Ab urbe condita

On the other hand, the older patricians realised that their younger members were too aggressive, but if there were to be excesses they preferred that their own side should commit them rather than their opponents.

So difficult is it to observe moderation in the defence of liberty, while each man under the pretence of equality raises himself only by keeping others down, and by their very precautions against fear men make themselves feared, and in repelling injury from ourselves we inflict it on others as though there were no alternative between doing wrong and suffering it.

T.[*](War with the Volscians.) Quinctius Capitolinus and Agrippa Curius were the next consuls elected —the former for the fourth time. They found on entering office no disturbances at home nor any war abroad, though both were threatening.

The dissensions of the citizens could now no longer be checked, as both the tribunes and the plebs were exasperated against the patricians, owing to the Assembly being constantly disturbed by fresh quarrels whenever one of the nobility was prosecuted.

At the first bruit of these outbreaks, the Aequi and Volscians, as though at a given signal, took up arms. Moreover their leaders, eager for plunder, had persuaded them that it had been impossible to raise the levy ordered two years previously, because the plebs refused to obey, and it was owing to this that no armies had been sent against them;