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

by Dionysius of Halicarnassus

  [6] When the man had been destroyed in one way or the other, the senate met and voted that his property should be confiscated to the state and his house razed to the ground. This site even to my day was the only area left vacant amid the surrounding houses, and was called Aequimelium by the Romans, or, we might study, the Plain of Melius. For aequum is the name given by the Romans to that which has no eminences; accordingly, a place originally called aequum Melium was later, when the two words were run together and pronounced as one, called Aequimelium. To the man who gave information against Maelius, namely Minucius, the senate voted that a statue should be erected.

  [5.1] (2) When the Tyrrhenians, Fidenates and Veientes were making war upon the Romans, and Lars Tolumnius, the king of the Tyrrhenians, was doing them terrible damage, a Roman military tribune, Aulus Cornelius, with the cognomen Cossus, spurred his horse against Tolumnius; and when he was close to him, they levelled their spears against each other. [2] Tolumnius drove his spear through the breast of his foe’s horse, which reared and threw his rider; and Cornelius, driving the point of his spear through the shield and breastplate of Tolumnius into his side knocked him from his horse, and while he was still attempting to raise himself, ran his sword through his groin. [3] After slaying him and stripping off his spoils, he not only repulsed those who came to close quarters with him, both horse and foot, but also reduced to discouragement and fear those who still held out on the two wings.

  [6.1] (3) When Aulus Cornelius Cossus (for the second time) and Titus Quintius were consuls, the land suffered from a severe drought, lacking all moisture not only from rains but also from flowing streams. As a result, sheep, beasts of burden and cattle disappeared entirely, while human beings were visited with many diseases, particularly the one called the mange, which caused dreadful pains in the skin with its itchings and in case of any ulcerations raged more violently than ever — a most pitiable affliction and the cause of the speediest of deaths.

  [2] (4) It did not seem wise to the leaders of the senate to have profound peace and long-continued leisure; for they were mindful that indolence and softness enter states along with peace, and at the same time they dreaded civil disturbances. For these disturbances, as soon as external wars were terminated, arose, bitter and continuous, on every possible excuse.

  [3] It is better for people to surpass their enemies in acts of kindness than in punishments, since, even if there is no other reason, at least their expectations of favours from the gods are brighter because of them.

  [4] (5) When he learned that the enemy were coming up in the rear, he despaired of turning back, being surrounded by the enemy on all sides, and bearing in mind that they would all run the risk of perishing ignominiously without having performed any noble action, fighting, as they would be, a few against many, and heavily armed against light troops. And perceiving a hill of moderate height which lay at no great distance, he resolved to seize it.

  [5] (6) Agrippa Menenius, Publius Lucretius and Servius Nautius, having been honoured with the military tribuneship, discovered a plot that had been formed against the commonwealth by slaves. [6] The conspirators were planning to set fire to the houses at night in many different places at the same time, and then, when they had learned that everyone had rushed to the aid of the burning buildings, to seize the Capitol and the other fortified places and, once in possession of the strong positions in the city, to summon the other slaves to freedom and together with them, after slaying their masters, to take over the wives and possessions of the murdered men. [7] When the plot was revealed, the ringleaders were arrested and after being scourged were led away to be crucified; as for the men who had laid information against them, two in number, each received his freedom and a thousand denarii from the public treasury.

  [7.1] (7) The Roman tribune was anxious to terminate the war in a few days, as if it would be a simple matter and quite within his power to reduce the enemy to subjection by a single battle. [2] But the leader of the enemy, mindful of the Romans’ experience in warfare and of their perseverance amid the hazards of battle, determined not to fight a pitched battle against them on equal terms and in the open, but to carry on the war by means of some ruses and stratagems and to be on the watch for any advantage they might offer him against themselves.

  Having been wounded and having come within a little of dying.

  [8.1] (8) At Rome there was a severe storm, and where the least snow fell it was not less than seven feet deep. It chanced that some persons lost their lives in the snowstorm, as did many sheep and no small portion of the other cattle and beasts of burden, partly as the result of being frostbitten and partly because of the lack of their customary grazing. [2] Of the fruit-trees, those which were of such a nature as could not endure excessive snowstorms were either completely winter-killed or had their shoots withered and bore no fruit for many years. Many houses also collapsed and some were actually overturned, especially those constructed of stone, during the thawing and melting of the snow. [3] We have no report in a historical record of the occurrence of such a calamity, either on any occasion or later, down to our own time, in this region, which is slightly north of the middle zone, on the parallel running above Athos through the Hellespont. This was the first and only time when the atmosphere of this land departed from its customary temperature.

  [9.1] (9) The Romans were conducting the festival called in their own language lectisternium, in response to the bidding of the Sibylline oracles. For a kind of pestilence sent by Heaven and incurable by human skill had led them to consult the oracles. [2] They adorned three couches, as the oracles had commanded, one for Apollo and Latona, another for Hercules and Diana, and a third for Mercury and Neptune. And for seven days running they offered sacrifices, both publicly and privately, each according to his own ability giving first-fruits to the gods; and they prepared most magnificent banquets and entertained the strangers who were sojourning in their midst. [3] (10) Piso the ex-censor in his Annals adds these further details: that, though all the slaves whom their masters had previously kept in chains were then turned loose, though the city was filled with a throng of strangers, and though the houses were open day and night and all who wished entered them without hindrance, yet no one complained of having lost anything or of having been wronged by anyone, even though festal occasions are wont to bring many disorderly and lawless deeds in their train because of the drunkenness attending them.

  [10.1] (11) When the Romans were besieging the Veientes about the time of the rising of the dog-star, the season when lakes are most apt to fail, as well as all rivers, with the single exception of the Egyptian Nile, a certain lake, distant not less than one hundred and twenty stades from Rome in the Alban mountains, as they are called, beside which in ancient times the mother-city of the Romans was situated, at a time when neither rains nor snow-storms had occurred nor any other cause perceptible to human beings, received such an increase to its waters that it inundated a large part of the region lying round the mountains, destroyed my farm houses, and finally carved out the gap between the mountains and poured a mighty river down over the plains lying below. [2] (12) Upon learning of this, the Romans at first, in the belief that some god was angry at the commonwealth, voted to propitiate the gods and lesser divinities who presided over the region, and asked the native soothsayers if they had anything to say; but when neither the lake resumed its natural state nor the soothsayers had anything definite to say, but advised consulting the god, they sent envoys to the Delphic oracle.

  [11] (13) In the meantime one of the Veientes, who had inherited from his ancestors a knowledge of the augural science of his country, chanced to be guarding the wall, and one of the centurions from Rome had long been an acquaintance of his. This centurion, being near the wall one day and giving the other man the customary greetings, remarked that he pitied him because of the calamity that would befall him along with the rest if the city were captured. [2] The Tyrrhenian, having heard of the overflowing of the Alban lake and knowing already the ancien
t oracles concerning it, laughed and said: “What a fine thing it is to know beforehand the things that are to be! Thus, you Romans in your ignorance of what is to happen are waging an endless war and are expending fruitless toils, in the belief that you will overthrow the city of Veii; whereas, if anyone had revealed to you that it is fated for this city to be captured only when the lake beside the Alban mount, lacking its natural springs, shall no longer mingle its waters with the sea, you would have desisted from exhausting yourselves and at the same time troubling us.” [3] Upon hearing this, the Roman took the matter very seriously to heart; for the time being he went his way, (14) but the next day, after telling the tribunes what he had in mind, he came to the same place unarmed, so that the Tyrrhenian might conceive no suspicion of a plot on his part. When he had uttered the usual greetings, he efficient talked about the embarrassment in which the Roman army found itself, mentioning sundry matters which he thought would give pleasure to the Tyrrhenian, and then asked him to interpret for him some signs and prodigies which had recently appeared to the tribunes. [4] The soothsayer was won over by his words, fearing no treachery, and after ordering those who were with him to stand aside, he himself followed the centurion unattended. The Roman kept leading him farther and farther from the wall by a line of conversation planned to deceive him, and when he was near the wall of circumvallation, seizing him by waist with both hands, he lifted him up and carried him off to the Roman camp.

  [12.1] (15) The tribunes, by using arguments designed to conciliate this man as well as threats of torture to frighten him, caused him to declare all that he had been concealing with regard to the Alban lake; then they also sent him to the senate. The senators were not all of the same opinion; but some thought that the Tyrrhenian was something of a rascal and charlatan and falsely attributed to the deity what he said about the oracle, while others thought that he had spoken in all sincerity. [2] (16) While the senate was in this quandary, the messengers who had been sent earlier to Delphi arrived, bringing oracles agreeing with those already announced by the Tyrrhenian. These declared that the gods and genii to whom had been allotted the oversight of the city of Veii guaranteed to maintain for them unshaken the good fortune of their city as handed down from their ancestors for only so long a time as the springs of the Alban lake should continue to overflow and run down to the sea; [3] but that when these should forsake their natural bent and, quitting their ancient courses, should turn aside to others, so as to mingle no longer with the sea, then too their city would be overthrown. this would be brought about in a short time by the Romans if by means of channels dug in other places they should divert the overflowing warm waters into the plains that were remote from the sea. Upon learning of this, the Romans at once put the engineers in charge of the operation.

  [13.1] (17) When the Veientes learned of this from a prisoner, they wished to send heralds to their besiegers to seek a termination of the war before the city should be taken by storm; and the oldest citizens were appointed envoys. [2] When the Roman senate voted against making peace, the other envoys left the senate-chamber in silence, but the most prominent of their number and the one who enjoyed the greatest reputation for skill in divination stopped at the door, and looking round upon all who were present in the chamber, said: “A fine and magnanimous decree you have passed, Romans, you who lay claim to the leadership of your neighbours on the ground of valour, when you disdain to accept the submission of a city, neither small nor undistinguished, which offers to lay down its arms and surrender itself to you, but wish to destroy it root and branch, neither fearing the wrath of Heaven nor regarding the indignation of men! [3] In return for this, avenging justice shall come upon you from the gods, punishing you in like manner. For after robbing the Veientes of their country you shall ere long lose your own.”

  [4] (18) When the city was being captured a short time after this, some of the inhabitants engaged with the enemy, and after showing themselves brave men and slaying many, were cut down, and others perished by taking their own lives; those, however, who because of cowardice and pusillanimity regarded any hardships as less terrible than death, threw down their arms and surrendered themselves to the conquerors.

  [14.1] (19) The dictator Camillus, by whose generalship the city had been captured, after taking his stand with the most prominent Romans upon a height from which the entire city was visible, first congratulated himself upon his present good fortune, in that it had fallen to his lot to destroy without hardship a great and prosperous city which was no unimportant part of Tyrrhenia — a country at that time flourishing and the most powerful of any of the nations inhabiting Italy — and which had constantly disputed the leadership with the Romans and had continued to endure many wars unto the tenth generation, and from the time when it began to wage war and to be besieged continuously had endured the siege for ten years, experiencing every kind of fortune. [2] (20) Then, remembering that men’s happiness hangs upon a slight turn of the scales and that no blessings continue steadfast, he stretched out his hands toward heaven and prayed to Jupiter and the other gods that, if possible, his present good fortune might not prove a cause of hatred against either him or his country; but that if any calamity was destined to befall the city of Rome in general or his own life as a counterbalance to their present blessings, it might be very slight and moderate.

  [15.1] (21) Veii was in no respect inferior to Rome as a place in which to live, possessing much fertile land, partly hilly and partly level, and an atmosphere surrounding it that was most pure and conducive to the health of human beings. For there was neither any marsh near by as a source of oppressive and foul vapours nor any river to send up cold breezes at dawn, and its supplies of water were neither scanty nor brought in from outside, but rose in the neighbourhood and were abundant and most excellent for drinking.

  [16.1] (22) They say that Aeneas, the son of Anchises and Venus, when he had landed in Italy, was intending to sacrifice to some one or other of the gods, and after praying was about to begin the sacrifice of the animal that had been prepared for the rite, when he caught sight of one of the Achaeans approaching at a distance — either Ulysses, when he was about to consult the oracle near Lake Avernus, or Diomed, when he came as an ally to Daunus. [2] And being vexed at the coincidence and wishing to avert as an evil omen the sight of an enemy that had appeared at the time of a sacrifice, he veiled himself and turned back; then, after the departure of the enemy, he washed his hands again and finished the sacrifice. [3] When the sacrifices turned out rather favourably, he was pleased at the coincidence and observed the same practice on the occasion of every prayer; and his posterity keep this also as one of the customary observances in connexion with their sacrifices. [4] (23) It was in accordance with the traditional usages, then, that Camillus, after making his prayer and drawing his garment down over his head, wished to turn his back; however, his foot slipped and he was unable to recover himself, but fell flat on the ground. [5] Although this omen called for no divination or uncertainty but was easy for even the most ordinary mind to interpret, signifying that it was absolutely inevitable that he should come a disgraceful fall, nevertheless, he did not consider it worth while either to guard against it or to avert it by expiations, but altered it to the meaning that pleased him, assuming that the gods had given ear to his prayers and had contrived that the mischief should be of the slightest.

  EXCERPTS FROM BOOK XIII

  [1.1] When Camillus was besieging the city of Falerii, one of the Faliscans, either having given the city up for lost or seeking personal advantages for himself, tricked the sons of the most prominent families — he was a schoolmaster — and led them outside the city, as if to take a walk before the walls and to view the Roman camp. [2] And gradually leading them farther and farther from the city, he brought them to a Roman outpost and handed them over to the men who ran out. Being brought to Camillus by these men, he said he had long planned to put the city in the hands of the Romans, but not being in possession of any citadel or gate or arms, he h
ad hit upon this plan, namely to put in their power the sons of the noblest citizens, assuming that the fathers in their yearning for the safety of their children would be compelled by inexorable necessity to hand over the city promptly to the Romans. [3] He spoke thus, being in great hopes of gaining some wonderful rewards for his treachery.

  [2.1] (2) Camillus, having handed over the schoolmaster and the boys to be guarded, sent word by letter to the senate of what had happened and inquired what he should do. [2] When the senate gave him permission to do whatever seemed best to him, he led the schoolmaster together with the boys out of the camp and ordered his general’s tribunal to be placed not far from the city gate; and when a large crowd of the Faliscans had rushed up, some of them to the walls and some to the gate, he first showed them what an outrageous thing the schoolmaster had dared to do to them; then he ordered his attendants to tear off the man’s clothes and to rend his body with a great many whips. [3] When he had had his fill of this punishment, he handed out rods to the boys and ordered them to conduct the man back to the city with his hands bound behind his back, beating him and maltreating him in every way. After the Faliscans had got their sons back and had punished schoolmaster in a manner his wicked plan deserved, they delivered their city up to Camillus.