XV. CHAP. blished themselves in arms. When deputies from the senate were sent to ask them what they wanted, the soldiers shouted that they would give no answer to any one but to L. Valerius and M. Horatius. Meanwhile Virginius persuaded them to elect ten tribunes to act as their leaders: and accordingly ten were created, who took the name of tribunes of the soldiers, but designed to change it ere long for that of tribunes of the commons. The army from Fidenæ joins it. Both armies followed by the mass of the peo The army near Fidene was also in motion 27. Icilius and Numitorius had excited it by going to the camp and spreading the story of the miserable fate of Virginia. The soldiers rose, put aside the decemvirs who commanded them, and were ready to follow Icilius. He advised them to create ten tribunes, as had been done by the other army; and this having been effected, they marched to Rome, and joined their brethren on the Aventine. The twenty tribunes then deputed two of their number to act for the rest, and waited awhile for the message of the senate. Delays, however, were interposed by the jealousy of the patricians. Had the senate chosen, it might, ple retire to no doubt, in the fulness of its power, have deposed the Sacred Hill. the decemvirs, whether their term of office was expired or no; as, long afterwards, it declared all the laws of M. Drusus to be null and void, and by its mere decree took away from L. Cinna his consulship, and caused another to be appointed in his room. But the patricians were unwilling to violate the majesty of the imperium merely to give a triumph to the plebeians; and the decemvirs, encouraged by this feeling, refused themselves to resign. The commons, however, were thoroughly in earnest; and finding that nothing was done to satisfy them, they quitted the Aventine 28, on the suggestion of M. Duilius, not 28 Livy, III. 52. 27 Livy, III. 51. XV. however, we may presume, without leaving it guarded CHAP. by a sufficient garrison, marched in military array through the city, passed out of it by the Colline gate, and established themselves once more on the Sacred Hill. Men, women, and children, all of the plebeians who could find any means to follow them, left Rome also and joined their countrymen. Again the dissolution of the Roman nation was threatened; again the patricians, their clients, and their slaves, were on the point of becoming the whole Roman people. virs resign, commons Rome. Then the patricians yielded, and the decemvirs The decemagreed to resign 29. Valerius and Horatius went to and the the Sacred Hill, and listened to the demands of the return to commons. These were, the restoration of the tribuneship and of the right of appeal, together with a full indemnity for the authors and instigators of the secession. All this the deputies acknowledged should have been granted even without the asking; but there was one demand of a fiercer sort. "These decemvirs," said Icilius in the name of the commons, "are public enemies, and we will have them die the death of such. Give them up to us, that they may be burnt with fire." The friends of the commons had met this fate within the memory of men still living, and certainly not for greater crimes: but a people, if violent, is seldom unrelenting; twenty-four hours brought the Athenians to repent of their cruel decree against the Mytilenæans; and a few words from Valerius and Horatius, men whom they could fully trust, made the Roman commons forego their thirst for sudden and extraordinary vengeance. The demand for the blood of the decemvirs was withdrawn: so the senate acceded to all that was required: the decemvirs solemnly resigned their power, and the commons returned to Rome. They occupied the Aventine, as 29 Livy, III. 52, 53. XV. CHAP. before, and thither the pontifex maximus was sent by the senate to hold the comitia for the election of the tribunes: but they occupied more than the Aventine; they required some security that the terms of the peace should be duly kept with them; and accordingly now, as in the disputes about the Publilian law, they were allowed also to take possession of the Capitol 31. Election of tribunes and of consuls. In the comitia on the Aventine ten tribunes of the commons were elected, amongst whom were Virginius, Icilius, Numitorius, C. Sicinius, a descendant of one of the original tribunes created on the Sacred Hill, and M. Duilius. Then the commons were assembled on the spot afterwards called the Flaminian Meadows 32, outside of the Porta Carmentalis, and just below the Capitol; and there L. Icilius proposed to them the solemn ratification of the indemnity for the secession already agreed to by the senate. The consent of the commons was necessary to give it the force of a law; and so in like manner Duilius proposed to the commons that they should accept another measure already sanctioned by the patricians, the election of two supreme magistrates in the place of the decemvirs, with the right of appeal from their sentence. It is remarkable that now, for the first time, these magistrates were called consuls 33, their old title up to this period having been prætors or captains-general. Consul signifies merely "colleague," one who acts with others; it does not necessarily imply that he should be one of two only, and therefore the name is not equivalent to duumvir. And its indefiniteness seems to confirm Niebuhr's opinion, that the exact number 30 Livy, III. 54. ment. observed that the two supreme ma 31 Cicero pro Cornelio, I. Frag- gistrates in the municipia and colonies of a later period, whose office was analogous to that of the consuls 32 Livy, III. 64. 33 Zonaras, VII. 19. It may be at Rome, were called duumviri. XV. of these supreme magistrates was not yet fully agreed CHAP. upon, and that the appointment of two only in the present instance, was merely a provisional imitation. of the old prætorship, till the future form of the constitution should be finally settled. Thus, as the commons had recovered their tribunes, so the patricians had again their two magistrates with the imperium of the former prætors, limited as that of the prætors had been by the right of appeal; but the final adjustment of the relations of the two orders to each other, was reserved for after discussion. Be that as it may, the form of the old government was once again restored, and two patrician magistrates were elected with supreme power; but an important change was established, that these two were both freely chosen by the centuries, whereas one had hitherto been appointed by the burghers in their curiæ, and had only been approved by the centuries afterwards. The result of the election sufficiently showed that it was a free one. The new magistrates, the first two consuls, properly speaking, of Roman history, were L. Valerius and M. Horatius; and the executive government, for the first time since the days of Brutus and Poplicola, was wholly in the hands of men devoted to the rights of their country rather than to the ascendancy of their order. CHAPTER XVI. INTERNAL HISTORY-CONSTITUTION OF THE YEAR 306 "The seven years that followed are a revolutionary period, the events of which we do not find satisfactorily explained by the historians of the time."-HALLAM, Middle Ages, Vol. II. p. 458. Obscurity of of this period. CHAP. WE read in Livy and Dionysius an account of the XVI. affairs of Rome from the beginning of the Commonthe history wealth, drawn up in the form of annals: political questions, military operations, what was said in the senate and the forum, what was done in battle against the Æquians and Volscians, all is related with the full details of contemporary history. It is not wonderful that appearances so imposing should have deceived many; that the Roman history should have been regarded as a subject which might be easily and completely mastered. But if we press on any part this show of knowledge, it yields before us, and comes to nothing. No where is this more manifest than in the story of the period immediately subsequent to the decemvirate. What is related of these times is indistinct, meagre, and scarcely intelligible; but scattered fragments of information have been preserved along with it, which, when carefully studied, enable us to restore the outline of very important events; |