Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 20, 2025
Having thus said, he commanded Marcus Livius, a pontiff, whom, at his coming out to the field, he had charged not to stir from him, to dictate the form of words in which he was to devote himself, and the legions of the enemy, for the army of the Roman people, the Quirites.
But he, full of firmness and gravity, defended himself in this manner: "Quintus Varius Hispanus alleges that Marcus Scaurus, President of the Senate, excited the allies to arms: Marcus Scaurus, President of the Senate, denies it. There is no witness. Which do you believe, Romans?" "Utri creditis, Quirites?" When he had said these words, he was absolved by the assembly of the people.
The herald brought a pure blade of grass from the citadel; then again he asked the king, "Dost thou, O king, appoint me the royal delegate of the Roman people, the Quirites, and my appurtenances and attendants?" The king replied, "So far as it may be done without detriment to me and to the Roman people, the Quirites, I do so."
At first it was a single tribe or people distributed into distinct gentes or houses; after the Sabine war, a second tribe was added on terms of equality, and the state was dual, composed of two tribes, the Ramnes and the Tities or Quirites, and, afterward, in the time of Tullus Hostilius, were added the Lucertes or Luceres, making the division into three ruling tribes, each divided into one hundred houses or gentes.
The surprise of the Carthaginians was greater still when three hundred of their own people, who had been made prisoners during the Sicilian war, arrived on board an old Punic trireme. Hamilcar, in fact, had secretly sent back to the Quirites the crews of the Latin vessels, taken before the defection of the Tyrian towns; and, to reciprocate the courtesy, Rome was now sending him back her captives.
No one doubted then that Cæsar had given command to burn the city, so as to afford himself a spectacle and sing a song at it. Nero, when he heard that cry from hundreds of thousands, turned to the Augustians with the sad, resigned smile of a man who is suffering from injustice. "See," said he, "how the Quirites value poetry and me." "Scoundrels!" answered Vatinius.
Rome having thus been made a double state, that some benefit at least might be conferred on the Sabines, they were called Quirites from Cures. To serve as a memorial of that battle, they called the place where Curtius, after having emerged from the deep morass, set his horse in shallow water the Lacus Curtius.
They were reminded of the fact whenever they purchased the right of occupation from a previous possessor, for such a title could not pass by mancipation; or whenever they sued for the recovery of an estate from which they had been ejected, for they could not make the plea before the praetor that the land was theirs "according to the right of the Quirites," but could rely only on the equitable assistance of the magistrate tendered through the use of the possessory interdicts; or, more frequently still, whenever they paid their dues to the Publicanus, that disinterested middle-man, who had no object in compromising with the possessors, and could seldom have allowed an acre of land to escape his watchful eye.
Hitherto his addresses had been to the judges Judices; now it is to the people Quirites: "Although, Quirites, no sight has ever been so pleasant to me as that of seeing you gathered in crowds although this spot has always seemed to me the fittest in the world for action and the noblest for speech nevertheless, not my own will, indeed, but the duties of the profession which I have followed from my earliest years have hitherto hindered me from entering upon this the best path to glory which is open to any good man."
Mingled with Quirites were Greeks, shaggy men from the North with blue eyes, Africans, and Asiatics; among citizens were slaves, freedmen, gladiators, merchants, mechanics, servants, and soldiers, a real sea of people, flowing around the island of fire. Various reports moved this sea as wind does a real one. These reports were favorable and unfavorable.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking