BOOK II.

PERIOD OF INCREASE.

CHAPTER I.

MONS SACER.

"Plebi re non verbo danda libertas."- CICERO, De Legg., III. 10.

THE arms surrendered to Porsena' were soon replaced by others that prevailed more easily against feebler foes. Many losses were inevitable to campaigns, of which the scene was always laid near Rome, and in which the enemy was frequently as powerful as any force that could be raised amongst the Romans. But the territory preserved during the Etruscan invasion was not likely to be lost afterwards; and its actual extent, between Crustumerium, five miles on the northeast, and Ostia, sixteen miles on the southwest, of the seven hills, with many settlements on the left or southern bank of the Tiber, was the nucleus to the vast dominions of a subsequent period. About ten years after the revolution against Tarquin, the victory by the Regillus, over the people of thirty Latin cities, gained, as tradition

1 According to Pliny's account, that the Romans were forbidden the

use of iron except in agriculture. Nat. Hist., XXXIII. 39.

related, with divine assistance to the exertions of the Patricians and the Knights, decided the superiority of Rome above her neighbours, and procured her some repose. The last hopes of the Tarquins had been staked upon the same battle-field; and the only further notice preserved of the exiled monarch is his death, occurring a few years afterwards.

Meanwhile, sufferings following revolution and warfare were crowding into Rome. The higher classes, foremost in all the gallant deeds to which the Commonwealth had owed its safety, were fast becoming its oppressors; and their countrymen, who had at first rejoiced in the flight of the king, were now lamenting their subjection to a multitude of tyrants, instead of one, or a single family. Some faces, could they be seen as they were then marked deep with care, would make a dismal spectacle; and one as dismal would be presented in other countenances, frowning with pride and uncharitableness. The cause and the character of discords, thus keeping pace with wars and changes, amongst the Romans, have been partially described.2

But there were complaints on both sides. The Plebeian grumbled of exactions, services, and debts, let slip, as he thought, on purpose to do him an injury; yet the Patrician could have retorted concerning insolence, bankruptcy, and idleness, by which he, in his turn, was wantonly aggrieved. One of the foreigners who wrote the history of Rome, in after

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2 See the close of Book I. ch.

3 See Dion. Hal., VI. 22, 24, 28, 36.

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times, observed that the creditors of the earlier period were resolved to show no pity, but that the debtors were equally obstinate to do no justice. The kindness becoming the higher orders, and the respect or confidence necessary to the lower, had vanished, if they had ever appeared. .Several circumstances, however, incline our sympathies to the Plebeians, apart from the fact that they were the inferior class, and therefore sure, in such an age, to be abused. They were far the most numerous. The Third Estate, at the beginning of the French Revolution, was not more truly the whole nation less the nobility, than the Plebeian estate, at the issue of the Roman revolution, was composed of all the citizens less the Patricians amongst them. The Plebeians, moreover, were every way as noble by descent, though no longer so exalted in spirit, as the Patricians. Both came from the same races; and the only difference between them, as Romans, was the settlement of one order as shepherds or warriors, under the first, and of the other as aliens, under the following reigns."

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Another reason to prepossess us in favor of the Plebeians is the course that the Patricians would naturally pursue towards them in times of embarrassment and affliction; of which too much has been already said to leave room for any other remark than this,— that, in proportion as the poor become enfeebled in any state, the rich become more arrogant, and, as has often happened, more inhuman.8

The time of sacrifice, on one side or the other, which none could hope would be fulfilled without bitterness and peril, was coming fast when Appius Claudius and Publius Servilius were elected Consuls, thirteen years after the beginning of the Commonwealth. The one was the Sabine, the stranger turned into the Patrician, and so bitter an adversary to the Plebeians, that his name is continually taken by the historians to represent the animosity of the higher against the lower estate. The other, Servilius, a man apparently of humaner disposition, was weak and irresolute, as if he scarce knew whether it were right to show any favor to the Plebeians. Between the two together, the Patricians were likely yet to have their way.

A short campaign against the enemies, growing more numerous since the troubles in Rome were known, introduced the year of the new consulship; and was hardly over, when the Senate met to appoint

8 Sallust (Hist. Frag., Lib. I.) tells the whole story: - "Dein servili imperio patres plebem exercere, de vita atque tergo regio more consulere, agro pellere," etc., etc.

9 In September of the year A. C. 496. The year is the more uncertain date of the two.