Hello, and welcome to the history of Rome.

The years after the expulsion of the December at were hard, all problems remained unsolved

while new ones threatened to tear the city apart.

Petition and plea were at each other's throats over wealth, power, and land.

The population of the city was growing and there was not enough land to give them and

not enough food to feed them.

Not failures exacerbated the problem and famine became a persistent killer.

Better tensions led to a breakdown of military resolve and old enemies long contained

now returned to match for their former bettors.

The vultions and aqueans both peeled off Roman territory to the east and south, and there

was little the legions could do about it.

This is how the Romans limped through the second half of the 400s B.C., hungry, tired,

weak, and demoralized.

The turn of the century of final victory over a V.A. would lift the hopes, albeit briefly

of the city, but for now life was a dreary war of attrition.

The aftermath of the publication of the 12 tables, the plebs immediately became aware of

an institutionalized bias against them.

They were incensed to see a codification of the ban against Petition plead marriage

and immediately opened a new front in their war for equality.

The issue of greatest concern was access to the high offices of state.

This meant the consulship and the religious offices of Pontifex Maximus and its subordinate

priesthoods.

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