who had offended. The affair was of difficult decision, in the uncomplying temper in which parties then stood. It was, however, thus compromised for the present. The tribunes agreed to make their complaint against Coriolanus in the senate, and that body consented, on their part, to refer the consideration of the cause back to the assembly of the people. This course, accord ingly, was adopted. The senate admitted the. importance (if proved) of the charges preferred to their body by the tribunes, and ordained Coriolanus to appear and answer in the assembly of the people. They were desirous, however, of procuring this assembly to be convoked by centuries; by which means they flattered themselves with an entire ascendant, which would ensure the acquittal of their member: but the people would not consent to it; the votes were called in the order of the tribes; and Coriolanus was condemned to perpetual exile.

He now proposed to himself a plan of vengeance, in the last degree ignominious, and which no injuries an individual can receive are sufficient to justify. He repaired to the camp of the Volscians, and offered his services to the determined enemies of his country. They were accepted; and such was the consequence of his abilities as a general, that Rome, in the space of a few months, was reduced to extremity. The people now demanded that the senate should repeal their decree of banishment; but that body, with a laudable firmness, declared that they would grant no terms to a rebel while in arms against his sovereign state. The importunity of the populace, however, so far prevailed, that a deputation, consisting of five persons of consular dignity, and his own relations, was sent to propose terms of accommodation. Coriolanus haughtily answered, that he would never consent to treat of peace, till the Romans should restore whatever they possessed of the Volscian territory, and he allowed the space of thirty days to consider of this proposition. At the end of that time he appeared again with his army under the walls of the city. The senate maintained an inflexible resistance to the demands of the traitor, and to the popular clamor. At length a band of Roman matrons, at the head of which was Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, with his wife and children, repaired to the camp of the enemy, and suddenly presented themselves at the feet of Coriolanus. The severity of his nature was not proof against this last appeal. He consented to lay down his arms; he ordered his troops to retire; and thus Rome owed her safety to the tears of a woman.

There are few historical events (so called) which give more room for skepticism than this story of Coriolanus. If we should admit that the resentment of his wrongs might have hurried a high-spirited Roman into a conduct so utterly disgraceful-and moreover so dangerous, while his mother, his wife, and all his kindred were hostages in the hands of his countrymen,-how can we believe that Rome, ever superior as we have seen her to the

petty states which were her enemies, should, during the whole time of this lengthened negotiation, have taken no effective measures of resistance or defence; that we should neither find a Roman general nor a Roman army in the field to check the triumphant pride of this traitor to his country; that the Volscianswho, three years before, were so weakened by a pestilence, that Velitræ, one of their most flourishing towns, would have been entirely annihilated, but for the supply of a colony of Roman citizens should have now become so powerful as to strike terror and dismay into the Roman state, and compel her to that mean act of supplication, to which, we are told, she owed her escape from destruction? If there is any truth in a story so void of probability, there is only one circumstance truly deserving of attention-the striking contrast between the conduct of the senate and that of the people. The people-fluctuating in their opinions, and ever in extremes-the one day, in the height of exasperation against Coriolanus for an offence against themselves, condemn him to perpetual exile; and the next, ignominiously entreat his forgiveness and deprecate his resentment. The senate-who, before his condemnation, alarmed at what they thought a stretch of power in the people, would have done every thing to save him, yet, sentence being once passed, conscious that the honor of the republic was her most valuable possession, which no danger ought to compel its guardians to betray-could by no entreaties be swayed to make concessions to a rebel in arms against his country. While such were the sentiments of her chief magistrates, Rome, weak and defenceless as we are told she was, continues still to command respect and admiration.

Historians are not agreed as to the fate of Coriolanus— a circumstance which renders the whole of his history more suspicious. According to some authors, he was assassinated by the Volscians, in revenge for his defection; according to others, he languished out his days among them in melancholy obscurity. It has never been asserted seriously that he returned to Rome.

The dissensions between the orders with which the Roman republic was destined to be for ever embroiled, were now rekindled from a new cause of controversy. This was an agrarian law, a measure proposed at first by Cassius, one of the consuls, from motives of selfish ambition. He aimed at nothing less than supreme power; and he proposed this measure of an equal partition of all the lands which had been at any time won from the enemy, as the most probable means of acquiring the favor of the people.. But he was too precipitate; his views were suspected, and the tribunes gave the alarm. They could not bear that popular measures should be proposed by any but themselves; they adopted the scheme of Cassius; but persuaded the people that what was an interested measure upon his part, they were determined to prosecute for the public good

The senate, jealous of the tribunes, and sufficiently aware of the views of Cassius, were resolved themselves to preoccupy the ground. They passed a decree that an inquiry should be made as to those conquered lands which had at any time been adjudged to belong to the public; that a part should be reserved for the common pasturage of cattle, and that the rest should be distributed to such of the plebeians as had either no lands, or but a small proportion. Yet this was all a piece of artifice on the part of the higher orders. They had no mind that this decree should ever be carried into effect. They subjoined to it a clause that the consules designati, or those who were next year to enter upon that office, should name decemviri for making the necessary investigation and following forth the decree.

و

This measure of an agrarian law we shall observe, from this time forward, to be a source of domestic dissensions, down to the very end of the commonwealth. Cassius was the first proposer of it, and it cost him his life. His office of consul was no sooner at an end, than he was solemnly accused of aspiring at royalty; and, by sentence of the popular assembly, he was thrown from the Tarpeian Rock, the usual punishment of treason. Soon afterwards, Menius, one of the tribunes, brought on the consideration of the law. He called on the consuls to nominate the decemviri and on their refusal, he opposed the levies which the consuls had ordered to be made on account of a war with the Æqui and Volsci. The consuls adopted a very violent procedure: they quitted the city, and established their tribunal without the jurisdiction of the tribunes. Thither they summoned the people to attend them, and to give up their names to be enrolled. They refused to obey; on which the consuls ordered their lands to be ravaged, and their flocks carried off. This had its desired effect; but so violent a measure was never again attempted. A more sure and less dangerous expedient was afterwards followed, which was, to divide the tribunes. One tribune could, by his veto, oppose or suspend any decree; but if another opposed him, the veto was of no effect. Icilius, one of the tribunes, having opposed the form ing of the levies, his four colleagues, gained over by the senate, took the opposite side; and it was therefore agreed that the consideration of the agrarian law should be postponed till the termination of the war.

When that period arrived, the contest was again renewed. The tribunes brought on the consideration of the law; they demanded why the last consuls had not named decemviri; and they even pretended to call them to account and to punish them for this omission. Genucius, a tribune, summoned the consuls of the current year to execute the decree which had been so long neglected. They refused, on pretence that a decree of the senate, when not executed by those consuls to whom it was directed, was held to be abrogated. Genucius then summoned the consuls

of the preceding year to answer for their conduct, and vowed, as is said, that he would prosecute them to his latest breath. They took care that he should keep his word, for the next day he was found dead in his bed. The people were made to regard this as a judgment of the gods, who thus expressed their disapprobation of the schemes of this factious tribune; and his colleagues were intimidated for some time from prosecuting his views; not less, perhaps, from the apprehension of human than of divine vengeance.

The consuls and senate, trusting to the effect of this example, assumed a more rigid authority, and the levies were made with severe exactness. Among those whom the consuls had enrolled as a common soldier, was a plebeian named Volero, who, in a former campaign, had been a centurion, and was esteemed a good officer. He complained of the injustice done him in thus degrading him, and refused to obey. The consuls ordered him to be scourged, from which sentence he appealed to the people. One of the consular lictors endeavoring to arrest him was beaten off; and the people, tumultuously taking his part, broke the fasces and drove the consuls out of the forum. The senate was immediately assembled, and the consuls demanded that Volero should be thrown from the Tarpeian Rock. The plebeians, on the other hand, called for justice against the consuls for a breach of the Valerian law, in disregarding Volero's appeal to the people; and the contest lasted till the election of the annual magistrates, when Volero was chosen one of the tribunes. The person of a tribune was sacred, and that of a consul, when out of office, was not so ; but Volero did not choose to limit his vengeance to the two consuls; the whole senate was the object of his resentment, and he resolved to strike a blow which they should never recover.

The election of the tribunes of the people had hitherto been held in the comitia curiata. Volero urged that as these comitia could not be summoned but by a decree of the senate, that body might, on various pretences, postpone or refuse to summon them; that the previous ceremony of consulting the auspices was necessary, and these the priests, who were the augurs, could interpret in any manner they chose; and that, lastly, it was always held necessary that whatever was done in those assemblies should be confirmed by a decree of the senate. He represented all these formalities as being nothing else than restrictions imposed by the senate on the popular deliberations-and proposed that henceforth the magistrates of the people should be chosen in the comitia called by tribes, which were exempt from all those restraints.

The senate, by throwing difficulties in the way, found means to retard for some time the passing of a law so fatal to their power; but their opposition was in the main ineffectual; for it passed at last, and with this remarkable addition, that all questions, in which the affairs of the people were agitated, should henceforward bə debated in the comitia tributa.

This famous law of Volero completed the change in the constitution of the Roman Republic. The supreme authority from this time may be considered as having passed from the higher orders into the hands of the people. The consuls continued to preside in the comitia held by centuries; but the tribunes presided in those assemblies in which the most important business of the commonwealth was now transacted. The senate retained, however, a considerable degree of power. They had the disposal of the public money; they sent and received ambassadors,-made treaties-and their decrees had the force of a law while not annulled by a decree of the people. In a word, this body continued to have respect, and at least the appearance of authority, which we shall observe to have yet its effect in frequently restraining the violence of the popular measures. The consuls too, though in most points of effective power and authority subordinate to the tribunes, had yet in some particulars a vestige of supremacy. They were absolute at the head of the army, and first in command in the civil authority within the city. Their office still carried with it that external show of dignity which commands respect and submission, and which, over the minds of the vulgar, is frequently attended with the same influence as substantial power.

CHAPTER V.

An Agrarian Law never seriously projected — Decemviri proposed to digest a Code of Laws Cincinnatus-Appointment of Decemvirs-Laws of the Twelve Tables-Tyranny of the Decemvirs-Infamous conduct of Appius Claudius-Death of Virginia-Abolition of the Decemvirate.

THE People having now attained so very considerable an increase of authority, might certainly have prevailed in obtaining the favorite measure of an agrarian law. But the truth is, this measure was nothing more than a political engine, occasionally employed by the popular magistrates for exciting commotions, and weakening the power of the patricians. It was a measure attended necessarily with so much difficulty in the execution, that few even of the people themselves had a sincere desire of seeing it accomplished. The extensive disorder it must have introduced in the territorial possessions of the citizens, by a new distribution of all the lands acquired by conquest to the republic since the time of Romulus