gher ground; nor are they able to repel the Romans
advancing up to the walls, and forcing the bars of the gates. The walls
were first taken by scalade; the gates were then broken open; and when
the two enemies pressed them both in front and in the rear, nor did
there remain any strength for fight, nor any room for running away,
between both they were all cut to pieces to a man. Tusculum being
recovered from the enemy, the army was led back to Rome.

34. In proportion as all matters were more tranquil abroad in
consequence of their successes in war this year, so much did the
violence of the patricians and the distresses of the commons in the city
increase every day; as the ability to pay was prevented by the very fact
that it was necessary to pay. Accordingly, when nothing could now be
paid out of their property, being cast in suits and assigned over to
custody, they satisfied their creditors by their character and persons,
and punishment was substituted for payment. Wherefore not only the
lowest, but even the leading men in the commons had sunk so low in
spirit, that no enterprising and adventurous man had courage, not only
to stand for the military tribuneship among the patricians, (for which
privilege they had strained all their energies,) but not even to take on
them and sue for plebeian magistracies: and the patricians seemed to
have for ever recovered the possession of an honour that had been only
usurped by the commons for a few years. A trifling cause, as generally
happens, which had the effect of producing a mighty result, intervened
to prevent the other party from exulting too much in that. Two daughters
of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, an influential man, both among persons of his
own station, and also with the commons, because he was by no means
considered a despiser of persons of that order, had been married, the
elder to Servius Sulpicius, the younger to Caius Licinius Stolo, a
distinguished person, but still a plebeian; and the fact of such an
alliance not having been scorned, had gained influence for Fabius with
the people. It so happened, that when the two sisters, the Fabiae, were
passing away the time in conversation in the house of Servius Sulpicius,
military tribune, a lictor of Sulpicius, when he returned home from the
forum, rapped at the door, as is usual, with the rod. When the younger
Fabia, a stranger to this custom, was frightened at it, she was laughed
at by her sister, who was surprised at her sist