Ab urbe condita

dedication.[*]( “ duumvir ” —Two men (duumviri) were appointed to supervise the construction of the temple and appoint the priests who were to minister there.) In this year, too, the minds of the plebeians were much exercised by the attractions which the Agrarian Law held out for them, and the tribunes made their office more popular by constantly dwelling on this popular measure. The patricians, believing that there was enough and more than enough madness in the multitude as it was, viewed with horror these bribes and incentives

to recklessness. The consuls led the way in offering a most determined resistance, and the senate won

the day. Nor was the victory only a momentary one, for they elected as consuls for the following year M. Fabius, the brother of Caeso, and L. Valerius, who was an object of special hatred on the part of the plebs through his prosecution of Sp. Cassius. The contest with the tribunes went on through the year; the Law remained a dead letter, and the tribunes, with their fruitless promises, turned out to be idle boasters. The Fabian house gained an immense reputation through the three successive consulships of its members, all of whom had been uniformly successful in their resistance to

the tribunes. The office remained, like a safe investment, for some time in the family.

War now began with Veii, and the Volscians rose again. The people possessed more than sufficient strength for their foreign wars, but they wasted it in domestic strife. The universal anxiety was aggravated by supernatural portents, menacing almost daily City and country alike. The soothsayers, who were consulted by the State and by private persons, declared that the divine wrath was due to nothing else but the profanation of

sacred functions. These alarms resulted in the punishment of Oppia, a Vestal virgin who was convicted of unchastity.

The[*](The Veientine and the Aequo-Volscian Wars.) next consuls were Q. Fabius and C. Julius. During this year the civic dissensions were as lively as ever, and the war assumed a more serious form. The Aequi took up arms, and the Veientines made depredations on Roman territory. Amidst the growing anxiety about these wars Caeso Fabius and Sp. Furius were made consuls.

The Aequi were attacking Ortona, a Latin city; the Veientines, laden with plunder, were now threatening to attack Rome itself. This alarming condition of affairs ought to have restrained, whereas it actually increased, the hostility of the plebs, and they resumed the old method of refusing military service.

This was not spontaneous on their part; Sp. Licinius, one of their tribunes, thinking that it was a good time for forcing the Agrarian Law upon the senate through sheer necessity, had taken upon him the obstruction of the levy.

All the odium, however, aroused by this misuse of the tribunitian power recoiled upon the author, his own colleagues were as much opposed to him as the consuls; through their assistance the consuls completed the enrolment.