Menenius Agrippa, a prominent senator, entered the rebels’ camp to make peace. “Once upon a time,” Agrippa told them, “the parts of the human body did not all agree as they do now, but each had its own ideas.” The stomach, the other organs felt, did nothing all day but grow fat from their efforts, “and so,” Agrippa said, “they made a plot that the hand would not carry food to the mouth, nor would the mouth accept anything it was given, nor would the teeth chew. But while the angry organs tried to subdue the stomach, the whole body wasted away.” The rebels got the point.
