Rome, except the privilege of being wounded or slain in fighting battles on behalf of the rich.  At this demonstration, the Senate became alarmed, and sent the most moderate and popular of its members to treat with the people.  The spokesman of this embassy was Menenius Agrippa, who, after begging the plebeians to come to terms, and pleading the cause of the Senate with them, wound up his speech by the following fable:  Once upon a time, said he, all the members revolted against the belly, reproaching it with lying idle in the body, and making all the other members work in order to provide it with food; but the belly laughed them to scorn, saying that it was quite true that it took all the food which the body obtained, but that it afterwards distributed it among all the members.  “This,” he said, “is the part played by the Senate in the body politic.  It digests and arranges all the affairs of the State, and provides all of you with wholesome and useful measures.”

VII.  Upon this they came to terms, after stipulating that five men should be chosen to defend the cause of the people, who are now known as tribunes of the people.  They chose for the first tribunes the leaders of the revolt, the chief of whom were Junius Brutus and Sicinius Vellutus.  As soon as the State was one again, the people assembled under arms, and zealously offered their services for war to their rulers.  Marcius, though but little pleased with these concessions which the plebeians had wrung from the patricians, yet, noticing that many patricians were of his mind, called upon them not to be outdone in patriotism by the plebeians, but to prove themselves their superiors in valour rather than in political strength.

VIII.  Corioli was the most important city of the Volscian nation, with which Rome then was at war.  The consul Cominius was besieging it, and the Volscians, fearing it might be taken, gathered from all quarters, meaning to fight a battle under the city walls, and so place the Romans between two fires.  Cominius divided his army, and led one part of it to fight the relieving force, leaving Titus Lartius, a man of the noblest birth in Rome, to continue the siege with the rest of his troops.  The garrison of Corioli, despising the small numbers of their besiegers, attacked them and forced them to take shelter within their camp.  But there Marcius with a few followers checked their onset, slew the foremost, and with a loud voice called on the Romans to rally.  He was, as Cato said a soldier should be, not merely able to deal weighty blows, but struck terror into his enemies by the loud tones of his voice and his martial appearance, so that few dared to stand their ground before him.  Many soldiers rallied round him and forced the enemy to retreat; but he, not satisfied with this, followed them close and drove them in headlong flight back to the city.  On arriving there, although he saw that the Romans were slackening their pursuit as many missiles were aimed at them from the city walls, and