consuls convoke the Senate, where there is great difference of opinion as to the adoption of a conciliatory policy; but the advice of Appius, hostile to concession, prevails. (18) On the same day, the consuls call the people together, and attempt to address the assembly, but the tribunes prevent them from being heard; a tumult arises, which Junius Brutus appeases by a stratagem; on the following day, there is a meeting of the people, at which a law is passed securing to the tribunes the right of addressing the popular assembly.(19) Both parties abstain from going to extremities: many persons migrate, on account of the scarcity, to neighbouring cities. The consuls try, in vain, to compel an enlistment; whereupon Coriolanus leads an army composed of patricians and clients against Antium, and succeeds in carrying off much plunder from the open country. This expedition must be noted, for, according to Dionysius, it furnished the pretext by which the vote for the banishment of Coriolanus was ultimately obtained from the people.(20)

§ 20 The month of September has now arrived: other consuls, M. Minucius and A. Sempronius, succeed; plenty is restored by the supplies of corn: a new harvest has likewise been gathered in. At this moment the envoys from Sicily, already mentioned, return with their supply of wheat. A difference of opinion immediately arises among the patricians as to its disposal. Some are in favour of selling it to the people at high, others at low prices. Coriolanus, representing the extreme oligarchical party, backed by a club of young patricians,

(18) Dionysius is so well informed respecting the state of things at Rome on this day, as to know that the noise in the Senate was so great as to be heard outside the building, and to cause the people to collect around it; vii. 15.

(19) Dion. Hal. vii. 17. Cicero, pro Sext. 37, speaks of the tribune as 'contra verba atque interfationem legibus sacratis armatum.' Niebuhr, Hist. vol. ii. p. 98, thinks that this law must have been passed after the Publilian law of 471 B.C., and was probably not much earlier than 461 B.C. This is a mere guess: it is however not improbable that the origin of the law assigned by Dionysius is fictitious. Niebuhr, ib., says that this ordinance arose out of the impeachment of Coriolanus: which is not the account of Dionysius.

(20) Dion. Hal. vii. 14-9; Plut. Cor. 13.

VOL. II.

H

strongly supports the former course.(21) He had recently met with a repulse for the consulship, and was exasperated against the people on this account. A Senate is convened; at which he proposes that the recent concession of the tribunate should be revoked; and that the price of corn should be maintained, for the purpose of driving the most seditious of the plebeians out of the city.(22) The Senate come to no decision; but, before they separate, the tribunes, who were present during the debate, demand to be heard, and threaten Coriolanus with exile or death. He in return threatens them with violence: whereupon they rush out, and denounce him to the people. The ædiles attempt to seize him, but he is forcibly rescued by the patricians. On the next day, an assembly of the people is held; in which the tribunes accuse the patricians of perjury and breach of faith, in violating the solemn treaty for the creation of tribunes. The Senate is sitting, and decides to defend itself before the people. As representatives of that august body, the consuls present themselves to the popular assembly, and Minucius, in a conciliatory address, explains the true origin of the scarcity-shows that it was caused, not by the malice of the patricians, but by the secession of the plebs, which interrupted the annual opera

(21) Plutarch, Cor. 14, 15, likewise states that Coriolanus, supported by all the patrician influence, was a candidate for the consulship in this year, but that he was rejected by the people. The failure of Coriolanus to obtain the consulship is also mentioned by Zonaras; vii. 16; Dio Cass. xviii. 3; Appian, Hist. Rom. i. 2. Victor, de Vir. Ill. 19, speaks of Coriolanus as if he had actually been consul. In c. 14, Plutarch has some good remarks on the deleterious effects of the bribery practised by the great party leaders of Rome in later times, and on the destruction which it brought upon the old republican constitution. Οὐ γὰρ κακῶς ἔοικεν εἰπεῖν ὁ εἰπὼν, ὅτι πρῶτος κατέλυσε τὸν δῆμον ὁ πρῶτος ἑστιάσας καὶ δεκάσας, ib.

(22) Victor, de Vir. Ill. 19, speaks of Coriolanus having, as consul, kept up the price of corn, in order to compel the people to attend to agriculture. Hic consul gravi annonâ, advectum e Siciliâ frumentum magno pretio dandum populo curavit, ut hâc injuriâ plebs agros, non seditiones coleret.' Dio Cassius, xviii. 5, says that Coriolanus prevented the distribution of the corn which the Romans had received gratuitously from the kings in Sicily: παρὰ τῶν ἐν Σικελίᾳ βασιλέων. It may be observed that both Dionysius and Livy place the arrival of the Sicilian corn in this consulship, and consequently after the new harvest, and at the time when plenty was restored. The time for extorting the abolition of the tribunate was while the scarcity was at its height.

tions of agriculture; he then justifies the sending of the colonies; finally, he assures them that the Senate will not interfere with the office of tribune, and that it will sell the public corn to the people at low prices. Sicinius, one of the tribunes, follows the consul, and speaks with moderation: but, at the close of his address, he directs some intentional taunts at Coriolanus, who was standing near the consuls, and provokes this fierce partisan to an angry reply. The people are about to fall upon their opponent, and kill him on the spot, when Sicinius declares that the tribunes condemn him to death for his previous violence to the ædiles, and order him to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock. He is however again rescued by the patricians. At this critical moment, Sicinius hesitates. (23) Junius Brutus advises delay, and at his suggestion Sicinius gives notice of bringing Coriolanus to trial before the tribes, which will decide by a simple numerical majority of the people. The Senate now meets; and in accordance with the advice of the consuls, it is decided to fix the prices of corn at the lowest rates at which they had stood before the secession. A postponement of the trial of Coriolanus is likewise obtained from the tribunes;(2) but Sicinius shortly afterwards fixes the day for it. The Senate are alarmed at the power assumed by the tribunes of bringing a patrician to trial without their consent; and a negotiation between the consuls and tribunes takes place, which ends in a compromise to the following effect, that the existing rule prohibiting any question being brought before the popular assembly without the previous con

(23) In Dion. Hal. vii. 35, καὶ οὕτω τίμιον τὸ τῆς βασιλικῆς ἐξουσίας τίμημα, the sense seems to require μίμημα for τίμημα.

(24) Dionysius here introduces an incident which it is impossible to reconcile with the rest of his narrative: he says that the ambassadors sent by the Sicilian despot with his present of corn for Rome were captured at sea by the Antiates, who detained them and confiscated the corn: that the consuls levied an army, and marched out, expecting to gain time by the expedition, but that the Antiates, alarmed at the prospect, set the envoys and their corn at liberty; vii. 37. Above however, in c. 20, he had described the Roman envoys as returning, at the beginning of the consular year, and before the transactions above described, with the entire quantity of Sicilian corn, including that which had been given by the despot. Livy says nothing of this incident. Plut. Cor. 19, mentions the war against the Antiates at this point, but without stating its cause.

sent of the Senate, should be maintained, but that in the present case the Senate should consent to the impeachment of Coriolanus. On the next day, there is a meeting of the Senate: and the consuls report the terms of the agreement. Junius Brutus, a party to the arrangement, is heard at length, in favour of it; Appius then makes a speech full of hostility and defiance, and urges the Senate not to consent that the plebeians should vote on the trial of a patrician. Manius Valerius recommends a moderate course, and enlarges on the doctrine of mixed governments:(25) upon his advice the Senate are about to consent to the impeachment, and to allow Coriolanus to be tried by the people, when Coriolanus calls upon the tribunes to specify their charge against him. He hoped that they would found their accusation on his speeches in the Senate, but they charge him generally with aiming at absolute power.(26) As soon as Coriolanus hears the accusation, he consents to be put on his trial: the Senate pass a decree for the purpose, and a day is fixed on which the patrician champion is to be arraigned.(27)

Much depended upon this trial; it was considered a decisive struggle for power between the patrician and plebeian orders; but its result was materially influenced by a change in the constitution of the tribunal now made for the first time. Hitherto the voting had been by centuries, according to the system above described. (2) The tribunes, however, in spite of the opposition of the Senate, decided to take the votes by tribes, which gave the preponderance to a simple majority of the people; whereas, in the voting by centuries, the wealthier citizens had more weight than numbers. Why the Senate should have submitted to this innovation, which the tribunes made without any legal

(25) The doctrine of mixed governments probably originated in the school of Plato, nearly a century after the time of this supposed speech. Sce the author's Treatise on Methods of Obs. and Reas. in Politics, vol. ii. p. 76.

(26) The statement that Coriolanus was tried for aiming at the rupavvis is repeated in his speech to the Volscian assembly, Dion. Hal. viii. 6, and the speech of Minucius to Coriolanus, viii. 24. Zonaras, vii. 16, states that the tribunes accused Coriolanus of τυραννίς.

(27) Dion: Hal. vii. 20-58.

(28) ch. xi. § 27.

authority, and which changed the character of the tribunal from a favourable to an unfavourable one, Dionysius does not explain.(29)

The day of trial now arrives. Minucius, the consul, first addresses the people on behalf of Coriolanus. The tribunes having required that the question should be put to the vote, Minucius reads the decree of the Senate, referring the matter to the people. Sicinius and the other tribunes then formally accuse Coriolanus of aiming at despotic power. Against this accusation Coriolanus defends himself; he recounts his exploits in war, exhibits his scars, and produces the persons whose lives he had saved in the field; and, with reference to the course which he had taken about the price of corn, he asks whether any man who aims at despotic power drives away the common people, who are its great supports. The people, having heard the defence. of Coriolanus, consider the charge to be disproved, and are about to absolve him, when L. Junius Brutus comes forward with a new fact confirmatory of the accusation.(30) He lays it down that, according to law, all plunder taken in war belongs to the state he declares that, in the expedition to Antium during the scarcity, Coriolanus had divided the plunder among his own: friends and adherents;(31) and argues that this act is a proof that he is seeking to make himself master of the state by largesses at the public expense. The charge, though malicious and false, produced a strong impression on the assembly. Coriolanus and

(29) Dion. Hal. vii. 59; Plut. Cor. 20, follows Dionysius in the statement as to the tribes. It is repeated in the speech of Coriolanus, viii. 6.

(30) In the present text of Dionysius this speech is attributed to a certain Decius, and the name is subsequently repeated. Tovro Karaμaliv ὁ Δέκιος ἐκεῖνος, ὁ καὶ τοὺς ἐν τῇ βουλῇ ποιησάμενος λόγους, καὶ τὸ προβούλευμα περὶ τῆς δίκης γραφῆναι παρασκευάσας, ἀνέστη, vii. 63. The names of the tribunes who spoke in the senate are not mentioned in c. 25; but in c. 36, 39, L. Junius Brutus is described as the person who suggested and arranged the compromise about the decree of the Senate. In c. 39, it is said: παρελθὼν δὲ ὁ Λεύκιος, ὁ συγχωρήσας τὸ προβούλευμα γενέσθαι. For Δέκιος therefore we should read Autos. No corruptions are so frequent as those of proper names. See also viii. 31. Decius the tribune is however mentioned by Victor, de Vir. Ill. 19. Ergo a tribuno plebis Decio die dictâ ad Volscos concessit.

(31) See Dion. Hal. vii. 19.