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The Historians' History of the World 05 [The Roman Republic]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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Then the dictator, when he had discovered the place of the enemy’s army, ordered his men to put all their baggage down in one place, and then to surround the enemy’s camp. They obeyed, and each one raising a shout, began digging the trench and fixing his stakes, so as to form a palisade round the enemy. The consul’s army, which was hemmed in, heard the shout of their brethren, and flew to arms; and so hotly did they fight all night, that the Æquians had no time to attend to the new foe, and next morning they found themselves hemmed in on all sides by the trench and palisade, so that they were now between two Roman armies. They were thus forced to surrender. The dictator required them to give up their chiefs, and made their whole army pass under the yoke, which was formed by two spears fixed upright in the ground, and a third bound across them at the top.
Cincinnatus returned to Rome amid the shouts and exultation of his soldiers; they gave him a golden crown, in token that he had saved the lives of many citizens; and the senate decreed that he should enter the city in triumph.
So Cincinnatus accomplished the purpose for which he had been made dictator in twenty-four hours. One evening he marched forth to deliver the consul, and the next evening he returned victorious. But he would not lay down his high office till he had avenged his son Cæso. Accordingly he summoned Volscius Fictor, the accuser, and had him tried for perjury. The man was condemned and banished; and then Cincinnatus once more returned to his wife and farm.c
Critical Examination of the Story of Cincinnatus
“That this story belongs less to the region of history than to that of fancy,” says Ihne, “is evident from the physical impossibilities it contains. The distance between Rome and the hill Algidus is more than twenty miles. This distance the Roman army under Cincinnatus is said to have accomplished between nightfall and midnight, though the soldiers were burthened with three or four times the usual number of stakes for intrenchments. Then, after such a march, the men were set to work to make a circumvallation round the whole Æquian army, which itself enclosed the army of Minucius, and must, therefore, have occupied a considerable extent of ground. The work of circumvallation was accomplished in the same night, uninterrupted by the Æquians, though the Romans at the very commencement had raised a shout to announce their arrival to the blockaded army of Minucius. With these details the story is, of course, mere nonsense. But if, following the example of Dionysius, we strip off from the popular legend all that is fanciful, exaggerated, or impossible, and place the heroic deed of Cincinnatus on such a footing that it assumes an air of probability, we shall gain nothing, because by such a rationalising process we shall not be able to convert a legend into genuine history.”
“We arrive at the same conclusion by observing the fact that the story of Cincinnatus, in its general and characteristic features, is related no less than five times.”d
Defeat of the Fabii
THE FABIAN GENS AND THE VEIENTINES
It has already been related that, after the final expulsion of the Tarquins, the patricians withdrew from the plebeians those rights which they had originally obtained from King Servius, and which had been renewed and confirmed to them during the time that the Tarquins were endeavouring to return. And for a number of years it appears that the Fabii engrossed a great share of this power to themselves. For we find in the lists of consuls that for seven years running (from 485 to 479 B.C.), one of the two consuls was always a Fabius. Now these Fabii were the chief opponents of the Agrarian law; and Cæso Fabius, who was three times consul in the said seven years, was the person who procured the condemnation of Sp. Cassius, the great friend of the plebeians. This Cæso, in his second consulship, found himself as unpopular as Appius Claudius. His soldiers refused to fight against the enemy. But in his third consulship, which fell in the last of the seven years, he showed an altered spirit, he and all his house. For the Fabii saw the injustice they had been guilty of towards the plebeians, and the injury they had been doing to the state; and Cæso himself came forward, and proposed that the Agrarian law of Sp. Cassius should be carried into full effect. But the patricians rejected the proposal with scorn; and so the whole Fabian gens determined to leave Rome altogether. They thought they could serve their country better by warring against the Veientines than by remaining at home. So they assembled together on the Quirinal Hill, in all 306 men, besides their clients and followers, and they passed under the Capitol, and went out of the city by the right-hand arch of the Carmental gate. They then crossed the Tiber, and marked out a place on the little river Cremera, which flows into the Tiber below Veii. Here they fortified a camp, and sallied forth to ravage the lands of the Veientines and drive their cattle.
So they stood between Rome and Veii for more than a year’s time, and the Romans had peace on that side, whereas the Veientines suffered greatly. But there was a certain day, the Ides of February, which was always held sacred by the Fabii, when they offered solemn sacrifices on the Quirinal Hill, to the gods of their gens. On this day, Cæso their chief led them forth for Rome; and the Veientines, hearing of it, laid an ambush for them, and they were all cut off. And the plebeians greatly mourned the loss of their patrician friends, and Menenius, the consul, who was encamped near at hand, but did not assist them, was accused by the tribunes of treacherously betraying them, as has been above recorded.
But one young Fabius, who was then a boy, was left behind at Rome when the rest of his gens went forth to settle on the Cremera. And he (so it was said) was the father of the Fabii who were afterwards so famous in the history of Rome. After this, it is said, the men of Veii asked and obtained a peace of forty years.c
FOOTNOTES
[19] [It must be remembered, however, that formerly Rome had been a member of the Latin league; while the treaty of 493 was ratified by Rome on the one side and the Latin league on the other.]
[20] [In the time of the Punic Wars, however, we find the tribunes sometimes undertaking long journeys on public commissions.]
[21] [This idealised view is not held by all scholars.]
[22] [More probably, according to Herzog,m his bill never became a law; and, as no record was made of unpassed bills, we do not know the precise nature of his proposal. Possibly it aimed to give the peasants a better title to the lands they held.]
[23] [According to some authorities, he was hurled from the Tarpeian Rock; other ancient writers assert that his father put him to death.]
[24] [The comitia centuriata was now the great legislative body. At this early period the tribunes could influence legislation by moral suasion or by obstructing the levy of troops, disturbing public business, and threats of violence. The tribal assembly had as yet no legislative power. Cf. Herzog.m]
[25] [As long as the function of the tribunes was limited to the protection of the weak and to the obstruction of public business, an increase in number added strength; but when they acquired a right to initiate legislation, their great number weakened them, as the text makes clear.]
[26] [Recent researches convince Fisken that Appius Claudius was a liberal, far-sighted statesman, neither brutal nor unnecessarily despotic; but it is hardly probable that anything can now dispel the traditional view. Unfavourable contemporary judgments are seldom reversed by posterity.]