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Another example is where he speaks of Quintus Curtius, the historian, when he is thinking of Mettus Curtius, the self-sacrificing equestrian. Little inaccuracies of this kind did not concern him much; he was a wholesale dealer in illustrations, and could not trouble himself about a trifling defect in this or that particular article.
Yet I say not that all the men of Alba are guilty of this matter. They followed their captain, even as ye, men of Rome, would have followed me whithersoever I might have led you. Mettus only is guilty. He contrived this departure, even as he brought about this war, and brake the covenant that was between Alba and Rome.
Cranch, Christopher P.: The Dial, 159; poetic prediction, 416, 417. Cromwell, Oliver: saying by a war saint, 252; in poetry, 387. Cudworth, Ralph, epithets, 200. Cupples, George, on Emerson's lectures, 195. Curtius, Quintus for Mettus, 388. Cushing, Caleb: rank, 33; in college, 45. Dana, Richard Henry, his literary place, 33, 223.
When the men of Alba heard these words, all had not the same mind about the matter, but all kept silence, fearing to speak, because being without arms they were compassed on every side with armed men. Then said the King, "Mettus, if indeed thou couldst learn faith and the keeping of treaties, I had suffered thee to live that thou mightest have such teaching from me.
This circumstance drew out Mettus from his camp likewise; he leads his forces as near as he can to the enemy; from thence he commands a herald, despatched by him, to tell Tullus that a conference was expedient before they came to an engagement; and that if he would give him a meeting, he was certain he should adduce matters which concerned the interest of Rome not less than that of Alba.
Mettus congratulates Tullus on his defeat of the enemy; Tullus on his part addresses Mettus with great civility. He orders the Albans to unite their camp with the Romans, which he prayed might prove beneficial to both; and prepares a sacrifice of purification for the next day.
First the men of Fidenæ rebelled, and King Tullus marched against them, bidding Mettus come also with his army, and having crossed the river Anio, pitched his camp where Anio flows into Tiber. And by this time the men of Veii also had come up with their army, and these were on the right wing next to the river, and the men of Fidenæ on the left, next to the mountains.
The centurions in arms stand round Mettus, and the king proceeds with the rest as he had commenced: "It is my intention, and may it prove fortunate, auspicious, and happy to the Roman people, to myself, and to you, O Albans, to transplant all the inhabitants of Alba to Rome: to grant your people the rights of citizenship, and to admit your nobles into the rank of senators: to make one city, one republic; that as the Alban state was formerly divided from one people into two, so it may now return into one."
The Fidenates, a Roman colony, having gained over the Veientes as partisans in the confederacy, are instigated to declare war and take up arms under a compact of desertion on the part of the Albans. When Fidenæ had openly revolted, Tullus, after summoning Mettus and his army from Alba, marches against the enemy. When he crossed the Anio, he pitches his camp at the conflux of the rivers.
Silence being made, looking to the temples of the immortal gods, which command a view of the forum, and towards the Capitol, and extending his hands at one time towards heaven, at another towards the infernal gods, through the gaping aperture of the earth, he devoted himself: then, mounted on a horse accoutred in the most gorgeous style possible, he plunged in full armour into the opening, and offerings and the fruits of the earth were thrown in over him by the multitude of men and women, and the lake was called Curtian not from Curtius Mettus, the ancient soldier of Titus Tatius, but from this circumstance.
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