Ab urbe condita

Here the consuls were brought forward to the people and the question was put to them, “If the Roman people, remembering how you have recovered their liberty for them at home, remembering, too, your services and achievements in war, should make you consuls a second time, what do you intend to do?”

They declared their resolution unchanged, and Duillius, applauding the consuls for maintaining to the last an attitude totally unlike that of the decemvirs, proceeded to hold the election. Only five tribunes were elected, for owing to the efforts of the nine tribunes in openly pushing their canvass, the other candidates could not get the requisite majority of votes.

He dismissed the Assembly and did not hold a second election, on the ground that he had satisfied the requirements of the law, which nowhere fixed the number of tribunes, but merely enacted that the office of tribune should not be left vacant.

He ordered those who had been elected to co-opt colleagues, and recited the formula which governed the case as follows: “If I require you to elect ten tribunes of the plebs; if on this day you have elected less than ten, then those whom they co-opt shall be lawful tribunes of the plebs by the same law, in like manner as those whom you have this day made tribunes of the plebs.”

Duillius persisted in asserting to the last that the commonwealth could not possibly have fifteen tribunes, and he resigned office, after having won the goodwill of patricians and plebeians alike by his frustration of the ambitious designs of his colleagues.

Fresh Internal Dissensions.The new tribunes of the plebs studied the wishes of the senate in coopting colleagues; they even admitted two patricians of consular rank, Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aeternius.

The new consuls were Spurius Herminius and T. Verginius Caelimontanus, who were not violent partisans of either the patricians or the plebeians. They maintained peace both at home and abroad.

L. Trebonius, a tribune of the plebs, was angry with the senate because, as he said, he had been hoodwinked by them in the cooptation of tribunes, and left in the lurch by his colleagues.

He brought in a measure providing that when tribunes of the plebs were to be elected, the presiding magistrate should continue to hold the election until ten tribunes were elected. He spent his year of office in worrying the patricians, which led to his receiving the nickname of “ Asper,” (i.e. “the Cantankerous”).

The next consuls were M. Geganius Macerinus and C. Julius. They appeased the quarrels which had broken out between the tribunes and the younger members of the nobility without interfering with the powers of the former or compromising the dignity of the patricians.

A levy had been decreed by the senate for service against the Volscians and Aequi, but they kept the plebs quiet by holding it over, and publicly asserting that when the City was at peace everything abroad was quiet, whereas civil discord encouraged the enemy.