The Volscians afterward returned, having been joined by the Aequans, into Roman territory:  the latter, however, would no longer have Attius Tullius as their leader; hence from a dispute, whether the Volscians or the Aequans should give the general to the allied army, a quarrel, and afterward a furious battle, broke out.  Therein the good fortune of the Roman people destroyed the two armies of the enemy, by a contest no less ruinous than obstinate.  Titus Sicinius and Gaius Aquilius were made consuls.  The Volscians fell to Sicinius as his province; the Hernicans—­for they, too, were in arms—­to Aquilius.  That year the Hernicans were completely defeated; they met and parted with the Volscians without any advantage being gained on either side.

Spurius Cassius and Proculus Verginius were next made consuls; a treaty was concluded with the Hernicans; two thirds of their land were taken from them:  of this the consul Cassius proposed to distribute one half among the Latins, the other half among the commons.  To this donation he desired to add a considerable portion of land, which, though public property, [49] he alleged was possessed by private individuals.  This proceeding alarmed several of the senators, the actual possessors, at the danger that threatened their property; the senators moreover felt anxiety on public grounds, fearing that the consul by his donation was establishing an influence dangerous to liberty.  Then, for the first time, an agrarian law was proposed, which from that time down to the memory of our own days has never been discussed without the greatest civil disturbances.  The other consul opposed the donation, supported by the senators, nor, indeed, were all the commons opposed to him:  they had at first begun to feel disgust that this gift had been extended from the citizens to the allies, and thus rendered common:  in the next place they frequently heard the consul Verginius in the assemblies as it were prophesying, that the gift of his colleague was pestilential:  that those lands were sure to bring slavery to those who received them:  that the way was being paved to a throne.  Else why were it that the allies were thus included, and the Latin nation?  What was the object of a third of the land that had been taken being restored to the Hernicans, so lately their enemies, except that those nations might have Cassius for their leader instead of Coriolanus?  The dissuader and opposer of the agrarian law now began to be popular.  Both consuls then vied with each other in humouring the commons.  Verginius said that he would suffer the lands to be assigned, provided they were assigned to no one but a Roman citizen.  Cassius, because in the agrarian donation he sought popularity among the allies, and was therefore lowered in the estimation of his countrymen, commanded, in order that by another gift he might win the affections of the citizens, that the money received for the Sicilian corn should be refunded to the people.