for that purpose, and obstinately refused to leave the Forum, Laetorius, after bidding the heralds to command silence, announced that the tribunes ordered the consul to be led away to prison. [2] Upon this the assist by his command advanced in order to seize the person of Appius, but the foremost lictor with a successful blow drove him back. When those present raised a great outcry and showed their resentment, Laetorius himself rushed forward after appealing to the crowds to assist him, while Appius, supported by a numerous and vigorous body of young men, stood his ground. There followed unseemly words between the factions and shouting and the pushing of body against body; and at last the strife broke out into blows and they began to throw stones. [3] But a stop was put to this and the mischief was prevented from proceeding farther by Quintius, the other consul, who together with the oldest senators implored and entreated them all to desist, and thrust himself into the midst of the contending parties. Moreover, there was little of the day left, so that, albeit reluctantly, they separated.

  [4] During the following days not only did the magistrates indulge in accusations against one another, the consul charging the tribunes with a desire to invalidate his authority by ordering a consul to be led away to prison, and the tribunes charging the consul with having struck those whose persons were sacred and made inviolate by the law — Laetorius, indeed, bore on his face the marks, still visible, of the blows — but the whole city, filled with rage and fury, was rent with faction. [5] Then the populace together with the tribunes proceeded to guard the Capitol both day and night without intermission. The senate assembled and entered into a long and difficult consideration of the proper means of putting a stop to the sedition, being sensible not only of the magnitude of the danger but also that not even the consuls had succeeded in being of one mind; for Quintius advised yielding to the populace in everything that was reasonable, whereas Appius proposed to resist till death.

  [49.1] When no end would come to the strife, Quintius took each party aside separately, the tribunes and Appius, and begged, besought and implored them to regard the public interests as more vital than their private concerns. And observing that the tribunes had become milder but that his colleague persisted in the same arrogance, he undertook to persuade Laetorius and his colleagues to refer all their complaints, both private and public, to the determination of the senate. [2] When he had accomplished this, he assembled the senate, and after bestowing great praise upon the tribunes and begging his colleague not to act against the safety of the state, he then proceeded to call upon those who were wont to express their opinions. [3] Publius Valerius Publicola, who was called upon first, expressed the following opinion: That the mutual accusations of the tribunes and the consul relating to what they had suffered or done in the tumult, since they had gone so far, not with malice aforethought or for personal advantage, but out of rivalry in their zeal for the public welfare, should be publicly dismissed and that no suit should be brought because of them. As to the proposed law, since the consul would not allow any law to be presented to the assembly without a preliminary vote of the senate, he advised that the senate should vote upon it first; also that the tribunes together with the consuls should take care to preserve harmony and decorum among the citizens when the vote should be taken concerning it. [4] This advice being approved of by all, Quintius immediately put the question to the senate concerning the law, and after many objections offered by Appius and many rejoinders made by the tribunes the motion to lay it before the populace was carried by a large majority. The preliminary decree having been thus passed, the private differences of the magistrates were composed; and the populace, gladly accepting this concession of the senate, ratified the law. [5] From that time down to our own the tribunes and the aediles have been chosen in the tribal assemblies without auspices or any other religious observances. This was the end of the tumult which disturbed the commonwealth at that time.

  [50.1] Not long afterwards the Romans decided to enrol armies and to send out both consuls against the Aequians and the Volscians; for it was reported that large forces from both these nations had taken the field and were then pillaging the territories of the Romans’ allies. The armies being soon ready, Quintius set out to make war against the Aequians and Appius against the Volscians, these commands having fallen to them by lot. And the fortunes of each of the consuls were such as might have been expected. [2] The army assigned to Quintius, pleased with the fairness and moderation of their general, were eager to carry out all his orders, and undertook most of the hazards unbidden, thereby achieving glory and honour for their commander. They overran a large part of the country of the Aequians and plundered it, the enemy not daring to come to an engagement; and from it they acquired great booty and rich spoils. After tarrying a short time in the enemy’s country they returned to the city without any losses, bringing their general home illustrious because of his exploits. [3] But the army that went out with Appius because of their hatred of him disregarded many of the principles of their ancestors. In fact, during the whole campaign they not only played the coward deliberately and treated their general with contempt, but particularly when they were to engage the army of the Volscians and their commanders had drawn them up in order of battle, they refused to come to grips with the enemy, but both the centurions and the antesignani, some throwing away their standards and others quitting their posts, fled to the camp. [4] And if the enemy, wondering at their unexpected flight and fearing there might be an ambush, had not turned back from pursuing them farther, the greater part of the Romans would have been destroyed. The troops acted thus because of the grudge they bore to their general, lest he should win a brilliant engagement and so obtain the distinction of a triumph and the other honours. [5] And the following day, when the consul alternately upbraided them for their inglorious flight, exhorted them to redeem their most disgraceful conduct by a noble effort, and threatened to invoke the laws against them if they would than stand firm in the face of danger, they broke out into disobedience, clamoured against him and bade him lead them out of the enemy’s country, alleging that they were no longer able to hold out by reason of their wounds; for most of them had bound up the sound parts of their bodies as if they had been wounded. Hence Appius was obliged to withdraw his army from the enemy’s country, and the Volscians, pursuing them as they retreated, killed many of them. [6] As soon as they were in friendly territory, the consul assembled the troops, and after uttering many reproaches said that he would inflict upon them the punishment ordained against those who quit their posts. And though the legates and the other officers earnestly besought him to use moderation and not to heap one calamity after another upon the commonwealth, he paid no heed to any of them but confirmed the punishment. [7] Thereupon the centurions whose centuries had run away and the antesignani who had lost their standards were either beheaded with an axe or beaten to death with rods; as for the rank and file, one man chosen by lot out of every ten was put to death for the rest. This is the traditional punishment among the Romans for those who desert their posts or yield their standards. Afterwards, the general, an object of hatred himself and leading back, dejected and disgraced, what was left of his army, the elections being now at hand, returned to the fatherland.

  [51.1] When Lucius Valerius (for the second time) and Tiberius Aemilius had been appointed as the next consuls, the tribunes after a short delay brought up again the question of the land-allotment; and coming to the consuls, they asked them, with prayers and entreaties, to fulfil for the populace the promises which the senate had made in the consulship of Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius. [2] Both consuls favoured their request, Tiberius
Aemilius bringing up an old and not unreasonable grudge against the senate because it had refused a triumph to his father when he asked for it, and Valerius from a desire to heal the anger of the populace directed against him because of the death of Spurius Cassius, whom he, being quaestor at the time, had caused to be put to death for aiming at tyranny. Cassius had been the most distinguished of his contemporaries both in military commands and in civil affairs; moreover, he was the first to introduce into the commonwealth the measure concerning the allotment of lands and for that reason in particular was hated by the patricians as one who preferred the populace to them. [3] At the time in question, at any rate, when the consuls promised them to bring up in the senate the question of the division of the public lands and to assist in securing the ratification of the law, the tribunes trusted them, and going to the senate, they spoke with moderation. And the consuls, desiring to avoid any appearance of contention, said nothing in opposition, but asked the oldest senators to express their opinions. [4] The first person called upon was Lucius Aemilius, the father of one of the consuls, who said it seemed to him that it would be both just and for the interest of the commonwealth that the possessions of the public should belong to all and not to a few, and he advised them to support the plea of the populace, in order that this concession on their part might be regarded as a favour; for many other things which they had not granted them by choice they had yielded through necessity. He felt also that those who were occupying these possessions ought to be grateful for the time they had enjoyed them without being detected, and when peeved from using them longer should not cling to them obstinately. [5] He added that, along with the principle of justice, the force of which all would acknowledge, according to which the public possessions are the common property of all and private possessions the property of the one who has acquired them according to law, the action had also become unavoidable now through the action of the senate, which seventeen years before had ordered that the land be divided. And he declared that it had reached this decision at that time in the public interest, to the end that neither the land should go uncultivated nor the multitude of poor people dwelling in the city should live in idleness, envying the advantages of the others, as was now the case, and that young men might be reared up for the state in the homes and on the lands of their fathers, deriving also some pride of spirit from the very rearing. [6] For such as have no lands of their own and live miserably off the possessions of others which they cultivate for hire either do not feel any desire at all to beget children, or, if they do, produce a sorry and wretched offspring, such as might be expected of those who are the fruit of humble marriages and are reared in beggared circumstances. [7] “As for me, then,” he said, “the motion I make is that the consuls should carry out the preliminary decree which was then passed by the senate and has since been delayed by reason of the intervening disturbances, and appoint the men to divide the land.”

  [52.1] Aemilius having spoken thus, Appius Claudius, who had been consul the preceding year, being the second person called upon, expressed the contrary opinion, pointing out that neither the senate had had any intention of dividing the public possessions — for in that case its decree would long since have been carried out — but had deferred it to a later time for further consideration, its concern being to put a stop to the sedition then raging, which had been stirred up by the consul who was aiming at tyranny and afterwards suffered deserved punishment; [2] nor had the first consuls chosen after the preliminary decree put the vote into effect, when they saw what a source of evils would be introduced into the state if the poor were once accustomed to get by allotment the public possessions; nor did the consuls of the following fifteen years, though they were threatened with many dangers from the populace, consent to do anything that was not in the public interest, for the reason that no authority even was given to them by the preliminary decree to appoint the land commissioners, but only to those first consuls. “So that for you men also, Valerius, yes, and you too, Aemilius, to propose allotments of land which the senate did not direct you to carry out is neither honourable, descended as you are from worthy ancestors, nor is it safe. As regards the preliminary decree, then, let this suffice to show that you who have become consuls so many years afterwards are not bound by it. [4] As for any who may, either forcibly or stealthily, have appropriated to themselves the public possessions, a few words will serve my purpose. If anyone knows that another is enjoying the use of property to which he cannot support his title by law, let him give information of it to the consuls and prosecute him according to the laws, which will not have to be drawn up afresh; for they were drawn up long since, and no lapse of time has abrogated them. [5] But since Aemilius has spoken also about the advantage of this measure, asserting that the allotting of the land will be for the good of all, I do not wish to leave this point either unrefuted. For he, it seems to me, looks only to the present, and does not foresee the future, namely, that the granting of a portion of the public possessions to the idle and the poor, which now seems to him of small importance, will be the cause of many great evils, [6] since the custom thereby introduced will not only continue in the state, but will for all time prove pernicious and dangerous. For the gratification of evil desires does not eradicate them from the soul, but rather strengthens them and renders them still more evil. Let the facts convince you of this; for why should you pay any attention to words, either mine or those of Aemilius?

  [53] “You all know, to be sure, how many enemies we have overcome, how much territory we have ravaged, and how great spoils we have taken from the towns we have captured, the loss of which has reduced the enemy from their former prosperity to great want, and that those who now bewail their poverty were excluded from none of these spoils nor had less than their share in the distribution of them. [2] Do they appear, then, to have improved their former condition at all by these further acquisitions or to have attained to any distinction in their lives? I could wish and have prayed to the gods that they might do so, in order that they might have been to a less extent mere transients, a nuisance to the city. But as it is, you see and hear them complaining that they are in the direst want. So that not even if you should receive what they now ask for — aye, still more than that — will they effect any improvement in their lives. [3] For their poverty is not inherent in their condition in life, but in their character; and not only will this small portion of land not supply their lack of that, but not even all the largesses of kings and despots would do so. If we make this concession also to them, we shall be like those physicians whose treatment of the sick is to tickle their palates. For the diseased part of the commonwealth will not be cured, but even the sound part will catch the disease. In general, senators, you need to take much care and thought how you may preserve with all possible zeal the morals of the commonwealth which are being corrupted. [4] For you see to what lengths the unruliness of the populace has gone and that they no longer care to be governed by the consuls; indeed, they were so far from repenting of what they did here that they showed the same unruliness in the field too, throwing away their arms, quitting their posts, abandoning their standards to the enemy and resorting to disgraceful flight before ever coming to grips with them, as if they could rob me alone of the glory of the victory without robbing the fatherland at the same time of the renown it would gain at the expense of their enemies. [5] And now trophies are being erected by the Volscians over the Romans, their temples are being adorned with spoils taken from us and their cities vaunt themselves as never before — those cities which were wont aforetime to beseech our generals to save them from slavery and total destruction. [6] Is it just, then, or becoming in you to feel gratitude to you for such successes and to honour them with public grants by dividing up the land which, so far as they are concerned, is in the enemy’s possession? Yet why should we accuse those who because of their lack of education and because of their low birth pay little regard to matters of honour, when we see that no longer in the character of all even of your own n
umber does the ancient proud spirit dwell, but, on the contrary, some call gravity haughtiness, justice folly, courage madness, and modesty stupidity? On the other hand, those qualities that were held in detestation by the men of former times are now extolled and appear to the corrupt as wonderful virtues, such as cowardice, buffoonery, malignity, crafty wisdom, rashness in undertaking everything and unwillingness to listen to any of one’s betters — vices which ere now have laid hold on and utterly overthrown many strong states. [7] These words, senators, whether they are pleasing to you to hear or vexatious, have been uttered in all sincerity and frankness. To those among you who will be persuaded — if indeed you will be persuaded — they will prove both useful at the present time and a source of security for the future; but to me, who in the interest of the public good am bringing private hatreds upon myself, they will be the cause of great dangers. For reason enables me to foresee what will happen; and I take the misfortunes of others as examples of my own.”