Ab urbe condita

It was the glory of the tribunes and of the authority they wielded that they possessed as much strength to withstand evil-minded colleagues as to harass the senate and create dissension between the two orders.

Cheers arose from the whole senate and the tribunes were appealed to from every quarter of the House. When silence was restored, those tribunes who had been won over made it clear that since the senate was of opinion that the proposed measure tended to the break-up of the republic, they should interpose their veto on it.

They were formally thanked by the senate. The proposers of the measure convened a meeting in which they showered abuse on their colleagues, calling them “traitors to the interests of the plebs” and “slaves of the consulars,” with other insulting epithets. Then they dropped all further proceedings.

The[*](Capture of Bolae —Assassination of Postumius.) consular tribunes for the following year were P. Cornelius Cossus, C. Valerius Potitus, Q. Quinctius Cincinnatus, and Numerius Fabius Vibulanus. There would have been two wars this year if the Veientine leaders had not deferred hostilities owing to religious scruples. Their lands had suffered from an inundation of the Tiber chiefly through the destruction of their farm

buildings. The Bolani, a people of the same nationality as the Aequi, had made incursions into the adjoining territory of Labici and attacked the newly-settled colonists, in the hope of averting the consequences by receiving the unanimous support of the

Aequi. But the defeat they had sustained three years before made them disinclined to render

assistance; the Bolani, abandoned by their friends, lost both town and territory after a siege and one trifling engagement in a war which is not even worth

recording. An attempt was made by L. Sextius, a tribune of the plebs, to carry a measure providing that colonists should be sent to Bolae as they had been to Labici, but it was defeated by the intervention of his colleagues, who made it clear that they would not allow any resolution of the plebs to take effect except on the authorisation of the senate. The consular tribunes for the following year were Cnaeus Cornelius Cossus, L. Valerius Potitus, Q. Fabius Vibulanus-for the second time-and M. Postumius

Regillensis. The Aequi recaptured Bolae and strengthened the town by introducing fresh colonists. The war against the Aequi was entrusted to Postumius, a man of violent and obstinate temper, which, however, he displayed more in the hour of victory than during the war. After marching with his hastily-raised army to Bolae and crushing the spirit of the Aequi in some insignificant actions, he at length forced his way into the town. Then he diverted the contest from the enemy to his own

fellow-citizens. During the assault he had issued an order that the plunder should go to the soldiers, but after the capture of the town he broke his word. I am led to believe that this was the real ground for the resentment felt by the army rather than that in a city which had been recently sacked and where a new colony had been settled, the amount of booty was less than the tribune had given

out. After he had returned to the City on the summons of his colleagues owing to the commotions excited by the tribunes of the plebs, the feeling against him was intensified by a stupid and almost insane utterance in a meeting of the

Assembly. Sextius was introducing an agrarian law, and stated that one of its provisions was that colonists be settled at Bolae. “Those,” he said, “who had captured Bolae deserved that the city and its territory should belong to them.” Postumius exclaimed, “It will be a bad thing for my soldiers if they do not keep quiet.” This exclamation was quite as offensive to the senators, when they heard of it, as it was to the

Assembly. The tribune of the plebs was a clever man and not a bad speaker; he had now got amongst his opponents a man of insolent temper and hot tongue, whom he could irritate and provoke into saying things which would bring odium not only upon himself, but upon his cause and upon the whole of his order. There was no one amongst the consular tribunes whom he oftener drew into argument before the Assembly than