Ab urbe condita

The first tribes were already voting “Aye,” when Camillus said, “Since, Quirites, it is not the authority of your tribunes but their defiance of authority that you are ruled by now, and their right of veto, which was once secured by the secession of the plebs, is now being rendered nugatory by the same violent conduct by which you obtained; if, I, as Dictator, acting in your own interests quite as much as in that of the State, shall support the right of veto and protect, by my authority the safeguard which you are destroying.

If therefore, C. Licinius and L. Sextius give way before the opposition of their colleagues, I will not intrude the powers of a patrician magistrate into the councils of the plebs;

if, however, in spite of that opposition they are bent on imposing their measures on the State, as though it had been subjugated in war, I will not allow the tribunitian power to work its own destruction.” The tribunes of the plebs treated this pronouncement with contempt, and persisted in their course with unshaken resolution.

Thereupon Camillus, excessively angry, sent lictors to disperse the plebeians and threatened, if they went on, to bind the fighting men by their military oath and march them out of the City. The plebs were greatly alarmed, but their leaders were exasperated rather than intimidated by his opposition. But while the contest was still undecided he resigned office, either owing to some irregularity in his nomination, as certain writers maintain, or because the tribunes proposed a resolution, which the plebs adopted, to the effect that if Camillus took any action as Dictator a fine of 500,000 asses should be imposed upon him.

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.

It was the plebs who stood in the way of their tribunes and their own interests. If they chose they could have a City and a Forum free from creditors, and fields rescued from their unlawful occupiers.

When were they ever going to show sufficient gratitude for these boons, if while accepting these beneficial measures they cut off from those who proposed them all hope of attaining the highest honours? It was not consistent with the self-respect of the Roman people for them to demand to be relieved of the burden of usury and placed on the land which is now wrongfully held by the magnates, and then to leave the tribunes, through whom they won these reforms, without honourable distinction in their old age or any hope of attaining it.

They must first make up their minds as to what they really wanted and then declare their will by their votes at the election.

If they wanted the proposed measures carried as a whole, there was some reason for their re-electing the same tribunes, because they would carry their own measures through; if, however, they only wished that to be passed which each man happened to want for himself, there was no need for them to incur odium by prolonging their term of office; they would not have the tribuneship themselves, nor would the people obtain the proposed reforms.