[Sidenote: FRAG. 21^1] DURING THE PROGRESS OF THESE EVENTS THE PATRICIANS OPENLY TOOK SCARCELY ANY RETALIATORY MEASURES, EXCEPT IN A FEW CASES, BUT SECRETLY SLAUGHTERED A NUMBER OF THE BOLDEST SPIRITS. NEITHER THIS, HOWEVER, NOR THE FACT THAT ON ONE OCCASION NINE TRIBUNES WERE DELIVERED TO THE FLAMES BY THE POPULACE SEEMED TO RESTRAIN THE REST. NOT ONLY WERE THOSE WHO SUBSEQUENTLY HELD THE TRIBUNESHIP NOT CALMED, BUT ACTUALLY THEY WERE THE RATHER EMBOLDENED. [Sidenote: FRAG. 21^2] THIS WAS THE CONDITION INTO WHICH THE PATRICIANS BROUGHT THE POPULACE. AND THEY WOULD NOT OBEY THE SUMMONS TO GO ON A CAMPAIGN, THOUGH THE FOE ASSAILED, UNLESS THEY SECURED THE OBJECTS FOR WHICH THEY WERE STRIVING, AND IF THEY EVER DID TAKE THE FIELD, THEY FOUGHT LISTLESSLY, UNLESS THEY HAD ACCOMPLISHED ALL THAT THEY DESIRED. HENCE MANY OF THE TRIBES LIVING CLOSE TO THEM, RELYING ON EITHER THE DISSENSION OF THEIR FOES OR THEIR OWN STRENGTH, RAISED THE STANDARD OF REVOLT. [Sidenote: FRAG. 22^1] AMONG THESE WERE ALSO THE AEQUI, WHO, AFTER CONQUERING AT THIS TIME MARCUS MINUCIUS WHILE HE SERVED AS PRAETOR, BECAME PRESUMPTUOUS. [Sidenote: FRAG. 22^2] THOSE AT ROME, LEARNING THAT MINUCIUS HAD BEEN DEFEATED, CHOSE AS DICTATOR LUCIUS QUINCTIUS, WHO WAS A POOR MAN AND HAD DEVOTED HIS LIFE TO FARMING, BUT WAS DISTINGUISHED 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.