[Sidenote: B.C. 368 (_a.u._ 386)] 4. ¶ Publius,[Footnote: The gap existing from the word "Forum" to the end of the sentence is supplied by Bekker's conjecture.] when the citizens of Rome were quarreling with one another, nearly reconciled them. For he chose as master of the horse Licinius Stolo, who was merely one of the populace.[Footnote: This is Publius Manlius, the dictator (Livy, VI, 39).] This innovation grieved the patricians, but conciliated the rest so much that they no longer laid claim to the consulship for the following year, but allowed the consular tribunes to be chosen. As a result of this they in turn yielded some points one to the other, and perhaps would have made peace with each other had not Stolo the tribune made such utterance as that they should not drink unless they could eat and so persuaded them to relinquish nothing, but to perform as inevitable duties all that they had taken in hand. (Valesius, p.585.) [Frag. XXVIII] [Sidenote: B.C. 362 (_a.u._ 392)] 1. Dio Cassius Cocceianus, the compiler of Roman history, states that as a result of the wrath of Heaven a fissure opened in the ground round about Rome and would not close. An oracular utterance having been obtained to the effect that the fissure would close if they should throw into it the mightiest possession of the Romans, one Curtius, a knight of noble birth, when no one else was able to understand the oracle, himself interpreted it to mean a horse and man together. Straightway he mounted his horse and, just as he was, dashed heroically forward and passed down into that frightful pit. No sooner had he rushed down the incline than the fissure closed; and the rest of the Romans from above scattered flowers. From this event the name of Curtius was applied also to a cellar. (Io. Tzetzes, Scholia for the Interpretation of Homer's Iliad, p. 136, 17, Cp. Zonaras, 7, 25.)