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

by Dionysius of Halicarnassus

  [19.1] After most of the senators had delivered their opinions and those who declared for war appeared to be much more numerous than the others, the decemvirs then called upon Lucius Valerius among the last. He was the one, as I have related, who had wished to say something at the very beginning of the debate but had been prevented by them. And now rising, he delivered a speech of the following tenor:

  [2] “You see, fathers, the plot of the decemvirs who not only at first would not allow me to say to you all that I had proposed, but now have assigned to my turn to speak among the last, with this in mind, as we may reasonably assume, that, if I concur in the opinion of Claudius, I shall render no service to the commonwealth, since few have supported it, and again, if I deliver an opinion different from those they themselves have expressed, however excellent my advice may be, I shall have recited my piece in vain. [3] For those are easily counted who are to rise up after me, and even if I shall have them all agreeing with me, what advantage will it give me when I shall not have the smallest fraction of those who side with Cornelius? However, in spite of these misgivings I shall not hesitate to express my opinion. For when you have heard everybody, you will have it in your power to choose what is best. [4] Concerning the decemvirs, therefore, and the manner in which they look after the commonwealth, consider that everything the most excellent Claudius has said has been said by me also and that new magistrates ought to be chosen before any decree is passed concerning the war; for this point also was treated by him in the best manner. [5] But since Cornelius endeavoured to show that his motion is impracticable, pointing out that the intervening period devoted to matters of civil administration would be a long one, while the war is at our doors, and since he attempted to ridicule things that do not deserve ridicule and by that means seduced and carried away most of you with him, I for my part shall also talk to you about the motion of Claudius, showing that it is not impracticable; for that it is disadvantageous to no one even of those who derided it has ventured to allege. And I shall show you how our territory may be made secure, how those who have dared to do it injury may be punished, how we may recover our ancient aristocracy, and how these things may all come about at the same time with weight concurrence of all the citizens and without the least opposition. All this I shall do, not through the display of any wisdom, but by citing your own actions as precedents for you to follow; for where experience teaches what is advantageous, what need is there of conjectures?

  [20.1] “You recall that forces from these same nations as at present made incursions, partly into our territory and partly into that of our allies, both at the same time, when Gaius Nautius and Lucius Minucius were consuls, some eight or nine years ago I believe it was. [2] When on that occasion you had sent out numerous and brave youths against both these nations, it chanced that one of the consuls, being obliged to encamp in a difficult position, was unable to accomplish anything, but was besieged in his camp and in danger of being captured for want of provisions, while Nautius, who was encamped against the Sabines, was under the necessity of fighting battles with the same foes continually and could not even go to the aid of his fellow Romans who were in distress. And there was no doubt that if the army which was encamped among the Aequians should be destroyed, the other, that was carrying on the war against the Sabines, would not be able to hold out either when both armies of our enemies should have united. [3] When the commonwealth was encompassed by such dangers and even the people inside the city walls were not harmonious, what relief did you yourself hit upon — a relief which is acknowledged to have helped your whole cause and to have rectified the commonwealth when it was rushing to a miserable downfall? Assembling in the senate-chamber about midnight, you created a single magistracy with absolute authority over both war and peace, abrogating all the other magistracies; and before day came, the most excellent Lucius Quintius had been appointed dictator, although he was not even in the city at the time, but in the country. [4] You know, of course, the deeds which this man performed after that, how he got ready adequate forces, rescued the army which was in danger, chastised the enemy and took their general prisoner; and how, after accomplishing all this in only fourteen days and reforming whatever else was corrupt in the commonwealth, he laid down the rods. Nothing hindered you then from creating a new magistracy in one day when you wished to do so. [5] This example, then, I think we ought to imitate, since there is nothing else we can do, and choose a dictator before we leave this chamber. For if we neglect this opportunity, the decemvirs will never assemble us again to deliberate about anything. And in order that the appointment of a dictator shall also be in accordance with the laws, we should create an interrex, choosing the most suitable person from among the citizens; for this is the customary thing for you to do when you have neither kings, consuls nor any other legal magistrates, which is the case at present, since these men’s term of office has expired and the law has taken their rods from them. [6] This is the course I advise you to take, fathers, one that is both advantageous and practicable; whereas the motion proposed by Cornelius is confessedly the overthrow of your aristocracy. For if the decemvirs once get arms in their hands under this excuse of war, I fear they will used them against us. For is it at all likely that those who refuse to lay down their rods will lay down their arms? Taking these considerations into account, then, beware of these men and forestall any treachery on their part. For foresight is better than repentance, and it is more prudent not to trust wicked men than to accuse them after they have betrayed your trust.”

  [21.1] This opinion of Valerius pleased the majority of the senators, as was easy to conclude from their acclamations; and since those who rose up after him (those still remaining were the younger members of the senate) with few exceptions considered his measures the best, as soon as they all had delivered their own opinions and the discussion was due to be ended, Valerius asked the decemvirs to propose a division on the various opinions by calling upon all the senators over again from the beginning, and this request met with the approval of many of the senators who desired to retract their former opinions. [2] But Cornelius, who advised giving the command of the war to the decemvirs, strenuously opposed this, declaring that the matter was already decided and legally ended, since all had voted; and he demanded that the votes be counted and that no further innovation be admitted. [3] When these proposals were urged by both men with great contention and shouting, and the senate split toward one side and the other, the party desiring to correct the disorder in the government backing Valerius, and the party which espoused the worse cause and suspected that there would be some danger from the change giving their support to Cornelius, the decemvirs, taking advantage of the dissension in the senate to do as they saw fit, sided with the opinion of Cornelius. [4] And Appius, one of their number, coming forward, said: “It was the war with the Aequians and Sabines, senators, which we called you together to deliberate about, and we have given all of you who so desired leave to speak, calling upon each one from the foremost down to the youngest in the proper order. And three senators having given different opinions, namely Claudius, Cornelius, last of all Valerius, the rest of you have come to your decision concerning them and each one has come forward and declared in the hearing of all which opinion he supported. [5] Everything, therefore, having been done according to law, since the majority of you thought that Cornelius gave the best advice, we declare that he prevails, and we are engrossing and publishing the motion he made. Let Valerius and those who are leagued with him, when they shall obtain the consular power themselves, grant a rehearing, if they like, to causes already determined and annul resolutions passed by you all.” [6] Having said this and ordered the clerk to read the preliminary decree, in which it had been ordered that the enrolling of the army and the command of the war should be assumed by the decemvirs, he dismissed the meeting.

  [22.1] After that those of the oligarchical faction went about swaggering and insolent, as if they had gained a victory over their adversaries and had contrived that their p
ower could no longer be overthrown when once they should be in control of arms and an army. [2] But the men who had the best interests of the commonwealth at heart were in great distress and consternation, imagining that they should never again have any share in the government. These split into many groups, those of less noble dispositions feeling obliged to yield all to the victors and join the oligarchical bands, and such as were less timorous abandoning their concern for the public interests in exchange for a carefree life; but those who had great nobility of character employed themselves in organizing bands of their own and planning together for their mutual defence and for a change in the form of government. [3] The leaders of these groups were the men who had first dared to speak in the senate in favour of abolishing the decemvirate, namely Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius; and they had surrounded their houses with armed men and had about their persons a strong guard of their servants and clients, so as to suffer no harm from either violence or treachery. [4] Those persons, again, who were unwilling either to court the power of the victors or to pay no attention to any of the business of the commonwealth and to lead a quiet, carefree life, and to whom the carrying on of open warfare, since it was not easy for so great a power to be overthrown, seemed to be senseless, quitted the city. At the head of these was a distinguished man, Gaius Claudius, uncle to Appius, the chief of the decemvirate, who by this step fulfilled the promises he had made to his nephew in the senate when he advised but failed to persuade him to resign his power. [5] He was followed by a large crowd of his friends and likewise of his clients. Following his lead, the multitude also of citizens that were left, no longer privately or in small groups, but openly and in a body, abandoned their country, taking with them their wives and their children. Appius and his colleagues, being vexed at this, endeavoured at first to stop them by closing the gates and arresting some of the people. But afterwards, becoming afraid lest those they were attempting to stop should turn and defend themselves, and rightly judging it to be better for themselves that their enemies should be out of the way than that they should remain and make trouble, they opened the gates and permitted all who so wished to depart; after the houses and estates, however, and all the other things that they left behind because they could not carry them away in their flight, the decemvirs nominally confiscated these to the treasury, bringing against their owners a charge of desertion, but in reality they bestowed these possessions on their own followers, pretending that the latter had purchased them from the public. [6] These grievances, added to the former, greatly inflamed the hostility of the patricians and plebeians against the decemvirs. If, now, they had not added any fresh crime to those I have related, I think they might have retained the same power for a considerable time; for the sedition which maintained that power still continued in the city and had been increased by many causes and by the great length of time it had lasted, and because of the sedition each of the two parties rejoiced in the other’s misfortunes, [7] the plebeians in seeing the spirit of the patricians humbled and the senate no longer possessing authority over any of the business of state, and the patricians in seeing the people stripped of their liberty and without the least strength since the decemvirs had taken from them the tribunician power. But the decemvirs, by treating both parties with great arrogance and by showing and moderation in the army nor self-restraint in the city, forced the parties to unite and to abolish their magistracy as soon as the war had put arms into their hands. [8] Their last crimes, for which they were overthrown by the people, whom they had particularly enraged by their abuses, were as follows.

  [23.1] After they had secured the ratification of the decree of the senate for the war, they hastily enrolled their forces and divided them into three bodies. Two legions they left in the city to keep guard over matters inside the walls; and Appius Claudius, the chief of the oligarchy, together with Spurius Oppius commanded these two. Quintus Fabius, Quintus Poetelius and Manius Rabuleius marched out with three legions against the Sabines. [2] Marcus Cornelius, Lucius Minucius, Marcus Sergius, Titus Antonius, and last, Caeso Duilius, taking over the five remaining legions, arrived for the campaign against the Aequians. They were accompanied by an auxiliary force both of Latins and other allies that was as large as the citizen army. But nothing succeeded according to their plans, even though they were leading such large forces of both their own and allied troops. [3] For their foes, despising them because their troops were new recruits, encamped over against them, and placing ambuscades in the roads, cut off the provisions that were being brought to them and attacked them when they went out for forage; and whenever cavalry clashed with cavalry, infantry with infantry, and phalanx against phalanx, the Sabines always came off superior to the Romans, not a few of whom voluntarily played the coward in their encounters and not only disobeyed their officers but refused to come to grips with the foe. [4] Those, accordingly, who had set out against the Sabines, grown wise amid these minor misfortunes, resolved to quit their entrenchments of their own accord; and breaking camp about midnight, they led the army back from the enemy’s territory into their own, making their withdrawal not unlike a flight, till they came to the city of Crustumerium, which is not far from Rome. But those who had made their camp at Algidum in the country of the Aequians, when they too had received many blows at the hands of the enemy and still resolved to stand their ground in the midst of these dangers in hopes of retrieving their reverses, suffered a most grievous disaster. [5] For the enemy, having thrust forward against them and cleared palisades of those who defended them, mounted the ramparts, and possessing themselves of the camp, killed some few while fighting but destroyed the greater part in the pursuit. Those who escaped from this rout, being most of them wounded and having almost all lost their arms, came to the city of Tusculum; but their tents, beasts of burden, money, slaves, and the rest of their military provisions became the prey of the enemy. [6] When the news of this defeat was brought to the people in Rome, all who were enemies of the oligarchy and those who had hitherto been concealing their hatred revealed themselves now by rejoicing at the misfortunes of the generals; and there was now a strong body of men attached to both Horatius and Valerius, who, as I said, were the leaders of the aristocratical groups.

  [24.1] Appius and Spurius supplied their colleagues who were in the field with arms, money, corn and everything else they stood in need of, taking all these things with a high hand, whether public or private property; and enrolling all the men in every tribe who were able to bear arms in order to replace those who had been lost, they sent them out so that the centuries might be filled up. They also kept strict guard over matters in the city by garrisoning the most critical positions, lest the followers of Valerius should foment some disorders without their knowledge. [2] They also gave secret instructions to their colleagues in the army to put to death all who opposed their measures, the men of distinction secretly, and those of less account even openly, always using some specious excuses to make their death seem deserved. And these things were being done. For some, being sent out by them for forage, others to convoy provisions that were being brought in, and some to perform other military tasks, when they were once out of the camp, were nowhere seen again, [3] while the humblest men, being accused of being the first to take flight or of carrying secret information to the enemy or of quitting their posts, were being put to death publicly in order to strike terror into the rest. Two causes, therefore, contributed to the destruction of the soldiers: the friends of the oligarchy were perishing in the skirmishes with the enemy, while those who longed for the aristocratic régime were being slain by the orders of the generals.

  [25.1] Many crimes of this nature were committed in the city also by Appius and his colleague. The destruction of most of the victims, numerous as they were, was a matter of no great concern to the masses; but the cruel and wicked death of one man, who was the most distinguished of the plebeians and had performed the most gallant exploits in war, only to be murdered now in that one of the camps where the three generals commanded
, disposed everyone there to revolt. [2] The man assassinated was that Siccius who had fought the hundred and twenty battles and had received prizes for valour in all of them, a man of whom I have said that, when he was exempt from military service by reason of his age, he voluntarily engaged in the war against the Aequians at the head of a cohort of eight hundred men who had already completed the regular term of service and followed him out of affection for him; and having been sent with these men by one of the consuls against the enemy’s camp, to manifest destruction, as everyone thought, he not only made himself master of their camp, but enabled the consuls to gain the complete victory they did. [3] This man, who kept making many speeches in the city against the generals in the field, accusing them of both cowardice and inexperience in warfare, Appius and his colleague were eager to remove out of the way, and to that end they invited him to friendly conversations and asked him to consult with them concerning affairs in camp, urging him to tell how the mistakes of the generals might be corrected; and at last they prevailed upon him to go out to the camp at Crustumerium invested with the authority of a legate. The position of legate is the most honourable and the most sacred of all dignities among the Romans, possessing as it does the power and authority of a magistrate and the inviolable and holy character of a priest. [4] When he arrived at the camp and the generals there gave him a friendly greeting and asked him to remain and command in conjunction with them, also offering him some presents on the spot and promising others, Siccius, deceived by these wicked men and not conscious that the charm of their conversation was due to a plot, he being a military man and of a simple nature, not only made other recommendations, such as he thought advantageous, but, first of all, advised them to move their camp from their own territory to that of the enemy, recounting the losses they were then suffering and also estimating the advantages they would gain by shifting their camp.