refusal of the Senate to agree to a measure for the relief of insolvent plebeian debtors. (238) Other authors however speak in general terms of the cruelty and oppressions of the patricians, (239) and one writer attributes it to the pressure of military service and war-taxes upon the plebeians. (240)

Thirdly, there is a material disagreement between Dionysius and Livy as to the nature of the treaty made by the Senate and the seceders. According to Dionysius, the main subject of the negotiation was a Seisachtheia, for the relief of the plebeian debtors; when this measure had been conceded, the institution of the tribunes was suggested by L. Junius Brutus as an additional guarantee; and this afterthought was made the subject of a separate negotiation. Livy is entirely silent as to any arrangement about a remission of debts, and describes the compact as limited to the institution of tribunes;(241) Cicero agrees with

(238) Plutarch, Cor. 5, follows Dionysius.

(239) See the passage from Sallust's Histories, cited in note 237. In the passage from the Republic, Cicero ascribes the first secession to debt; in the fragment of the oration for Cornelius, he says that it took place 'propter nimiam dominationem potentium.' Orosius likewise uses general terms. 'Sequitur discessio plebis a patribus, cum, M. Valerio dictatore delectum militum agente, variis populus stimulatus injuriis, Sacrum Montem insedit armatus;' ii. 5.

(240) Et quum populus a patribus secessisset, quod tributum et militiam toleraret, nec revocari posset; Script. de Vir. Ill. c. 18. This seems however to be taken from the passage of Sallust's Histories.

(241) Livy says that the Senate, desirous of bringing back the seceders, sent Menenius Agrippa to negotiate with them; that he went to their camp on the Mons Sacer, and addressed to them the fable of the Belly and Limbs; and that by this simple reasoning, flexisse mentes hominum.' The conclusion is thus described: Agi deinde de concordiâ cœptum, concessumque in conditiones, ut plebi sui magistratus essent sacrosancti, quibus auxilii latio adversus consules esset; neve cui patrum capere eum magistratum liceret;' ii. 33. Livy (as Crevier remarks) seems to understand that the debt-question was not directly settled, because the institution of tribunes was a sufficient security to the plebeians. His meaning appears to be accurately rendered by the writer de Vir. Ill. 18, who, after reciting the fable of Menenius, adds: Hâc fabulâ populus regressus est. Creavit tamen tribunos plebis, qui libertatem suam adversum nobilitatis superbiam defenderent.' Ruperti, however, in his note on the passage of Livy, suggests that the relief of the nexi is implied. Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. p. 610, prefers the account of Dionysius to that of Livy, and the same view is taken by Dr. Arnold, Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 146, though his expressions in a former page (p. 138) seem more consistent with the other view. Beaufort, République Romaine, vol. vi. p. 285, thinks that the

Livy, and considers the tribunate as the sole result of the first secession. (242)

Fourthly, the number and names of the first tribunes are differently reported. Livy says that two tribunes, C. Sicinius and L. Albinus, were appointed, who nominated three colleagues; of these Sicinius was one, but as to the other two,

treaty was confined to the creation of tribunes, and contained no stipulation respecting debts. Coriolanus is described by Dionysius, as charging the plebeians, in a subsequent speech in the Senate, with having seceded, not on account of any real want, but for the purpose of destroying the aristocratic form of government: ὡς καταλύσων τὴν ἀριστοκρατίαν ὑμῶν; vii. 22. The independence of the two parts of the treaty, and the advancement of the demand for the tribunate after the remission of debts had been granted, is insisted on by Appius Claudius, in Dion. Hal. vii. 49, 52.

(242) Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. n. 1347, says that the account of Dionysius is supported by Cicero's whole view of these events, as to the necessity of violating the letter of the law, given in Rep. ii. 34. It appears to me, however, that Cicero's meaning in this passage is exactly the opposite of that attributed to him by Niebuhr. After having described the secession of the plebs as caused by debt, he proceeds to say that the evil in question might have been remedied by some such measure as that which had been previously adopted by Solon, or as that which was subsequently adopted by the Senate when (in the year 326 B.C.) the law of nexum was abolished in consequence of the scandalous outrage of the usurer Papirius. This species of calamity was, he adds, always assuaged by some remedial measure: but on this occasion, a different course was adopted, and two tribunes of the plebs were created in order to diminish the power of the Senate: Quo tum consilio prætermisso, causa populo nata est, duobus tribunis plebis per seditionem creatis, ut potentia Senatus atque auctoritas minueretur;' i. 34. Cicero's meaning seems to be, that, instead of bargaining for a special measure on insolvent debtors, the plebs obtained a general security against the power of the Senate. The example of Solon is referred to in the speech of M. Valerius, in Dion. Hal. v. 65; above, p. 24. The account of Dio Cassius, xvii. 9; and Zonaras, vii. 14-5, is that many persons seceded from the city and army, on account of the law of debt, and plundered the country; that they were mollified by the fable of Menenius, one of the ambassadors, sent to them by the Senate; and that a measure of relief to debtors was conceded. After which, fearing lest the treaty should be broken, or that they should be maltreated individually, they formed a defensive league, and elected two tribunes for their own protection. This account differs altogether from that of Livy, and it does not even agree with that of Dionysius; for it represents the appointment of tribunes not as a matter of negotiation, but as a defensive measure adopted by the plebeians on their own authority. Eutropius appears to agree with Zonaras in representing the creation of tribunes as the independent act of the plebeian body: Sexto decimo anno post reges exactos, seditionem populus Romæ fecit, tamquam a senatu atque consulibus premeretur. Tum et ipse sibi tribunos plebis, quasi proprios judices et defensores, creavit, per quos contra senatum et consules tutus esse posset; i. 13. By seditio,' in this passage, Eutropius means 'secessio.'

the testimonies differed. (1) According to Dionysius, L. Junius Brutus and C. Sicinius were first elected, and afterwards two Licinii and C. Icilius Ruga.() L. Junius Brutus, whom Dionysius represents as the true leader of the plebeians on this important occasion, and whom he places at the head of his list of tribunes, is not mentioned by Livy or any Latin author. Cicero says that two tribunes were appointed in the first year, and ten in the second. (245) The difference in the numbers may, perhaps, be reconciled, by supposing that two were chosen by suffrage, and three by co-optation:(246) but the difference in the names is irreconcilable.

Fifthly, there is no fact in the first secession more strongly attested, or more consistently described, than the apologue of Menenius Agrippa.(247) It is represented as the main instrument by which the exasperation of the seceders was appeased, and an

(243) Livy. ii. 33; cf. iii. 54, where Sicinius is referred to as having been one of the first tribunes. Lydus, de Magistr. i. 38, says that the first tribunes were two in number.

(244) Dion. Hal. vi. 89. The latter name is corrupt in the MSS. It recurs in vii. 26. The statement that Sicinius and Brutus were the two first tribunes of the people also occurs in Suidas in dýμapxoi.

(245) De Rep. ii. 34; Orat. pro Corn. i. and Asconius. See Becker, ii. 2, p. 251; Arnold's Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 147. According to Livy and Dionysius, the increase to ten took place some years afterwards; Becker, ib. p. 252. Livy, ubi sup., adds: Sunt qui duos tantum in Sacro Monte creatos tribunos esse dicant, ibique sacratam legem latam.' Pomponius, Dig. i. 2, 2, § 20, says: Dicti tribuni, quod olim in tres partes populus divisus erat, et ex singulis singuli creabantur, vel quia tribuum suffragio creabantur. Asconius speaks of five tribunes having been originally appointed, one from each class. Cæterum quidam non duo tribunos plebis, ut Cicero dicit, sed quinque tradunt creatos tum esse, singulos ex singulis classibus; Ad Orat. pro Corn. vol. v. part ii. p. 76, Orelli. The former of these statements seems to allude to the triple division of the people by Romulus; the second, to the five classes of Servius.

(246) See Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. p. 617. Dionysius states distinctly that the people elected the first tribunes in comitia curiata; vi. 89, cf. ix. 41; and Cicero makes the statement with respect to the tribunes of the following year; Pro Corn. i. These statements are rejected by Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. p. 619; Becker, ib. p. 254, and others, as inconsistent with their theory of the curiæ, and the comitia curiata; but if we are to regard the accounts of this period as historical, such distinct statements cannot be set aside on merely hypothetical grounds. If they are not to be regarded as historical, hypothetical explanations of them seem to be thrown away.

(247) Dion. Hal. vi. 83, 86; Livy, ii. 32; Plut. Cor. 6; Florus, i. 23; Scriptor de Vir. Ill. c. 18; Dio Cassius, xvii. 10; Zonaras, vii. 14.

agreement was ultimately effected. Dionysius says that it was found in all the ancient histories.(245) Yet Cicero expressly attributes the mitigation of the seceders on this occasion to the eloquence of M. Valerius the dictator: adding, that he received for this good deed the appellation of Maximus. (249) In the detailed history of Roman eloquence, contained in his dialogue de claris Oratoribus, which he begins with the consul Brutus, no mention is made of Menenius, although the allusion to the first secession would naturally have suggested it. The language of Cicero seems to exclude the supposition that he conceived the speech of Menenius as having exercised the chief influence in bringing back the seceders; and is scarcely consistent with his knowledge of its connexion with that event. Indeed, Cicero nowhere speaks of this celebrated apologue, fond as he is of recurring to the examples of early Roman oratory. Valerius Maximus likewise agrees with Cicero in ascribing the return of the plebeians in the first secession exclusively to the eloquence of Valerius, and in omitting all mention of Menenius.(250) An ancient inscription, in honour of Valerius Maximus, likewise represents him to have induced the plebs to return from the Mons Sacer; to have reconciled them with the patricians; and to

(248) Extat orationis antiquæ satis efficax ad concordiam fabula; Florus, ubi sup. Prisco illo dicendi et horrido more, nihil aliud quam hoc narrasse fertur; Livy, ii. 32. Above, n. 224.

(249) Videmus item paucis annis post reges exactos, cum plebes prope ripam Anienis ad tertium milliarium consedisset, eumque montem, qui Sacer appellatus est, occupavisset, M. Valerium dictatorem dicendo sedavisse discordias, eique ob eam rem honores amplissimos habitos, et eum primum ob eam ipsam causam Maximum esse appellatum; Brut. c. 14. Dionysius mentions Manius Valerius in connexion with this event, but as having previously resigned the office of dictator. See above, p. 64.

(250) After describing the armed secession of the Mons Sacer, Valerius Maximus proceeds to say: Erat non solum deformis, sed etiam miserrimus reipublicæ status, a capite ejus cæterâ parte corporis pestiferâ seditione divisâ; ac ni Valerii subvenisset eloquentia, spes tanti imperii in ipso pœne ortu suo corruisset. Is namque populum, novâ et insolitâ libertate temere gaudentem, oratione ad meliora et saniora consilia revocatum, senatui subjecit; id est, urbem urbi junxit. Verbis ergo facundis ira, consternatio, arma cesserunt;' viii. 9, § 1. Kempf, the recent editor of Valerius Maximus, thinks that in this passage he has confounded Valerius with Menenius : but we can scarcely suppose a similar confusion to have been made by Cicero, and the author of the Inscription.

have prevailed upon the Senate to liberate the people from its debts.(251) These notices differ entirely from the accounts of our historians. Livy says nothing of any Valerius on this occasion: Dionysius states that Manius Valerius was one of the ten ambassadors, and that he opened the negotiations by calling on the seceders to set forth their grievances; but the really important part in the conference with the seceders is assigned by him to Menenius, and it is an essential circumstance of his narrative as well as of Livy's, that the dictatorship of Valerius has ended before the secession begins. (252)

Sixthly, with respect to the time occupied by the secession, Dionysius says that it took place after the autumnal equinox (23rd September), about the beginning of seed-time; that the wealthier cultivators joined the patricians, and the artificers joined the plebeians; that the reconciliation was only a short time before the winter solstice (December 23); and that during this interval the land remained untilled. (258) This account is however inconsistent with his own narrative; according to which the secession took place before the election of the new consuls, which fell on the first of September; and the events from this time to the treaty with the Senate cannot

(251) M. Valerius f. Volusi Maximus, Dictator, Augur. Primus [prius?] quam ullum magistratum gereret dictator dictus est. Triumphavit de Sabinis et Medullinis. Plebem de sacro monte deduxit: gratiam cum patribus reconciliavit; fœnore gravi populum senatus hoc ejus rei auctore liberavit. Sellæ curulis locus ipsi posterisque ad Murcia spectandi causâ datus est. Princeps in senatum semel lectus est; Inscript. 535, ap. Orell. vol. i. p. 146. The victory of Valerius Maximus over the Sabines is mentioned by Dion. Hal. vi. 42; Livy, ii. 31. Concerning the altar of the goddess Murcia within the Circus Maximus at Rome, see Becker, vol. i. p. 467. For illustrations of this inscription, see Morcelli, Inscript. Lat. vol. i. p. 262. Its discovery is described in Gori, Inscript. vol. ii. p. 235. This and the inscription relating to Appius Cæcus were both found at Arezzo. They probably belong to the imperial period, but the orthography of the word fanus seems hardly a sufficient ground (with Orelli) for questioning the genuineness of the inscription on Valerius Maximus.

(252) Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. n. 1334, supposes the statement of Livy, viii. 18, that a nail had been formerly driven by the dictator in secessions of the plebs, to refer to this dictatorship of Valerius. The conjecture is however quite uncertain, and Livy's own narrative is not consistent

with it.

(253) Dion. Hal. vii. 1.

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