HKB
the Capitol was cleansed and purified. The commons are stated to have thrown every man a farthing into the consul's house, that he might be buried with more splendid obsequies.
Order being thus established, the tribunes then urged the patricians to fulfill the Promise given by Publius Valerius; they pressed on Claudius to free the shade of his colleague from breach of faith, and to allow the matter of the law to proceed. The consul asserted that he would not suffer the discussion of the law to proceed, until he had appointed a colleague to assist him. These disputes lasted until the time of the elections for the substitution of a consul. In the month of December, by the most strenuous exertions of the patricians, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Caeso's father, was elected consul, to enter upon office without delay. The commons were dismayed at being about to have for consul a man incensed against them, powerful by the support of the patricians, by his own merit, and by reason of his three sons, not one of whom was inferior to Caeso in greatness of spirit, while they were his superiors in the exercise of prudence and moderation, whenever occasion required. When he entered upon office, in his frequent harangues from the tribunal, he was not more vehement in restraining the commons than in reproving the senate, owing to the listlessness of which body the tribunes of the commons, now become a standing institution, exercised regal authority, by means of their readiness of speech and prosecutions, not as if in a republic of the Roman people, but as if in an ill-regulated household. That with his son Caeso, valour, constancy, all the splendid qualifications of youth in war and in peace, had been driven and exiled from the city of Rome: that talkative and turbulent men, sowers of discord, twice and even thrice re-elected tribunes by the vilest intrigues, lived in the enjoyment of regal irresponsibility. "Does that Aulus Verginius," said he, "deserve less punishment than Appius Herdonius, because he was not in the Capitol? Considerably more, by Hercules, if any one will look at the matter fairly. Herdonius, if nothing else, by avowing himself an enemy, thereby as good as gave you notice to take up arms: this man, by denying the existence of war, took arms out of your hands, and exposed you defenceless to the attack of slaves and exiles. And did you--I will speak with all due respect for Gaius Claudius and Publius Valerius, now no more--did you decide to advance against the Capitoline Hill before you expelled those enemies from the forum? I feel ashamed in the sight of gods and men. When the enemy were in the citadel, in the Capitol, when the leader of the exiles and slaves, after profaning everything, took up his residence in the shrine of Jupiter, best and greatest, arms were taken up at Tusculum sooner than at Rome. It was a matter of doubt whether Lucius Mamilius, the Tusculan leader, or Publius Valerius and Gaius Claudius, the consuls, recovered the Roman citadel, and we, who formerly did not suffer the Latins to touch arms, not even in their own defence, when they had the enemy on their very frontiers, should have been taken and destroyed now, had not the Latins taken up arms of their own accord. Tribunes, is this bringing aid to the commons, to expose them in a defenceless state to be butchered by the enemy? I suppose, if any one, even the humblest individual of your commons--which portion you have as it were broken off from the rest of the state, and created a country and a commonwealth of your own--if any one of these were to bring you word that his house was beset by an armed band of slaves, you would think that assistance should be afforded him: was then Jupiter, best and greatest, when hemmed in by the arms of exiles and of slaves, deserving of no human aid? And do these persons claim to be considered sacred and inviolable, to whom the gods themselves are neither sacred nor inviolable? Well but, loaded as you are with crimes against both gods and men, you proclaim that you will pass your law this year. Verily then, on the day I was created consul, it was a disastrous act of the state, much more so even than the day when Publius Valerius the consul fell, if you shall pass it. Now, first of all," said he, "Quirites, it is the intention of myself and of my colleague to march the legions against the Volscians and the Aequans. I know not by what fatality we find the gods more propitious when we are at war than in peace. How great the danger from those states would have been, had they known that the Capitol was besieged by exiles, it is better to conjecture from what is past, than to learn by actual experience."