do not find, in any author, what matters were objected to the accused by the prosecutors, tending properly to prove the charge of his aspiring to kingly authority, except this; his assembling the multitude, his seditious expressions, his largesses, and pretended discovery of fraudulent practices: but I have no doubt that they were of importance; since not the merits of the cause, but the place, was what prevented his being immediately condemned by the commons. This I have thought proper to remark, in order to show, that even such great and glorious achievements, as those of this man, were not only stripped of all their merit, but even rendered matter of detestation, by his depraved ambition for regal power. It is said, that he produced near four hundred persons, to whom he had lent money without interest; whose goods he had prevented being sold, or whose persons he had redeemed from confinement, after they had been adjudged to creditors. That, besides this, he not only enumerated the military rewards which he had obtained, but also produced them to view spoils of enemies slain, to the number of thirty; presents from generals, to the amount of forty; among which were particularly remarkable, two mural, and eight civic crowns*.. That he produced also the citizens, whose lives he had saved in battle; and mentioned among them Caius Servilius, when he was master of the horse, now absent. Then, after recounting his exploits in war, in a manner suited to the dignity of the subject, displaying, in a

* The mural crown was made of gold, and presented to those, who, in assaults, were the first that forced their way into the towns. The civic crown was composed of oak leaves, and bestowed on him who had saved the life of a citizen. The camp crown, corona vallaris, or castrensis, was of gold, and given to the man who first mounted the rampart of an enemy's camp. The obsidional crown, corona obsidionalis, was composed of grass, and presented by the troops relieved from a siege, to the commander who succoured them.

VOL. II.-F

pompous discourse, eloquence equal to the bravery of his actions, he uncovered his breast, marked with an uncommon number of scars from wounds received in battle; and frequently turning his eyes to the Capitol, called down Jupiter, and the other gods, to aid him in his present unhappy situation; and prayed, that the same sentiments with which they had inspired him, while he stood in defence of the fortress, for the preservation of the Roman people, they would now, in the crisis of his fate, infuse into the breasts of that same Roman people; and he besought each person present, in particular, and the whole assembly, that, with their eyes fixed on the Capitol and citadel, and their faces turned to the immortal gods, they would form their judgment concerning him. As the people were summoned by centuries in the field of Mars, and as the accused stretched out his hands to the Capitol, and instead of addressing his intreaties to men, directed them to the gods, the tribunes saw plainly, that unless they removed the multitude from a situation where even their eyes must remind them of such an honourable exploit, the best founded charge would never gain belief in minds so influenced: wherefore, adjourning the trial, they summoned a meeting in the Peteline grove, on the outside of the Nomentan gate, from whence there was no view of the Capitol: there the charge was established; and, people's minds being unmoved by any foreign or adventitious circumstance, a severe sentence, and which excited horror even in the breasts of his judges, was passed on him. Some authors say, that he was condemned by two commissioners appointed to take cognizance of matters of treason. The tribunes cast him down from the Tarpeian rock: thus the same spot, in the case of one man, became a monument of distinguished glory, and of the cruelest punishment. After his death, marks of infamy were fixed on him: for his house having stood where the temple of Moneta and the mint-office now

stand, an order was made by the people, that no patrician should dwell in the citadel or Capitol: a decree at the same time being passed, to prohibit any of the Manlian family from ever after bearing the name of Marcus Manlius. Such was the end of a man, who, had he not been born in a free state, would have merited the esteem of posterity. A short time after, the people, recollecting only his virtues, were filled with deep regret for his loss. A pestilence, too, which presently followed, without any apparent cause of so great a malady, was attributed, by most men, to the punishment inflicted on Manlius. "The Capitol," they observed, “had been polluted with the blood of its preserver; and it had given displeasure to the gods, that the person, by whom their temples had been rescued out of the hands of the enemy, should be brought before their eyes, in a manner, to suffer punishment."

Y.R.372.

B.C.380.

XXI. The pestilence was succeeded by a scarcity of the fruits of the earth; and the report of both calamities spreading abroad, a variety of wars ensued in the following year, in which Lucius Valerius a fourth time, Aulus Manlius a third time, Servius Sulpicius a third time, Lucius Lucretius, Lucius Æmilius a third time, and Marcus Trebonius were military tribunes, with consular power. Besides the Volscians, destined by some fatality to give perpetual employment to the Roman soldiery; and the colonies of Circeii and Velitræ, long meditating a revolt; and Latium, whose conduct gave room for suspicion, a new enemy suddenly sprung up in the people of Lanuvium, a city whose fidelity had hitherto been remarkably steady. The senate, judging that this arose from contemptuous notions entertained by that nation, on seeing that the revolt of the people of Velitræ, members of the Roman state, remained so 'long unpunished, decreed, that an assembly should be held as soon as possible, concerning a declaration of war against that

colony and to induce the commons to engage in that service with the greater readiness, they appointed five commissioners to make a distribution of the Pomptine lands, and three to conduct a colony to Nepete. Then it was proposed to the people, that they should order the declaration of war; and the plebeian tribunes in vain endeavouring to dissuade them, the tribes unanimously passed it. During that year, preparations were made for hostilities, but, on account of the pestilence, the troops were not led into the field. This delay afforded sufficient time to the colonists, to take measures to appease the the anger of the senate; and the greater part of their people were inclined to send a suppliant embassy to Rome; which would have taken place, had not, as is often the case, the interest of the public been involved with the danger of individuals; and had not the authors of the revolt, dreading lest themselves only might be considered as answerable for the guilt, and be delivered up as victims to the resentment of the Romans, infused into the colonists an aversion from peaceful councils. They therefore found means, not only to obstruct the proposed embassy in the senate, but to excite a great part of the commons to make predatory excursions into the Roman territory, which new injury broke off all hopes of peace. This year also, a report was first propagated of the Prænestians having revolted; and when the people of Tusculum, and Gabii, and Lavici, on whose lands they had made incursions, brought the charge against them, the senate, in their answer, showed so little resentment, as made it evident, that they gave the less credit to the charges, because they wished them not to be true.

Y.R.373.

XXII. In the following year, the two Papirii, Spurius and Lucius, new military tribunes, with consular power, led the legions to Velitræ, leaving their four colleagues in the tribuneship, Servius Cornelius Maluginensis a fourth time, Quintus Servilius, Servius Sulpi

B.C.379.

cius, and Lucius Æmilius a fourth time, to secure the safety of the city, and to be in readiness, in case intelligence of any new commotion should arrive from Etruria; for now every thing was apprehended from that quarter. At Velitræ, they fought a battle with success, in which they were opposed by a number of Prænestine auxiliaries, rather greater than that of the colonists: and here the city being so near, was the reason of the enemy quitting the field the sooner, as it was their only refuge after their flight. The tribunes did not proceed to lay siege to the town, because the issue was uncertain; and besides, they did not think that they ought to push the war to the utter destruction of the colony. The letters sent to Rome to the senate, with news of the victory, expressed greater animosity against the Prænestine enemy, than against those of Velitræ. In consequence of which, by decree of the senate, and order of the people, war was declared against the Prænestians. These, the next year, in conjunction with the Volscians, took Satricum, a colony of the Roman people, by storm, after an obstinate defence made by the colonists, and in their treatment of the prisoners made a barbarous use of their victory. Incensed thereat, the Romans Y.R.374. elected Marcus Furius Camillus a seventh time, military tribune; the colleagues joined with him were the two Postumii Regillenses, Aulus and Lucius, and Lucius Furius, with Lucius Lucretius, and Marcus Fabius Ambustus. The war with the Volscians was decreed to Camillus out of the ordinary course. Lucius Furius was chosen by lot, from among the rest of the tribunes, his assistant, an appointment which proved not so advantageous to the public, as productive of honour to Camillus, in every branch of his conduct in that which respected the public, as he restored their cause, when nearly ruined by the temerity of Furius; and in that which concerned themselves in particular, as, from the error of that man, he sought the means of

B.C.378.