Tiresias: The Ancient Mediterranean Religions Source Database

7456

Livy, History, 5.15.10-5.15.11
nan From that time the old age of Tullius became more embittered, his reign more unhappy. The woman began to look forward from one crime to another; she allowed her husband no rest day or night, for fear lest the past murders should prove fruitless. [2] What she wanted, she said, was not a man who was only her husband in name, or with whom she was to live in uncomplaining servitude; the man she needed was one who deemed himself worthy of a throne, who remembered that he was the son of Priscus Tarquinius, who preferred to wear a crown rather than live in hopes of it. ‘If you are the man to whom I thought I was married, then I call you my husband and my king; but if not, I have changed my condition for the worse, since you are not only a coward but a criminal to boot. Why do you not prepare yourself for action? [4] You are not, like your father, a native of Corinth or Tarquinii, nor is it a foreign crown you have to win. Your father's household gods, your father's image, the royal palace, the kingly throne within it, the very name of Tarquin, all declare you king. If you have not courage enough for this, why do you excite vain hopes in the State? [5] Why do you allow yourself to be looked up to as a youth of kingly stock? Make your way back to Tarquinii or Corinth, sink back to the position whence you sprung; you have your brother's nature rather than your father's.’ With taunts like these she egged him on. [6] She, too, was perpetually haunted by the thought that whilst Tanaquil, a woman of alien descent, had shown such spirit as to give the crown to her husband and her son-in-law in succession, she herself, though of royal descent, had no power either in giving it or taking it away. [7] Infected by the woman's madness Tarquin began to go about and interview the nobles, mainly those of the Lesser Houses; he reminded them of the favour his father had shown them, and asked them to prove their gratitude; he won over the younger men with presents. By making magnificent promises as to what he would do, and by bringing charges against the king, his cause became stronger amongst all ranks. At last, when he thought the time for action had arrived, he appeared suddenly in the Forum with a body of armed men. [8] A general panic ensued, during which he seated himself in the royal chair in the senate-house and ordered the Fathers to be summoned by the crier ‘into the presence of King Tarquin.’ They hastily assembled, some already prepared for what was coming; others, apprehensive lest their absence should arouse suspicion, and dismayed by the extraordinary nature of the incident, were convinced that the fate of Servius was sealed. [9] Tarquin went back to the king's birth, protested that he was a slave and the son of a slave, and after his (the [10] speaker's) father had been foully murdered, seized the throne, as a woman's gift, without any interrex being appointed as heretofore, without any assembly being convened, without any vote of the people being taken or any confirmation of it by the Fathers. Such was his origin, such was his right to the crown. [11] His sympathies were with the dregs of society from which he had sprung, and through jealousy of the ranks to which he did not belong, he had taken the land from the foremost men in the State and divided it amongst the vilest; he had shifted on to them the whole of the burdens which had formerly been borne in common by [12] all; he had instituted the census that the fortunes of the wealthy might be held up to envy, and be an easily available source from which to shower doles, whenever he pleased, upon the neediest.
nan Whilst indulging in declamations of this sort, they found an opponent who was quite a match for them in Appius Claudius. [8] He had from early manhood taken his part in the contests with the plebs, and as stated above, had some years previously recommended the senate to break down the power of the tribunes by securing the intervention of their colleagues. He was not only a man of ready and versatile mind, but by this time an experienced debater. [9] He delivered the following speech on this occasion: — ‘If, Quirites, there has ever been any doubt as to whether it was in your interest or their own that the tribunes have always been the advocates of sedition, I feel quite certain that this year all doubt has ceased to exist. Whilst I rejoice that an end has at last been put to a long-standing delusion, I congratulate you, and on your behalf the whole State, that its removal has been effected just at the time when your circumstances are most prosperous. [10] Is there any one who doubts that whatever wrongs you may have at any time suffered, they never annoyed and provoked the tribunes so much as the generous treatment of the plebs by the senate, in establishing the system of pay for the soldiers? [11] What else do you suppose it was that they were afraid of at that time, and would today gladly upset, except the harmony of the two orders, which they look upon as most of all calculated to destroy their power? They are, really, like so many quack doctors looking for work, always anxious to find some diseased spot in the republic that there may be something which you can call them in to cure.’ Then, turning to the tribunes, ‘Are you defending or attacking the plebs? Are you trying to injure the men on service or are you pleading their cause? [12] Or perhaps this is what you are saying, ‘Whatever the senate does, whether in the interest of the plebs or against them, we object to.’ [13] Just as masters forbid strangers to hold any communication with their slaves, and think it right that they should abstain from showing them either kindness or unkindness, so you interdict the patricians from all dealings with the plebs, lest we should appeal to their feelings by our graciousness and generosity and secure their loyalty and obedience. How much more dutiful it would have been in you, if you had had a spark — I will not say of patriotism, but — of common humanity, to have viewed with favour, and as far as in you lay, to have fostered the kindly feelings of the patricians and the grateful goodwill of the plebeians! [14] And if this harmony should prove to be lasting, who would not be bold enough to guarantee that this empire will in a short time be the greatest among the neighbouring States?’

Intertexts (texts cited often on the same page as the searched text):

1 results
1. Sallust, Catiline, 7, 6 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)

Subjects of this text:

subject	book bibliographic info
africa	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
alexander the great	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
apocalypse/apocalyptic	Beyerle and Goff, Notions of Time in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature (2022) 124
asia	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
catullus	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
civil war, discordia	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
cornelius nepos	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
digression	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
ethnography, ethnographies	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
gaul, gauls, sack, of rome	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
greece, greek	Faßbeck and Killebrew, Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology: VeHinnei Rachel - Essays in honor of Rachel Hachlili (2016) 428
hellenistic kings/rulers, antiochus iv epiphanes	Beyerle and Goff, Notions of Time in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature (2022) 124
herodotus	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
historiography/chronography	Beyerle and Goff, Notions of Time in Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature (2022) 124
hybridity, hybridities	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
identity	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
jerusalem	Faßbeck and Killebrew, Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology: VeHinnei Rachel - Essays in honor of Rachel Hachlili (2016) 428
livy	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
migration, immigration, immigrants and nomadism	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
myth, mythology, mythological	Faßbeck and Killebrew, Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology: VeHinnei Rachel - Essays in honor of Rachel Hachlili (2016) 428
pausanias	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
pliny the elder	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
plutarch	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
polybius	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
refugees	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
republic, the roman, memory and trauma	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
res publica	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
rome, roman	Faßbeck and Killebrew, Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology: VeHinnei Rachel - Essays in honor of Rachel Hachlili (2016) 428
sallust	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
strabo	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
theater'	Faßbeck and Killebrew, Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology: VeHinnei Rachel - Essays in honor of Rachel Hachlili (2016) 428
thucydides	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
titus	Faßbeck and Killebrew, Viewing Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology: VeHinnei Rachel - Essays in honor of Rachel Hachlili (2016) 428
triumph	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
usage of the past	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267
virgil	Poulsen, Usages of the Past in Roman Historiography (2021), 267