prayers which have often mitigated the rage
of an enemy, and which appease the wrath of the gods; I call upon the
tribunes of the commons for support, and appeal to the people; and since
you decline the judgment of your own army, as well as of the senate, I
call you before a judge who must certainly be allowed, though no other
should, to possess more power and authority than yourself, though
dictator. I shall see whether you will submit to an appeal, to which
Tullus Hostilius, a Roman king, submitted." They proceeded directly from
the senate-house to the assembly; where, being arrived, the dictator
attended by few, the master of the horse by all the people of the first
rank in a body, Papirius commanded him to be taken from the rostrum to
the lower ground; his father, following him, said, "You do well in
ordering us to be brought down to a place where even as private persons
we have liberty of speech." At first, instead of regular speeches,
nothing but altercation was heard; at length, the indignation of old
Fabius, and the strength of his voice, got the better of noise, while he
reproached Papirius with arrogance and cruelty. "He himself," he said,
"had been dictator at Rome; and no man, not even the lowest plebeian, or
centurion, or soldier, had been outraged by him. But Papirius sought for
victory and triumph over a Roman commander, as over the generals of the
enemy. What an immense difference between the moderation of the
ancients, and modern oppression and cruelty. Quinctius Cincinnatus when
dictator exercised no further severity on Lucius Minucius the consul,
although rescued by him from a siege, than leaving him at the head of
the army, in the quality of lieutenant-general, instead of consul.
Marcus Furius Camillus, in the case of Lucius Furius, who, in contempt
of his great age and authority, had fought a battle with a most
disgraceful result, not only restrained his anger at the time so as to
write no unfavourable representation of his conduct to the people or the
senate; but after returning home, when the patricians gave him a power
of electing from among his colleagues whoever he might approve as an
associate with himself in the command, chose that very man in
preference to all the other consular tribunes. Nay, that not even the
resentment of the people, with whom lay the supreme power in all cases,
was ever exercised with greater severity towards those who, through
rashness and ignorance, had occasioned the l