Ab urbe condita

So the proceedings were adjourned to another day, and the people were summoned to an Assembly in the Peteline Grove outside the Flumentan Gate, from which the Capitol was not visible.

Here the charge was established, and with hearts steeled against his appeals, they passed a dreadful sentence, abhorrent even to the judges. Some authorities assert that he was sentenced by the duumvirs, who were appointed to try cases of treason. The tribunes hurled him from the Tarpeian rock, and the place which was the monument of his exceptional glory became also the scene of his final punishment.

After his death two stigmas were affixed to his memory. One by the State. His house stood where now the temple and mint of Juno Moneta stand, a measure was consequently brought before the people that no patrician should occupy a dwelling within the Citadel or on the Capitoline.

The other by the members of his house, who made a decree forbidding any one henceforth to assume the names of Marcus Manlius. Such was the end of a man who, had he not been born in a free State, would have attained distinction.

When danger was no longer to be feared from him the people, remembering only his virtues, soon began to regret his loss. A pestilence which followed shortly after and inflicted great mortality, for which no cause could be assigned, was thought by a great many people to be due to the execution of Manlius.

They imagined that the Capitol had been polluted by the blood of its deliverer, and that the gods had been displeased at a punishment having been inflicted almost before their eyes on the man by whom their temples had been wrested from an enemy's hands.

The[*](Wars with the Volscians and Latins.) pestilence was followed by scarcity, and the widespread rumour of these two troubles was followed the next year by a number of wars. The consular tribunes were: L. Valerius (for the fourth time), A Manlius, Ser.

Sulpicius, L. Lucretius, and L. Aemilius (all for the third time), and M. Trebonius. In addition to the Volscians, who seemed destined by some fate to keep the Roman soldiery in perpetual training; in addition to the colonies of Circeii and Velitrae, who had long been meditating revolt; in addition to Latium, which was an object of suspicion, a new enemy suddenly appeared at Lanuvium, which had hitherto been a most loyal city.

The senate thought this was due to a feeling of contempt because the revolt of their countrymen at Velitrae had remained so long unpunished. They accordingly passed a decree that the people should be asked as soon as possible to consent to a declaration of war against them.

To make the plebs more ready to enter on this campaign, five commissioners were appointed to distribute the Pomptine territory and three to settle a colony at Nepete.

Then the proposal was submitted to the people, and in spite of the protests of the tribunes the tribes unanimously declared for war.

Preparations for war continued throughout the year, but, owing to the pestilence, the army was not led out. This delay allowed the colonists time for propitiating the senate, and there was a considerable party amongst them in favour of sending a deputation to Rome to ask for pardon.