129 For the year following the
capture of Antium, Titus Aemilius and Quinctius Fabius were
made consuls. This was the Fabius who was the sole survivor
of the extinction of his house at the Cremera.1 Aemilius had
already in his former consulship advocated the grant of land
to the plebeians. As he was now consul for the second time,
the agrarian party entertained hopes that the Law would be
carried out; the tribunes took the matter up in the firm
expectation that after so many attempts they would gain their
cause, now that one consul, at all events, was supporting
them; the consul's views on the question remained unchanged.
Those in occupation of the land-the majority of the
patricians
complained that the head of the State was adopting the
methods of the tribunes and making himself popular by giving
away other people's property, and in this way they shifted
all the odium from the tribunes on to the consul. There was
every prospect of a serious contest, had not Fabius smoothed
matters by a suggestion acceptable to both sides, namely,
that as there was a considerable quantity of land which had
been taken from the Volscians the previous year, under the
auspicious general-ship of T. Quinctius, a colony might be
settled at Antium, which, as a seaport town, and at no great
distance from Rome, was a suitable city for the purpose. This
would allow the plebeians to enter on public land without any
injustice to those in occupa-tion, and so harmony would be
restored to the State. This suggestion was adopted. He
appointed as the three commis-sioners for the distribution of
the land, T. Quinctius, A. Verginius, and P. Furius. Those
who wished to receive a grant were ordered to give in their
names. As usual, abundance produced disgust,2 and so few gave
in their names that the number was made up by the addition of
Volscians as colonists. The rest of the people preferred to
ask for land at Rome rather than accept it elsewhere. The
Aequi sought for peace from Q. Fabius, who
had marched against them, but they broke it by a sudden
incursion into Latin territory.
