Ab urbe condita

Material for his charges was afforded by the dishonest allocation of the Latin and Falernian domain amongst the plebs, and after the senate, desirous of restricting the consul's authority, had issued an order for the nomination of a Dictator to act against the Latins, Aemilius, whose turn

it then was to have the fasces, nominated his own colleague, who named Junius Brutus as his Master of the Horse.

He made his Dictatorship popular by delivering incriminatory harangues against the senate and also by carrying three measures [*](These measures practically annihilated the Assembly of Curies as a political power. The first appears to have been a more stringent reenactment of the Valerian and Horatian Law (see Vol. I. p. 201). The second “abolished the right of the patrician senate to reject a decree of the community as unconstitutional...in so far that it had to bring forward its constitutional objections, if it had any such, when the list of candidates was exhibited or the project of law brought in; which practically amounted to a regular announcement of its consent beforehand” (Mommsen, I. 297). The third deprived the patricians of the chance of misusing the uncontrolled powers of the censorship as in the case of Mamercus (Vol. I. pp. 247-8). ) which were directed against the nobility and were most advantageous to the

plebs. One was that the decisions of the plebs should be binding on all the Quirites; the second, that measures which were brought before the Assembly of centuries should be sanctioned by the patricians before being finally put to the

vote; the third, that since it had come about that both censors could legally be appointed from the plebs, one should in any case be always chosen from that

order. The patricians considered that the consul and the Dictator had done more to injure the State by their domestic policy than to strengthen its power by their successes in the field.

The consuls for the next year were L. Furius Camillus and C. Maenius. In order to bring more discredit upon Aemilius for his neglect of his military duties the previous year, the senate insisted that no expenditure of arms and men must be spared in order to reduce and destroy Pedum.

The new consuls were peremptorily ordered to lay aside everything else and march at once. The state of affairs in Latium was such that they would neither maintain peace nor undertake war.

For war their resources were utterly inadequate, and they were smarting too keenly under the loss of their territory to think of peace. They decided, therefore, on a middle course, namely, to confine themselves to their towns, and if they were informed of any town being attacked, to send assistance to it from

the whole of Latium . The people of Tibur and Praeneste, who were the nearest, reached Pedum, but the troops from Aricium, Lanuvium, and Veliternae, in conjunction with the

Volscians of Antium, were suddenly attacked and routed by Maenius at the river Astura. Camillus engaged the Tiburtines who were much the strongest force, and, though with greater difficulty, achieved a similar success.

During the battle the townsmen made a sudden sortie, but Camillus, directing a part of his army