(BOOK 6, BOISSEVAIN.)

B.C. 448
(a.u. 306)When the Romans thus fell into discord their adversaries took courage and came against them. It was in the following year, when Marcus Genucius and Gaius Curtius were consuls, that they turned against each other. The popular leaders desired to be consuls, since the patricians were in the habit of becoming tribunes by transference to their order, and the patricians clung tenaciously to the consular office. They indulged in many words and acts of violence against each other. But in order to prevent the populace from proceeding to greater extremities the nobles yielded to them the substance of authority though they would not relinquish the name; and in place of the consuls they named military tribunes in order that the honor of the title might not be sullied by contact with the vulgar throng. It was agreed that three military tribunes be chosen from each of the classes in place of the two consuls. However, the name of consul was not lost entirely, but sometimes consuls were appointed and at other times military tribunes. This, at all events, is the tradition that has come down of what took place, with the additional detail that the consuls nominated dictators, though their own powers were far inferior to those appertaining to that office, and even that the military tribunes likewise did so sometimes. It is further said that none of the military tribunes, though many of them won many victories, ever celebrated a triumph.

B.C. 447
(a.u. 307)It was in this way, then, that military tribunes came to be chosen at that time: censors were appointed in the following year, during the consulship of Barbatus and Marcus Macrinus. Those chosen were Lucius Papirius and Lucius Sempronius. The reason for their election was that the consuls were unable, on account of the number of the people, to supervise them all; the duties now assigned to the censors had until that time been performed by the consuls as a part of their prerogatives. Two was the original number of the censors and they were taken from the patricians. They held office at first and at the last for five-year periods, but during the intervening time for three half-years; and they came to be greater than the consuls, though they had taken over only a part of their functions. They had the right to let the public revenues, to supervise roads and public buildings, to make complete records of each man's wealth, and to note and investigate the lives of the citizens, enrolling those deserving of praise in the tribes, in the equestrian order, or in the senate (as seemed to fit the case of each one), and similarly erasing from any class the names of those who were not right livers: this power was greater than all those now left to the consuls. They made declarations attested by oath, in regard to every one of their acts, that no such act was prompted by favor or by enmity but that their considerations and performances were both the result of an unbiased opinion of what was advantageous for the commonwealth. They convened the people when laws were to be introduced and for other purposes, and employed all the insignia of the greater offices save lictors. Such, at its inception, was

the office of the censors. If any persons did not register their property and themselves in the census lists, the censors sold the property and the consuls the men. This arrangement held for a certain time, but later it was determined that a man once enrolled in the senate should be a senator for life and that his name should not be erased, unless one had been disgraced by being tried for the commission of a crime or was convicted of leading an evil life: the names of such persons were erased and others inscribed in their stead.

In the case of those who gave satisfaction in office principal honors were bestowed upon dictators, honors of the second rank upon censors, and third place was awarded to masters of horse. This system was followed without distinction, whether they were still in office or whether they had already laid it down. For if one descended from a greater office to an inferior one, he still kept the dignity of his former position intact. One particular man, whom they styled principa of the senate (he would be called prokritos by the Greeks) was preferred before all for the time that he was president (a person was not chosen for this position for life) and surpassed the rest in dignity, without wielding, however, any power.

VII, 20.—For a time they maintained peace with each other and with the adjacent tribes, but then a famine mastered them, so severe that some not able to endure the pangs of hunger threw themselves into the river, and they fell to quarreling. The one class blamed the prosperous as being at fault in the handling of the grain, and the other class blamed the poorer men for unwillingness to till the soil. B.C. 439
(a.u. 315)Spurius Mælius, a wealthy knight, seeing this attempted to set up a tyranny, and buying corn from the neighboring region he lowered the price of it for many and gave it free to many others. In this way he won the friendship of a great many and procured arms and guardsmen. And he would have gained control of the city, had not Minucius Augurinus, a patrician, appointed to have charge of the grain distribution and censured for the lack of grain, reported the proceeding to the senate. The senate on receiving the information nominated at once and at that very meeting Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, though past his prime (he was eighty years old), to be dictator. They spent the whole day sitting there, as if engaged in some discussion, to prevent news of their action from traveling abroad. By night the dictator had the knights occupy in advance the Capitol and the remaining points of vantage, and at dawn he sent to Mælius Gaius Servilius, master of the horse, to summon him pretendedly on some other errand. But as Mælius had some suspicions and delayed, Servilius fearing that he might be rescued by the populace—for they were already running together—killed the man either on his own responsibility or because ordered to do so by the dictator. At this the populace broke into a riot, but Quinctius harangued them and by providing them with grain and refraining from punishing or accusing any one else he stopped the riot.

Wars with various nations now assailed the Romans, in some of which they were victorious within a few days; but with the Etruscans they waged a long continued contest. Postumius conquered the Æqui and had captured a large city of theirs, but the soldiers neither had had it turned over to them for pillage nor were awarded a share of the plunder when they requested it. Therefore they surrounded and slew the quæstor who was disposing of it, and when Postumius reprimanded them for this and strove to find the assassins, they killed him also. And they assigned to their own use not only the captive territory but all that at the time happened to be found in the public treasury. The uprising would have assumed even greater dimensions but for the fact that war against the Romans was renewed by the Æqui. Alarmed by this situation they became quiet, endured the punishment for the murders, which touched only a few, and took the field against their opponents, whom they engaged and conquered. For this achievement the nobles distributed the plunder among them, and voted pay first to the infantry and later also to the cavalry. Up to that time they were used to undertaking campaigns without pay and lived at their own expense; now for the first time they began to draw pay.

B.C. 408
(a.u. 346)A war arising between them and Veii, the Romans won frequent victories and reduced the foe to a state of siege as long as the latter fought with merely their own contingent: but when allies had been added to their force they came out against the Romans and defeated them. Meanwhile the lake situated close to the Alban Mount, which was shut in by the surrounding ridges and had no outlet, overflowed its banks during the siege of Veii to such an extent that it actually poured over the crests of the hills and went rushing down to the sea. The Romans deeming that something supernatural was certainly signified by this event sent to Delphi to consult the oracle about the matter. There was also among the population of Veii an Etruscan who was a soothsayer. The Pythian interpretation coincided with his; and both declared that the city would be captured when the overflowing water should not fall into the sea but be used up differently. The Romans consequently ordered several religious services to be performed. But the Pythian god did not specify to which of the divinities nor in what way they should offer these, and the Etruscan appeared to have the knowledge but would explain nothing. So the Romans who were stationed about the wall from which he was wont to issue to consort with them pretended friendliness toward him, permitted him to make himself at ease in every way, and allowed him to come to visit them without interference. Thus they succeeded in seizing him and forced him to give all the requisite information. According to the indications he furnished they offered sacrifices, tunneled the hill, and conducted the superfluous water by a secret canal into the plain, so that all of it was used up there and none ran down into the sea.