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Authors: Anthony Esolen
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storms of winter to visit their homes or see to their affairs” (Livy, 5.2). The people suspected that the protracted war was a plot by their noble rivals to keep their numbers down in the assemblies. But the senator Appius Claudius rose to remind the people that it was for this very reason that pay had been voted for military service, and that it made no sense to break up the camps and entrenchments now, only to have to establish them all over again in the spring. The heart of his speech, though, is an appeal not to money or self-interest or practicality, but to union, despite rivalry and strife:
What [the tribunes] were afraid of then, and what they are seeking to destroy today, is—obviously—concord between the orders—between nobility and commons—as they are convinced that it would contribute more than anything else to the collapse of the tribunate. They are like dishonest tradesmen looking for work—it suits them best if there is always something wrong in the body politic, so that you can call them in to put it right.
Tell me, which side are you tribunes on? Are you defending or attacking the commons? Are you for or against our soldiers in the field? (5.3)
The reader will be able to think of examples in our time, when party politics instructs people to hope that their own nation will be defeated. But the Romans cleared their heads and decided that if you are going to fight a war, you had better win it. They maintained their positions around Veii, and won their most significant victory before the Punic Wars against Carthage.
The early Romans were assisted in their political endeavors by a personal asceticism. At least before they conquered the Greek world in the second and first centuries BC, Roman men and women despised lavish displays of wealth, sumptuous meals, or an unseemly desire to gratify one’s lusts. They considered it effeminate and enervating. Instead, their lives were granted meaning by family duties and patriotism. That latter virtue is hated by the politically correct, even as they pay lip service to it. True patriotism is the enemy of all utopias, the enemy of socialisms that bury the local community and the family, the enemy of a world controlled by technocrats and bureaucrats. It’s the enemy of a “multiculturalism” that reduces culture to cookery and clothing, and replaces deep beliefs and old customs, “prejudices,” with new-and-improved prejudices—against the family, against faith, and for the all-powerful State and its octopus arms called social services.
It’s also the enemy of the opportunism or crass utilitarianism that men fall prey to when they are persuaded that neither our forebears nor our descendants mean anything to us. Here is an anecdote from the struggle against Veii. A schoolmaster in the Veian village of Falerii, hoping to curry favor with the Romans, led his boys out on a walk, as was his daily routine, only this time it was straight into the Roman camp and the headquarters of the consul, Camillus. The teachers gave the boys over and declared that, since they were the sons of the Falerian elders, the town was now in the hands of Rome.
Virgil the Chauvinist
Woman’s a thing forever fitful and forever changing.
Virgil’s Aeneid
Say that now, Virgil, and you’ve lost your job.
But Camillus spat upon the offer, claiming that Rome and Falerii, though political and military enemies, were bound by a common humanity. “We have drawn the sword not against children, who even in the sack of cities are spared,” said he, “but against men, armed like ourselves, who without injury or provocation attacked us at Veii” (Livy, 5.27). So Camillus had the treacherous schoolmaster stripped and bound, and gave the boys sticks to flog him with as they beat him back into town. Seeing this, the people of Falerii, impressed by Roman honor and decency, decided to unite with Rome rather than continue in their alliance
What [the tribunes] were afraid of then, and what they are seeking to destroy today, is—obviously—concord between the orders—between nobility and commons—as they are convinced that it would contribute more than anything else to the collapse of the tribunate. They are like dishonest tradesmen looking for work—it suits them best if there is always something wrong in the body politic, so that you can call them in to put it right.
Tell me, which side are you tribunes on? Are you defending or attacking the commons? Are you for or against our soldiers in the field? (5.3)
The reader will be able to think of examples in our time, when party politics instructs people to hope that their own nation will be defeated. But the Romans cleared their heads and decided that if you are going to fight a war, you had better win it. They maintained their positions around Veii, and won their most significant victory before the Punic Wars against Carthage.
The early Romans were assisted in their political endeavors by a personal asceticism. At least before they conquered the Greek world in the second and first centuries BC, Roman men and women despised lavish displays of wealth, sumptuous meals, or an unseemly desire to gratify one’s lusts. They considered it effeminate and enervating. Instead, their lives were granted meaning by family duties and patriotism. That latter virtue is hated by the politically correct, even as they pay lip service to it. True patriotism is the enemy of all utopias, the enemy of socialisms that bury the local community and the family, the enemy of a world controlled by technocrats and bureaucrats. It’s the enemy of a “multiculturalism” that reduces culture to cookery and clothing, and replaces deep beliefs and old customs, “prejudices,” with new-and-improved prejudices—against the family, against faith, and for the all-powerful State and its octopus arms called social services.
It’s also the enemy of the opportunism or crass utilitarianism that men fall prey to when they are persuaded that neither our forebears nor our descendants mean anything to us. Here is an anecdote from the struggle against Veii. A schoolmaster in the Veian village of Falerii, hoping to curry favor with the Romans, led his boys out on a walk, as was his daily routine, only this time it was straight into the Roman camp and the headquarters of the consul, Camillus. The teachers gave the boys over and declared that, since they were the sons of the Falerian elders, the town was now in the hands of Rome.
Virgil the Chauvinist
Woman’s a thing forever fitful and forever changing.
Virgil’s Aeneid
Say that now, Virgil, and you’ve lost your job.
But Camillus spat upon the offer, claiming that Rome and Falerii, though political and military enemies, were bound by a common humanity. “We have drawn the sword not against children, who even in the sack of cities are spared,” said he, “but against men, armed like ourselves, who without injury or provocation attacked us at Veii” (Livy, 5.27). So Camillus had the treacherous schoolmaster stripped and bound, and gave the boys sticks to flog him with as they beat him back into town. Seeing this, the people of Falerii, impressed by Roman honor and decency, decided to unite with Rome rather than continue in their alliance
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