6.14
The
Dictator kept his army permanently encamped, fully expecting that the senate
would declare war against those peoples. A much greater trouble at home,
however, necessitated his recall. The sedition which, owing to its ringleader's
work, was exceptionally alarming, was gaining strength from day to day. For
to any one who looked at his motives, not only the speeches, but still more
the conduct of M. Manlius, though ostensibly in the interest of the people,
would have appeared revolutionary and dangerous. When he saw a
centurion, a distinguished soldier, led away as an adjudged debtor, he ran
into the middle of the Forum with his crowd of supporters and laid his hand
on him. After declaiming against the tyranny of patricians and the brutality of
usurers and the wretched condition of the plebs he said: " It was then in vain
that I with this right hand saved the Capitol and Citadel if I have to see a
fellow-citizen and a comrade in arms carried off to chains and slavery just as
though he had been captured by the victorious Gauls." Then, before all the
people, he paid the sum due to the creditors, and after thus freeing the man
by "copper and scales," sent him home. The released debtor appealed to
gods and men to reward Manlius, his deliverer and the beneficial protector of
the Roman plebs. A noisy crowd immediately surrounded him, and he
increased the excitement by displaying the scars left by wounds he had
received in the wars against Veii and the Gauls and in recent campaigns.
"Whilst," he cried, "I was serving in the field and whilst I was trying to
restore my desolated home, I paid in interest an amount equal to many times
the principal, but as the fresh interest always exceeded my capital, I was
buried beneath the load of debt. It is owing to M. Manlius that I can now
look upon the light of day, the Forum, the faces of my fellow-citizens; from
him I have received all the kindness which a parent can show to a child; to
him I devote all that remains of my bodily powers, my blood, my life. In that
one man is centered everything that binds me to my home, my country, and
my country's gods."
The plebs, wrought upon by this language, had now completely
espoused this one man's cause, when another circumstance occurred, still
more calculated to create universal confusion. Manlius brought under the
auctioneer's hammer an estate in the Veientine territory which comprised the
principal part of his patrimony -"In order," he said, "that as long as any of
my property remains, I may prevent any of you Quirites from being delivered
up to your creditors as judgment debtors." This roused them to such a pitch
that it was quite clear that they would follow the champion of their liberties
through anything, right or wrong. To add to the mischief, he delivered
speeches in his own house, as though he were haranguing the Assembly, full
of calumnious abuse of the senate. Indifferent to the truth or falsehood of
what he said, he declared, among other things, that the stores of gold
collected for the Gauls were being hidden away by the patricians; they were
no longer content with appropriating the public lands unless they could also
embezzle the public funds; if that affair were brought to light, the debts of
the plebs could be wiped off. With this hope held out to them they thought it
a most shameful proceeding that whilst the gold got together to ransom the
City from the Gauls had been raised by general taxation, this very gold when
recovered from the enemy had become the plunder of a few. They insisted
therefore, on finding out where this vast stolen booty was concealed, and as
Manlius kept putting them off and announcing that he would choose his own
time for the disclosure, the universal interest became absorbed in this
question to the exclusion of everything else. There would clearly be no limit
to their gratitude if his information proved correct, or to their displeasure if
it turned out to be false.