Ab urbe condita

He chose the latter, and preferred to incur the odium of his opponents and injure his own cause than prove false to the cause of the State. He insisted that “there should be no grants of land, which would only increase the influence of the three tribunes; what they wanted now was not land for the plebs, but to wreak their spite upon him.

He, like others, would meet the storm with a stout heart; neither he nor any other citizen ought to stand so high with the senate that any leniency shown to an individual might be disastrous to the commonwealth.”

When the day of trial came there was no lowering of his tone, he undertook his own defence, and though the patricians tried every means to soften the plebeians, he was condemned to pay a fine of 15,000 “ ases.” In this same year Postumia, a Vestal virgin, had to answer a charge of unchastity.

Though innocent, she had given grounds for suspicion through her gay attire and unmaidenly freedom of manner. After she had been remanded and finally acquitted, the Pontifex Maximus, in the name of the whole college of priests, ordered her to abstain from

frivolity and to study sanctity rather than smartness in her appearance. In the same year, Cumae, at that time held by the Greeks, was captured by the Campanians.