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

This expression of Postumius being conveyed to the soldiers, excited in the camp much greater indignation. "Did the embezzler of the spoils and the defrauder threaten woe also to the soldiers?" Accordingly, when the murmur of indignation now became avowed, and the quæstor, Publius Sestius, thought that the mutiny might be quashed by the same violence by which it had been excited; on his sending a lictor to one of the soldiers who was clamorous, when a tumult and scuffle arose from the circumstance, being struck with a stone he retired from the crowd; the person who had given the blow, further observing with a sneer, "That the quæstor got what the general had threatened to the soldiers." Postumius being sent for in consequence of the disturbance, exasperated every thing by the severity of his inquiries and the cruelty of his punishment. At last, when he set no bounds to his resentment, a crowd collecting at the cries of those whom he had ordered to be put to death under a hurdle, he himself madly ran down from his tribunal to those who were interrupting the execution. There, when the lictors, endeavouring to disperse them, as also the centurions, irritated the crowd, their indignation burst forth to such a degree, that the military tribune was overwhelmed with stones by his own army. When an account was brought to Rome of so heinous a deed, the military tribunes endeavouring to procure a decree of the senate for an inquiry into the death of their colleague, the tribunes of the people entered their protest. But that contention branched out of another subject of dispute; because the patricians had become uneasy lest the commons, through dread of the inquiries and through resentment, might elect military tribunes from their own body: and they strove with all their might that consuls should be elected. When the plebeian tribunes did not suffer the decree of the senate to pass, and when they also protested against the election of consuls, the affair was brought to an interregnum. The victory was then on the side of the patricians.

Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, interrex, presiding in the assembly, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, Lucius Furius Medullinus were elected consuls. During their office, at the commencement of the year, a decree of the senate was passed that the tribunes should, at the earliest opportunity, propose to the commons an inquiry into the murder of Postumius, and that the commons should appoint whomsoever they thought proper to conduct the inquiry. The office is intrusted to the consuls by the commons with the consent of the people at large, who, after having executed the task with the utmost moderation and lenity by punishing only a few, who there are sufficient grounds for believing put a period to their own lives, still could not succeed so as to prevent the people from feeling the utmost displeasure. "That constitutions, which were enacted for their advantages, lay so long unexecuted; while a law passed in the mean time regarding their blood and punishment was instantly put into execution and possessed full force." This was a most seasonable time, after the punishment of the mutiny, that the division of the territory of Bolæ should be presented as a soother to their minds; by which proceeding they would have diminished their eagerness for an agrarian law, which tended to expel the patricians from the public land unjustly possessed by them. Then this very indignity exasperated their minds, that the nobility persisted not only in retaining the public lands, which they got possession of by force, but would not even distribute to the commons the unoccupied land lately taken from the enemy, and which would, like the rest, soon become the prey of a few. The same year the legions were led out by the consul Furius against the Volscians, who were ravaging the country of the Hernicians, and finding no enemy there, they took Ferentinum, whither a great multitude of the Volscians had betaken themselves. There was less plunder than they had expected; because the Volscians, seeing small hopes of keeping it, carried off their effects and abandoned the town. It was taken on the following day, being nearly deserted. The land itself was given to the Hernicians.

The year, tranquil through the moderation of the tribunes, was succeeded by one in which Lucius Icilius was plebeian tribune, Quintus Fabius Ambustus, Caius Furius Pacilus being consuls. When this man, at the very commencement of the year, began to excite disturbances by the publication of agrarian laws, as if such was the task of his name and family, a pestilence broke out, more alarming however than deadly, which diverted men's thoughts from the forum and political disputes to their domestic concerns and the care of their personal health; and persons think that it was less mischievous than the disturbance would have proved. The state being freed from this (which was attended) with a very general spread of illness, though very few deaths, the year of pestilence was followed by a scarcity of grain, the cultivation of the land having been neglected, as usually happens, Marcus Papirius Atratinus, Caius Nautius Rutilus being consuls. The famine would now have proved more dismal than the pestilence, had not the scarcity been relieved by sending envoys around all the states, which border on the Tuscan Sea and the Tiber, to purchase the corn. The envoys were prevented from trading in an insolent manner by the Samnitians, who were in possession of Capua and Cumæ; on the contrary, they were kindly assisted by the tyrants of Sicily. The Tiber brought down the greatest supplies, through the very active zeal of the Etrurians. In consequence of the sickness, the consuls laboured under a paucity of hands in conducting the government; when not finding more than one senator for each embassy, they were obliged to attach to it two knights. Except from the pestilence and the scarcity, there was no internal or external annoyance during those two years. But as soon as these causes of anxiety disappeared, all those evils by which the state had hitherto been distressed, started up, discord at home, war abroad.

In the consulship of Mamercus Æmilius and Caius Valerius Potitus, the Æquans made preparations for war; the Volscians, though not by public authority, taking up arms, and entering the service as volunteers for pay. When on the report of these enemies having started up, (for they had now passed into the Latin and Hernican land,) Marcus Mænius, a proposer of an agrarian law, would obstruct Valerius the consul when holding a levy, and when no one took the military oath against his own will under the protection of the tribune; an account is suddenly brought that the citadel of Carventa had been seized by the enemy. The disgrace incurred by this event was both a source of odium to Mænius in the hands of the fathers, and it moreover afforded to the other tribunes, already pre-engaged as protestors against an agrarian law, a more justifiable pretext for resisting their colleague. Wherefore after the matter had been protracted for a long time by wrangling, the consuls calling gods and men to witness, that whatever disgrace or loss had either been already sustained or hung over them from the enemy, the blame of it would be imputed to Mænius, who hindered the levy; Mænius, on the other hand, exclaiming "that if the unjust occupiers would yield up possession of the public land, he would cause no delay to the levy:" the nine tribunes interposing a decree, put an end to the contest; and they proclaimed as the determination of their college, "that they would, for the purposes of the levy, in opposition to the protest of their colleague, afford their aid to Caius Valerius the consul in inflicting fines and other penalties on those who refused to enlist." When the consul, armed with this decree, ordered into prison a few who appealed to the tribune, the rest took the military oath from fear. The army was marched to the citadel of Carventa, and though hated by and disliking the consul, they on their first arrival recovered the citadel in a spirited manner, having dislodged those who were protecting it; some in quest of plunder having straggled away through carelessness from the garrison, afforded an opportunity for attacking them. There was considerable booty from the constant devastations, because all had been collected into a safe place. This the consul ordered the quæstors to sell by auction and carry it into the treasury, declaring that the army should then participate in the booty, when they had not declined the service. The exasperation of the commons and soldiers against the consul was then augmented. Accordingly, when by a decree of the senate the consul entered the city in an ovation, rude verses in couplets were thrown out with military licence; in which the consul was severely handled, whilst the name of Mænius was cried up with encomiums, when at every mention of the tribune the attachment of the surrounding people vied by their applause and commendation with the loud praises of the soldiers. And that circumstance occasioned more anxiety to the patricians, than the wanton raillery of the soldiers against the consul, which was in a manner a usual thing; and the election of Mænius among the military tribunes being deemed as no longer questionable, if he should become a candidate, he was kept out of it by an election for consuls being appointed.