Justice is Served: Livy on the Moral Life

History has shown that honor is to those who value more highly the welfare of their homeland and brethren than their own well being. Homer recounts the glory of Telamonian Ajax, steadfast behind his massive shield as he held off the Trojan onslaught. Plutarch and others declare the wondrous deeds of Alexander the Great, a leader who fought boldly in the ranks of his men. Herodotus tells of Otanes, revealer of the plot of the Magi, who, deeming democracy the form of government most conducive to liberty, refused to be considered among the candidates for the next king of Persia. In his work, The History of Rome, Livy further demonstrates this paradigm. Furthermore, he juxtaposes it with its opposite: that people who regard personal benefit more highly than the needs of their state are met not only with the contempt of their fellow man, but also with the curses of life’s naturally ordained order. Livy contrasts men’s seeking private gain with their seeking civil good in order to convey by the clarion call of history itself that man’s purpose in life is achieved when he chooses just action over personal gain.

Livy’s portrayal of Horatius Cocles is a perfect example of an individual’s eschewing personal gain–risking even his own life–for the good of his state. Driven on by the pleading Tarquins, Lars Porsenna, king of Clusium, decided to attack Rome. The recently exiled Tarquins claimed that if Rome’s present political aims were realized, they would spell the end of monarchy, which the Tarquins called “the finest institution known to gods and men” (Livy The History of Rome 2.10). Being in a position of power and deeming it a fine thing that Rome should have not only a king, but an Etruscan king, Porsenna agreed to attack Rome. This decision became a birthing ground of both a great threat to Rome and the heroic actions of Romans. The same ground of war proved fertile to the seeds of uprising and to the courageous, lone weeds of heroism that would crush the uprising before it could bare its intended fruit.

Horatius Cocles stood in bold defiance of the enemy, “while a mob of his fellow citizens abandoned their arms and their ranks” (Livy The History of Rome 2.10). In fact, Livy reports that Porsenna’s army would have gained entrance into the city were it not for Horatius, “whom the city of Rome was fortunate to have as its bulwark that day” (Livy The History of Rome 2.10). Bidding his countrymen to destroy by any means necessary the bridge over the Tiber river from the Palatine and Capitoline of the Romans to the Janiculum of the Etruscans, Horatius took up arms against the whole of Porsenna’s force. Shame alone led two others to fight with him, and even those he bid to save themselves once the bridge began to fall. In Livy’s account of the story, Horatius jumps in the water in full armor amid a shower of the enemy’s weapons yet walks out of the river unscathed. Polybius, however, reports that he dies, saying that he “regard[ed] the safety of his country and the glory which in future years would attach to his name as of more importance than his present existence and the years of life which remained to him” (Polybius On the Roman Constitution ii.55). Thus, it may be said that, based on Polybius’ account, Horatius honors the famous Horace line: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Perhaps for Livy’s account it would be more fitting to say dulce et decorum est patriae servire. Whether or not Horatius died in his act of heroism, his story teaches that to place one’s state and fellow man before one’s self is to attain to honor and glory.

Representing one who acts for quite the opposite motivation is Tarpeia, daughter of Tatius. According to Livy’s account, Tarpeia accepts bribes of gold from the army of the neighboring Sabines in return for granting their access to the city. Not only is her heinous act met with her own death–thereby rendering useless her recent monetary gain–but it also causes the death of Roman general Hostius Hostilius and the flight of Rome’s own king, Romulus, from the weapons of the enemy (Livy The History of Rome i.11–12).

Had Tarpeia tactfully stalled the Sabines and made some excuse to return unharmed to her city, she could have given warning to her king of the impending invasion. She would have thus proven herself a champion of Rome’s prosperity rather than her downfall. Furthermore, she would likely have been given more spoils from the king for this just action than the Sabines offered her for her injustice–not to mention the reward of keeping her life–and she would forever have retained the glorious title of “savior of the Roman people.” This hypothetical course of action would not at all have been improbable as Tarpeia’s purpose for being outside of the Roman walls was that she might gather water for a sacrifice. Accordingly, she could have told the soldiers that she had first to return in order to honor the gods lest they be angered and bring their wrath on those who had delayed the sacrifice, namely, the Etruscan soldiers who had diverted Tarpeia’s attention from sacrificial rites. Even were this tactic not to have worked and the soldiers had killed Tarpeia for refusing to grant their access into Rome, surely a happier death would have befallen her than that which she experienced. Grasping dishonorably for gain she lost her life, but had her life been willfully lost, she would have gained honor.

The stark contrast of Horatius’ and Tarpeia’s stories demonstrate that virtue gains through strength of character all that injustice fails to win through deceit. Horatius sacrificed his own life to save many lives; Tatius gratified her desires and caused others–and herself–to die. Those who aim with deceit and selfishness at personal gain will lose, through life’s vicissitudes, the things that their ambitions briefly granted; however, those who sacrifice personal reward for the good of their state will win, by virtue of the glory endowed to them and to their cause, greater honor than their sacrificed benefits could have granted. Therefore, Livy’s use of these two stories shows that one who eschews personal benefit for the sake of civic good walks in step with the course of virtue established by reason and that one who esteems selfish ends above those of aid to his state and fellow man will fall victim to the distress of an unfulfilled life.

Photo Credit: The Abduction of the Sabines, by Girolamo del Pacchia