2.52
Together with peace, food
came more freely into the City. Corn was brought
from Campania, and as the fear of future scarcity
had disappeared, each individual brought out what he
had hoarded. The result of ease and plenty was fresh
restlessness, and as the old evils no longer existed
abroad, men began to look for them at home. The
tribunes began to poison the minds of the plebeians
with the Agrarian Law and inflamed them against the
senators who resisted it, not only against the whole
body, but individual members. Q. Considius and T.
Genucius, who were advocating the Law, appointed a
day for the trial of T. Menenius. Popular feeling
was roused against him by the loss of the fort at
the Cremera, since, as consul, he had his standing
camp not far from it. This crushed him, though the
senators exerted themselves for him no less than
they had done for Coriolanus, and the popularity of
his father Agrippa had not died away. The tribunes
contented themselves with a fine, though they had
arraigned him on a capital charge; the amount was
fixed at 2000 "ases." This proved to be a
death-sentence, for they say that he was unable to
endure the disgrace and grief, and was carried off
by a fatal malady. Sp. Servilius was the next to be
impeached. His prosecution, conducted by the
tribunes L. Caedicius and T. Statius, took place
immediately after his year had expired, at the
commencement of the consulship of C. Nautius and P.
Valerius. When the day of trial came, he did not,
like Menenius, meet the attacks of the tribunes by
appeals for mercy, whether his own or those of the
senators, he relied absolutely on his innocence and
personal influence. The charge against him was his
conduct in the battle with the Tuscans on the
Janiculum; but the same courage which he then
displayed, when the State was in danger, he now
displayed when his own life was in danger. Meeting
charge by counter-charge, he boldly laid upon the
tribunes and the whole of the plebs the guilt of the
condemnation and death of T. Menenius; the son, he
reminded them, of the man through whose efforts the
plebeians had been restored to their position in the
State, and were enjoying those very magistracies and
laws which now allowed them to be cruel and
vindictive. By his boldness he dispelled the danger,
and his colleague Verginius, who came forward as a
witness, assisted him by crediting him with some of
his own services to the State. The thing that helped
him more, however, was the sentence passed on
Menenius, so completely had the popular sentiment
changed.