3.71
This honourable victory
won from an enemy was sullied by a disgraceful
decision of the people respecting the territory of
their allies. The inhabitants of Aricia and Ardea
had frequently gone to war over some disputed land;
tired at last of their many reciprocal defeats, they
referred the matter to the arbitrament of Rome. The
magistrates convened an Assembly on their behalf,
and when they had come to plead their cause, the
debate was conducted with much warmth. When the
evidence was concluded and the time came for the
tribes to be called upon to vote, P. Scaptius, an
aged plebeian, rose and said, "If, consuls, I am
allowed to speak on matters of high policy, I will
not suffer the people to go wrong in this matter."
The consuls refused him a hearing, as being a man of
no credit, and when he loudly exclaimed that the
commonwealth was being betrayed they ordered him to
be removed. He appealed to the tribunes. The
tribunes, who are almost always ruled by the
multitude more than they rule them, finding that the
plebs were anxious to hear him, gave Scaptius
permission to say what he wanted. So he began by
saying that he was now in his eighty-third year and
had seen service in that country which was now in
dispute, not as a young man but as a veteran of
twenty years' standing, when the war was going on
against Corioli. He therefore alleged as a fact,
forgotten through lapse of time, but deeply
imprinted in his own memory, that the disputed land
formed part of the territory of Corioli, and when
that city was taken, became by the right of war part
of the State domain of Rome. The Ardeates and
Aricians had never claimed it while Corioli was
unconquered, and he was wondering how they could
hope to filch it from the people of Rome, whom they
had made arbiters instead of rightful owners. He had
not long to live, but he could not, old as he was,
bring himself to refrain from using the only means
in his power, namely, his voice, in order to assert
the right to that territory which as a soldier he
had done his best to win. He earnestly advised the
people not to pronounce, from a false feeling of
delicacy, against a cause which was really their
own.