CHAP. XI. THE FIRST PLEBEIAN CONSUL. 95 of his eighty years of age and sixty years of invaluable services. To his instances the Senate at length yields; the election v.o. 387. of Sextius is confirmed, and Camillus, having saved the .. 367. state a third time, closes the long era of internal discord by the dedication of a temple to Concord. The year 366, which saw the election of the first plebeian consul in the person of L. Sextius, and was thus rendered notable in Roman history for the auspicious fusion of the two rival orders, witnessed moreover the institution of the magistracy of the prætor, and also of the curule ædiles. The name of prætor, indeed, was of much older standing. It properly means one who goes before, a leader, and was at an earlier period assigned to the first magistrate of the commonwealth, as the leader and captain of her forces. The consul is said to have been originally designated prætor. But on the revival, if such it were, of the title it was assigned to the magistrate who should occupy the highest place within the city, while both the consuls were now for the most part engaged in the conduct of wars abroad. He was to declare the law and preside at the tribunals. In token of his high dignity he was to be attended, like the consuls, by lictors, but, as inferior to the consuls, the number of these attendants allowed him was not twelve, but six only. The prætor as now appointed was to be always a patrician; and it would seem that the new institution was meant to be in some degree a compensation to his order for the surrender of one of the consulships. At a later period this magistracy was doubled; the prætor urbanus being appointed to administer the law as between citizen and citizen, his colleague, the prætor peregrinus, undertaking the more difficult task of adjusting the litigation of the non-Roman population, either among themselves or with the citizens in the midst of whom they resided. The first prætor was a Spurius Camillus, and the name seems to imply the amalgamation which was now taking place between the patricians and the plebeians, for while Camillus himself, the hero of the Furian house, was a genuine patrician, he was represented as the author of the reconciliation of the two orders, while the prænomen of Spurius seems to be always assigned by history or legend to a champion of the plebeians. Such were Spurius Cassius, Spurius Mælius, and Spurius Metilius, all alike noble sufferers in the cause of plebeian independence, and such, we may imagine, under happier circumstances, was the first of the Roman prætors, Spurius Camillus. The meaning of the word Spurius is itself doubtful. At a later period it commonly designated one who is base-born or illegitimate, and in this sense it may, no doubt, have been from the first applied by patrician annalists to the false aristocrats who betrayed the interests of U.O. 388. 1.0. 366. their own party; but if, on the other hand, we assume its derivation from super, implying true greatness and superior nobility, we may ascribe this curious recurrence of the name to the invention of the plebeians themselves, to signalize the greatness of the champions who came over to them from the ranks of their opponents. As this is also the prænomen of Servilius Ahala, one of the most noted leaders of the patrician faction itself, we may the more readily infer that the name was given indifferently by either party as a token, not of contempt, but of admiration. If such be its origin, we may be disposed to admit that Spurius is actually the proudest of all the Roman personal appellatives. The creation of the curule ædiles was another sop to the patricians. The ædiles, to whom the care of the public buildings was U.o. 388. assigned, had hitherto been two in number, and both B.C. 366. plebeians, invested with the same personal inviolability as the tribunes. The number of these officers was now increased to four, two of whom were to be henceforth patricians always, and to enjoy the patrician privileges of the curule chair in the Senate, the wearing of the prætexta, and the display in their halls of the images of their illustrious ancestors. When the plebeian ædiles chose to stand on their ancient traditions and refused to preside at the Great Games of the Roman people, these patrician magistrates were thus added to their college, on which occasion a fourth day was also added to the shows, and a fourth tribe created for the plebeians, to rank henceforth beside the Ramnenses, Tatienses, and Luceres. After the first election, indeed, the distinction ceased to be observed, and the ædiles were appointed indiscriminately by both orders, which became in fact from this period rapidly amalgamated. From henceforth we hear no more of secession to the Mons Sacer, or of the creation of a dictator to quell a sedition of the plebeians. The saviour of the state, the dedicator of the temple of Concord, had now done his work, and it was time he should be removed. The following year witnessed the death of Camillus, the great dictator, the greatest of all the heroes of Roman story till we U.O. 389. come to Julius Cæsar. He perished at a very advanced age, but he fell at last a victim to pestilence. The annals of the city note very carefully the recurrence of these periodical visitations, and the plague of the year 365 was the sixth that they commemorated since the date of the Regifugium. Rome, indeed, was then, as now, an unhealthy city; during the heats of summer and in the noxious vapors of autumn the seeds of disease were always germinating; but the Romans marked with superstitious anxiety any unusual aggravation of their chronic sufferings, and the occasion of a year of sickness was CHAP. XI. THE LEGEND OF METTUS CURTIUS. 97 generally signalized by the dedication of a shrine to Apollo or Febris or Mephitis, or by the institution of special solemnities. Sometimes the whole consistory of the gods was to be propitiated by a lectisternium, when the images were taken from their pedestals, borne in procession through the city, and laid upon couches in the Capitol before tables loaded with sacrificial offerings. The pestilence of the year 365 deserves to be noted for the introduction of stage-plays into Rome. The priests advised that the histrions or players of Etruria should be invited to give their festive entertainments, which bore, indeed, some general analogy to the early drama of the Greeks, but were closely connected, at least in their origin, with the religious ritual of the Etruscans. The story of this popular propitiation has a fair claim to be deemed historical. Not so, however, another, which is assigned to a date within a year or, at most, two years of this period-the legend of the devotion of Mettus Curtius, one of the most romantic of its kind. Possibly a flood or a tempest or an earthquake may have caused the formation of a deep pool or rift in the Forum, but in the imagination of the people this opening became a gulf formed by no human power, and which no human power could avail to fill up. The gods required the sacrifice of the best. Gold and jewels and precious things were in vain cast in; at last a noble youth leaped with his horse full armed into the chasm, and the gods were satisfied, for what better offering has a state to give than the life of her noblest and her bravest? It can be shown, indeed, that the story is confused with another, not more genuine, of a much earlier date; but if the fact were false, the idea at least was true, and will never cease to bear real fruit from generation to generation. CHAPTER XII. Continued progress of the plebeians towards equality with the patricians. — Foreign wars; frequent creation of dictators; wars with the Gauls; exploits of Manlius Torquatus and Valerius Corvus.-Commencement of the contest of Rome with Samnium.-War with the Latins, and their final association with the Romans, but with generally inferior rights. ALTHOUGH We gladly assume the era of the Licinian law as a landmark in Roman history, and date from it a marked decline of the ancient rivalry between patrician and plebeian, we are not to suppose that such a revolution was carried out at a single blow. We hear, indeed, little more of the grave discord between the two orders which has seemed so often to imperil the very existence of the commonwealth; but it was not all at once, or without repeated struggles, that the one surrendered all its privileges to the other, and consented to merge the rule of a dominant race in a constitution of rights altogether equal. The compact regarding the consulship was not always loyally observed. More than once it was found impossible to make a regular election, and the government was conducted by interreges until a dictator on the one hand, or the tribunes on the other, could force a candidate upon U.c. 398. the comitia. The contest was still carried on with alB.O. 356. ternate success. In the year 356 the plebeian C. Marcius Rutilus actually attained the dictatorship; and having gained a victory over the Etruscans, enjoyed by the command of the plebs the triumph which had been refused him by the curies. The same Marcius attained five years later to the august magistracy of the censorship, which had been a potent instrument in the hands of the patricians, but became from this period the common appanage of either order. On the other hand, once at least in the years that immediately followed the plebs felt themselves constrained to threaten a secession, on account of the old grievance of debt and usury; but the sedition seems to have been promptly quelled by the appointment of a popular dictator, Valerius Corvus, B.C. 342. On the whole, however, there was no period in the Roman annals that seems to have so often demanded the firm hand of an extraordinary magistrate. Between the years 365 and 342 a dictator was created no less than fourteen times; six times for CHAP. XII. WAR WITH THE GAULS. 99 the defence of the city against foreign enemies. Three of these dictators were appointed in the years 360, 359, and 357, to make head against a Gaulish invasion; one repulsed the Hernicans in 361, another the Etruscans in 355, and a third the Auruncans eleven years later, in 344. It will be well to glance at the dealings of Rome with these her enemies nearest home, before we enter upon the wider field of warfare which will soon begin to open upon us. 66 The Gauls after their first retreat from Rome did not fail to return and harass the republic with repeated incursions. They had, indeed, penetrated far beyond the Roman territory, into Campania, and even Apulia. But these distant forays were but the last feeble pulsations of the great tide of their invasion. They made no settlements, collected no resources, gathered no strength. Their assaults were furious, and might often effect the rout of an unstable opponent; but the constancy of the Romans under good leading seldom failed to baffle and repel them. The anxiety, however, which they caused at Rome long continued unallayed. On the occurrence of an assault from this formidable people-formidable in the eyes of the Romans from their reputed size and strength no less that their numbers and military prowess— it was no longer a war "that was declared, demanding the regular forms of conscription, but a "Gallic tumult," when every citizen was called to arms, and the whole nation rushed in a mass to the rescue. The courage of the Romans always answered to the emergency, and the bravery of T. Manlius obtained much fame among them. This popular hero engaged in combat with a gigantic Gaul on the bridge of the Anio, slew him and carried off his chain of gold, whence he and his descendants bore the illustrious name of Torquatus. Yet even courage such as theirs might be heightened by the assurance of supernatural assistance, as when a crow perched itself on the helm of M. Valerius, struck out fiercely with its beak and claws, and baffled with its wings the fence of his adversary. Hence the name of the house of Corvus, and again that of the Corvini, who are associated by Lucan with the Torquati, the Lepidi, and the Metelli, in the solemn dirge he sings over the falling glories of the republic. We shall hear no more of Gaulish incursions; when the Gauls and the Romans meet next it will be in the vain attempt of the Northern barbarians to defend their own conquests within the Apennines from the wave of Southern invasion. U.C. 407. B. C. 347. The Gauls had maintained themselves obstinately in the passes of the Alban hills, and from thence had made their advances towards Rome, coming on one occasion to the very foot of the Colline gate, breaking up the confederation of Latin towns which |