t the agrarian laws. The Capitol surprised by
exiles and slaves. Quintius Cincinnatus called from the cultivation
of his farm in the country, made dictator, and appointed to conduct
the war against the AEquans. He conquers the enemy, and makes them
pass under the yoke. The number of the tribunes increased to ten.
Decemvirs, appointed for the purpose of digesting and publishing a
body of laws. These having promulgated a code of laws contained in
ten tables, obtain a continuation of their authority for another
year, during which they add two more to the former ten tables.
Refusing to resign their office, they retain it a third year. Their
conduct at first equitable and just; afterwards arbitrary and
tyrannical. The commons, in consequence of the base attempt of
Appius Claudius, one of them, to debauch the daughter of Virginius,
seize on the Aventine mount, and oblige them to resign. Appius and
Oppius, two of the most obnoxious, are thrown into prison, where
they put an end to their own lives; the rest are driven into exile.
War with the Sabines, Volscians, and AEquans.--Unfair decision of
the Roman people, who being chosen arbitrators between the people
of Ardea and Aricia concerning some disputed lands, adjudge them to
themselves._

1. After the taking of Antium, Titus AEmilius and Quintus Fabius are
elected consuls. This was the Fabius Quintus who alone had survived the
family cut off at Cremera. Already, in his former consulate, AEmilius had
been an adviser of giving land to the people. Accordingly in his second
consulate also both the abettors of the agrarian law had raised
themselves to the hope of carrying the measure, and the tribunes,
supposing that a matter frequently attempted in opposition to both
consuls might be obtained with the assistance at least of one consul,
take it up, and the consul remained stedfast in his sentiments. The
possessors and a considerable part of the patricians complaining that a
person at the head of the state was recommending himself by his
tribunitial proceedings, and that he was making himself popular by
giving away other persons' property, had transferred the odium of the
entire affair from the tribunes to the consul. A violent contest was at
hand, had not Fabius set the matter straight, by an expedient
disagreeable to neither party, "that under the conduct and auspices of
Titus Quintius