§2.52.1urbi cum pace laxior etiam annona rediit et advecto ex Campania frumento et, postquam timor sibi cuique futurae inopiae abiit, eo, quod abditum fuerat, prolato.
With peace, a lower price of grain also returned to the city, both because of grain imported from Campania, and because, after the fear of future scarcity had departed from each individual, that which had been hidden was brought forward.
§2.52.2ex copia deinde otioque lascivire rursus animi et pristina mala, postquam foris deerant, domi quaerere.
Then, from abundance and leisure, the minds of the people began to grow wanton again, and to seek at home the former evils, now that they were lacking abroad.
§2.52.3tribuni plebem agitare suo veneno, agraria lege; in resistentes incitare patres nec in universos modo, sed in singulos.
The tribunes agitated the commons with their own poison, the agrarian law; they incited them against the patricians who resisted, not only as a whole, but also against individuals.
Q. Considius et T. Genucius, auctores agrariae legis, T. Menenio diem dicunt.
Quintus Considius and Titus Genucius, the proposers of the agrarian law, brought a charge against Titus Menenius.
invidiae erat amissum Cremerae praesidium, cum haud procul inde stativa consul habuisset; §2.52.4ea oppressit, cum et patres haud minus quam pro Coriolano adnisi essent, et patris Agrippae favor hauddum exolevisset.
The loss of the garrison at Cremera was a source of odium, since not far from there the consul had had his standing camp; this odium crushed him, although both the patricians had exerted themselves no less than for Coriolanus, and the favor toward his father Agrippa had not yet died out.
§2.52.5in multa temperarunt tribuni; cum capitis anquisissent, duo milia aeris damnato multam dixerunt.
In the matter of the fine the tribunes were moderate; though they had prosecuted him on a capital charge, they imposed a fine of two thousand asses on him when condemned.
ea in caput vertit.
This fine, however, turned into a capital matter.
negant tulisse ignominiam aegritudinemque; inde morbo absumptum esse.
They say he could not bear the disgrace and grief, and from that cause was carried off by disease.
§2.52.6alius deinde reus Sp. Servilius, ut consulatu abiit, C. Nautio et P. Valerio consulibus, initio statim anni ab L. Caedicio et T. Statio tribunis die dicta non, ut Menenius, precibus suis aut patrum, sed cum multa fiducia innocentiae gratiaeque tribunicios impetus tulit.
Then another person was accused, Spurius Servilius, as soon as he retired from the consulship, in the consulship of Gaius Nautius and Publius Valerius. Being prosecuted at the very beginning of the year by the tribunes Lucius Caedicius and Titus Statius, he bore the attacks of the tribunes not, like Menenius, with his own prayers or those of the patricians, but with great confidence in his innocence and popularity.
§2.52.7et huic proelium cum Tuscis ad Ianiculum erat crimini.
For him too, the battle with the Etruscans at the Janiculum was the ground of accusation.
sed fervidi animi vir, ut in publico periculo ante, sic tum in suo, non tribunos modo, sed plebem oratione feroci refutando exprobrandoque T. Meneni damnationem mortemque, cuius patris munere restituta quondam plebs eos ipsos, quibus tum saeviret, magistratus, eas leges haberet, periculum audacia discussit.
But being a man of a fiery spirit, as formerly in public danger, so then in his own, by refuting not only the tribunes but also the commons with a fierce speech and reproaching them with the condemnation and death of Titus Menenius — by the service of whose father the commons had once been restored and now held those very magistrates against whom they were then raging, and those laws — he dispelled the danger by his boldness.
iuvit et Verginius collega, §2.52.8testis productus, participando laudes; magis tamen Menenianum — adeo mutaverant animi — profuit iudicium.
His colleague Verginius also helped him, being produced as a witness and sharing in his praises; yet the judgment of Menenius — so much had their minds changed — was of more service.