“How long,” it was asked, “would the multitude who had seceded remain quiet?
What would happen if a foreign war broke out in the meantime?” They felt that all their hopes rested on concord amongst the citizens, and that this must be restored at any cost.
The senate decided, therefore, to send as their spokesman Menenius Agrippa, an eloquent man, and acceptable to the plebs as being himself of plebeian origin. He was admitted into the camp, and it is reported that he simply told them the following fable in primitive and uncouth fashion.
“In the days when all the parts of the human body were not as now agreeing together, but each member took its own course and spoke its own speech, the other members, indignant at seeing that everything acquired by their care and labour and ministry went to the belly, whilst it, undisturbed in the middle of them, did nothing but enjoy the pleasures provided for it, entered into a conspiracy; the hands were not to bring food to the mouth, the mouth was not to accept it when offered, the teeth were not to masticate it.
Whilst, in their resentment, they were anxious to coerce the belly by starving it, the members themselves wasted away, and the whole body was reduced to the last stage of exhaustion.
Then it became evident that the belly rendered no idle service, and the nourishment it received was no greater than that which it bestowed by returning to all parts of the body this blood by which we live and are strong, equally distributed into the veins, after being matured by the digestion of the food.”
By using this comparison, and showing how the internal disaffection amongst the parts of the body resembled the animosity of the plebeians against the patricians, he succeeded in winning over his audience.
Negotiations were then entered upon for a reconciliation. An agreement was arrived at, the terms being that the plebs should have its own magistrates, whose persons were to be inviolable, and who should have the right of affording protection against the consuls.
And further, no patrician should be allowed to hold that office. Two “tribunes of the plebs” were elected, C. Licinius and L. Albinus. These chose three colleagues. It is generally agreed that Sicinius, the instigator of the secession was amongst them, but who the other two were is not settled.
Some say that only two tribunes were created on the Sacred Hill and that
it was there that the
consulship. In their year of office a treaty was concluded with the
Latin towns and one of the consuls remained in
of. Then he advanced to Polusca, also belonging to the Volscians, which he captured, after which he attacked Corioli in great force. Amongst the most distinguished of the young soldiers in their camp at that time was Cnaeus Marcius, a young man prompt in counsel and action, who afterwards received the epithet of
Coriolanus. During the progress of the siege, while the Roman army was
devoting its whole attention to the townspeople whom it had shut up
within their walls, and not in the least apprehending any danger from
hostile movements without, it was suddenly attacked by Volscian legions
who had marched from