the tyrant Aristodemus, who was their heir.  Among the Volscians and in the Pomptine territory it could not even be purchased.  The corn dealers themselves incurred danger from the violence of the inhabitants.  Corn was brought from Etruria by way of the Tiber:  by means of this the people were supported.  In such straitened resources they would have been harassed by a most inopportune war, had not a dreadful pestilence attacked the Volscians when on the point of beginning hostilities.  The minds of the enemy being so terrified by this calamity, that they felt a certain alarm, even after it had abated the Romans both augmented the number of their colonists at Velitrae, and despatched a new colony to the mountains Of Norba [41] to serve as a stronghold in the Pomptine district.  Then in the consulship of Marcus Minucius and Aulus Sempronius a great quantity of corn was imported from Sicily and it was debated in the senate at what price it should be offered to the commons.  Many were of opinion that the time was come for crushing the commons, and recovering those rights which had been wrested from the senators by secession and violence.  In particular, Marcius Coriolanus, an enemy to tribunician power, said:  “If they desire corn at its old price, let them restore to the senators their former rights.  Why do I, like a captive sent under the yoke, as if I had been ransomed from robbers, behold plebeian magistrates, and Sicinius invested with power?  Am I to submit to these indignities longer than is necessary?  Am I, who have refused to endure Tarquin as king, to tolerate Sicinius?  Let him now secede, let him call away the commons.  The road lies open to the Sacred Mount and to other hills.  Let them carry off the corn from our lands, as they did three years since.  Let them have the benefit of that scarcity which in their mad folly they have themselves occasioned.  I venture to say, that, overcome by these sufferings, they will themselves become tillers of the lands, rather than, taking up arms, and seceding, prevent them from being tilled.”  It is not so easy to say whether it should have been done, but I think that it might have been practicable for the senators, on the condition of lowering the price of provisions, to have rid themselves of both the tribunician power, and all the regulations imposed on them against their will.

This proposal both appeared to the senate too harsh and from exasperation well-nigh drove the people to arms:  they complained that they were now being attacked with famine, as if they were enemies, that they were being robbed of food and sustenance, that the corn brought from foreign countries, the only support with which fortune had unexpectedly furnished them, was being snatched from their mouth, unless the tribunes were delivered in chains to Gnaeus Marcius, unless satisfaction were exacted from the backs of the commons of Rome.  That in him a new executioner had arisen, one to bid them either die or be slaves.