atin horse came full speed to Rome, with the alarming news that the
Volscians were marching with a hostile army to besiege the city.
This announcement--so completely had discord split the state into
two--affected the senators and people in a far different manner. The
people exulted with joy, and said that the gods were coming to take
vengeance on the tyranny of the patricians. They encouraged one
another not to give in their names,[27] declaring that it was better
that all should perish together than that they should perish alone.
Let the patricians serve as soldiers; let the patricians take up arms,
so that those who reaped the advantages of war should also undergo its
dangers. But the senate, dejected and confounded by the double alarm
they felt, inspired both by their own countryman and by the enemy,
entreated the consul Servilius, whose disposition was more inclined to
favour the people, that he would extricate the commonwealth, beset as
it was with so great terrors. Then the consul, having dismissed the
senate, came forward into the assembly. There he declared that the
senate were solicitous that the interests of the people should be
consulted: but that alarm for the safety of the whole commonwealth had
interrupted their deliberation regarding that portion of the state,
which, though indeed the largest portion, was yet only a portion: nor
could they, seeing that the enemy were almost at the gates, allow
anything to take precedence of the war: nor, even though there should
be some respite, was it either to the credit of the people not to have
taken up arms in defence of their country unless they first received
pay, nor consistent with the dignity of the senators to have adopted
measures of relief for the distressed fortunes of their countrymen
through fear rather than afterward of their own free will. He then
further gave his speech the stamp of sincerity by an edict, by which
he ordained that no one should detain a Roman citizen either in chains
or in prison, so that he would thereby be deprived of the opportunity
of enrolling his name under the consuls, and that no one should either
take possession of or sell the goods of any soldier, while on service,
or detain his children or grandchildren in custody for debt. On
the publication of this edict, both the debtors who were present
immediately gave in their names, and crowds of persons, hastening from
all quarters of the city from private houses, as their creditors had