deration shown them in their
misfortunes, and to form ties of hospitality with them. At no
previous period had the Latin nation been on more friendly terms both
politically and personally with the Roman government.

But a war with the Volscians was imminent, and the State was torn with
internal dissensions; the patricians and the plebeians were bitterly
hostile to one another, owing mainly to the desperate condition of the
debtors. They loudly complained that whilst fighting in the field
for liberty and empire they were oppressed and enslaved by their
fellow-citizens at home; their freedom was more secure in war than
in peace, safer amongst the enemy than amongst their own people. The
discontent, which was becoming of itself continually more embittered,
was still further aggravated by the striking sufferings of an
individual. A man advanced in years rushed into the forum with the
tokens of his utter misery upon him. His clothes were covered with
filth, his personal appearance still more pitiable, pale, and
emaciated. In addition, a long beard and hair gave a wild look to his
countenance. Notwithstanding his wretched appearance however, he
was recognised, and people said that he had been a centurion, and,
compassionating him, recounted other distinctions that he had gained
in war: he himself exhibited scars on his breast in front, which bore
witness to honourable battles in several places. When they repeatedly
inquired the reason of his plight, and wretched appearance, a crowd
having now gathered round him almost like a regular assembly, he said,
that, while serving in the Sabine war, because he had not only been
deprived of the produce of his land in consequence of the depredations
of the enemy, but his residence had also been burned down, all his
effects pillaged, his cattle driven off, and a tax imposed on him at a
time when it pressed most hardly upon him, he had got into debt: that
this debt, increased by exorbitant interest, had stripped him first of
his father's and grandfather's farm, then of all his other property;
lastly that, like a wasting sickness, it had reached his person: that
he had been dragged by his creditor, not into servitude, but into a
house of correction and a place of torture. He then showed his back
disfigured with the marks of recent scourging. At this sight and these
words a great uproar arose. The tumult now no longer confined itself
to the forum, but spread everywhere through the entire cit