town. Marcius happened to be on guard, and with a picked body of men not only repelled the sortie but made a bold dash through the open gate, and after cutting down many in the part of the city nearest to him, seized some fire and hurled it on the buildings which abutted on the

walls. The shouts of the towns-men mingled with the shrieks of the terrified women and children encouraged the Romans and dismayed the Volscians, who thought that the city which they had come to assist was already captured. So the troops from Antium were routed and Corioli

taken. The renown which Marcius won so completely eclipsed that of the consul, that, had not the treaty with the Latins —which owing to his colleague's absence had been concluded by Sp. Cassius alone — been inscribed on a brazen column, and so permanently recorded, all memory of Postumius Cominius having carried on a war with the Volscians would have perished.

In the same year Agrippa Menenius died, a man who all through his life was equally beloved by the patricians and the plebeians, and made himself still more endeared to the plebeians after their

secession. Yet he, the negotiator and arbitrator of the reconciliation, who acted as the ambassador of the patricians to the plebs, and brought them back to the City, did not possess money enough to defray the cost of his funeral. He was interred by the plebeians, each man contributing a sextans sextans=1/6 of an as. A copper coin about the size of a farthing. towards the expense.

The new consuls were T. Geganius and P. Minucius. In this year, whilst all abroad was undisturbed by war and the civic dissensions at home were healed, the commonwealth was attacked by another much more serious evil:

first, dearness of food, owing to the fields remaining uncultivated during the secession, and following on this a famine such as visits a besieged city.

It would have led to the perishing of the slaves in any case, and probably the plebeians would have died, had not the consuls provided for the emergency by sending men in various directions to buy corn. They penetrated not only along the coast to the right of Ostia into Etruria, but also along the sea to the left past the Volscian country as far as Cumae. Their search extended even as far as Sicily; to such an extent did the hostility of their neighbours compel them to seek distant help.

When corn had been bought at Cumae, the ships were detained by the tyrant Aristodemus, in lieu of the property of Tarquin, to whom he was heir. Amongst the Volscians and in the Pomptine district it was even impossible to purchase corn, the corn merchants were in danger of being attacked by the population. Some corn came from Etruria up the Tiber; this served for the support of the plebeians.

They would have been harassed by a war, doubly unwelcome when provisions were so scarce, if the Volscians, who were already on the march, had not been attacked by a frightful pestilence.

This disaster cowed the enemy so effectually that even when it had abated its violence they remained to some extent in a state of terror; the Romans increased the number of colonists at Velitrae and sent a new colony to Norba, up in the mountains, to serve as a strong-hold in the Pomptine district.

DuringThe Story of Coriolanus. the consulship of M. Minucius and A. Sempronius, a large quantity of corn was brought from Sicily, and the question was discussed in the senate at what price it should be given to the plebs. Many were of opinion that the moment had come for putting pressure on the plebeians, and recovering the rights which had been wrested from the senate through the secession and the violence which accompanied it.

Foremost among these was Marcius Coriolanus, a determined foe to the tribunitian power. “If,” he argued, “they want their corn at the old price, let them restore to the senate its old powers.