The patricians saw too late that they had driven matters to extremity, and that they must give way. They had to make very lowering concessions as to the form, and to send envoys. The list of the ten envoys which Dionysius gives, is certainly authentic, and taken from the _libri augurales_: forgery must have been carried on to a great extent if such statements were not genuine. The end of the secession is only explicable when we have a clear insight into the relations owing to which the ruling power could not only defend itself in the city, but also dispose of the confederates; for, these had sworn fealty to the Roman state, that is to say, to the senate and the _Populus_; so that numbers do not by any means turn the scale between the two orders. A peace was concluded in due form by _fetiales_, as between two free nations. The patricians sent ambassadors and conducted the negotiation, with great humiliation as to the formalities, yet with a prudence which is worthy of admiration. It was their aim to get off as cheaply as possible after the faults which they had made. They could only manage to retrieve matters, either by strengthening themselves from abroad with the aid of the allies, or by dividing the _Plebes_. For the latter purpose, two ways lay open to them. They might draw to their own side the chief plebeians, but in that case they would have lessened their own power; or they might separate the mass of the people from its leaders. The second was an infallible device. The plebeians were granted remission of debts for the insolvent debtors; the Addicti were freed, and the Nexum dissolved, without any general rule being made with regard to the law of debt: of course an amnesty also was stipulated. The remission of debts was no great loss for the creditors, as the interest had long outgrown the capital. A hundred and fifty years afterwards the rate of interest was lowered to ten per cent.; at that time it may have been about fifty per cent. A similar course was pursued by Sully.