he would oppose the
levies until the persons who unjustly held the public domains consented to
a division. A war broke out and agrarian legislation was drowned amid the
din of arms. Some years now elapsed without the mention of any agrarian
laws. The siege of Veii commenced in 406 and lasted for six years, during
which time military law was established, giving occupation and some sort
of satisfaction to the plebeians. In 397, an agrarian movement was set on
foot, but the plebeians were partially satisfied by being allowed to elect
one of their number as _tribunus consularis_ for the following year, thus
obtaining a little honor but no land. After the conquest of Veii, there was
a movement on the part of the plebeians to remove from Rome and settle upon
the confiscated territory of the Veians; this was only staid by concessions
on the part of the patricians. A decree of the senate was passed,--"that
seven jugera, a man, of Vientian territory, should be distributed to the
commons and not only to the fathers of families, but also that all persons
in their house in the state of freedom should be considered, and that they
might be willing to rear up children[30] with that prospect." In 384, six
years after the conquest of Rome by the Gauls, the tribunes of the year
proposed a law for the division of the Pomptine territory (_Pomptinus
Ager_) among the plebeians. The time was not a favorable one for the
agitation of the people, as they were busy with the reconstruction of their
houses laid waste by the Gauls, and the movement came to nothing. The
tribune, Lucius Licinius, in 383, revived this movement but it was not
successfully carried till the year 379, when the senate, well disposed
towards the commons by reason of the conquest of the Volscians, decreed the
nomination of five commissioners to divide the Pomptine territory[31] among
the plebs. This was a new victory for the people and must have inspired
them with the hope of one day obtaining in full their rights in the public
domains.

We have now passed in review the agrarian laws proposed and, in some cases,
enacted between the years 485 and 376, _i.e._ between the _lex Cassia_ and
the _lex Licinia_, which the greater part of the historians have neglected.
We have now come to the propositions of that illustrious plebeian whose
laws, whose character, and whose object have been so diversely appreciated
by all those persons who have studied in any way the constitutional histor