If he took an active line, if he showed any regard for the patricians, if he thought that anything besides the plebs formed part of the commonwealth, he should keep before his eyes the banishment of Cn. Marcius, the condemnation and death of Menenius. Fired by these appeals the senators held meetings, not in the Senate-house but in private, only a few being invited.
As the one point on which they were agreed was that the two who were impeached were to be rescued, by lawful or unlawful means, the most desperate plan was the most acceptable, and men were found who advocated the most daring crime.
Accordingly, on the day of the trial, whilst the plebs were standing in the Forum on the tiptoe of expectation, they were surprised that the tribune did not come down to them. Further delay made them suspicious; they believed that he had been intimidated by the leaders of the senate, and they complained that the cause of the people had been abandoned and betrayed.
At last some who had been waiting in the vestibule of the tribune's house sent word that he had been found dead in his house. As this news spread throughout the assembly, they at once dispersed in all directions, like a routed army that has lost its general. The tribunes especially were alarmed, for they were warned by their colleague's death how absolutely ineffective the Sacred Laws were for their protection.
The patricians, on the other hand, showed extravagant delight; so far was any one of them from regretting the crime, that even those who had taken no part in it were anxious to appear as though they had, and it was openly asserted that the tribunitian power must be chastised into submission.
Whilst
But now the plebeians were more angry at the silence of the tribunes than at the exercise of authority on the part of the consuls. They said that it was all over with their liberty, they had gone back to the old state of things, the tribunitian power was dead and buried with Genucius.
Some other method must be thought out and adopted by which they could resist the patricians, and the only possible course was for the commons to defend themselves, as they had no other help. Four-and-twenty lictors attended on the consuls, and these very men were drawn from the plebs.
Nothing was more contemptible and feeble than they were, if there were any that would treat them with contempt, but every one imagined them to be great and awful things. After they had excited one another by these speeches, Volero Publilius, a plebeian, said that he ought not to be made a common soldier after serving as a centurion.
The consuls sent a lictor to him. Volero appealed to the tribunes. None came to his assistance, so the consuls ordered him to be stripped and the rods got ready. “I appeal to the people,” he said, “since the tribunes would rather see a Roman citizen scourged before their eyes than be murdered in their beds by you.” The more excitedly he called out, the more violently did the lictor tear off his toga, to strip him.
Then Volero, himself a man of unusual strength, and helped by those to whom he called, drove the lictor off, and amidst the indignant remonstrances of his supporters, retreated into the thickest part of the crowd crying out, “I appeal to the plebs for protection. Help fellow citizens!
help fellow soldiers! You have nothing to expect from the tribunes, they themselves need your aid.”