History of Rome

​The consuls Gaius Claudius, son of Appius, and Publius Valerius Publicola took over a more peaceful state. The new year had brought nothing new; the concern of proposing or accepting the law kept the state occupied.

​The more the younger patricians insinuated themselves into the favor of the plebeians, the more fiercely the tribunes strove against them, in order to make them suspected by the plebeians through accusations: that a conspiracy had been formed;

​that Caeso was in Rome; that plans had been entered into for murdering the tribunes and massacring the plebeians; that this task had been assigned by the older patricians, so that the youth might abolish the tribunician power from the commonwealth and that the state might be in the same form as it had been before the Sacred Mount was occupied. And from the Volscians ​and the Aequians a constant and now almost customary war every year was feared, and another new evil arose unexpectedly closer at hand.

​Exiles and slaves, about two thousand five hundred men, under the leadership of Appius Herdonius the Sabine, occupied the Capitol and the citadel by night.

​Immediately in the citadel a slaughter was made of those who had been unwilling to join the conspiracy and take up arms at the same time; others, in the midst of the tumult, rushed headlong in panic down into the forum; alternate cries of “To arms!” and “The enemy is in the city!” were heard.

​The consuls were afraid both to arm the plebeians and to leave them unarmed, being uncertain what sudden evil, whether foreign or domestic, from the hatred of the plebs or from slave treachery, had invaded the city . They tried to quiet the tumult, but by trying to quiet it they sometimes stirred it up; for the terrified and dismayed multitude could not be ruled by authority.

​Yet they gave out arms, not to the general public, but only so far that, with the enemy being uncertain, there might be a sufficiently reliable guard for all emergencies. Anxious and uncertain for the rest of the night as to who the men were and how great the number of the enemy was, they spent the time in posting guards at all suitable places in the city. Then daylight revealed the war and the leader of the war.

​From the Capitol Appius Herdonius was calling the slaves to liberty, declaring that he had undertaken the cause of all the most wretched, so that he might bring back to their country the exiles who had been unjustly expelled, and remove the heavy yoke from the slaves. He preferred that this be done with the authorization of the Roman people; if there should be no hope there, he would try and stir up the Volscians, the Aequians, and all extreme measures.