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Consul to triumph.

He accordingly assumed the triumphal robe, and was conducted through the city to the Capitol by a shouting multitude.13

If the Plebeians thought they were triumphing as well as the Patrician Consul, they were shortly undeceived. Some other excursions in arms occupied them for a time; but on the final return of the forces, they were received with an edict from the Consul Appius, commanding the debtors to give themselves over to their creditors. The troops appealed to Servilius; but he was cold or cowed, and his own name was soon added, on the edict, to that of his colleague. The victims, with whom the city seemed at least half peopled, made a show of resistance; but obedience was more natural, and the poor were surrendered to the bondage they had almost ceased to fear.

The consular year drew near its close. It was marked by another dispute between the Consuls for the honor, then dearly valued, of dedicating a temple lately built to Mercury. The Senate, before whom their claims were urged, referred the question to the assembly of the Curies, by which it was determined that the temple should be dedicated neither by Appius nor by Servilius, but by a certain Centurion, — not so much out of respect to him, the historian says, as out of disrespect to the Consuls.14 This decision of the Curies is the best means that remains of understanding the temper of the Patricians, of whom the assembly was formed. It hence seems that the ex

13 Ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου παντὸς προπεμTóμevos. Dion. Hal., VI. 30.

14 Liv.,

II. 27.

travagance of Appius and the double-dealing of Servilius were equally distasteful to their order at large. Some young men, and many of the more recently elevated Patricians, were undoubtedly of the same mind with Appius, and would have crushed every effort of the Plebeians to encroach upon the ground they occupied themselves. The saying of the Patrician, that the Senate was the soul, and the Plebeian order the body of the state,15 was undoubtedly the expression of other men belonging to the higher class, who drew the same strange inference, that the body should be mortified and injured. Another party, so much disposed to thwart the Plebeians as to be indignant at the part which Servilius had temporarily taken in their favor, was, nevertheless, contented with the belief that their seditious temper was unworthy of much regard, and had better be left to die out as suddenly as it had been inflamed. The Patricians of this stamp would have opposed any extreme measures, not, perhaps, from humanity, but in the conviction. that a light matter would only be made serious by too rigorous a treatment. There were, besides, a few moderate men, who, like Valerius, thirteen years before, would have done some justice to the lower estate, which, however, they did not seek to elevate so much as to secure in the position it actually occupied. Such a party as this, the third one, was in all probability

15 Dionysius ascribes it to Appius Claudius. V. 67. See the first scene of Shakspeare's Coriolanus ; or those bitter words about the Plebeians in the third act :

"I would they were barbarians (as they are,

Though in Rome littered), not Romans (as

they are not, Though calv'd i' the porch o' the Capitol).

composed of the elder Patricians, or more generally, perhaps, of those who were able to trace their descent to the earliest members of their order; at least, if the common analogies, which bear witness to the exist ence of the most liberal spirit amongst those classes who have the best excuse for being illiberal, may be relied upon. upon. The second and the third party were generally combined. But it must not fail to strike the reader that the account thus offered him is to be accepted only so far as it makes the narrative he reads more comprehensible. It was probably the fixed purpose, or, as that may be too strong a phrase, the natural bent, of the Patrician to keep his order and that of the Plebeians exactly where they were: most would have exalted their own estate by humbling, some only by elevating, that of their inferiors; while the most severe would long be the most likely to prevail.

Aulus Virginius and Titus Vetusius, neither being of much note or of any apparent energy, succeeded to the retiring Consuls.16 The Plebeians - they, that is, who had not yet fallen into, but were dreading, bondage were more unruly; meeting together by night, upon the Aventine or the thinly inhabited Esquiline, as if to prepare for the events of the day in the Forum. On the other hand, the Patricians, angered to hear such things, reproached the Consuls for allowing the populace the time to think of sedition." The great resources of ancient governments in the season

16 Sept., A. C. 495.

17 Otio lascivire plebem." Liv., II. 28.

of

any embarrassment were festivals and wars; and as the time of the magnificent procession or the stirring game was not arrived in Rome, the commotions of the city were continually met by orders for an enlistment or a march. The Consuls, accordingly, when urged to put a stop to the nocturnal gatherings just mentioned, summoned the Plebeians to arms. But though the men liable to military service were called by name before the consular tribunal, not one answered; while from the crowd gathered round there issued outcries, boisterous and repeated, that the prisoners must be set at liberty, before any mone battles could be fought for the Patricians; and the refusal to enlist was more stoutly maintained than that which had been met, the year before, by promises not yet fulfilled. The Consuls hesitated; but, bidden by many Patricians near them to do their duty, commanded one they saw in the throng before them to be called again; and when he stood motionless, he was ordered into instant custody. Down strode a lictor to seize the offender, but was driven back; and when some of the Patricians rushed in amongst the people, they, too, were resisted as boldly as the lictor. A serious riot would have ensued, had not the Consuls interfered; but as they abandoned their levy, more noise ensued, says the historian, than any actual harm.18 The actual good, however, that ensued was the discomfiture of force as a means of oppressing the Plebeians.

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Whether it were to regain the mastery over the Plebeians which the Consuls had perilled, or whether the old pretext of dangerous enemies were now a reality, it was determined, after long and uncertain deliberations in the Senate, to appoint a Dictator. The parties of the Patricians proposed each a different line of conduct, and a different candidate to carry it out; but the more moderate voices prevailed,19 and Marcus Valerius, a brother of the People's Friend, was invested with absolute authority to remedy the evils by which the Commonwealth was externally and internally infected. An old man, and one of generous heart, honored equally by Patricians and Plebeians for his noble name, he immediately commanded proclamation to be made that he would hold a levy, and that they who enlisted under his orders should be respected in person and protected in family and property. It was the same promise that Servilius had made in the preceding year; but Valerius was not only much more powerful as a magistrate, but much more trusted as a man; and they who were busiest with projects, passions, or fears, laid all aside to swear fidelity to the Dictator and to follow him against the foe. Ten legions 20 were almost instantly enrolled; the largest army that the Commonwealth had ever sent forth to battle; 21 so large, indeed, that it was safely divided into three different bodies, of

19 Liv., II. 30.

20 The number (from Dion. Hal., VI. 42) may be exaggerated, if his account be true, which makes the

legion a body of 4,000 foot and 300 horse.

21"Quantus nunquam ante exercitus." Liv., II. 30.

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