Voltumna. There the question was adjourned for a year and a decree was passed

that no council should be held till the year had elapsed, in spite of the protests of the Veientines, who declared that the same fate which had overtaken Fidenae was threatening

them. At Rome, meantime, the leaders of the plebs, finding that their cherished hopes of higher dignity were futile whilst there was peace abroad, got up meetings in the houses of the tribunes, where they discussed their plans in

secret. They complained that they had been treated with such contempt by the plebs, that though consular tribunes had now been elected for many years, not a single plebeian had ever found his way to that

office. Their ancestors had shown much foresight in taking care that the plebeian magistracies should not be open to patricians, otherwise they must have had patricians as tribunes of the plebs, for so insignificant were they in the eyes of their own order that they were looked down upon by plebeians quite as much as by the

patricians. Others threw the blame on the patricians, it was owing to their unscrupulous cleverness in pushing their canvassing that the path to honour was closed to the plebeians. If the plebs were allowed a respite from their menaces and entreaties, they would think of their own party when they went to vote, and by their united efforts would win office and

power. It was decided that, with a view to doing away with the abuses of canvassing, the tribunes should bring in a law forbidding any one to whiten his togaThe toga was the natural color of the wool of which it was made; those who sought election whitened their togas with chalk or some similar substance, and hence were called candidati (“dressed in white robes”)., when he appeared as a candidate. To us now the matter may appear trivial and hardly worth serious discussion, but it kindled a tremendous conflict between patricians and