Livy
a.u.c. 425Plautium dirutis Priverni muris praesidioque valido imposito ad triumphum accersit: Vitruvium in carcere1 adservari iussit, quoad consul redisset, tum 8verberatum necari. Aedes eius, quae essent in Palatio, diruendas, bona Semoni Sango censuerunt consecranda; quodque aeris ex eis redactum est, ex eo aenei orbes facti positi in sacello Sangus adversus 9aedem Quirini. De senatu Privernate ita decretum, ut qui senator Priverni post defectionem ab Romanis mansisset trans Tiberim lege eadem qua Veliterni 10habitaret. His ita decretis usque ad triumphum Plauti silentium de Privernatibus fuit; post triumphum consul necato Vitruvio sociisque eius noxae apud satiatos iam suppliciis nocentium tutam 11mentionem de Privernatibus ratus, “Quoniam auctores defectionis” inquit, “meritas poenas et ab dis immortalibus et a vobis habent, patres conscripti, 12quid placet de innoxia multitudine fieri? Equidem, etsi meae partes exquirendae magis sententiae quam dandae sunt, tamen, cum videam Privernates vicinos Samnitibus esse, unde nunc nobis incertissima pax est, quam minimum irarum inter nos illosque relinqui velim.”
XXI. Cum ipsa per se res anceps esset, prout cuiusque ingenium erat atrocius mitiusve suadentibus,
Book VIII
consul Plautius to raze the walls of Privernum, and b.c. 329placing a strong garrison in the town, to come to Rome and triumph. Vitruvius was to be held a prisoner till the consul should return, and then scourged and put to death; his house on the Palatine was to be pulled down, and his goods dedicated to Semo Sangus.1 Out of the bronze which his chattels realized were fashioned bronze disks, which were placed in the shrine of Sangus, over against the temple of Quirinus. Concerning the senate of Privernum, it was decreed that any senator who had remained in Privernum after its defection from the Romans should dwell across the Tiber on the same terms as the Veliterni.2 These decrees having been promulgated, no more was said about the Privernates, until Plautius had triumphed. After his triumph the consul caused Vitruvius and his associates in wrongdoing to be executed, and deeming it now safe to take up the question of the Privernates with men who were already sated with the punishment of the guilty, spoke as follows: “Since the authors of rebellion have now received the reward they merited, at the hands of the immortal gods, and at your own hands, Conscript Fathers, what is your pleasure regarding the innocent multitude? For my own part, though it becomes me rather to ask opinions than to offer one, yet when I see that the Privernates are neighbours to the Samnites, whose peaceful relations with ourselves are at this time most precarious, I could wish that as little bad feeling as possible might be left between them and us.”
XXI. The question was of itself a hard one to decide, and every senator argued, as his own nature