BOOK
II.

Decay

of the

Equians.

was taken possession of by the Veientes; in the year 459 B.C., the Equians stormed the fort of Tusculum; and soon after, Corbio was taken by them in the night.' Probably it was these Equians who by a sudden attack took the Roman Capitol, for this occurrence happened just in the midst of the Æquian war. But as P. Valerius, the son of Publicola, was then consul, and was killed at the retaking of the Capitol, the domestic annalist of the Valerians named a Sabine instead of an Equian, as the enemy who had taken the Capitol. To the Romans, moreover, it appeared less humiliating to think that the Capitol had been taken by Roman exiles, or even by Roman slaves, than that it should have fallen into the hands of the enemies of their country.

From the time of the decemvirs downwards, the attacks of the Equians, like those of the Volscians, decrease in vigour. Rome, after having been on the defensive so long, now takes the offensive, and by degrees gains an undoubted superiority.

1 Livy, iii. 30.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WARS WITH VEII.

CHAP.

VI.

Etruscans.

WHILE the wars with the Equians and Volscians were almost annually repeated in the first century of the republic, and filled the annals with monotonous and tedious State narratives, the Etruscans, the northern neighbours of of the Rome, seem to have lived in peace, and not to have thought of making conquests in Latium. The once powerful nation of the Etruscans was in its decline. Expelled in the north from the valley of the Po by the Gauls, from Campania in the south by the Sabellians, from Latium by Rome and the allied Latins, weakened in the interior by dissensions and divisions, injured in their maritime trade by the rivalry of the Greeks, the Etruscans were no longer in a position to be dangerous to their southern neighbours. The confederation intended to bind together the different Etruscan communities could no more stand the test of dangerous times than similar confederations have done in ancient and modern times. towns lying to the north took little interest in the fate of those lying to the south; they had always enough to do to ward off the Gauls, who were becoming more and more troublesome. We therefore find Rome from time to time involved in wars with Veii alone, and in wars, too, which on the part of the Veientes were merely defensive.

The

of the Fabian

In one of these wars (483-474 B.C.) the Roman house Chronicles of the Fabii plays so prominent a part as to justify the conclusion that the story originated in the family chronicles house. of this great race, the name of which had not appeared in the Fasti before this time, but which was destined to

BOOK

II.

leave a lasting impression on the annals of the republic. The particulars of the wars with the Veientes are related in the same manner as the other contemporary wars, and are not a whit more trustworthy. They furnished materials for popular legends, of which the most celebrated was the story of the destruction of the Fabii at the river Cremera. The war with the Veientes, says the legend, was more harassing for Rome than dangerous. The Veientes conkinsfolk on fined themselves to keeping Rome in a continual state of alarm by constant invasions, driving away the flocks, Cremera. destroying the crops, and cutting down the fruit trees.

Kæso
Fabius

and his

the banks

of the

The

Etruscans on the

In order to protect the community from such annoyances, the noble house of the Fabii offered to undertake the war themselves. The consul Kæso Fabius placed himself at the head of his kindred; with 306 men of patrician rank he left the town, followed by the blessings and good wishes of the admiring people. He erected a fortified camp in the territory of the Veientes not far from the chief town of Veii on the river Cremera. From this spot the Fabii made the territory of the Veientes insecure, and at the same time kept the enemy from attacking Rome. But the Veientes enticed them out of their fortress into an ambush, and attacked them from all sides with overwhelming force. Not one of the valiant band escaped. The whole race would have become extinct, if it had not been that one boy had been left behind in Rome, who preserved the name and the race of the Fabii. The memory of the unhappy day on the Cremera was never effaced from the minds of the people. It was remembered that the brave band, on their march out of Rome, passed through the right opening of the Porta Carmentalis, and from that time this passage acquired the name of the unlucky way,' and was avoided by all with religious awe.

In consequence of the massacre of the Fabii, the fortune of war turned for a time to the side of the Etruscans. Janiculus. They defeated the consul Menenius, and occupied the Janiculus, from whence they spread alarm and terror in Rome itself. The Romans succeeded at length, after a

severe struggle, in driving them away again from the stronghold of the Janiculus, and, after some time, concluded a truce of forty years with Veii, during which time each people kept within the bounds of its own dominion.

CHAP.

VI.

wars un

The stories of the wars with the Veientes have no greater The claim to authenticity than traditions of other wars of that Veientine period. Here also we can discover in the accounts two historical, sources of error rather than of historical truth, which combine to make up the commonly received story. We can trace on the one hand the popular legend, and on the other the invention of the annalists. The destruction of the 306 Fabii is wholly and entirely legendary. Legends take but little count of probabilities; they delight in what is most striking, wonderful, and improbable. We have already observed this in the legends of Coriolanus and Cincinnatus. It is no less clear in that which relates to the Fabii. The Fabian house is said to have consisted of 306 men capable of bearing arms, and one boy under the military age. This alone is so unnatural that it tends to condemn the whole story. These Fabii were, in the oldest form of the legend, all patricians. This is plainly an exaggeration, for such a number of men capable of bearing arms in one single house is impossible, especially among the Fabians, who up to this time could only produce as consuls the three brothers Kæso, Quintus, and Marcus. We gain nothing by supposing that among the 306 Fabii the clients of the Fabian house were also reckoned. The story must be taken or rejected as it is. Nor is the statement of Dionysius more than a guess, that the Fabii with the clients numbered 4,000 men, i.e. they formed a legion. Another writer,3 who may have thought that a legion at that time consisted

'See Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., ii. 525. How many women and children on an average belong to 306 men capable of bearing arms, may, under certain circumstances, be doubtful. Supposing the number to be only four times that of the men, and the boys to be one-fourth of the women and girls, there would be still 306 of them, instead of one.

* This is the opinion of Schwegler (Röm. Gesch., ii. 527). Festus, s. v. Scelerata porta, p. 334, ed. Müller.

The

numbers of

the Fabii.

BOOK
II.

Impossibilities in the legend.

Motives of the Fabii.

of 5,000 men, gives that as the number of those who marched out of Rome, and were killed at the Cremera.

Independently of the difficulties presented by the reported numbers and the particular circumstances, the whole proceeding, as it is related, is irreconcilable with the Roman public law, or at least custom. The expedition of the Fabii is an expedition of volunteers, and at their head is the consul for the year. Such a thing was impossible. The consul could only take the field after a formal decree of the senate and the people. The military organisation of the Romans was incompatible with private undertakings1 of the kind ascribed to the Fabii. It is a sign of a declining state when a war is carried on by officers who have no special commission from their government.

3

For this reason we cannot venture on any conjectures as to the real intentions of the Fabii; whether, as Niebuhr says, they wished to found a sort of private settlement of their own, or whether they wished only to establish a permanent military post, as was customary among the Greeks. The story offers no materials which would enable us to judge of the possible facts which may have given rise to it.

The wars with the Veientes cease from the year 474 B.C. till the war which, in 431 B.C., ended with the destruction of Veii.

I Without publicum consilium.

2 This seems to have been felt by one of the writers. Therefore Dionysius (ix. 15) states, what he no doubt found in one of his authors, that M. Fabius, who commanded the expedition, was ex-consul; and Livy (ii. 48) relates that a senatus-consultum approved of the plan of K. Fabius. According to a statement of Festus (s. v. Religioni est, p. 285, ed. Müller) this senatus-consultum was made in the temple of Janus before the Porta Carmentalis. But according to Tacitus (Annal., ii. 49) this temple was only built in the second Punic war by C. Duilius. The story, or at least that part of the story which spoke of the senatus-consultum, could not therefore be older than the time of the second Punic war.

3 Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch., ii. 219; English translation, ii. 193.