FOR HIS VALOR AND WISE MODERATION; AND HE LET HIS HAIR GROW IN CURLS, WHENCE HE WAS NAMED CINCINNATUS.[10] He, being selected as dictator, took the field that very day, used wariness as well as speed, and simultaneously with Minucius attacked the AEqui, killing very many of them and capturing the rest alive:  the latter he led under the yoke and then released.  This matter of the yoke I shall briefly describe.  The Romans used to fix in the ground two poles (upright wooden beams, of course, with a space between them) and across them they would lay another transverse beam; through the frame thus formed they led the captives naked.  This conferred great distinction upon the side that conducted the operation but vast dishonor upon the side that endured it, so that some preferred to die rather than submit to any such treatment.  Cincinnatus also captured a city of theirs called Corvinum[11] and returned:  he removed Minucius from his praetorship because of his defeat, and himself resigned his office.

[Footnote 10:  Zonaras spells Cicinatus.]

[Footnote 11:  The town is called Corbio by Livy (II, 39, 4).]

VII, 18.—­The Romans, however, now got another war on their hands at home, in which their adversaries were composed of slaves and some exiles who moved unexpectedly by night and secured possession of the Capitol.  This time, too, the multitude did not arm themselves for the fray till they had wrung some further concessions from the patricians.  Then they assailed the revolutionists and overcame them, but lost many of their own men.

For these reasons, accordingly, and because of certain portents the Romans became sobered and dismissed their mutual grievances and voted to establish the rights of citizenship on a fairer basis.  And they sent three men to Greece with an eye to the laws and the customs of the people there.  Upon the return of the commission they abolished all the political offices, including that of the tribunes, and chose instead eight of the foremost men, and [Sidenote:  B.C. 451 (a.u. 303)] designated Appius Claudius and Titus Genucius praetors with dictatorial powers for that one year.  They empowered them to compile laws and further voted that no case could be appealed from them,—­a latitude granted previously to none of the magistrates save the dictators.  These men held sway each for a day, assuming by turns the dignity of rulership.  They compiled laws and exposed the same to view in the Forum.  These statutes being found pleasing to all were put before the people, and after receiving their ratification were inscribed on ten tablets; for all records that were deemed worthy of safekeeping used to be preserved on tablets.

[Sidenote:  B.C. 450 (a.u. 304)] The above mentioned magistrates at the expiration of the year surrendered their office, but ten more chosen anew (for the overthrow of the State, as it almost seemed) came to grief.  They all held sway at once on equal terms and chose from among the patricians some most brazen youths, through whom, as their agents, they committed many acts of violence.  At last, toward the end of the year, they compiled a few additional statutes written upon two tablets, all of which were the product of their own individual judgment.  From these not harmony, but greater disputes, were destined to fall to the lot of the Romans.