For two years a pestilence raged in the city, which swept away great numbers of citizens and paralysed the industry of all. The most illustrious of its victims was Camillus, who died even more gloriously than he had lived, while discharging the office of peacemaker. About the same time the region of the city was shaken by earthquakes; the Tiber overflowed its bed and flooded the Great Circus, so that the games then going on were broken off. Not long after a vast gulf opened in the Forum, as if to say that the meeting-place of the Roman people was to be used no more. The seers said that the gods forbade this gulf to close till that which Rome held most valuable were thrown into it. Then, when men were asking what this might be, a noble youth, named M. Curtius, said aloud that Rome’s true riches were brave men, that nothing else so worthy could be devoted to the gods. Thus saying, he put on his armour, and mounting his horse, leaped into the gulf; and straightway, says the legend, the earth closed and became solid as before; and the place was called the Lacus Curtius forever after. To these direct visitations of God, the pestilence and the earthquake, was added a still more terrible scourge in the continued inroads of the Gauls. It has been noticed above that in the years 361 and 350 B.C. hordes of these barbarians again burst into Latium and again ravaged the Roman territory. These combined causes increased the distress of the poor, and we read without surprise that in the year 357 B.C., ten years after the passing of the Licinian laws, a bill was brought forward by Duilius and Mænius, tribunes of the plebs, to restore the rate of interest fixed by the Twelve Tables, which in the late troubles had fallen into neglect; and five years later (in 352) the consuls brought forward a measure to assist the operation of the Licinian law of debt. They appointed five commissioners (_quinqueviri_), with power to make estimates of all debts and of the property of the debtors. This done, the commissioners advanced money to discharge the debt, as far as it was covered by the property of the debtor. The measure was wise and useful, but could only be partial in its effects. It could not help those debtors who had no property, or not enough property to pay their debts withal. Hence we find that in another five years (347 B.C.) the rate of interest was reduced to 5 per cent.; and some years afterwards it was tried to abolish interest altogether. But, laws to limit interest proved then, as they have proved ever since, ineffectual to restrain the practices of grasping and dishonest usurers.