put an end to the secession, and a decree is passed, not only confirming the measures promised by the ambassadors respecting the debts of the plebeians, but also creating the new plebeian magistracy. On the following day the ambassadors repair again to the camp, and report the decision of the Senate whereupon a deputation, composed of L. Junius Brutus, Marcus Decius, and Spurius Icilius, on the part of the plebeians, and five of the ambassadors, proceed to Rome, and on the next day, L. Junius makes a solemn treaty with the Senate, by means of the Feciales. Menenius remains in the camp, in order to draw up the law which is to regulate the elections of the new magistrates. The election is then held by the people in curiæ; and five tribunes of the plebeians are appointed, namely, L. Junius Brutus, C. Sicinius Bellutus, C. Licinius, P. Licinius, and C. Icilius Ruga. These five tribunes entered upon their offices upon the 4th day before the ides of December, as was still the practice in the time of Dionysius. A law was then passed making the person of the tribune sacred; and it was enforced by the most binding religious solemnities. (226) Before the plebeians left the Mons Sacer, they erected upon it a memorial altar to the Jupiter of Terrors :'(227) and they afterwards obtained from the patricians the additional concession, that two plebeian ædiles should be annually elected. (228) The Senate are likewise stated by Dionysius to have added a third day to the Feria Latinæ, in commemoration of the return of the Plebs. The first day had, according to his account, been consecrated by Tarquinius Superbus, and the second at the expulsion of the kings.(229)

(226) Concerning this law, see Becker, ib. p. 269-70. Dionysius traces the subsequent custom to this origin. ἐκ τούτων κατέστη τοῖς Ῥωμαίοις ἔθος, τὰ τῶν δημάρχων σώματα ἱερὰ εἶναι καὶ παναγῆ, καὶ μέχρι τοῦ καθ ̓ ἡμᾶς χρόνου διαμένει; vi. 89.

(227) ὡς ἡ πάτριος αὐτῶν σημαίνει γλῶσσα, Διὸς Δειματίου; vi. 90. There was probably an altar to Jupiter Pavens' (or some such epithet) upon the Mons Sacer, the origin of which Dionysius referred to the plebeian secession. Hartung, Religion der Römer, vol. ii. p. 58, translates the Greek epithet by Pavorius.' Tullus Hostilius is said to have vowed temples to Pallor and Pavor; Livy, i. 27.

(228) Dion. Hal. vi. 45-90. Concerning the plebeian ædiles, see Becker, ib. p. 291.

(229) Dion. Hal. vi. 95. In this passage, Tarquin is said to have

§ 17 On reviewing this copious, minute, and interesting narrative, we are naturally led to inquire what authority Dionysius could have had for it. He states that the apologue of Menenius was found in all the ancient histories.' But how ancient were these histories with reference to the event described? The secession to the Mons Sacer is placed in the year 494 B.C., nearly three centuries before the time of Fabius Pictor and Cincius, the earliest Roman historians of their country. It is inconceivable that a detailed history of this transaction, accounting for each day, describing the successive debates in the Senate, and in the camp, and reporting the speeches delivered on each side, could have been written from authentic materials, even by the earliest Roman historian. The secession is placed at a time when our knowledge even of Athenian history is only general. It is four years before the battle of Marathon, ten years before the birth of Herodotus, (230) and twenty-three years before the birth of Thucydides. It is only sixteen years after the expulsion of the Pisistratida; concerning which event the Athenians had, according to Thucydides, most imperfect ideas in his time. It may however be said that, although the details of the transaction, and particularly the

instituted the first day, at the time when the Romans conquered the Etruscans. His detailed account however, in iv. 49, does not agree with this statement; he there says that it was instituted in consequence of a league with the Latins. Various uncertain and improbable conjectures of Niebuhr respecting the Feriæ Latina may be seen in his Hist. vol. ii. p. 33-6. His statement that they lasted six days (for which number he discovers a symmetrical reason) is founded on a conjectural restoration of a corrupt passage of Festus, which is rejected by Müller. Itaque scit ejus dies feriatos liberos servosque; p. 194. Niebuhr followed the restored text, which had, Itaque per sex eos dies.' Müller reads: Itaque solitos iis diebus.' The words are however too corrupt to serve as the basis of any historical statement. The passage from the Scholiast to Cicero, cited by Niebuhr in n. 65, exhibits the confusion between the two Tarquins, already adverted to. It also speaks of another origin, from the Prisci Latini. Plutarch mentions the addition of a fourth day to the Feriæ Latina in the time of Camillus: Camill. 42; Compare Livy, vi. 42. The origins assigned for the Feriæ Latina, like those of so many ancient festivals, were doubtless unhistorical. See above, vol. i. p. 512, n. 112.

(230) The received date for the birth of Herodotus (though subject to some doubt) appears to me to be sufficiently vindicated by the arguments of the critic in the North British Review; No. XL. p. 408-413.

speeches, may have been fabricated, the main facts were derived from an authentic tradition. Even this view is surrounded with difficulties; for we are unable to draw any clear line between the circumstances which are to be rejected, and the main facts which are worthy of belief. Dionysius indeed mentions that the apologue of Menenius was to be found in all the early Roman histories. This remark seems to imply that the other speeches, which he reports at such length, were not in those histories, and were therefore, like the majority of speeches in the ancient historians, (231) works of pure invention. But as to the successive res gesta in the narration, how are we to discriminate? How much of the proceedings in the Senate, and of the negotiations with the seceders, are we to suppose to be real, and how much fictitious? Niebuhr is of opinion that L. Junius Brutus is an imaginary person. (232) He is not mentioned by any Roman writer.(233) Yet Dionysius describes him. as the leader of the plebeians, their chief orator, and one of the first tribunes. What are we to think of a historical narrative, in which a personage of this importance, alleged to have occupied a conspicuous public office, is considered fictitious? The general maxim of evidence is, that a falsehood in one part of a story invalidates the credibility of the witness in other parts of his 'Mendax in uno præsumitur mendax in alio.'(234)

statement.

(231) With respect to the introduction of imaginary speeches by the ancient historians, see the remarks in the author's Treatise on the Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics; c. vii. § 15.

(232) Hist. vol. i. n. 1357. In his Lectures, however, Niebuhr recognises the reality of L. Junius Brutus in the subsequent contests with the Senate; vol. i. P. 147.

(233) He likewise appears as plebeian edile in two subsequent years in the narrative of Dionysius, and plays a prominent part in the affair of Coriolanus; vii. 14, 26. Plutarch, Cor. 7, follows Dionysius in making Junius Brutus one of the first tribunes. He is also mentioned by Suidas. If there had been any authentic lists of the tribunes and the ediles of this period, there would have been no doubt as to the existence of L. Junius Brutus. The testimony of Ascanius, ad Cic. pro Corn. i. is uncertain. Drumann, Gesch. Roms, vol. iv. p. 3, recognises L. Junius Brutus the tribune as a real person, and inserts him in the series of plebeian Junii.

(234) See the author's work above cited, vol. i. p. 246. This does not

If therefore it is admitted that a large part of the narrative of Dionysius is false, what good ground have we for believing the rest? Assuming however that we are to strip off all the subordinate parts of his narrative, as a later accretion, and to retain only a nucleus of the leading facts, do we find that these can be safely accepted, and that he is confirmed in them by the agreement of the other historians? So far is this from being the case, that the accounts transmitted to us differ widely in the material points of the transaction.

First, there is a discrepancy as to the place to which the seceders withdrew. Dionysius, Livy, Florus, and other authors say that it was the Mons Sacer;(235) and Dionysius adds that an altar of Jupiter on that eminence was erected at this time. Piso, on the other hand, one of the early historians, (236) affirmed that it was the Aventine hill, which was at the opposite extremity of Rome to the Mons Sacer, a hill situated on the right bank of the Anio, at a distance of three miles. Sallust and Cicero speak of the plebeians as occupying first the Mons Sacer, and afterwards the Aventine. (237)

conflict with the maxim of Paley, that discrepancy in the testimony of different witnesses, as to subordinate points, is consistent with the truth of the main facts deposed; see ib. p. 321.

(235) ὄρος τι καταλαμβάνονται πλησίον ̓Ανίητος ποταμοῦ κείμενον, οὐ πρόσω τῆς Ῥώμης, ὃ νῦν ἐξ ἐκείνου ἱερὸν ὄρος καλεῖται ; Dion. Hal. vi. 45. He traces the name of Mons Sacer to the secession; i. e. to the altar which he afterwards states the plebeians to have erected on it; c. 90. Injussu consulum in Sacrum montem secessisse (trans Anienem amnem est), tria ab urbe millia passuum. Ea frequentior fama est, quam, cujus Piso auctor est, in Aventinum secessionem factam esse; Livy, ii. 32. The article in Festus agrees with Dionysius and Livy: Sacer mons appellatur trans Anienem, paulo ultra tertium miliarium; quod eum plebes, cum secessisset a patribus, creatis tribunis plebis, qui sibi essent auxilio, discedentes Jovi consecraverunt; p. 318. Festus says nothing of the altar. Varro, who calls this secession the Crustumerine secession,' implies that the Mons Sacer was the place, as it was not very distant from Crustumerium. Tribuni plebei [dieti], quod ex tribunis militum primum tribuni plebei facti qui plebem defenderent, in secessione Crustumerinâ ; De L. L. v. § 81.

(236) Concerning Piso, see above, ch. ii. § 3.

(237) Dein servili imperio patres plebem exercere, de vitâ atque tergo regio more consulere, agro pellere, et, ceteris expertibus, soli in imperio agere. Quibus agitata sævitiis et maxime fœneris onere oppressa plebes, quum assiduis bellis tributum simul et militiam toleraret, armata Montem

Secondly, the cause is not uniformly related. Dionysius and Livy describe the secession as growing exclusively out of the

Sacrum atque Aventinum insedit, tumque tribunos plebis et alia sibi jura paravit; Sallust, Fragm. Hist. lib. i. p. 12, ed. Kritze. In the Jugurthine war, c. 31, the Aventine is alone alluded to: Majores vestri, parandi juris et majestatis constituendæ gratiâ, bis per secessionem armati Aventinum occupavere.' The second secession to the Aventine is that in the time of the Decemvirs; see Livy, iii. 50; Dion. Hal. xi. 43. In the Republic, Cicero says: Nam cum esset ex ære alieno commota civitas, plebs Montem Sacrum prius, deinde Aventinum occupavit;' Rep. ii. 33. The passage concerning the tribunate in the Dialogue de Legibus, likewise implies that the Aventine, or some other part of the city, was occupied by the plebs during the first secession. Ĉujus primum ortum si recordari volumus, inter arma civium, et occupatis et obsessis urbis locis, procreatum videmus;' iii. 8. In the fragments of the first oration for Cornelius, however, Cicero, like Livy, speaks of the first secession being to the Mons Sacer exclusively, and the second (or decemviral) secession being first to some place out of Rome (probably the Mons Sacer), whence they came armed to the Aventine. In the Brutus, c. 14, Cicero likewise speaks of the first secession being to the Mons Sacer. It seems not improbable that both Sallust and Cicero have confounded the accounts of the first and second secessions. This remark however does not apply to Piso, whose account excluded the Mons Sacer. The two secessions are clearly distinguished in a speech which Livy puts in the mouth of the dictator, Valerius Corvus, during the Campanian mutiny: Inducite in animum, quod non induxerunt patres avique vestri; non illi, qui in Sacrum Montem secesserunt; non hi, qui postea Aventinum insederunt;' vii. 40. If Livy means the words 'patres avique' to be taken literally, his chronology is erroneous; for between the time of which he is speaking, and the two secessions respectively, there are intervals of above 150 and 100 years. Messala Corvinus de Prog. Augusti, c. 31, names both the Aventine and the Mons Sacer, giving the preference to the former: Inde ob truculentissimas inter patricios et plebeios seditiones, plebs armata, maximo cum terrore nobilium, in Aventinum, et, ut aliis placet, in Sacrum Collem secesserat; nec inde abduci potuit, donec, ad favorem sui, tribuni plebei primum crearentur.' (The short work extant under this title is a pseudonymous compilation of late date.) Florus mentions only the Mons Sacer: Prima discordia ob impotentiam fœneratorum, quibus in terga quoque serviliter sævientibus, in Sacrum Montem plebs armata secessit;' i. 23. Also Ovid, Fast. iii. 663-4.

Plebs vetus, et nullis etiam nunc tuta tribunis,

Fugit, et in Sacri vertice montis erat.

Valerius Maximus agrees: Regibus exactis, plebs, dissidens a patribus, juxta ripam fluminis Anienis, in colle qui Sacer appellatur, armata consedit;' vii. 9, § 1. Appian gives the same account: & de dμóc TоTε Kai στρατευόμενος ἐς τοιάνδε ἔριν ἐμπεσὼν οὐκ ἐχρήσατο τοῖς ὅπλοις παροῦσιν, ἀλλ ̓ ἐς τὸ ὄρος ἐκδραμὼν τὸ ἀπὸ τοῦδε κληζόμενον ἱερὸν, οὐδὲν οὐδὲ τότε χειρῶν ἔργον, ἀλλ ̓ ἀρχὴν ἑαυτοῦ προστάτιν ἀπέφηνε, καὶ ἐκάλεσε δημαρχίαν; Bell. Civ. i. 1. Dio Cassius. xvii, 9, says that the secession was to koλwróv Tiva; Orosius, ii. 5, names the Mons Sacer, Becker, ib. p. 254, thinks that the name of the Mons Sacer bears witness to the fact of the secession.' It is certainly true that the explanation of the name given by Dionysius and others bears witness to the belief in that fact.