larm comes on them: that the Sabine army had made a descent
into the Roman lands to commit depredations; that from thence they were
advancing to the city. This fear influenced the tribunes to allow the
levy to proceed, not without a stipulation, however, that since they had
been foiled for five years, and as that was but little protection to the
commons, ten tribunes of the people should henceforward be elected.
Necessity wrung this from the patricians; this exception only they made,
that they should not hereafter re-elect the same tribunes. The election
for the tribunes was held immediately, lest that measure also, like
others, might prove a delusion after the war. On the thirty-sixth year
after the first tribunes, ten were elected, two from each class; and
provision was made that they should be elected in this manner for the
future. The levy being then held, Minucius marched out against the
Sabines, and found no enemy. Horatius, after the AEquans, having put the
garrison at Corbio to the sword, had taken Ortona also, fights a battle
at Algidum; he slays a great number; drives the enemy not only from
Algidum, but from Corbio and Ortona also. Corbio he razed to the ground
for their having betrayed the garrison.

[Footnote 132: _Consulare, imperium tribunicio auxilio_.--The consuls
possessed _imperium_. The tribunes could not be said to possess it.
Their province was confined to _auxilii latio_, sc. adversus consules.]

31. Marcus Valerius and Spurius Virginius are next elected consuls.
Quiet prevailed at home and abroad. They laboured under a scarcity of
provisions on account of the excessive rains. A law was proposed
regarding the making Mount Aventine public property. The same tribunes
of the people being re-elected on the following year, Titus Romilius and
Caius Veturius being consuls, strongly recommended the law[133] in all
their harangues, "That they were ashamed of their number increased to no
purpose, if that question should lie for their two years in the same
manner as it had lain for the whole preceding five." Whilst they were
most busily employed in these matters, an alarming account comes from
Tusculum, that the AEquans were in the Tusculan territory. The recent
services of that state made them ashamed of delaying relief. Both the
consuls were sent with an army, and find the enemy in their usual post
in Algidum. A battle was fought there; upwards of seven thousand of the
enemy were slain; the rest were route