Ab urbe condita

secret. They complained that they had been treated with such contempt by the plebs, that though consular tribunes had now been elected for many years, not a single plebeian had ever found his way to that

office. Their ancestors had shown much foresight in taking care that the plebeian magistracies should not be open to patricians, otherwise they must have had patricians as tribunes of the plebs, for so insignificant were they in the eyes of their own order that they were looked down upon by plebeians quite as much as by the

patricians. Others threw the blame on the patricians, it was owing to their unscrupulous cleverness in pushing their canvassing that the path to honour was closed to the plebeians. If the plebs were allowed a respite from their menaces and entreaties, they would think of their own party when they went to vote, and by their united efforts would win office and

power. It was decided that, with a view to doing away with the abuses of canvassing, the tribunes should bring in a law forbidding any one to whiten his toga[*](The toga was the natural color of the wool of which it was made; those who sought election whitened their togas with chalk or some similar substance, and hence were called candidati (“dressed in white robes”).), when he appeared as a candidate. To us now the matter may appear trivial and hardly worth serious discussion, but it kindled a tremendous conflict between patricians and

plebeians. The tribunes, however, succeeded in carrying their law, and it was clear that, irritated as they were, the plebeians would support their own men. That they might not be free to do so, a resolution was passed in the senate that the forthcoming elections should be held for the appointment of consuls.

The[*](War with the Volscians and Aequi.) reason for this decision was the report sent in by the Latins and Hernicans of a sudden rising amongst the Volscians and Aequi.

T. Quinctius Cincinnatus —surnamed Poenus —the son of Lucius, and Gnaeus Julius Mento were made consuls. War very soon broke out.

After a levy had been raised under the Lex Sacrata[*](Lex Sacrata. —A law, the violation of which exposed the offender, his family and property, to be devoted (sacer) to some deity, and whoever killed him was held to have sacrificed him to that deity. Such was the Law of Publicola; as also that which secured the inviolability of the tribunes of the plebs and subsequently of other magistrates. In the present case everyone who refused to serve was so “devoted,” probably by a priest of Mars.), which was the most powerful means they possessed of compelling men to serve, the armies of both nations advanced and concentrated on Algidus, where they entrenched themselves, each in a separate

camp. Their generals showed greater care than on any previous occasion in the construction of their lines and the exercising of the troops. The reports of this increased the alarm in