Latin Texts & Translations

ch. 167.16Another measure, by no means so welcome to the patricians, was brought forward the following year, the consuls being C. Marcius and Cnaeus Manlius. M. Duilius and L. Menenius, tribunes of the plebs, were the proposers of this measure, which fixed the rate of interest at 8 and 1/3 per cent.; the plebs adopted it with much more eagerness than the Poetilian Law against canvassing.

^[Note] In addition to the fresh wars decided upon the previous year, the Faliscans had been guilty of two acts of hostility; their men had fought in the ranks of the Tarquinians, and they had refused to give up those who had fled after their defeat to Tarquinii, when the Fetials demanded their surrender. That campaign fell to Cn. Manlius; Marcius conducted the operations against Privernum. This district had remained uninjured during the long years of peace, and when Marcius led his army thither, they loaded themselves with plunder. Its value was enhanced by the munificence of the consul, for he appropriated none of it for the State, and so encouraged the efforts of the private soldier to increase his private means. ^[Note] The Privernates had formed a strongly entrenched camp in front of their walls, and before attacking it Marcius summoned his troops to assembly, and said: If you promise me that you will do your duty bravely in battle and are quite as ready for fighting as for plunder, I give you now the camp and city of the enemy. With a mighty shout they demanded the signal for battle, and with heads erect and full of confidence they marched proudly into line. Sex. Tullius, who has been already mentioned, was in the front, and he called out, See, General, how your army is fulfilling its promise to you, and with the word he dropped his javelin and drawing his sword charged the enemy. The whole of the front line followed him and at the very first onset defeated the Privernates and pursued them as far as the town, which they prepared to storm. When the scaling ladders were actually placed against the walls the place surrendered. A triumph was celebrated over the Privernates.

Nothing worth recording was done by the other consul, except his unprecedented action in getting a law passed in camp by the tribes levying 5 per cent. on the value of every slave who was manumitted. ^[Note]As the money raised under this law would be a handsome addition to the exhausted treasury, the senate confirmed it. The tribunes of the plebs, however, looking not so much to the law as to the precedent set, made it a capital offence for any one to convene the Assembly outside their usual place of meeting. If it were once legalised, there was nothing, however injurious to the people, which could not be carried through men who were bound by the oath of military obedience.

In this year C. Licinius Stolo was impeached by M. Popilius Laenas for having violated his own law; he and his son together occupied a thousand jugera of land, and he had emancipated his son in order to evade the law. He was condemned to pay a fine of 10,000 ases.