's entreaty, the Roman state possessed a
citizen as patriotic as Coriolanus was proud, and who did as much good
as the other did evil to his native land. This citizen, Lucius Quinctius
by name, was usually called Cincinnatus, or the "crisp-haired," from the
fact that he let his hair grow long, and curled and crisped it so
carefully as to gain as much fame for his hair as for his wisdom and
valor.

Cincinnatus was the simplest and least ambitious of men. He cared
nothing for wealth, and had no craving for city life, but dwelt on his
small farm beyond the Tiber, which he worked with his own hands,
content, so his crops grew well, to let the lovers of power and wealth
pursue their own devices within the city walls. But he was soon to be
drawn from the plough to the sword.

While Cincinnatus was busy ploughing his land, Rome kept at its old work
of ploughing the nations. War at this time broke out with the AEquians, a
neighboring people; but for this war the AEquians were to blame. They had
plundered the lands of some of the allies of Rome, and when deputies
were sent to complain of this wrong, Gracchus, their chief, received
them with insulting mockery.

He was sitting in his tent, which was pitched in the shade of a great
evergreen oak, when the deputies arrived.

"I am busy with other matters," he answered them; "I cannot hear you;
you had better tell your message to the oak yonder."

"Yes," said one of the deputies, "let this sacred oak hear, and let all
the gods hear also, how treacherously you have broken the peace. They
shall hear it now, and shall soon avenge it; for you have scorned alike
the laws of the gods and of men."

The deputies returned to Rome, and reported how they had been insulted.
The senate at once declared war, and an army was sent towards Algidus,
where the enemy lay. But Gracchus, who was a skilled soldier, cunningly
pretended to be afraid of the Romans, and retreated before them, drawing
them gradually into a narrow valley, on each side of which rose high,
steep, and barren hills.

When he had lured them fairly into this trap, he sent a force to close
up the entrance of the valley. The Romans suddenly found that they had
been entrapped into a _cul-de-sac_, with impassable hills in front and
on each side, and a strong body of AEquians guarding the entrance to the
ravine. There was neither grass for the horses nor food for the men.
Gracchus held not only the entrance, but the hill-tops all r