Fabius Quintus was sent to Algidum as successor to Minucius. Towards the end of the year the tribunes began to agitate the question of the law; but because two armies were abroad, the patricians carried the point, that no business should be proposed to the people. The commons succeeded in electing the same tribunes for the fifth time. They report that wolves seen in the Capitol were driven away by dogs; that on account of that prodigy the Capitol was purified. Such were the transactions in that year. 30. Quintus Minucius and Caius Horatius Pulvillus follow as the next consuls. At the commencement of this year, when there was peace abroad, the same tribunes and the same law occasioned disturbances at home; and parties would have proceeded further, (so highly were their passions inflamed,) had not, as if for the very purpose, news been brought, that by an attack of the Æquans the garrison at Corbio had been cut off. The consuls convene the senate; they are ordered to raise a hasty levy and to proceed to Algidum. Then the contest about the law being given up, a new dispute arose regarding the levy. And the consular authority[132] was about to be overpowered by tribunitian influence, when an additional cause of alarm comes on them: that the Sabine army had made a descent into the Roman lands to commit depredations; that from thence they were advancing to the city. This fear influenced the tribunes to allow the levy to proceed, not without a stipulation, however, that since they had been foiled for five years, and as that was but little protection to the commons, ten tribunes of the people should henceforward be elected. Necessity wrung this from the patricians; this exception only they made, that they should not hereafter re-elect the same tribunes. The election for the tribunes was held immediately, lest that measure also, like others, might prove a delusion after the war. On the thirty-sixth year after the first tribunes, ten were elected, two from each class; and provision was made that they should be elected in this manner for the future. The levy being then held, Minucius marched out against the Sabines, and found no enemy. Horatius, after the Æquans, having put the garrison at Corbio to the sword, had taken Ortona also, fights a battle at Algidum; he slays a great number; drives the enemy not only from Algidum, but from Corbio and Ortona also. Corbio he razed to the ground for their having betrayed the garrison. [Footnote 132: _Consulare, imperium tribunicio auxilio_.--The consuls possessed _imperium_. The tribunes could not be said to possess it. Their province was confined to _auxilii latio_, sc. adversus consules.]