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Updated: May 29, 2025
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.
Then there fell a great fear upon the enemy, for these also had heard the saying, which, being in the Latin tongue, was understood of the men of Fidenæ. They, therefore, fearing lest Mettus and the army of Alba should come down from the mountains and shut them off from their town, began to give ground. And when the King had broken their array, he turned the more fiercely on the men of Veii.
The Romans receive Horatius with triumph and congratulation; with so much the greater joy, as success had followed so close on fear. Before they parted from thence, when Mettus, in conformity to the treaty which had been concluded, asked what orders he had to give, Tullus orders him to keep the youth in arms, that he designed to employ them, if a war should break out with the Veientes.
They pitch their camp not above five miles from the city, and surround it with a trench, which, for several ages, was called the Cluilian trench, from the name of the general, till, in process of time, the name, together with the thing itself, were both forgotten. In that camp Cluilius, the Alban king, dies; the Albans create Mettus Fuffetius dictator.
The ordering of King Tullus was that he and his men should do battle with the men of Veii, and Mettus and the Albans with the men of Fidenæ. Now Mettus, as he was not minded to do right, so had no courage to do wrong boldly; and because he dared not to go over to the enemy, led his men away slowly towards the mountains.
On hearing this the Alban youth, unarmed, surrounded by armed men, however divided in their sentiments, yet restrained by the common apprehension, continue silent. Then Tullus proceeded: "If, Mettus Fuffetius, you were capable of learning fidelity, and how to observe treaties, that lesson would have been taught you by me, while still alive.
As for himself and his people, he purposed that they should seem indeed to be friends and allies, but should be ready for treachery when occasion served. Thereupon the men of Fidenæ, being colonists from Rome, and the men of Veii promised that they would make war, and Mettus on his part promised that he would come over to them with his army in the battle.
As for the maiden, they built her tomb of hewn stone in the place where she was slain. Now the men of Alba were wroth to think that the fortunes of the whole people had been thus trusted to the hands of three soldiers; and Mettus, being of an unstable mind, was led away to evil in his desire to do them a pleasure.
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