To this donation he was adding a considerable portion of land, which, though public property, he alleged was possessed by private individuals.

This proceeding alarmed several of the senators, the actual possessors, at the danger of their property; the senators felt, moreover, a solicitude on public grounds, that the consul by his donation was establishing an influence dangerous to liberty.

Then, for the first time, the Agrarian law was proposed, which even down to our own recollection was never agitated without the greatest commotions in the state.

The other consul resisted the donation, the senators seconding him, nor were all the commons opposed to him; they had at first begun to despise a gift which was extended from citizens to allies: in the next place they frequently heard the consul Virginius in the assemblies as it were prophesying--"that the gift of his colleague was pestilential--that those lands were sure to bring slavery to those who should receive them; that the way was paving to a throne." For why was it that the allies were included, and the Latin nation?
What was the object of a third of the land that had been taken being given back to the Hernici so lately our enemies, except that instead of Coriolanus being their leader they may have Cassius?
The dissuader and opposer of the agrarian law now began to be popular.

Both consuls then vied with each other in humouring the commons.