Curiosities & wonders > Titus Livius' Roman history

Chap. SO. ROMAN HISTORY. 44.7
by the advice of the senate, trusting to their promised
protection.
CHAP. XXX.
Disputes about settling at Veii. The Fathers prevail.
BY haranguing openly to this purpose, he daily incens¬
ed the people against him more and more. As to the
law in question, he never ceased to spirit up the fathers
against it: telling them, ‘ That they ought not to go
' down to the forum upon the day when the law was to
‘ be proposed, but as to a field of battle, where they
* should remember, they were to fight for their altars,
* their fire-sides, the temples of their gods, and the place
‘ which had given them birth. That with regard to him-
‘ self, considered in a private capacity, could he allow
' himself to think of his own glory, when that of his
‘ country came in competition, nothing could flatter his
‘ ambition more, than to see a city, which he had re-
* duced, filled with inhabitants, who coqld be so many
* living witnesses of his glory, and constantly present to
‘ him the monuments of his victory, where nobody could
‘ move a step but on the traces of his atchievements.
‘ But it was impious to conceive thoughts of inhabiting
* a city, forsaken and abandoned by the immortal gods,
‘ and shameful to propose, that the Roman people should
* reside on a captive soil, and prefer to their own coun-
‘ try, a country conquered by it.’
The senators old and young, roused with these exhor¬
tations of their champion, when the law was to be pro¬
posed, went all in a body to the forum, and dispersing
themselves among the tribes, each addressed himself to
their fellow citizens of his own tribe, and began to beg,
with tears in their eyes, that they would not abandon that
country, for which they and their fathers had fought
with so much valour and success; pointing, at the same
time to the capitol, the temple of Vesta, and other temples
around them, conjuring them not to drive the Roman
people, like felons and exiles, from their native country
and their guardian gods, to inhabit a city but lately
peopled by their enemies, and bring matters to that pass.