he immortal gods, next to your own valour, that occasion was
yesterday's battle. For the contest was not more with enemies than with
the treachery and perfidy of allies, a contest which is more serious and
more dangerous. For that a false opinion may not influence you, the
Albans retired to the mountains without my orders, nor was that my
command, but a stratagem and the pretence of a command: that so your
attention might not be drawn away from the fight, you being kept in
ignorance that you were deserted, and that terror and dismay might be
struck into the enemy, conceiving themselves to be surrounded on the
rear. Nor does that guilt, which I now state, extend to all the Albans.
They followed their leader; as you too would have done, if I had wished
my army to make a move to any other point from thence. Mettus there is
the leader of that march, the same Mettus is the contriver of this war;
Mettus is the violator of the treaty between Rome and Alba. Let another
hereafter attempt the like conduct, unless I now make of him a signal
example to mankind." The centurions in arms stand round Mettus, and the
king proceeds with the rest as he had commenced: "It is my intention,
and may it prove fortunate, auspicious, and happy to the Roman people,
to myself, and to you, O Albans, to transplant all the inhabitants of
Alba to Rome: to grant your people the rights of citizenship, and to
admit your nobles into the rank of senators: to make one city, one
republic; that as the Alban state was formerly divided from one people
into two, so it may now return into one." On hearing this the Alban
youth, unarmed, surrounded by armed men, however divided in their
sentiments, yet restrained by the common apprehension, continue silent.
Then Tullus proceeded: "If, Mettus Fuffetius, you were capable of
learning fidelity, and how to observe treaties, that lesson would have
been taught you by me, while still alive. Now, since your disposition is
incurable, do you at least by your punishment teach mankind to consider
those things sacred which have been violated by you. As therefore a
little while since you kept your mind divided between the interest of
Fidenae and of Rome, so shall you now surrender your body to be torn
asunder in different directions." Upon this, two chariots drawn by four
horses being brought, he ties Mettus extended at full length to their
carriages: then the horses were driven on in different directions,
carrying off the mangled