5.20
When the Dictator saw
that victory was now within his grasp, that a very
wealthy city was on the point of capture, and that
there would be more booty than had been amassed in
all the previous wars taken together, he was anxious
to avoid incurring the anger of the soldiers through
too niggardly a distribution of it on the one hand,
and the jealousy of the senate through too lavish a
grant of it on the other. He sent a despatch to the
senate in which he stated that through the gracious
favour of heaven, his own generalship, and the
persevering efforts of his soldiers, Veii would in a
very few hours be in the power of Rome, and he asked
for their decision as to the disposal of the booty.
The senate were divided. It is reported that the
aged P. Licinius, who was the first to be asked his
opinion by his son, urged that the people should
receive public notice that whoever wanted to share
in the spoils should go to the camp at Veii. Appius
Claudius took the opposite line. He stigmatised the
proposed largesse as unprecedented, wasteful,
unfair, reckless. If, he said, they once thought it
sinful for money taken from the enemy to lie in the
treasury, drained as it had been by the wars, he
would advise that the pay of the soldiers be
supplied from that source, so that the plebs might
have so much less tax to pay. "The homes of all
would feel alike the benefit of a common boon, the
rewards won by brave warriors would not be filched
by the hands of city loafers, ever greedy for
plunder, for it so constantly happens that those who
usually seek the foremost place in toil and danger
are the least active in appropriating the spoils."
Licinius on the other hand said that "this money
would always be regarded with suspicion and
aversion, and would supply material for indictments
before the plebs, and consequently bring about
disturbances and revolutionary measures. It was
better, therefore, that the plebs should be
conciliated by this gift, that those who had been
crushed and exhausted by so many years of taxation
should be relieved and get some enjoyment from the
spoils of a war in which they had almost become old
men. When any one brings home something he has taken
from the enemy with his own hand, it affords him
more pleasure and gratification than if he were to
receive many times its value at the bidding of
another. The Dictator had referred the question to
the senate because he wanted to avoid the odium and
misrepresentations which it might occasion; the
senate, in its turn, ought to entrust it to the
plebs and allow each to keep what the fortune of war
has given him." This was felt to be the safer
course, as it would make the senate popular. Notice
accordingly was given that those who thought fit
should go to the Dictator in camp to share in the
plunder of Veii.