§ 58 From the year 443 B.C. the history of Dionysius is lost of the remainder of his work only some fragments have been preserved. It happens however that copious extracts remain for the story of Mælius, the siege of Veii, and the capture of Rome by the Gauls; which three events all fall within the period comprised by the present chapter.

A transaction is referred to this period, which deserves notice, as the account of it bears strong internal marks of veracity. The towns of Aricia and Ardea (we are told), whose territories adjoined one another, on the coast to the south of Lavinium, had waged much fruitless warfare about a tract of land on their confines, and agreed to refer their dispute to the arbitration of Rome. The arbitration was accepted, and the question was argued on both sides before the popular assembly; the vote was about to be taken between the two contending states, when an old Roman citizen, named Scaptius, claimed to be heard. The consuls refused him a hearing; but the tribunes, on being appealed to, permitted him to speak. He then stated that he was eighty-three years of age; that in his twentieth year of service he had fought against Corioli; and he could depose that the district in question had been a part of the territory of Corioli, and had been then acquired by Rome.(48) This testimony was credited, and although the consuls tried to prevent the people from acting upon it, their efforts were vain. A third voting

493 B.C.

(48) This transaction belongs to the year of Furius and Quinctius, 446 B.C. Corioli was conquered in the consulship of Postumius and Cassius, The interval is therefore 47 years. Scaptius says that he was then in his twentieth year of service; so that he began to serve when he was sixteen or seventeen years of age, and he must have served every year, which, as there were several years of peace, is improbable; see Drakenborch ad loc. If Scaptius was eighty-three years old in 446 B.C., he must have been born in 529 B.C., nineteen years before the expulsion of Tarquin. As the capture of Corioli had taken place only forty-seven years before, it might be remembered by persons of less age than Scaptius, and who had not then seen twenty years of service. A man of sixty-seven would have been twenty years old at the time. The case, therefore, does not seem to be one which called for the testimony of a very aged person. The words in Livy are, Rem se vetustate obliteratam, ceterum suæ memoriæ infixam, afferre. No notice is taken of the reconquest of Corioli from the Romans by Coriolanus in 488 B.C. The title is treated as continuous; see Livy, ii. 39; Dion. Hal. viii. 19.

box was brought, and the assembly decided that the land in dispute belonged, neither to Ardea, nor to Aricia, but to Rome. Livy considers the judgment to have been disgraceful under the circumstances of the case, and says that it was so regarded by the senators; though the abstract right might have been with the Romans.(49) This decision speedily leads to a revolt of Ardea ;(50) in the following year ambassadors from Ardea come to Rome, to complain of their treatment; the Senate receive them with courtesy, and promise to do all in their power to redress their wrong, but advise them to be patient; the treaty with Ardea is renewed in the same year. (51) A violent intestine sedition now breaks out in Ardea, caused by a rivalry of a noble and a plebeian for the hand of a young woman, distinguished for her beauty. The same political sympathies are manifested, as we perceive, from surer historical data, in the Second Punic War. The noble, or oligarchical party, apply to Rome; the plebs call in the assistance of the Volscians. The Roman interference is effectual, and the Volscians are defeated; the leaders of the plebeian party are put to death by the Romans, and their property confiscated to the Volscian state; a measure which we are told satisfied the Ardeates, but which the Senate did not think sufficient to cancel the injustice of the decision concerning the land. (52) In the following year, the Senate made a decree that, as the population of Ardea had been reduced by civil conflict, colonists should be sent to it, for security against the Volscians. At the same time, they arranged privately, that the only land divided should be that to which the unjust judgment related, and that no part of it should be assigned to any Roman colonists, until all claims of Ardeate citizens, who wished to settle upon it, had been satisfied. By this contrivance, the disputed land was

(49) Livy, iii. 71-2. A fragment of the story is in Dion. Hal. xi. 52, where the Vat. MS. has Κάπτιος for Κάτλιος. Σκάπτιος should probably be restored. The corruption of proper names in the manuscripts of the clas sical writers would be an interesting subject of philological research. There is no part of their text in which there has been so much unfaithful transcription.

(50) Livy, iv. 1.

(51) Ib. c. 7.

(52) Ib. 9-10.

virtually restored to Ardea. Livy mentions the names of three commissioners who divided the land; but their task, he says, was a peculiarly unpopular one; for they offended the plebs, by assigning to allies a district which the Roman people had decided to be its own property: and they made no friends among the patricians by acts of personal favour; so that, being cited to trial by the tribunes, they were glad to escape the danger by enrolling themselves among the colonists, and placing their lives under the protection of neighbours who had witnessed their integrity and justice in the performance of their duties.(53) This narrative is not only detailed, but it is coherent, and probable; the transaction, though creditable to the Senate, is not creditable either to the plebeians or to the patrician body; the affair is in itself of no great importance, and it is difficult to understand how the story should have originated if it was not true. On the other hand, we do not know how, if it was true, the details of it were so faithfully preserved, or why a clear and consistent account of this unimportant transaction should have been recorded, when the history of the great changes which accompanied and followed the decemviral period, and which were only a few years earlier, should have come down to us in so confused and obscure a state. § 59 The year 440 B.C. brought with it a scarcity; the cause of which was differently reported. Some attributed it to a bad season; others to the neglect of agriculture. (54) L. Minucius was appointed prefect of the annona, with the special duty of providing supplies of corn; but his efforts were not effectual in preventing extreme suffering from the dearth. In this state of things Sp. Mælius, a wealthy man of the equestrian order, used his private fortune for buying up corn, which he afterwards

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(53) Livy, iv. 11. The simple narrative of Livy can scarcely be recognised after the metamorphosis which it undergoes from being touched by Niebuhr's pen. The plebs becomes the concilium of the populus,' (i.e. the patricians.) Scaptius is not a real man, but the personification of the Scaptian tribe; the Aricians received a share of the land, &c.; Hist. vol. ii. p. 449-452.

(54) Copere a fame mala, seu adversus annus frugibus fuit, seu dulcedine concionum et urbis deserto agrorum cultu; nam utrumque traditur; Livy, iv. 12. It is mentioned under the previous consuls that 'ludi, ab decemviris per secessionem plebis a patribus ex senatus-consulto voti, eo anno facti sunt;' ib. This vow implies that a great public danger was supposed to exist.

distributed gratuitously among the poor plebeians. Both Livy and Dionysius (for an extract of the history of the latter, containing this transaction, has lately been recovered) describe Mælius as converting the popularity acquired by his distributions of corn into an instrument for acquiring supreme power in the state, and for making himself an absolute king. The same view of his intention is taken by Cicero, (55) Varro, Valerius Maximus, Diodorus, and others :(56) and is also contained in the history of Zonaras. (57) It is stated by Dionysius that Minucius obtained from secret informants conclusive evidence of his treasonable designs and preparations. He communicates this evidence to the consuls, who lay it before the Senate. The danger is considered by them as urgent, and they assent to the proposal of the consuls that they should nominate a dictator. Cincinnatus, now above eighty years old, is instantly appointed; and he makes C. Servilius Ahala his master of the horse. The dictator takes his measures during the night, and in the morning he sends Servilius to cite Mælius before his tribunal. Mælius is alarmed at the summons, and attempts to escape to his own house; according to Dionysius, he is pursued by the knights who accompanied Servilius, he takes refuge from them in a butcher's shop, and attempts to defend himself with a cleaver which he there seizes; but he is overpowered by them, cut down, and slaughtered (says Dionysius)' as if he had been a wild beast.' According to Livy, he was killed by Servilius himself. (58) The feelings of

the people at this act are thus described by Dionysius. 'The plebeians who were not accomplices in the treasonable plans of Mælius condemned his conduct; those who were parties to the conspiracy, being relieved from fear, simulated joy, and praised

(55) De Rep. ii. 27; De Senat. 16; De Amic. 11; Phil. ii. 11, 34, 44, pro Mil. 3, 30; De Dom. 32; In Cat. i. 1.

(56) Varro, de L. L. v. § 157, says that the house of Mælius was levelled with the ground, 'quod regnum occupare voluit is; Val. Max. vi. 3, § 1, classes Mælius with Cassius, whose crime was 'suspicio concupita dominationis.' Diod. xii. 37, states that Erópios Maiλios iπiliμevos тvρavνίδι ἀνηρέθη.

(57) vii. 20.

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(58) Florus agrees with Livy: Hunc [Mælium] Quinctii dictatoris imperio in medio foro Magister Équitum Servilius Ahala confodit:' i. 26.

the Senate for their proceedings; but a few among them, being the worst in character, ventured to say that Mælius had been murdered by the nobles, and endeavoured to rouse the people. The latter were quietly put to death by the dictator; who, after he had quelled the disturbance, resigned his office.'

This, says Dionysius, is the most probable account of the death of Mælius; and it is that, we may add, which in substance is followed by Livy. There was however another version of the story, related by Cincius Alimentus and Calpurnius Piso, which he considers less probable. According to this account, Cincinnatus was not appointed dictator, nor Servilius master of the horse; but upon the information of Minucius to the Senate of the treason meditated by Mælius, it was decided that Servilius should be commissioned to kill him without trial. Servilius accomplished this task by taking Mælius aside, on pretence of a private communication, and by plunging a dagger in his throat. Having fulfilled his commission, he ran to the Senate, who were still sitting, to show them the bloody dagger. From this circumstance, he obtained the appellation of Ahala; for the dagger which he had concealed under his arm was in Latin said to be sub alá.(59)

Such is the account of this transaction, which was given by Cincius, one of the earliest native historians, and Piso, who wrote a century before Livy. What their authority for it was, we cannot discover; but the most remarkable feature in it is that it denies the appointment of Cincinnatus as dictator, which is the leading incident of the other account. This variation makes it certain that one at least of the two versions was composed at a time when the events were imperfectly remembered, and without the assistance of authentic records: for a fact so public as the appointment of a dictator must have been notorious to contemporaries, and would also have been a matter of record, if the

(59) Cicero, Orator, c. 45, considers ala to be contracted from axilla. C. Servilius Axilla, whose name occurs in the Capitoline Fasti for 418 B.C., is called Servilius Ahala by Livy, iv. 46. See Lívy, iv. 12-5; Dion. Hal. lib. xii. in Fragm. Hist. Gr. vol. ii. p. xxxi.-xxxvi. ed. Didot, lately printed from a MS. in the library of the Escurial. Compare xii. 1 and 2, ed. Mai.