and auspicious to the Roman people, to myself, and to you, O Albans,
to transplant all the inhabitants of Alba to Rome, to grant your
commons the rights of citizenship, to admit your nobles into the body
of senators, to make one city, one state: as the Alban state after
being one people was formerly divided into two, so let it now again
become one." On hearing this the Alban youth, unarmed, surrounded by
armed men, although divided in their sentiments, yet under pressure of
the general apprehension maintained silence. Then Tullus proceeded:
"If, Mettius Fufetius, you were capable of learning fidelity, and how
to observe treaties, I would have suffered you to live and have given
you such a lesson. But as it is, since your disposition is incurable,
do you at any rate by your punishment teach mankind to consider those
obligations sacred, which have been violated by you? As therefore a
little while since you kept your mind divided between the interests of
Fidenae and of Rome, so shall you now surrender your body to be torn
asunder in different directions." Upon this, two chariots drawn by
four horses being brought up, he bound Mettius stretched at full
length to their carriages: then the horses were driven in different
directions, carrying off his mangled body on each carriage, where the
limbs had remained hanging to the cords. All turned away their eyes
from so shocking a spectacle. That was the first and last instance
among the Romans of a punishment which established a precedent that
showed but little regard for the laws of humanity. In other cases
we may boast that no other nation has approved of milder forms of
punishment.[28]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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