Ab urbe condita

Titus Livius (Livy)

Livy. History of Rome, Volumes 1-2. Roberts, Canon, Rev, translator. London, New York: J. M. Dent and Sons; E. P. Dutton and Co., 1912.

Nothing was more contemptible and feeble than they were, if there were any that would treat them with contempt, but every one imagined them to be great and awful things. After they had excited one another by these speeches, Volero Publilius, a plebeian, said that he ought not to be made a common soldier after serving as a centurion.

The consuls sent a lictor to him. Volero appealed to the tribunes. None came to his assistance, so the consuls ordered him to be stripped and the rods got ready. “I appeal to the people,” he said, “since the tribunes would rather see a Roman citizen scourged before their eyes than be murdered in their beds by you.” The more excitedly he called out, the more violently did the lictor tear off his toga, to strip him.

Then Volero, himself a man of unusual strength, and helped by those to whom he called, drove the lictor off, and amidst the indignant remonstrances of his supporters, retreated into the thickest part of the crowd crying out, “I appeal to the plebs for protection. Help fellow citizens!

help fellow soldiers! You have nothing to expect from the tribunes, they themselves need your aid.”