Ab urbe condita

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.

This determined language from the tribunes filled the patricians with speechless indignation and amazement.

It is stated that Appius Claudius, a grandson of the old decemvir, moved by feelings of anger and hatred more than by any hope of turning them from their purpose, came forward and spoke to the following effect:

“It would be nothing new or surprising to me, Quirites, to hear once more the reproach that has always been levelled against our family by revolutionary tribunes, namely, that from the very beginning we have never regarded anything in the State as more important than the honour and dignity of the patricians, and that we have always been inimical to the interests of the plebs.

The former of these charges I do not deny. I acknowledge that from the day when we were admitted into the State and into the senate we have laboured most assiduously in order that the greatness of those houses amongst which it was your will that we should be numbered might be said in all truth to have been enhanced rather than impaired.

In reply to the second charge, I would go so far as to assert, on my own behalf and on that of my ancestors, that neither as individuals nor in our capacity as magistrates have we ever done anything knowingly which was against the interests of the plebs, unless any one should suppose that what is done on behalf of the State as a whole is necessarily injurious to the plebs as though they were living in another city; nor can any act or word of ours be truthfully brought up as opposed to your real welfare, though some may have been opposed to your wishes.

Even if I did not belong to the Claudian house and had no patrician blood in my veins, but more simply one of the Quirites, knowing only that I was sprung from free-born parents and was living in a free State —even

then, could I keep silence when I see that this L. Sextius, this C. Licinius, tribunes for life —good heavens! — have reached such a pitch of impudence during the nine years of their reign that they are refusing to allow you to vote as you please in the elections and in the enacting of laws?”

“On one condition,” they say, “you shall reappoint us tribunes for the tenth time.” What is this but saying, “What others seek we so thoroughly despise that we will not accept it without a heavy premium”?

But what premium have we to pay that we may always have you as tribunes of the plebs? “That you adopt all our measures en bloc, whether you agree with them or not, whether they are useful or the reverse.”

“Now I ask you —you Tarquinian tribunes [*](Tarquinian tribunes=tribunes showing the same tyrannical and despotic spirit as the old Tarquins) of the plebs —to listen to me. Suppose that I, as a citizen, call out from the middle of the Assembly, “Allow us, with your kind permission, to choose out of these proposed measures what we think beneficial for us and reject the

others.” “No,” he says, “you will not be allowed to do so. You would pass the measure about usury and the one about the distribution of land, for these concern you all; but you would not allow the City of Rome to witness the portentous sight of L. Sextius and C. Licinius as consuls, a prospect you regard with detestation and loathing. Either accept all, or I propose

none.” Just as if a man were to place poison together with food before some one famished with hunger and bid him either abstain from what would support his life or mix with it what would bring death. If this were a free State, would not hundreds of voices have exclaimed, “Be gone with your tribuneships and proposals.” What? If you do not bring in reforms which it is to the people's advantage to adopt, is there no one else who

will? If any patrician, if even a Claudius whom they detest still more —were to say, “Either accept all, or I propose none,” which of you, Quirites, would tolerate it? Will you never have more regard for measures than for