the military oath; and under the command of the consul, the Capitol was stormed. Luckily there seems to have been an armistice with the Æquians; yet such a state of affairs was always dangerous, for one could not reckon indeed with any safety that the truce would last. The consul Valerius, the son of Poplicola, the very one who is said to have been killed at the Regillus, was among the slain; the Capitol was taken by assault; of those who were in it, the slaves were crucified, and the freemen were executed. Cæso Quinctius may have been also among the latter; and for this his father now took a revenge, pardonable indeed, yet at all events ungenerous, in banishing Volscius, the prosecutor of his son. The tribunes of the people are stated to have vetoed this charge; a remarkable instance of their power, which at that time was very great already: perhaps they only took the accused under their protection, not allowing him to be brought by force before the tribunal; the expression _patricios coire non passi sunt_, is first used in later times. There were disputes about this trial for one or two years; for Cincinnatus as consul, or as dictator (very likely the latter), would not resign his office before Volscius was condemned. Volscius went into exile. His cognomen Fictor is one of those instances in which either the name arose from the tale, or the tale from the name, being probably from _fingere_; so that the fact that the plebeian M. Volscius Fictor had been condemned, gave rise to the story that he had borne false witness. It is evident, that Cincinnatus has been preposterously idolized by posterity. Twenty years after this event, we see him, quite in the interest of a faction, shedding the innocent blood of Mælius.