2 XII. Etruscans generally, but with the people of the CHAP. neighbouring city of Veii. The quarrel is said to have arisen out of some plundering inroads made by the Veientian borderers upon the Roman territory; but it suited the Roman aristocracy at this period to involve the nation in foreign contests, in order to prevent the commons from insisting on the due execution of Cassius' agrarian law; and quarrels which at another time might easily have been settled, were now gladly allowed to end in open war. and size of Veii lay about ten miles from Rome, between Situation two small streams which meet a little below the Veii. city, and run down into the Tiber, falling into it nearly opposite to Castel Giubileo, the ancient Fidenæ. Insignificant in point of size, these little streams, however, like those of the Campagna generally, are edged by precipitous rocky cliffs, and thus are capable of affording a natural defence to a town built on the table-land above and between them. The space enclosed by the walls of Veii was equal to the extent of Rome itself, so long as the walls of Servius Tullius were the boundary of the city: the citadel stood on a distinct eminence, divided by one of the little streams from the rest of the town, and defended by another similar valley on the other side. In the magnificence of its public and private build 5 Dionysius, VIII. 81. 91. 3 Dionysius, VIII. 81. Dion of Athens, II. 54. IV. 13. Sir W. 5 Dionysius compares the size both of Rome and Veii with that XII. CHAP. ings Veii is said to have been preferred by the Roman commons to Rome: and we know enough of the great works of the Etruscans to render this not impossible; but the language is too vague to be insisted on; and the Etruscan Veii was as unknown to the Roman annalists as to us. On the other hand, Rome had itself been embellished by Etruscan art, and had been under its kings the seat of a far mightier power than Veii. Its govern ment. The government of Veii, like that of the other Etruscan cities, was in the hands of an aristocracy of birth, one or more of whom were elected annually by the whole body to command in war and administer justice. There were no free commons; but a large population of serfs or vassals, who cultivated the lands of the ruling class. In wars of peculiar importance, we read from time to time of the appoint 6 Livy, V. 24. Urbem quoque urbi Romæ vel situ vel magnificentiâ publicorum privatorumque tectorum ac locorum præponebant. This being no more than an expression of opinion ascribed to the commons, we cannot be sure that Livy had any authority for it at all, any more than for the language of his speeches. But supposing that he found it in some one of the older annalists, still it can hardly be more than the expression of that annalist's opinion, grounded possibly upon some tradition of the splendour of Veil, but possibly also upon nothing more than the fact that the Roman commons were at one time anxious to remove to Veii. And if the Roman commons had actually said that Veii was a finer city than Rome, when they were extolling its advantages, is such an assertion to be taken as an historical fact, to justify us in passing a judgment as to the comparative magnificence of the two cities? 7 Livy, V. 1. His words, "Tædio annuæ ambitionis regem creavêre," imply that the government was commonly exercised by one or more magistrates annually chosen, like the consuls at Rome. Niebuhr refers to the case of Lars Tolumnius, who had been king of Veii thirty-four years before the time of which Livy is speaking; and he thinks that Livy is mistaken, in supposing the appointment of a king in the last war with Rome to have been any thing 9 XII. ment of a king, but his office was for life only, and CHAP. was not perpetuated in his family. The hereditary principle prevailed, however, in the priesthoods; none but members of one particular family could be priests of Juno, the goddess especially honoured at Veii. The Veientians, like the other Etruscans, fought Character of its military in the close order of the phalanx; their arms being force. the small round shield, and the long pike. We know not whether they ventured, like the Parthians, to trust their serfs with arms equal to their own, and to enrol them in the phalanx; but we may more probably suppose that they employed them only as light-armed troops; and if this were so, their armies must have encountered the Romans at a disadvantage, their regular infantry being probably inferior in numbers to the legions, and their light troops, except for desultory warfare, still more inferior in quality. To make up for this, they employed the services of mercenaries, who were generally to be hired from one or other of the states of Etruria, even when their respective countries refused to take part publicly in the quarrel. unusual. (Vol. I. p. 128. 2nd ed. note 344.) But we read of no king after Lars Tolumnius till the period of the last war, nor of any before him in the earlier wars with Rome. And as the lucumo, or chief magistrate of a single Etruscan city, was appointed sometimes chief over the whole confederacy, when any general war broke out; so the annual lucumo may have been made lucumo for life in times of danger, if he were a man of commanding character 8 Livy, V. 22. 9 Diodorus, Fragm. Vatican, Lib. XXIII. Τυῤῥηνοὶ χαλκαῖς ἀσπίσι φαλαγγομαχοῦντες, for so we must correct the reading páλayya paxouvres, just as a little below in the same passage we read σncipais, i. e. cohortibus, or manipulis, instead οι πειραῖς, which Mai absurdly renders "cuspidibus." CHAP. Outline of 271 to 280. But The war between the Romans and Veientians, which began in the year 271, lasted nine years. It the war from is difficult to say what portion of the events recorded of it is deserving of credit; nor would the details 10 at any rate be worth repeating now. it seems to have been carried on with equal fortune on both sides, and to have been ended by a perfectly equal treaty. The Romans established themselves on the Cremera, within the Veientian territory, built a sort of town there, and after having maintained their post for some time, to the great annoyance of the enemy, they were at last surprised and their whole force slaughtered, and the post abandoned. Then the Veientians in their turn established themselves on the hill Janiculum, within the Roman territory; retaliated, by their plundering excursions across the Tiber, the damage which their own lands had sustained from the post on the Cremera; held their ground for more than a year, and then were in their turn defeated, and obliged to evacuate their conquest. Two years afterwards, in 280, a peace was concluded between the two nations, to last for forty years; and as the Roman historians name no other stipulations, we may safely believe that the 10 The Roman accounts of the war may be found in Livy, II. 42 -54, and in Dionysius, VIII. 81. 91. IX. 1–36. I imagine both the post on the Cremera and that on the Janiculum to have been designed for permanent cities; the one probably being as near to Veii as the other was to Rome. These were exactly the TEIXIOpara of the Greeks, when executed on a larger scale as rival cities, and not mere forts. I may perhaps be allowed to refer to my note on Thucydides, I. 142, where the two kinds of emireixioμa are distinguished. 11 XII. treaty merely placed matters on the footing on СНАР. which they had been before the war; the Romans gave up all pretensions to the town which they had founded on the Cremera; the Veientians equally resigned their claim to the settlement which they had made on the hill Janiculum. THE FABII. But whatever may be thought of the history of STORY OF this war, it has been the subject of one memorable legend, the story of the self-devotion of the Fabii, and of their slaughter by the river Cremera. The truth of domestic events, no less than of foreign, has been probably disregarded by this legend; and what seems a more real account of the origin of the settlement on the Cremera, has been given in a former chapter. The story itself, however, I shall now, according to my usual plan, proceed to offer in its own form. house offers war with the The Veientians dared not meet the Romans 12 in The Fabian the open field, but they troubled them exceedingly to take the with their incursions to plunder the country. And Veientians on the other side, the Equians and the Volscians itself. were making war upon the Romans year after year; and while one consul went to fight with the Æquians 11 Niebuhr supposes that the septem pagi, which the Romans had lost in the war with Porsenna, were at this time recovered. But if so, the annalists would surely have boasted of the cessions of territory made by the Veientians, even if they had been consistent enough not to describe the country recovered as the very same which they had made Porsenna restore out of generosity more 12 Livy, II. 48. et seqq. wholly upon |