# 13. What Use the Romans made of Religion in reorganizing the City, in prosecuting their Enterprises, and in composing Tumults

It does not seem to me foreign to my purpose to adduce some examples of how the Romans used religion in reforming their city, and in prosecuting their wars. In Titus Livy there are many examples of this, but I shall be content with the following. The Roman people, having created tribunes with consular power, all of whom, save one, were plebeians, there occurred in that year pestilences and famine, and certain prodigies took place. Availing themselves of this opportunity in the next appointment of tribunes, the nobles said that the gods were angry with Rome for having abused the majesty of her authority, and that the only way to placate them was to restore the election of tribunes to its proper position. The result was that the plebs, terrified by this appeal to religion, appointed only nobles as tribunes.

One notes also in the siege of the city of Veii how the army leaders used religion in order to keep the troops keyed up for attack. During the year, the Alban lake had risen in an extraordinary way, and the Roman soldiers, tired of the long siege, were desirous of returning to Rome when it was discovered that Apollo and certain other oracles had said that the city of Veii would be taken in the year in which Lake Alba overflowed. This report made the soldiers endure the fatigues of the siege, since they now felt sure that they would capture the town. Contentedly, therefore, they went on with the attack until Camillus was made dictator and took the city after it had been besieged for ten years. Thus religion, when properly used, helped both towards the taking of a city and towards the restoring of the tribunate to the nobility; which it would in both cases have been difficult to carry out save by these means.

I must not omit to add yet another relevant example. There had arisen in Rome a number of tumults occasioned by Terentillus, a tribune, who wanted to propose a certain law, for reasons which will be given later in their proper place. One of the first remedies the nobility used was religion, of which they availed themselves in two ways. First they got someone to look up the Sibylline books, which told them, so they said, that, owing to sedition, the city would be in danger of losing its liberties that very year. Though the tribunes exposed the fraud, it none the less put such fear into the breasts of the plebs that they refrained from following their lead.

Another way in which they used religion was when one Appius Herdonius, with a crowd of exiles and slaves, numbering four thousand men, seized the Capitol by night; which made people afraid lest the Aequi and the Volsci, Rome’s perpetual enemies, should come and capture Rome. In spite of this, the tribunes obstinately persisted in pushing forward the Terentillian law, alleging that the aforesaid attack was a fabrication, and that it was not true. Then from the senate came one Publius Ruberius, a grave man and a citizen of considerable authority, who, in a speech that was half friendly, half threatening, pointed out the dangers to the city and the inopportuneness of their demand to such effect that he got the plebs to swear to abide by the decision of the consul; with the result that the now obedient plebs recovered the Capitol by force. However, in the course of the attack, Publius Valerius, the consul, was killed, and forthwith Titus Quintius was reappointed in his stead, so the latter, giving the plebs no time for rest or to think of the Terentillian law, bade them go forth against the Volsci, alleging that by the oath they had made not to abandon the consul, they were obliged to follow him. The tribunes objected to this on the ground that the oath had been given to the dead consul and not to him. None the less, Titus Livy shows how the plebs, out of reverence for religion, preferred rather to obey the consul than to believe the tribunes; and on behalf of the ancient religion uses these words: ‘Not as yet was there that negligence of the gods which now prevails in the world, nor did the individual put upon oaths and laws his own interpretation.’ This made the tribunes afraid lest they should now lose the whole of their standing, so they agreed to remain obedient to the consul, and not to raise the question of the Terentillian law for a year, and the consuls agreed not to take the plebs off to the war for a year. Religion thus enabled the senate to overcome these difficulties, which, otherwise, they would never have succeeded in doing.