Ab urbe condita

The people assigned the dedication of the temple to M. Laetorius, the first centurion of the legion, a choice obviously made not so much to honour the man, by conferring upon him an office so far above his station, as to bring discredit on the consuls.

One of them, at all events, was excessively angry, as were the senate, but the courage of the plebs had risen, and they went to work in a very different method from that which they had adopted at first.

For as any prospect of help from the consuls or the senate was hopeless, they took matters into their own hands, and whenever they saw a debtor brought before the court, they rushed there from all sides, and by their shouts and uproar prevented the consul's sentence from being heard, and when it was pronounced no one obeyed it.

They resorted to violence, and all the fear and danger to personal liberty was transferred from the debtors to the creditors, who were roughly handled before the eyes of the consul.

In addition to all this there were growing apprehensions of a Sabine war. A levy was decreed, but no one gave in his name. Appius was furious; he accused his colleague of courting the favour of the people, denounced him as a traitor to the common-wealth because he refused to give sentence where debtors were brought before him, and moreover he refused to raise troops after the senate had ordered a levy.