ply of corn was sent by a Sicilian
prince, but the proud patrician proposed to the Senate to withhold it from
the plebeians until they surrendered their privileges. The rage of the
plebeians was intense, and he was impeached by the tribunes, and condemned
by the popular assembly to exile. He went over, in indignation, to the
Volscians, became their general, defeated the Romans, and marched against
their city. In this emergency, the city was saved by the intercession of
his mother, Volumnia, who went to seek him in his camp, accompanied by
other Roman matrons.

(M800) A greater man than he, was Spurius Cassius, who rendered public
services of the greatest magnitude, yet a man whose illustrious deeds no
poet sang. He lived in a great crisis, when the Etruscan war had destroyed
the Roman dominions on the right bank of the Tiber, and where the
Volscians and Acquians were advancing with superior forces. Rome was in
danger of being conquered, and not only conquered, but reduced to
servitude. But he concluded a league with the Latins, and also with the
Hernicians--a Sabine people, who dwelt in one of the valleys of the
Appenines, by which the power of Rome was threatened. He is also known as
the first who proposed an agrarian law. It seems that the patricians had
occupied the public lands to the exclusion of the plebeians. Spurius
Cassius proposed to the Comitia Centuriata that the public domain--land
obtained by conquest--should be measured, and a part reserved for the use
of the State, and another portion distributed among the needy citizens--a
just proposition, since no property held by individuals was meddled with.
This popular measure was carried against violent opposition, but when the
term of office of Cassius as consul expired, he was accused before the
curiae, who assumed the right to judge a patrician, and he lost his life.
He was accused of seeking to usurp regal power, because he had sought to
protect the commons against his own order. "His law was buried with him,
but its spectre haunted the rich, and again and again it arose from its
tomb, till the conflicts to which it led destroyed the commonwealth."

(M801) The following seven years was a period of incessant war with the
Acquians and Veientines, as well as dissensions in the city, during which
the great house of the Fabii arose to power, for Fabius was chosen consul
seven successive years, and even proposed the execution of the agrarian
law of Cassius, for whi