rongest entrenchments beyond them,
to prevent their escape, and enclosing them as they had enclosed the
consul. 18. To prevent this, a furious combat ensued; but the AE'qui,
being attacked on both sides, and unable longer to resist or fly,
begged a cessation of arms. 19. They offered the dictator his own
terms: he gave them their lives, and obliged them, in token of
servitude, to pass under the yoke, which was two spears set upright,
and another across, in the form of a gallows, beneath which the
vanquished were to march. Their captains and generals he made
prisoners of war, being reserved to adorn his triumph. 20. As
for the plunder of the enemy's camp, that he gave entirely up to his
own soldiers, without reserving any part for himself, or permitting
those of the delivered army to have a share. 21. Thus having rescued a
Roman army from inevitable destruction, having defeated a powerful
enemy, having taken and fortified their city, and still more, having
refused any part of the spoil, he resigned his dictatorship, after
having enjoyed it but fourteen days. The senate would have enriched
him, but he declined their proffers, choosing to retire once more to
his farm and his cottage, content with competency and fame.

22. But this repose from foreign invasion did not lessen the tumults
of the city within. The clamours for the Agra'rian law still
continued, and still more fiercely, when Sic'cius Denta'tus, a
plebeian advanced in years, but of an admirable person and military
deportment, came forward to enumerate his hardships and his merits.
This old soldier made no scruple of extolling the various achievements
of his youth; indeed, his merits more than supported his ostentation.
23. He had served his country in the wars forty years: he had been an
officer thirty, first a centurion, and then a tribune; he had fought
one hundred and twenty battles, in which, by the force of his single
arm, he had saved a multitude of lives; he had gained fourteen
civic,[5] three mural,[6] and eight golden crowns; besides
eighty-three chains, sixty bracelets, eighteen gilt spears, and
twenty-three horse-trappings, whereof nine were for killing the enemy
in single combat; moreover, he had received forty-five wounds in
front, and none behind. 24. These were his honours; yet,
notwithstanding all these, he had never received any share of those
lands which were won from the enemy, but continued to drag on a life
of poverty and contempt, while oth