fresh levies for another, which may have been thought necessary or politic, according as the disorders within or the hostilities without the walls were most alarming. While the consultation in the Senate was going on in the usual spirit, that is to say, with little reference to the needs or the desires of the people, a crowd stood waiting and murmuring in the Forum. It was composed, in great part, of men who knew by sad experience the burden not only of defeat, but of victory; and many a melancholy tale would be repeated of personal sufferings, or another still more mournful would be told concerning the neighbour in imprisonment for debt or the family separated in wretchedness. Suddenly an old man, shouting for assistance, appeared in the midst of the throng. Of pallid countenance and sunken eye, his face half hid in matted hair, while only torn and filthy clothes hung on his limbs, he seemed too miserable to be believed a RoBut some of the by-standers, pressing round him, recognized a Centurion of good descent and better fame. In turn, they shouted to know the cause of the change befallen him since he had been seen at the head of his company, a gallant leader in many a campaign. He bared his breast to show the scars it bore; then fixed his haggard eyes on those who stood nearest, and, with frantic air, related a story that could have been told only amongst men whose liberties were much abused. He was well born, he said, and had possessed a decent property, as they who knew him would attest; while his wounds were sufficient proofs of service and suffering in behalf of his coun47

man.

VOL. I.

try. But times, as all men were aware, became hard; armies had been marching through his field; his little stores had been swept away or else expended; and, at last, his patrimony followed, sold to give his children food and to pay the taxes of the Commonwealth. But as he grew poorer, the taxes seemed to grow heavier and his children hungrier; until, after all was sold, and all that could be had been borrowed, the day of payment came, and he had nothing to pay or to restore. He and his two sons, he cried, were then declared to have forfeited their freedom; and all three were dragged into the dungeon or slave-house of their creditor: what he had since undergone would never be believed, unless he showed the marks he would rather hide for shame.10 The multitude heard his broken voice and beheld his premature infirmities with the compassion easily stirred amongst a crowd; but when he drew from his back the rags which scarcely covered it, to show the wounds the lash had inflicted, it was a sight too piteous to wake sympathy alone.

It flashed upon the minds of those who stood there in the Forum, that the misery they witnessed in the old Centurion, and which they, too, were enduring or about to endure, was not for the sake of their country so much as for the gratification of their masters, the Patricians; or if they had, many of them, already made this discovery, they then more bitterly perceived that liberty, not of citizenship, but of life, was no

10 The story is from Liv., II. 23; Dion. Hal., VI. 26.

longer, if it had ever been, in their possession. A great clamor began, and soon spread through the city; the Plebeians hurrying from all sides to join their brethren, and strike while the iron was yet warm. On the other hand, the Senate hastily separated, sending the Consuls to stay the tumult which had unexpectedly arisen while they were taking counsel together, as if they were the only inhabitants of Rome. The crowd, however, demanded, with unwonted resolution," that the Senate should come together again, and give them relief from the oppression they were determined to bear no more. Appius, the Consul, fled from the Forum, but broke in amongst the Senators as they assembled, and proposed, as if he were their bravest champion, that the populace should be put down by violence. His colleague, however, who had not feared the crowd, but had gone about beseeching every one he met to be calm and wait for the justice which was sure to be given, came into the Senate to advise a moderate course towards the excited multitude. The broken story seems to fail; and the Senate, as well as the insurgents, appear to have separated without prevention, on the one hand, or increase, on the other, of the sedition.

On the next day, the crowd collected more numerously in the Forum. The Plebeians from the country, who could not have reached the city until some time after the outbreak, for which none had been

11" Multo minaciter magis quam suppliciter." Liv., II. 23.

prepared, came in, earnest to join their friends of the town. Hardly had the first vociferations of the multitude, ready, at that moment, to dare almost any thing, in spite of their long submission, been raised, when some Latin horsemen rode up to inform the Senate, assembled in one of the temples near at hand, that an armed force of the Volscians, marching to attack the city, was already close to the Roman boundaries. The Patricians and the Knights, to whom the sedition within the walls was by no means a very fearful matter, or who, at all events, expected the populace to forget their grievances as soon as they heard the call to arms, hastened homewards to equip themselves, never doubting that their example would be imitated. But the Plebeians stood still in the Forum. Some pointed to the chains they yet wore as bankrupt debtors, crying out that they had nothing else to defend against the invaders; and many more exclaimed, it was better to be conquered or slain, than live with hands tied and bodies bruised like theirs. The wrath of the multitude was nevertheless soon turned away. At the proposal of Servilius, or of some wiser Senator than the rest, the Senate was persuaded to proclaim that the bound as well as the unbound amongst the people might enlist under the Consuls, and further, that none who did enlist should be liable for any debts to fall due during the campaign; while the injuries of which complaint was made should be examined and repaired at the end of the war. Forum, just before swarming with an angry populace, now seemed to be filled with orderly and willing

The

soldiers. Bond and free gave in their names together, and to all, promiscuously, the usual oath of fidelity was administered as rapidly as the words could be dictated and repeated. Servilius put himself at the head of the army, and set out at once to meet the invaders, who, of course, were instantly routed and repelled. 12

12

The spoils of the camp from which the enemy were driven, and of the town subsequently taken in their own territories, were divided amongst the victorious soldiery, and, for the first time in their remembrance, the lowest ranks had something to carry home with them from war. After a week's campaign, and the return of the army, Servilius claimed the usual honors of a triumphant general; but Appius is said to have persuaded the Senate to deny his colleague's demand. Any of the party whose opinion was expressed by Appius Claudius would have maintained, with him, that the decree about the debtors at the beginning, and the division of the booty at the close of the campaign, were too atrocious violations of all precedents and laws to permit the triumph of their author. Servilius was, for the moment, a man of energy. He called the Centuries into the field of Mars, and laid his claims before them. They were in part, of course, the same soldiers whom he had commanded, and as the question lay between one faction of the Patricians and another, rather than between the Patricians and the Plebeians, the Centuries made no difficulty in setting aside the Senate's refusal, and authorizing the

12 Liv., II. 23-25. Dion. Hal., VI. 27-29.