his army followed laden with spoil.  Banquets are said to have been spread before the houses of all, and the soldiers, partaking of the entertainment, followed the chariot with the triumphal hymn and the usual jests,[38] after the manner of revellers.  On that day the freedom of the state was granted to Lucius Mamilius of Tusculum, amid universal approbation.  The dictator would have immediately laid down his office had not the assembly for the trial of Marcus Volscius, the false witness, detained him; the fear of the dictator prevented the tribunes from obstructing it.  Volscius was condemned and went into exile at Lanuvium.  Quinctius laid down his dictatorship on the sixteenth day, having been invested with it for six months.  During those days the consul Nautius engaged the Sabines at Eretum with distinguished success:  besides the devastation of their lands, this additional blow also befell the Sabines.  Fabius was sent to Algidum as successor to Minucius.  Toward the end of the year the tribunes began to agitate concerning the law; but, because two armies were away, the patricians carried their point, that no proposal should be made before the people.  The commons succeeded in electing the same tribunes for the fifth time.  It is said that wolves seen in the Capitol were driven away by dogs, and that on account of that prodigy the Capitol was purified.  Such were the transactions of that year.

Quintus Minucius and Gaius Horatius Pulvillus were the next consuls.  At the beginning of this year, when there was peace abroad, the same tribunes and the same law occasioned disturbances at home; and matters would have proceeded further—­so highly were men’s minds inflamed-had not news been brought, as if for the very purpose, that by a night attack of the AEquans the garrison at Corbio had been cut off.  The consuls convened the senate:  they were ordered to raise a hasty levy and to lead it to Algidum.  Then, the struggle about the law being abandoned, a new dispute arose regarding the levy.  The consular authority was on the point of being overpowered by tribunician influence, when an additional cause of alarm arose:  that the Sabine army had made a descent upon Roman territory to commit depredations and from thence was advancing toward the city.  This fear influenced the tribunes to allow the soldiers to be enrolled, not without a stipulation, however, that since they themselves had been foiled for five years, and as the present college was but inadequate protection for the commons, ten tribunes of the people should henceforward be elected.  Necessity extorted this concession from the patricians:  they only exacted this proviso, that they should not hereafter see the same men tribunes.  The election for the tribunes was held immediately, lest that measure also, like others, might remain unfulfilled after the war.  In 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, but found no enemy.  Horatius, when the AEquans, having put the garrison at Corbio to the sword, had taken Ortona also, fought a battle at Algidum, in which he slew a great number of the enemy and drove them not only from Algidum, but from Corbio and Ortona.  He also razed Corbio to the ground for having betrayed the garrison.