deavored to
relieve the commonalty by an agrarian law, so as to better their
condition permanently.

The execution of the Agrarian law was constantly evaded. But on the
conquest of Antium from the Volscians, in the year B.C. 468, a colony
was sent thither, and this was one of the first examples of a
distribution of public land to poorer citizens; which answered two
purposes--the improvement of their condition, and the defence of the
place against the enemy.

Nor did the tribunes, now made altogether independent of the patricians,
fail to assert their power. One of the first persons who felt the force
of their arm was the second Appius Claudius. This Sabine noble,
following his father's example, had, after the departure of the Fabii,
led the opposition to the Publilian law. When he took the field against
the Volscians, his soldiers would not fight, and the stern commander put
to death every tenth man in his legions. For the acts of his consulship
he was brought to trial by the tribunes M. Duillius and C. Sicinius.
Seeing that conviction was certain, the proud patrician avoided
humiliation by suicide.

Nevertheless the border wars still continued, and the plebeians suffered
much. To the evils of debt and want were added about this time the
horrors of pestilential disease, which visited the Roman territory
several times at that period. In one year (B.C. 464) the two consuls,
two of the four augurs, and the curio Maximus, who was the head of all
the patricians, were swept off--a fact which implies the death of a vast
number of less distinguished persons. The government was administered by
the plebeian aediles, under the control of senatorial interreges. The
Volscians and Aequians ravaged the country up to the walls of Rome; and
the safety of the city must be attributed to the Latins and Hernici, not
to the men of Rome.

Meantime the tribunes had in vain demanded a full execution of the
Agrarian law. But in the year B.C. 462, one of the Sacred College, by
name C. Terentilius Harsa, came forward with a bill, the object of which
was to give the plebeians a surer footing in the state. This man
perceived that as long as the consuls retained their almost despotic
power, and were elected by the influence of the patricians, this order
had it in its power to thwart all measures, even after they were passed,
which tended to advance the interests of the plebeians. He therefore no
longer demanded the execution of the Agrarian law,