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The people were enriched by the plunder and the sale of the prisoners for slaves. Poplicola enjoyed a triumph, and previously delivering over the administration of the city to the two succeeding consuls, died shortly afterwards, having attained to the highest pitch of glory that man can reach.
II. Thus has Solon done honour to Poplicola; and he again honoured Solon by regarding him as the best model a man could follow in establishing a free constitution: for he took away the excessive power and dignity of the consuls and made them inoffensive to the people, and indeed made use of many of Solon's own laws; as he empowered the people to elect their own consuls, and gave defendants a right of appeal to the people from other courts, just as Solon had done.
In domestic politics, also, Solon, in play, as it were, and by counterfeiting madness, induced the enterprise against Salamis; whereas Poplicola, in the very beginning, exposed himself to the greatest risk, took arms against Tarquin, detected the conspiracy, and, being principally concerned both in preventing the escape of and afterwards punishing the traitors, not only expelled the tyrants from the city, but extirpated their very hopes.
Poplicola heard of this plan the same day from deserters, and quickly made all necessary arrangements. At evening he sent Postumius Balbus, his son-in-law, with three thousand men to occupy the tops of the hills under which the Sabine ambush was placed.
They in their turn influenced many others, so that he was able to transplant to Rome five thousand of the most peaceful and respectable families of the Sabine nation. Poplicola, who had notice of their arrival, welcomed them kindly and graciously. He made them all citizens of Rome, and gave each of them two acres of land along the river Anio.
In 1767 Woodfall, the publisher, received the first letter from the correspondent who was to become so famous, and from time to time other letters came signed by various names taken from classical nomenclature, such as Mnemon, Atticus, Lucius, Brutus, Domitian, Vindex, and, perhaps, Poplicola. But it was with the adoption of the name of Junius that the real importance of the letters began.
And now that it was completed with all its ornaments, Poplicola was ambitious to dedicate it; but the nobility envied him that honor, as, indeed, also, in some degree, those his prudence in making laws and conduct in wars entitled him to.
They chose as colleague to the consul in his place Publius Valerius, who had the additional title of Poplicola. This appellation translated into Greek signifies "friend of the people" or "most democratic." Cp.
Observe, for instance, Solon's definition of happiness before Croesus, how much better it suits Poplicola than Tellus. He says that Tellus was fortunate because of his good luck, his virtue, and his noble children; but yet he makes no mention of him or of his children in his poetry, and he never was a man of any renown, or held any high office.
But Porsenna laying close siege to the city, and a famine raging amongst the Romans, also a new army of the Tuscans making incursions into the country, Poplicola, a third time chosen consul, designed to make, without sallying out, his defense against Porsenna, but, privately stealing forth against the new army of the Tuscans, put them to flight, and slew five thousand.
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