Rome’s misfortunes of 440 BCE had begun…
440 BCE
Rome’s misfortunes of 440 BCE had begun with a famine, which Livy assigns either to the year being unfavorable to the crops, or to the cultivation of the land being abandoned for the attractions of political meetings and city life.
The senate had blamed the idleness of the plebeians, the tribunes had charge the consuls at one time with dishonesty, at another with negligence.
At last they induce the plebs, with the acquiescence of the senate, to appoint as Prefect of the corn-market Lucius Minucius Agurinus of the Minucia gens.
The oldest branch of the family, the Minucii Augurini, were originally patrician, but BCE, Lucius Minucius Augurinus goes over to the plebeians to be elected tribune of the plebs.
In this capacity he is more successful in guarding liberty than in the discharge of his office, though in the end he deservedly wins gratitude and reputation for having relieved the scarcity.
He dispatches numerous agents by sea and land to visit the surrounding nations, but as their mission is fruitless, with the sole exception of Etruria, which furnishes a small supply, he makes no impression on the market.
He then devotes himself to the careful adjustment of the scarcity, and obliges all who possess any corn to declare the amount, and after retaining a month's supply for themselves, sell the rest to the Government.
By cutting the daily rations of the slaves to one half, by holding up the corn-merchants to public execration, by rigorous and inquisitorial methods, he reveals the prevailing distress more than he relieves it.
Many of the plebs, despairing of hope of release from starvation and misery, drown themselves in the Tiber.
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Southwest Europe
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