liation began to be discussed, and a
compromise was effected on certain conditions: that the commons should
have magistrates of their own, whose persons should be inviolable, who
should have the power of rendering assistance against the consuls,
and that no patrician should be permitted to hold that office.
Accordingly, two tribunes of the commons were created, Gaius Licinius
and Lucius Albinus. These created three colleagues for themselves.
It is clear that among these was Sicinius, the ring-leader of the
sedition; with respect to the other two, there is less agreement who
they were. There are some who say that only two tribunes were elected
on the Sacred Mount and that there the lex sacrata [37] was passed.

During the secession of the commons, Spurius Cassius and Postumus
Cominius entered on the consulship. During their consulate, a treaty
was concluded with the Latin states. To ratify this, one of the
consuls remained at Rome: the other, who was sent to take command
in the Volscian war, routed and put to flight the Volscians of
Antium,[38] and pursuing them till they had been driven into the town
of Longula, took possession of the walls. Next he took Polusca, also
a city of the Volscians: he then attacked Corioli [39] with great
violence. There was at that time in the camp, among the young nobles,
Gnaeus Marcius, a youth distinguished both for intelligence and
courage, who was afterward surnamed Coriolanus. While the Roman army
was besieging Corioli, devoting all its attention to the townspeople,
who were kept, shut up within the walls, and there was no apprehension
of attack threatening from without, the Volscian legions, setting out
from Antium, suddenly attacked them, and the enemy sallied forth at
the same time from the town. Marcius at that time happened to be on
guard. He, with a chosen body of men, not only beat back the attack
of those who had sallied forth, but boldly rushed in through the
open gate, and, having cut down all who were in the part of the city
nearest to it, and hastily seized some blazing torches, threw them
into the houses adjoining the wall. Upon this, the shouts of the
townsmen, mingled with the wailings of the women and children
occasioned at first by fright, as is usually the case, both increased
the courage of the Romans, and naturally dispirited the Volscians
who had come to bring help, seeing that the city was taken. Thus the
Volscians of Antium were defeated, and the town of Corioli