24.  Describe this interview.

25.  What was the result?

26.  Did the Volscians approve of this measure?

27.  What followed this happy deliverance?

SECTION II.

Like rigid Cincinnatus, nobly poor.—­Thomson.

1.  The year following, the two consuls of the former year, Man’lius and Fa’bius, were cited by the tribunes to appear before the people.  The Agra’rian law, which had been proposed some time before, for equally dividing the lands of the commonwealth among the people, was the object invariably pursued, and they were accused of having made unjustifiable delays in putting it off.

2.  The Agra’rian law was a grant the senate could not think of making to the people.  The consuls, therefore, made many delays and excuses, till at length they were once more obliged to have recourse to a dictator; and they fixed upon Quintus Cincinna’tus, a man who had for some time, given up all views of ambition, and retired to his little farm, where the deputies of the senate found him holding the plough, and dressed in the mean attire of a labouring husbandman. 3.  He appeared but little elevated with the addresses of ceremony, and the pompous habits they brought him; and, upon declaring to him the senate’s pleasure, he testified rather a concern that his aid should be wanted.  He naturally preferred the charms of a country retirement to the fatiguing splendors of office, and only said to his wife, as they were leading him away, “I fear, my Atti’lia, that for this year our little fields must remain unsown.” 4.  Then, taking a tender leave, he departed for the city, where both parties were strongly inflamed against each other.  However, he resolved to side with neither; but, by a strict attention to the interests of his country, instead of gaining the confidence of faction, to seize the esteem of all. 5.  Thus, by threats and well-timed submission, he prevailed upon the tribunes to put off their law for a time, and conducted himself so as to be a terror to the multitude whenever they refused to enlist, and their greatest encourager whenever their submission deserved it. 6.  Having, by these means, restored that tranquillity to the people which he so much loved himself, he again gave up the splendors of ambition, to enjoy it with a greater relish on his little farm.

[Sidenote:  U.C. 295.] 7.  Cincinna’tus had not long retired from his office, when a fresh exigence of the state once more required his assistance; and the AE’qui and the Vol’sci, who, although always worsted, were still for renewing the war, made new inroads into the territories of Rome. 8.  Minu’tius, one of the consuls who succeeded Cincinna’tus, was sent to oppose them; but being naturally timid, and rather more afraid of being conquered than desirous of victory, his army was driven into a defile between two mountains, from which, except through the enemy, there was no egress. 9.  This,