VII, 20.--For a time they maintained peace with each other and with the adjacent tribes, but then a famine mastered them, so severe that some not able to endure the pangs of hunger threw themselves into the river, and they fell to quarreling. The one class blamed the prosperous as being at fault in the handling of the grain, and the other class blamed the poorer men for unwillingness to till the soil. [Sidenote: B.C. 439 (_a.u._ 315)] Spurius Maelius, a wealthy knight, seeing this attempted to set up a tyranny, and buying corn from the neighboring region he lowered the price of it for many and gave it free to many others. In this way he won the friendship of a great many and procured arms and guardsmen. And he would have gained control of the city, had not Minucius Augurinus, a patrician, appointed to have charge of the grain distribution and censured for the lack of grain, reported the proceeding to the senate. The senate on receiving the information nominated at once and at that very meeting Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, though past his prime (he was eighty years old), to be dictator. They spent the whole day sitting there, as if engaged in some discussion, to prevent news of their action from traveling abroad. By night the dictator had the knights occupy in advance the Capitol and the remaining points of vantage, and at dawn he sent to Maelius Gaius Servilius, master of the horse, to summon him pretendedly on some other errand. But as Maelius had some suspicions and delayed, Servilius fearing that he might be rescued by the populace--for they were already running together--killed the man either on his own responsibility or because ordered to do so by the dictator. At this the populace broke into a riot, but Quinctius harangued them and by providing them with grain and refraining from punishing or accusing any one else he stopped the riot.