CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ON HOW THE ROMANS MADE USE OF RELIGION TO REFORM THEIR STATE, CONDUCT THEIR CAMPAIGNS, AND PUT A STOP TO TURMOIL

I do not think it inappropriate for me to cite several instances of how the Romans used religion to reform their state and conduct their campaigns. Livy provides many examples, but I believe that the few I shall mention here will suffice. The Roman populace had created tribunes with consular powers who, with one exception, were all plebeians.⁶³ There had been a plague and a famine that year, and miracles had occurred which the nobles seized on in electing new tribunes. They claimed that the gods were angry because Rome had misused the dignity of its government, and that the only way to please them was to restore the election of tribunes to the way it had been done before. The plebeians were awestruck when religion was made an issue, and they elected tribunes who were all nobles.⁶⁴ The conquest of the city of Veii shows how the Roman generals used religion to induce their soldiers to continue the campaign. The soldiers were weary of the long siege and wanted to return to Rome. But Lake Albanus had miraculously risen that year, and the Romans discovered that Apollo and certain haruspices had said that Veii would be defeated the year that Lake Albanus rose and overflowed its shores. This made the soldiers willing to endure the hardship of the siege, since they now had hope of conquering the city, and they agreed to continue the campaign. Camillus was then made dictator of Rome, and Veii was captured after it had been under siege for ten years.⁶⁵ So religion, used well, aided in the taking of the city and the restitution of the tribunes to the nobility. Without religion, neither the one nor the other would have been possible.

I would like to offer another example. Much turmoil erupted in Rome when the tribune Terentillus proposed a certain law for reasons I will discuss later.⁶⁶ Religion was among the first means the nobility used to counter him. They did this in two ways. First they had the Sibylline Books consulted,⁶⁷ and had them respond that Rome, because of sedition, was in danger of losing its liberty that year. Though the tribunes exposed this ruse, it still put so much fear in the hearts of the plebeians that they were no longer as eager as they had been to follow the tribunes. The second way the nobility used religion was when a certain Appius Herdonius occupied the Capitol one night with a crowd of exiles and slaves numbering four thousand men. This created such turmoil in Rome that there was concern that if the Aequi and the Volsci, age-old enemies of Rome, were to attack the city, they would conquer it with ease.⁶⁸ Despite this, the tribunes maintained that the possibility of an attack was a mere fabrication and so did not cease demanding that Terentillus’s law be enacted. Consul Publius Valerius, a solemn and authoritative man, came out of the Senate, and in words that were at times amicable, at times menacing, laid out for the plebeians the untimeliness of their demands and the dangers that these demands brought upon the city. He compelled them to swear that they would stand by their consul, upon which the obedient plebeians retook the Capitol by force. But as Publius Valerius was killed during the attack, Titus Quinctius was immediately made consul again.⁶⁹ He did not want the plebeians to have time to catch their breath or turn their minds to Terentillus’s law, so he commanded them to march from Rome on a campaign against the Volsci, declaring that the plebeians, by the oath they had sworn to stand by the consul, were now obliged to obey him. The tribunes opposed this, arguing that the oath they had sworn had been to the dead consul and not to him, but Livy shows how the plebeians, through fear of religion, preferred to obey the consul rather than follow the tribunes, and writes the following words in favor of the ancient religion: “The negligence toward the gods that prevails in our time did not yet exist, nor did people put an interpretation on oaths and laws that suited their own practice.”⁷⁰ The tribunes feared they would lose power, and so formed an allegiance with Consul Titus Quinctius, agreeing that they would obey him and not bring up the Terentillus’s law for a year, while both consuls agreed that they would not send the plebeians to war for a year. This was how religion helped the Senate overcome difficulties it could never have overcome on its own.

63. Livy (Book IV, chapter 13) describes the growing tension between the plebeians and the patricians as the plebeians tried to expand their political power. A tribune was an official appointed to protect the rights of the plebians. The institution of the tribunes had existed since the fifth century BCE, and became increasingly powerful in the later years of the republic.

64. Livy (Book V, chapter 14) writes: “[The voters] were impressed not only by the dignity and pomp of the candidates, but by the religious argument. As a result they elected all the consular tribunes from among the patricians.”

65. Livy describes this incident in Book V, chapter 15. See also notes 35 and 60 and chapter 55 on Marcus Furius Camillus.

66. Terentillus, tribune of the plebeians, proposed (c. 460 BCE) the creation of military tribunes with consular power. Livy discusses this incident in Book III, chapter 9.

67. The Sibylline Books contained the prophecies of the Cumaean Sibyl and were kept in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill. They were consulted only when Rome was in a state of emergency.

68. Livy describes this incident in Book III, chapter 15.

69. Livy mentions Lucius Quinctius, not Titus.

70. Machiavelli quotes Livy (Book III, chapter 20) in Latin: Nondum haec quae nunc tenet saeculum neglegentia deum uenerat, nec interpretando sibi quisque ius iurandum et leges aptas faciebat.