tate until the
state kept its faith. All the good of their fighting came to the
Patricians, they said, and these might now defend themselves and their
wealth.

The senate was thrown into a panic by this decided action. When the
hostile cities without should learn of it, they might send armies in
haste to undefended Rome. The people left in the city feared the
Patricians, and the Patricians feared them. All was doubt and anxiety.
At length the senate, driven to desperation, sent an embassy to the
rebels to treat for peace, being in deadly fear that some enemy might
assail and capture the city in the absence of the bulk of its
inhabitants.

The messenger sent, Menenius Agrippa Lanatus, was a man famed for
eloquence, and a popular favorite. In his address to the people in their
camp he repeated to them the following significant fable:

"At a time when all the parts of the body did not agree together, as
they do now, but each had its own method and language, the other parts
rebelled against the belly. They said that it lay quietly enjoying
itself in the centre, while they, by care, labor, and service, kept it
in luxury. They therefore conspired that the hands should not convey
food to the mouth, the mouth receive it, nor the teeth chew it. They
thus hoped to subdue the belly by famine; but they found that they and
all the other parts of the body suffered as much. Then they saw that the
belly by no means rested in sloth; that it supplied instead of receiving
nourishment, sending to all parts of the body the blood that gave life
and strength to the whole system."

It was the same, he said, with the body of the state. All must work in
unity, if all would prosper. This homely argument hit the popular fancy.
The people consented to treat for their return if their liberties could
be properly secured. But they must now have deeds instead of words. It
was not political power they sought, but protection, and protection they
would have.

Their demands were as follows: All debts should be cancelled, and all
debtors held by their creditors should be released. And hereafter the
Plebeians should have as their protectors two officials, who should have
power to veto all oppressive laws, while their persons should be held as
sacred and inviolable as those of the messengers of the gods. These
officials were to be called Tribunes, and to be the chief officers of
the commons as the consuls were of the nobles.

This proposition was acce