Livy - THE HISTORY OF ROME (Complete Edition in 4 Volumes)

"Come, when ye have blockaded the senate-house here, and have made the forum the seat of war, and filled the prison with the leading men of the state, march forth through the Esquiline gate, with that same determined spirit; or if ye do not even venture thus far, behold from your walls the lands laid waste with fire and sword, booty driven off, the houses set on fire in every direction and smoking. But (I may be told) it is the public weal that is in a worse condition through these results: the land is burned, the city is besieged, all the glory of the war is centred in the enemy. What in the name of heaven? in what state is your own private interest? just now his own private losses were announced to each of you from the lands. What, pray, is there at home, whence you may recruit them? Will the tribunes restore and compensate you for what ye have lost? Of sound and words they will heap on you as much as ye please, and of charges against the leading men, and laws one upon another, and of public meetings. But from these meetings never has one of you returned home more increased in substance or in fortune. Has any one ever brought back to his wife and children aught save hatred, quarrels, grudges public and private? from which (and their effects) you have been ever protected, not by your own valour and integrity, but by the aid of others. But, when you served under the guidance of us consuls, not under your tribunes, and the enemy trembled at your shout in the field of battle, not the Roman patricians in the assembly, booty being obtained, land taken from the enemy, with a plentiful stock of wealth and glory, both public and private, you used to return home to your household gods in triumph: now you allow the enemy to go off laden with your property. Continue immovably tied to your assemblies, live in the forum; the necessity of taking the field, which ye avoid, still follows you. Was it too hard on you to march against the Æquans and the Volscians? The war is at your gates: if it is not repelled from thence, it will soon be within your walls, and will scale the citadel and Capitol, and follow you into your very houses. Two years ago the senate ordered a levy to be held, and the army to march to Algidum; yet we sit down listless at home, quarrelling with each other like women; delighting in present peace, and not seeing that after that short-lived intermission complicated wars are sure to return. That there are other topics more pleasing than these, I well know; but even though my own mind did not prompt me to it, necessity obliges me to speak that which is true instead of that which is pleasing. I would indeed be anxious to please you, Romans; but I am much more anxious that ye should be preserved, whatever sentiments ye shall entertain towards me. It has been so ordained by nature, that he who addresses a multitude for his own private interest, is more pleasing than the man whose mind has nothing in view but the public interest. Unless perhaps you suppose that those public sycophants, those flatterers of the commons, who neither suffer you to take up arms nor to live in peace, incite and work you up for your own interests. When excited, you are to them sources either of honour or of profit: and because, during concord between the several orders, they see that themselves are of no importance on any side, they wish to be leaders of a bad cause rather than of no cause whatever, of tumults, and of sedition. Of which state of things, if a tedium can at length enter your minds, and if ye are willing to resume the modes of acting practised by your forefathers, and formerly by yourselves, I submit to any punishment, if I do not rout and put to flight, and strip of their camp, those ravagers of our lands, and transfer from our gates and walls to their cities this terror of war, by which you are now thrown into consternation."

Scarcely ever was the speech of a popular tribune more acceptable to the commons, than was this of a most strict consul on that occasion. The young men also, who during such alarming emergencies had been accustomed to employ the refusal to enlist as the sharpest weapon against the patricians, began to direct their thoughts to war and arms: and the flight of the rustics, and those who had been robbed on the lands and wounded, announcing matters more revolting even than what was exhibited to view, filled the whole city with a spirit of vengeance. When the senate assembled, these all turning to Quintius, looked on him as the only champion of Roman majesty; and the leading senators declared "his harangue to be worthy of the consular authority, worthy of so many consulships formerly borne by him, worthy of his whole life, which was full of honours frequently enjoyed, more frequently deserved. That other consuls had either flattered the commons by betraying the dignity of the patricians, or by harshly maintaining the rights of their order, had rendered the multitude more difficult to subdue: that Titus Quintius had delivered a speech mindful of the dignity of the patricians, of the concord of the different orders, and above all, of the times. They entreated him and his colleague to take up the interest of the commonwealth; they entreated the tribunes, that by acting in concert with the consuls they would join in repelling the war from the city and the walls, and that they would induce the commons to be obedient to the senate in so perilous a conjuncture: that, their lands being devastated, and their city in a manner besieged, their common country appealed to them as tribunes, and implored their aid." By universal consent the levy is decreed and held. When the consuls gave public notice "that there was no time for examining into excuses, that all the young men should attend on the following morning at the first dawn in the Campus Martius; that when the war was over, they should afford time for inquiring into the excuses of those who had not given in their names; that the man should be held as a deserter, with whose excuse they might not be satisfied;" the entire youth attended on the following day. The cohorts chose each their centurions: two senators were placed at the head of each cohort. We have heard that all these measures were perfected with such expedition, that the standards, having been brought forth from the treasury on that very day by the quæstors and conveyed to the Campus, began to move from thence at the fourth hour; and the newly raised army halted at the tenth stone, followed by a few cohorts of veteran soldiers as volunteers. The following day brought the enemy within view, and camp was joined to camp near Corbio. On the third day, when resentment urged on the Romans, a consciousness of guilt for having so often rebelled, and despair (of pardon) urged them on the other side, there was no delay made in coming to an engagement.

In the Roman army, though the two consuls were invested with equal authority, the supreme command was by the concession of Agrippa resigned to his colleague, a thing which is most salutary in the management of matters of great importance; and he who was preferred politely responded to the ready condescension of him who lowered himself, by communicating to him all his measures and sharing with him his honours, and by equalizing himself to him no longer his equal. On the field of battle Quintius commanded the right, Agrippa the left wing; the command of the central line is intrusted to Spurius Postumius Albus, as lieutenant-general. Servius Sulpicius, the other lieutenant-general, they place over the cavalry. The infantry on the right wing fought with distinguished valour, with stout resistance from the Volscians. Servius Sulpicius broke with his cavalry through the centre of the enemy's line; whence though he might have returned in the same way to his own party, before the enemy could have restored their broken ranks, it seemed more advisable to attack the enemy's rear, and by attacking the rear he would in a moment have dispersed the enemy by the twofold attack, had not the cavalry of the Volscians and Æquans intercepted him and kept him engaged by a mode of fighting similar to his own. Then indeed Sulpicius asserted that "there was no time for delaying," crying out that "they were surrounded and cut off from their own friends, unless they united all their efforts and despatched the engagement with the cavalry. Nor was it enough to rout the enemy without disabling them; that they should slay horses and men, lest any might return to the fight or renew the battle; that they could not resist them, before whom a compact body of infantry had given way." His orders were addressed to by no means deaf ears; by one charge they routed the entire cavalry, dismounted great numbers, and killed with their javelins both the men and the horses. This put a termination to the battle with the cavalry. Then attacking the enemy's line, they send an account to the consuls of what they had done, where the enemy's line was now giving way. The news both gave new spirits to the Romans who were now conquering, and dismayed the Æquans as they were beginning to give way. They first began to be beaten in the centre, where the charge of the cavalry had broken their ranks. Then the left wing began to lose ground before the consul Quintius; there was most difficulty on the right. Then Agrippa, buoyed up by youth and vigour, on seeing matters going more favourably in every part of the battle than in his own quarter, took some of the standards from the standard-bearers and carried them on himself, some even he began to throw into the thick of the enemy. The soldiers, urged on by the fear of this disgrace, attacked the enemy; thus the victory was equalized in every quarter. News then came from Quintius that he, being now victorious, was about to attack the enemy's camp; that he was unwilling to break into it before he learned that they were beaten in the left wing also. If he had routed the enemy, that he should now join him, that all the army together might take possession of the booty. Agrippa being victorious came with mutual congratulations to his victorious colleague and to the enemy's camp. There being but few to defend it, and these being routed in a moment, they break into the fortifications without a struggle; and they march back the army after it obtained a large share of spoil, having recovered also their own effects, which had been lost by the devastation of the lands. I have not ascertained that either they themselves demanded a triumph, nor that such was conferred on them by the senate; nor is any cause assigned for the honour being either overlooked or not hoped for. As far as I can conjecture at so great a distance of time, when a triumph had been refused to the consuls Horatius and Valerius, who, in addition to the Æquans and Volscians, had gained the glory of finishing the Sabine war, the consuls were ashamed to demand a triumph for one half of the services done by them; lest if they even should obtain it, regard of persons rather than of merit might appear to have been entertained.