reward being that his son was forgiven and recalled from banishment.

[Illustration: PLOUGHING]

These are the grand old stories that came down from old time, but how
much is true no one can tell, and there is reason to think that, though
the leaders like Cincinnatus and Coriolanus might be brave, the Romans
were really pressed hard by the Volscians and Æqui, and lost a good deal
of ground, though they were too proud to own it. No wonder, while the
two orders of the state were always pulling different ways. However, the
tribune Icilius succeeded in the year 454 in getting the Aventine Hill
granted to the plebeians; and they had another champion called Lucius
Sicinius Dentatus, who was so brave that he was called the Roman
Achilles. He had received no less than forty-five wounds in different
fights before he was fifty-eight years old, and had had fourteen civic
crowns. For the Romans gave an oak-leaf wreath, which they called a
civic crown, to a man who saved the life of a fellow-citizen, and a
mural crown to him who first scaled the walls of a besieged city. And
when a consul had gained a great victory, he had what was called a
triumph. He was drawn in his chariot into the city, his victorious
troops marching before him with their spears waving with laurel boughs,
a wreath of laurel was on his head, his little children sat with him in
the chariot, and the spoil of the enemy was carried along. All the
people decked their houses and came forth rejoicing in holiday array,
while he proceeded to the Capitol to sacrifice an ox to Jupiter there.
His chief prisoners walked behind his car in chains, and at the moment
of his sacrifice they were taken to a cell below the Capitol and there
put to death, for the Roman was cruel in his joy. Nothing was more
desired than such a triumph; but such was often the hatred between the
plebeians and the patricians, that sometimes the plebeian army would