extinction, whereas expediency, by parting with a mere fragment of
justice, preserves the greater portion of it intact.

Now the cause of most of the troubles that the Romans had lay in the
unyielding attitude adopted by the more powerful class toward its
inferiors. Many remedies were afforded them against delays in payment
of debts, one of which was that in case it happened that several
persons had been lending to anybody, they had authority to divide his
body piecemeal according to the proportionate amounts that he was
owing. Yet, however much this principle had been declared legal, still
it had surely never been put into practice. For how could a nation
have proceeded to such lengths of cruelty when it frequently granted
to those convicted of some crime a refuge for their preservation and
allowed such as were thrust from the cliffs of the Capitoline to live
in case they should survive the experience? (Mai, p.143. Cp. Zonaras.
7, 14.)

5. ¶Those who were owing debts took possession of a certain hill and
having placed one Gaius at their head proceeded to secure their food
from the country as from hostile territory, thereby demonstrating that
the laws were weaker than arms, and justice than their desperation.
The senators being in terror both that this party might become more
estranged and that the neighboring tribes in view of the crisis might
join in an attack upon them proposed terms to the rebels offering
everything that they hoped might please them. The seceders at first
were for brazening it out, but were brought to reason in a remarkable
way. When they kept up a series of disorderly shouts, Agrippa, one of
the envoys, begged them to hearken to a fable and having obtained
their consent spoke as follows. Once all the Members of Man began a
contention against the Belly, saying that they worked and toiled