Of the two propositions of the tribunes, Icilius, in 482, and Pontificius,
in 480, the results were the same. The opposition of their colleagues
defeated them. But this persistent opposition rather than crushing seemed
to stir up renewed attacks. We have seen the tribunes, Menius, Icilius, and
Pontificius, successively fail. The next movement was led by a member of
the aristocracy, Fabius Caeso,[13] consul for the third time in 477. He
undertook to remove from the hands of the tribunes the terrible arm of
agrarian agitation which they wielded constantly against the patricians, by
causing the patricians themselves to distribute the domain lands equally
among the plebeians, saying: "that those[14] persons ought to have the
lands by whose blood and sweat they had been gained." His proposition was
rejected with scorn by the patricians, and this attempt at reconciliation
failed as all the attempts of the tribunes had. The war with Vaii which,
according to Livy, now took place hindered for a while any agrarian
movements; but, in 474, the tribunes Gaius Considius and Titus Genucius
made a fruitless attempt at distribution, and, in 472, Dionysius speaks of
a bill brought forward by Cn. Genucius which is probably the same bill.

In 468, the two consuls, Valerius and Aemilius, faithfully supported the
tribunes in their demand[15] for an agrarian law. The latter seems to have
supported the tribunes because he was angry that the senate had refused
to his father the honor of a triumph; Valerius, because he wished to
conciliate the people for having taken part in the condemnation of Cassius.

Dionysius, according to his custom, takes advantage of the occasion to
write several long speeches here, and one of them is valuable to us. He
causes the father of Aemilius to set forth in a formal speech the true
character of the agrarian laws and the right of the state to again assume
the lands which had been taken possession of. He further says: "that it