[6.1] The people were exceedingly pleased with this speech and were eager to grant the life of the youth to his father. But Verginius, perceiving that if he were not punished the boldness of the headstrong youths would become intolerable, rose up and said: [2] “As for you, Quintius, not only all your other merits, but also your goodwill toward the plebeians is amply attested, and for these you have received honour. But the offensive behaviour of this youth and his haughtiness toward us all admit of no palliation or pardon; for though nurtured in your principles, which are so democratic and moderate, as we are all aware, he despised your ways of life and grew fond of a tyrannical arrogance and a barbarian insolence, and has introduced into our commonwealth an emulation of base deeds. [3] If, therefore, you were unaware hitherto of his character, now that you know it, you ought in justice to be indignant on our account; but if you were privy to and took part in the foul abuse he was wont to pour out upon the unhappy lot of the poor citizens, then you too were base and did not deserve the reputation for uprightness that has come to you. But that you did not know him to be unworthy of your excellence I myself can bear you witness. Nevertheless, though I acquit you of joining with him in injuring us at that time, I blame you for not joining with us now in resenting those injuries. [4] And that you may know better how great a bane you have reared up unwittingly against the commonwealth, how cruel and tyrannical and not even free from the murder of his fellow citizens, listen to an ambitious exploit of his and balance it against the rewards of valour he received in the wars. And as many of you plebeians as were just now affected with the compassion which this man endeavoured to arouse, consider whether it is after all well for you to spare such a citizen.”
[7.1] Having spoken thus, he asked Marcus Volscius, one of his colleagues, to rise up and tell what he knew about the youth. When all had become silent and full of expectation, Volscius, after a short pause, said: [2] “I should have preferred, citizens, to receive from this man private satisfaction, such as the law affords me, for the terrible and worse than terrible wrongs I have suffered; but having been prevented from obtaining this by reason of poverty and lack of influence and because of my being one of the common crowd, now, when it is possible, I shall take the rôle of a witness, since I can not take that of an accuser. Hear from me, then, the things I have suffered, how cruel, how irreparable they were. [3] I had a brother, Lucius, whom I loved above all men. He and I supped with a friend and afterwards, as night came on, we rose and departed. When we had passed through the Forum, Caeso here fell in with us as he was revelling with other insolent youths. At first they laughed at us and abused us, as young men when drunk and arrogant are apt to abuse the humble and poor; and when we were vexed at them, Lucius spoke out frankly to this man. But Caeso here, thinking it outrageous to have anything said to him that he did not like, ran up to him, and beating and kicking him and showing every other form of cruelty and abuse, killed him. [4] And when I cried out and was doing all I could to defend him, Caeso, leaving my brother Lucius where he already lay dead, fell to beating me in turn, and ceased not until he saw me cast down upon the ground motionless and speechless, so that he took me to be dead. After that he went away rejoicing, as if over a noble deed. As for us, some persons who came along later took us up, covered with blood, and carried us home, my brother being dead, as I said, and I half dead and having little hope of living. [5] This happened in the consulship of Publius Servilius and Lucius Aebutius, when the city was attacked by the great pestilence, which both of us caught. At that time, therefore, it was not possible for me to obtain justice against him, since both consuls were dead; then, when Lucius Lucretius and Titus Veturius had succeeded to the office, I wished to bring him to trial, but was prevented by the war, both consuls having left the city. [6] After they returned from the campaign, I often cited him to appear before those magistrates, but as often as I approached them — as many of the citizens know — I received blows from him. These are the things I have suffered, plebeians, and I have related them to you with complete truthfulness.”
[8.1] After he had finished speaking, an outcry arose from those who were present and many rushed to take vengeance out of hand; but they were prevented both by the consuls and also by the majority of the tribunes, who were unwilling to introduce a pernicious custom into the commonwealth. Indeed, the most honourable element among the plebeians too was unwilling to deprive of a defence those who were in jeopardy of their lives. [2] Upon this occasion, therefore, a regard for justice restrained the impulse of the bolder spirits, and the trial was put off; though no small contest and questioning arose concerning the defendant’s person, whether he should be kept in chains in the meantime or should give sureties for his appearance, as his father required. The senate, assembling, ordered that if bail were offered his person should be free till the trial. [3] The next day the tribunes assembled the populace and, the youth not appearing for trial, they caused a vote to be passed for his condemnation and compelled his sureties, ten in number, to pay over the sums agreed upon in case of their failure to produce his person. [4] Caeso, accordingly, having fallen a victim to a plot of this sort — for the tribunes had contrived the whole business and Volscius had borne false witness, as became clear later — went into exile in Tyrrhenia. His father sold the greater part of his estate and repaid the sureties the sums agreed upon, leaving nothing for himself but one small farm lying on the other side of the river Tiber, on which there was an humble cottage; and there, cultivating the farm with the help of a few slaves, he led a laborious and miserable life because of his grief and poverty, neither visiting the city nor greeting his friends nor taking part in the festivals nor allowing himself any other pleasure. [5] The tribunes, however, were greatly disappointed in their expectations; for the contentiousness of the young men, far from being chastened by the unhappy fate of Caeso, grew much more vexatious and excessive as they fought the law with both actions and words. The result was that the tribunes were unable to accomplish anything more, the whole time of their magistracy being taken up with these contests. The populace, however, chose them again as their magistrates for the following year.
[9] When Publius Valerius Publicola and Gaius Claudius Sabinus had assumed the consular power, a danger greater than ever before came upon Rome from a foreign war; and it was brought upon her by the civil dissension inside the walls, as both the Sibylline oracles and the portents sent by Heaven had foretold the year before. I shall relate not only the cause from which the war arose, but also the action taken by the consuls during that contest. [2] The men who had assumed tribuneship for the second time in the hope of securing the ratification of the law, observing that one of the consuls, Gaius Claudius, had an inborn hatred of the plebeians, inherited from his ancestors, and was prepared to defeat the plans afoot by every possible means, that the most influential of the youths had reached the point of open desperation, with no possibility of their being subdued by forcible means, and above all, that most of the populace were yielding to the blandishments of the patricians and no longer exhibiting the same zeal for the law, resolved to take a bolder course toward their goal, by which they expected to dumbfound the populace and unseat the consul. [3] First, then, they caused all manner of rumours to be spread throughout the city; afterwards they sat in council publicly throughout the whole day from early morning without admitting any outsiders to their counsels and discussions. Then, when it seemed to them to be the proper time for putting their plans into execution, they forged letters and contrived to have these delivered to them by an unknown person as they sat in the Forum; and as soon as they had perused them, they sprang up, beating their foreheads and assuming downcast countenances. [4] And when a large crowd had flocked together and was conjecturing that some dreadful intelligence was contained in the letters, they ordered the heralds to proclaim silence and then said: “Your plebeians are in the gravest peril, citizens; and if some benevolence of the gods had not provided for those who were on the point of suffering injustice, we should all ha
ve fallen into dire calamities. We ask you to have a little patience till we acquaint the senate with the information we have received and after consulting with them take the necessary measures.” [5] Having spoken this, they went to the consuls. While the senate was assembling, many reports of all kinds circulated in the Forum, as some persons, by previous arrangement, talking in groups, retailed the stories suggested to them by the tribunes, and others named the things they most dreaded to have happen as the matters that had been reported to the tribunes. [6] One said that the Aequians and the Volscians, having received Caeso Quintius, the man condemned by the populace, had chosen him general of both nations with absolute power, had raised numerous forces, and were upon the point of marching on Rome; another said that by the concerted plan of the patricians he was being brought back by foreign troops in order that the magistracy which was the guardian of the plebeians might be abolished now and forever; and still another said that not all the patricians had decided on this course, but only the young men. [7] Some ventured to state that Caeso was actually inside the city, in hiding, and was about to seize the most advantageous positions. While the whole city was shaken by expectation of these calamities and all men suspected and were on their guard against one another, the consuls assembled the senate, and the tribunes, going in, acquainted them with the reports that were being received. The one who addressed them on behalf of the others was Aulus Verginius, and he spoke as follows:
[10.1] “As long as there seemed to us to be nothing definite about the dangers that were being reported, but there were only vague rumours and nothing to confirm them, we were reluctant, senators, to lay before you the reports about them, both because we suspected there would be great disturbances, as would be likely in a time of dreadful rumours, and also because we were afraid of appearing to you to have acted with greater precipitancy than prudence. [2] We did not, however, ignore or neglect these reports, but inquired with all possible diligence into the truth of them. And since the divine providence, by which our commonwealth is ever preserved, is rightly bringing to light the hidden plans and wicked attempts of those who are enemies to the gods; since we have letters, just now received from foreign friends, who thus show their goodwill to us and whose names you shall later hear; since information given here at home coincides and agrees with the reports sent in from outside; and since these matters no longer admit of delay or postponement, being at our very doors, we have decided to report them to you, as is proper, before laying them before the populace. [3] Know, then, that a conspiracy has been formed against the populace by men of prominence, among whom, it is said, there is a small number — not many — even of the older men who meet in this chamber, though the larger number are knights who are not members of the senate, whose names it is not yet the time to tell you. [4] They intend, now, as we learn, to take advantage of a dark night and attack us while we are asleep, when we can neither provide against anything that is taking place nor get together in a body to defend ourselves, and, rushing into our houses, to cut the throats, not only of us tribunes, but of all the other plebeians also who have ever opposed them in defence of their liberty or may oppose them for the future. [5] And after they have made away with us, they believe that then at last they will easily bring about the abrogation, by a unanimous vote on your part, of the compacts you made with the populace. But perceiving that they need for their purpose a body of foreign troops secretly got in readiness — and that no moderate force — they have to this end adopted as their leader one of your exiles, Caeso Quintius, a man whom, though convicted of the murder of his fellow citizens and of raising a sedition in the state, some of the members of this body contrived to save from paying the penalty, letting him go out of the city unharmed, and have promised to restore him to his country and are offering him magistracies and honours and other rewards for his help. [6] And he on his part has promised to bring to their assistance as large a force of the Aequians and Volscians as they shall ask for. He himself will soon appear at the head of the most daring, whom he will introduce into the city secretly, a few at a time and in small bodies; the rest of the force, as soon as we who are the leaders of the populace are destroyed, will fall next upon the rest of the poor, if any of them cling to their liberty. [7] These are the dreadful and wicked plans, senators, which they have concocted under cover of darkness and intend to carry out without either fearing the anger of the gods or heeding the indignation of men.
[11.1] “Being tossed about on such a rough sea of perils, fathers, we come to you as suppliants, calling to witness the gods and lesser divinities to whom we sacrifice in common; and reminding you of the many great wars we have waged side by side with you, we implore you not to allow us to suffer this cruel and wicked fate at the hands of our enemies, but to assist us and share our indignation, joining with us in exacting suitable punishment from those who have formed these designs — from all of them preferably, but if that may not be, then at least from the authors of this nefarious conspiracy. [2] First of all we ask, senators, that you will pass a measure that is in every respect just, to the effect that the investigation of the matters of which we have been informed shall be conducted by us, the tribunes. For, apart from the justice of this request, those investigations are bound to be strictest which are made by those whose own lives soldier in danger. [3] If there are any among you who are not disposed to show a conciliatory spirit at all, but oppose every man who speaks in favour of the populace, I should like to inquire of them what there is in our demands that displeases them and what course they intend to recommend to you. Will it be to make no investigation whatever, but to ignore so awful and abominable a plot that is forming against the populace? Yet who would say that those who take that line are honest, and are not rather tainted with the same corruption and sharers in the conspiracy, and then, because they are afraid they will be discovered, vigorously oppose the inquiry into the truth? To such, surely, you would not rightly pay any heed. [4] Or will they demand that those who are to have authority to determine the truth of these reports shall be, not we, the tribunes, but the senate and the consuls? What, then, is to prevent the leaders of the populace also from saying the same thing in case some plebeians, conspiring against the consuls and the senate, should plot the abolition of the latter — that, namely, the investigation of the plebeians would justly be made by the very men who have assumed the protection of the populace? What, then, will be the consequence of this procedure? Why, that no inquiry will ever be made into any secret matter. [5] But, just as we would never make this demand — for partisan zeal arouses suspicion — so you would not be doing right in paying heed to those who insist upon the same course against us; on the contrary, you should look upon them as the common enemies of the state. However, senators, nothing is so necessary in the present juncture as haste; for the danger is acute, and delay in providing for our security is unseasonable in the presence of dangers that delay not. Do you, therefore, putting aside your rivalry and your long harangues, pass at once whatever decree seems conducive to the public good.”
[12.1] When he had thus spoken, great consternation and embarrassment came upon the senate. They discussed and talked over with one another the difficulty of either course — either to grant or to refuse the tribunes permission to make investigations by themselves of a matter of general concern and great importance. And one of the consuls, Gaius Claudius, suspecting their intentions, rose up and spoke as follows:
[2] “I am not afraid, Verginius, that these men here will imagine that I am an accomplice in the conspiracy which you say is being formed against you and the populace, and that then, out of fear for myself or for some relation of mine who is guilty of this charge, I have risen to oppose you; for the whole course of my life clears me of any suspicion of the sort. But what I consider to be advantageous for both the senate and the people I will say in all good faith and without reservation. [3] Verginius seems to me to be greatly, or rather totally, mistaken if he imagines that any of us will same either that a matter of so
great importance and necessity ought to be left uninvestigated or that the magistrates of the populace ought not to take part in or be present at the inquiry. No man is so foolish or so ill-disposed toward the populace as to say that. [4] If, then, anyone should ask me what possessed me to rise up to oppose those measures which I agree to and admit to be just, and what my purpose is in speaking, by Heaven I will tell you. I believe, senators, that sensible men ought to examine minutely the beginnings and basic principles of every measure; for of whatever nature these may be, such also must be all discussion about them. [5] Well then, learn from me what the basic principle of this measure is and what the purpose of the tribunes is. These men would not be able to carry out now any of the undertakings they were prevented from accomplishing last year if both you were to oppose them as before and the populace were no longer to espouse their quarrel with the same zeal. Since they were aware of these difficulties, they considered by what means not only you might be compelled to yield to them contrary to your judgement, but the populace also might be forced to assist them in everything they should desire. [6] But finding no true or just basis for gaining both these ends, after trying various plans and turning the matter this way and that, they at last hit upon some such reasoning as this: ‘Let us accuse some prominent men of a conspiracy to overthrow the power of the populace and of having decided to cut the throats of those who assure the safety of the populace. [7] And after we have contrived to have these reports talked about for a long time throughout the city and when the multitude at last believe them to be trustworthy — and they will do so because of their fear — let us devise a way to have letters delivered to us in the presence of many by an unknown person. Then let us go to the senate, express our indignation, make angry complaints and demand authority to investigate the reports. [8] For if the patricians oppose our demand, we will seize this opportunity to malign them before the populace, and by this means the whole body of the plebeians will become enraged against them and will be ready to support us in everything we desire; and, on the other hand, if they grant it, let us banish those of them who are of the most noble birth and have opposed us the most, both older men and young, as persons we have discovered to be guilty of the charge. [9] These men, then, in their fear of being condemned, will either come to terms with us to make no further opposition or else will be compelled to leave the city. By this means we shall thoroughly devastate the opposition.’
Delphi Complete Works of Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 79) Page 93