Ab urbe condita

That his resignation was due to some defect in the auspices rather than to the effect of such an unprecedented proposal I am led to believe by the following considerations: the well-known character of the man himself; the fact that P. Manlius immediately succeeded him as Dictator —for what in fluence could he have exerted in a contest in which Camillus had been worsted?

the further fact that Camillus was again Dictator, the following year, for surely he would have been ashamed to reassume an authority which had been successfully defied the year before.

Besides, at the time when, according to the tradition, the resolution imposing a fine on him was passed, either he had as Dictator the power to negative a measure which

he saw was meant to circumscribe his authority, or else he was powerless to resist even those other measures on account of which this one was carried. But amidst all the conflicts in which tribunes and consuls have been engaged, the Dictator's powers have always been above controversy.

Between Camillus' resignation of office and Manlius' entrance on his Dictatorship, the tribunes held a council of the plebs as though an interregnum had occurred. Here it was evident which of the proposed measures were preferred by the plebs and which their tribunes were most eager about.

The measures dealing with usury and the allotment of State land were being adopted, that providing that one consul should always be a plebeian was rejected; both the former would probably have been carried into law if the tribunes had not said that they were putting them en bloc.

P. Manlius, on his nomination as Dictator, strengthened the cause of the plebs by appointing a plebeian, C. Licinius, who had been a consular tribune, as his Master of the Horse.

I gather that the patricians were much annoyed; the Dictator generally defended his action on the ground of relationship; he pointed out also that the authority of a Master of the Horse was no greater than that of a consular tribune.

When notice was given for the election of tribunes of the plebs, Licinius and Sextius declared their unwillingness to be re-elected, but they put it in a way which made the plebeians all the more eager to secure the end which they secretly had in view.

For nine years, they said, they had been standing in battle array, as it were, against the patricians, at the greatest risk to themselves and with no advantage to the people. The measures they had brought forward and the whole power of the tribunes had, like themselves, become enfeebled by age.

Their proposed legislation had been frustrated first by the veto of their colleagues, then by the withdrawal of their fighting men to the district of Velitrae, and last of all the Dictator had launched his thunders at them.

At the present time there was no obstacle either from their colleagues or from war or from the Dictator, for he had given them an earnest of the future election of plebeian consuls by appointing a plebeian as Master of the Horse.