Horatius Barbatus and L. Valerius Potitus, to negotiate with the
insurgents. The plebeians were ready to listen to the voices of these
men; for they remembered that the consuls of the first year of the
Republic, when the patrician burgesses were friends to the plebeians,
were named Valerius and Horatius; and so they appointed M. Duillius, a
former tribune, to be their spokesman. But no good came of it; and
Duillius persuaded the plebeians to leave the city, and once more to
occupy the Sacred Mount.

Then remembrances of the great secession came back upon the minds of the
patricians, and the senate, observing the calm and resolute bearing of
the plebeian leaders, compelled the decemvirs to resign, and sent back
Valerius and Horatius to negotiate anew.

The leaders of the plebeians demanded: First, that the tribuneship
should be restored, and the _Comitia Tributa_ recognized; secondly, that
a right of appeal to the people against the power of the supreme
magistrate should be secured; thirdly, that full indemnity should be
granted to the movers and promoters of the late secession; fourthly,
that the decemvirs should be burnt alive.

Of these demands the deputies of the senate agreed to the three first;
but the fourth, they said, was unworthy of a free people; it was a piece
of tyranny, as bad as any of the worst acts of the late government; and
it was needless, because anyone who had reason of complaint against the
late decemvirs might proceed against them according to law. The
plebeians listened to these words of wisdom, and withdrew their savage
demand. The other three were confirmed by the fathers, and the plebeians
returned to their quarters on the Aventine. Here they held an assembly
according to their tribes, in which the pontifex Maximus presided; and