the following year (629) as consul with the proposal to
facilitate the acquisition of burgess-rights by the burgesses of the
allied communities, and to concede even to those who had not acquired
them an appeal to the Roman comitia against penal judgments. But he
stood almost alone--Carbo had meanwhile changed his colours and was
now a zealous aristocrat, Gaius Gracchus was absent as quaestor in
Sardinia--and the project was frustrated by the resistance not of the
senate merely, but also of the burgesses, who were but little inclined
to extend their privileges to still wider circles. Flaccus left Rome
to undertake the supreme command against the Celts; by his Transalpine
conquests he prepared the way for the great schemes of the democracy,
while he at the same time withdrew out of the difficulty of having to
bear arms against the allies instigated by himself.

Destruction of Fregallae

Fregellae, situated on the borders of Latium and Campania at the
principal passage of the Liris in the midst of a large and fertile
territory, at that time perhaps the second city of Italy and in the
discussions with Rome the usual mouthpiece of all the Latin colonies,
began war against Rome in consequence of the rejection of the proposal
brought in by Flaccus--the first instance which had occurred for a
hundred and fifty years of a serious insurrection, not brought about
by foreign powers, in Italy against the Roman hegemony. But on this
occasion the fire was successfully extinguished before it had caught
hold of other allied communities. Not through the superiority of
the Roman arms, but through the treachery of a Fregellan Quintus
Numitorius Pullus, the praetor Lucius Opimius quickly became master
of the revolted city, which lost its civic privileges and its walls
and was converted like Capua into a village. The colony of Fabrateria
was founded on a part of its territory in 630; the remainder and
the former city itself were distributed among the surrounding
communities. This rapid and fearful punishment alarmed the
allies, and endless impeachments for high treason pursued not only
the Fregellans, but also the leaders of the popular party in Rome,
who naturally were regarded by the aristocracy as accomplices in
this insurrection. Meanwhile Gaius Gracchus reappeared in Rome.
The aristocracy had first sought to detain the object of their dread
in Sardinia by omitting to provide the usual relief, and then, when
without caring for