On his return to Rome in triumph, the dictator asked for an inquiry into the people's wrongs, with a view to giving them their rights; but the patrician party in the senate refusing him his committee, Valerius sent in his resignation, which was accepted by the senate. He apologised to the plebeians for not having been able to carry his measures of reform; and the patricians, pleased by his moderation in resigning his seat, gave him a curule chair--a sort of portable stall, or reserved seat, which, at the Circensian games he was privileged to occupy.
The Curule Chair, or Sella Curulis, invites us to pause for a moment, and hold a short sitting upon it, for the purpose of inquiring into its origin. Comfort seems to have been supplied most charily in the construction of this official chair; but there was a fine touch of morality in giving uneasiness to the seat of unlimited power. The legs of the Sella Curulis folded like those of a camp-stool; a device which may have been emblematical of the fact, that the dictatorial office was liable to a speedy shutting up, for the appointment was never more than of six months' duration. The material of which the chair was formed was the smoothest and most highly-polished ivory; so that the fatal facility of a fall must have been frequently suggested to the occupant of the seat by its exceedingly slippery surface.[16]
The Consuls, fearing an outbreak if the army was disbanded, ordered the soldiers to remain on duty in the capacity of special constables over each other--the staff being held responsible for the conduct of the main body. To be continued thus as a standing army, was more than the troops felt disposed to stand; and, determining to take high ground, they withdrew to the top of the Mons Sacer or Sacred Mount, in the neighbourhood of Crustumenium. Electing L. Sicinius as their leader, they accommodated themselves as well as they could, until matters should be accommodated with the senate.
The patricians began to be greatly alarmed at the secession of the plebeians; for though the former had been accustomed to trample the latter under foot, all the foundations of society seemed to be withdrawn in the absence of that part which, though it may be called the base, is essential to the existence of the capital. Rome, in fact, was beginning to find out that an aristocracy cut off from all connection with the people at large, is little better than a flower separated from the tree, and doomed to fall speedily into bad odour. The patrician order happily recognised the important truth, that the most delicate tendrils owe all their vitality to the sap, carried up to the top of the tree from those portions that are in the closest connection with the soil; and steps were therefore taken to prevent the final severing of the sturdy trunk from the higher branches. An embassy, consisting of ten patricians, was sent to negotiate; but as the patricians were no orators, and their stupidity spoke for itself, Menenius Agrippa, who had once been a plebeian, was sent as their head, which of course included their mouth-piece.