5.11
As chance would have it,
Cnaeus Trebonius was tribune of the plebs that year,
and he came forward as a champion of the Trebonian
Law, as a duty apparently to his family and the name
he bore. He declared in excited tones that the
position which the senate had assailed, though they
had been repulsed in their first attack, had been at
last carried by the consular tribunes. The Trebonian
Law had been set aside and the tribunes of the plebs
had not been elected by the vote of the people, but
co-opted at the command of the patricians, matters
had now come to this pass, that they must have
either patricians or the hangers-on to patricians as
tribunes of the plebs. The Sacred Laws were being
wrested from them, the power and authority of their
tribunes was being torn away. This, he contended,
was done through the craft and cunning of the
patricians and the treacherous villainy of his
colleagues. The flame of popular indignation was now
beginning to scorch not only the senate, but even
the tribunes of the plebs, co-opted and co-opters
alike, when three members of the tribunitian college
-P. Curatius, M. Metilius, and M. Minucius -trembling for their own safety, instituted
proceedings against Sergius and Verginius, the
consular tribunes of the preceding year. By fixing a
day for their trial, they diverted from themselves
on to these men the rage and resentment of the
plebs. They reminded the people that those who had
felt the burden of the levy, the war-tax, and the
long duration of the war, those who were distressed
at the defeat sustained at Veii, those whose homes
were in mourning for the loss of children, brothers,
and relations, had every one of them the right and
the power to visit upon two guilty heads their own
personal grief and that of the whole State. The
responsibility for all their misfortunes rested on
Sergius and Verginius; this was not more clearly
proved by the prosecutor than admitted by the
defendants, for whilst both were guilty, each threw
the blame on the other, Verginius denouncing the
flight of Sergius, and Sergius the treachery of
Verginius. They had behaved with such incredible
madness that it was in all probability a concerted
plan earned out with the general connivance of the
patricians. These men had previously given the
Veientines an opening for firing the siege works,
now they had betrayed the army and delivered a Roman
camp up to the Faliscans. Everything was being done
to compel their young men to grow old at Veii, and
to make it impossible for their tribunes to secure
the support of a full Assembly in the City either in
their resistance to the concerted action of the
senate, or for their proposals regarding the
distribution of land and other measures in the
interest of the plebs. Judgment had already been
passed upon the accused by the senate, the Roman
people, and their own colleagues, for it was a vote
of the senate which removed them from office, it was
their own colleagues who upon their refusal to
resign, compelled them to do so by the threat of a
Dictator, whilst it was the people who had elected
consular tribunes to enter upon office, not on the
usual day, December 13, but immediately after their
election, on October 1, for the republic could no
longer be safe if these men remained in office. And
yet, shattered as they were by so many adverse
verdicts, and condemned beforehand, they were
presenting themselves for trial, and fancying that
they had purged their offence and suffered an
adequate punishment because they had been relegated
to private life two months before the time. They did
not understand that this was not the infliction of a
penalty, but simply the depriving them of power to
do further mischief, since their colleagues also had
to resign, and they, at all events, had committed no
offence. The tribunes continued. "Recall the
feelings, Quirites, with which you heard of the
disaster which we sustained and watched the army
staggering through the gates, panic-stricken
fugitives, covered with wounds, accusing not Fortune
or any of the gods, but these generals of theirs. We
are confident that there is not a man in this
Assembly who did not on that day call down curses on
the persons and homes and fortunes of L. Verginius
and Manius Sergius. It would be utterly inconsistent
for you not to use your power, when it is your right
and duty to do so, against the men on whom each of
you has called down the wrath of heaven. The gods
never lay hands themselves on the guilty it is
enough when they arm the injured with the
opportunity for vengeance.