Ab urbe condita

The men greatly excited got ready as if for battle and a most critical struggle was evidently impending, where no one would show the slightest respect for either public or private rights The consuls tried to check the fury of the storm, but they soon found that there is little safety for authority without strength.

The lictors were mobbed, the fasces broken, and the consuls driven from the Forum into the Senate-house, uncertain how far Volero would push his victory.

As the tumult was subsiding they ordered the senate to be convened, and when it was assembled they complained of the outrage done to them, the violence of the plebeians, the audacious insolence of Volero.

After many violent speeches had been made, the opinion of the older senators prevailed; they disapproved of the intemperance of the plebs being met by angry resentment on the part of the patricians.

Volero was now in high favour with the plebs, and they made him a tribune at the next election. Lucius Pinarius and P. Furius were the consuls for that year.

Everybody supposed that Volero would use all the power of his tribuneship to harass the consuls of the preceding year. On the contrary, he sub-ordinated his private grievances to the interests of the State, and without uttering a single word which could reflect on the consuls, he

proposed to the people a measure providing that the magistrates of the plebs should be elected by the Assembly of the Tribes. At first sight this measure appeared to be of a very harmless description, but it would deprive the patricians of all power of electing through their clients' votes those whom they wanted as tribunes.

It was most welcome to the plebeians, but the patricians resisted it to the utmost. They were unable to secure the one effectual means of resistance, namely, inducing one of the tribunes, through the influence of the consuls or the leading patricians, to interpose his veto.

The weight and importance of the question led to protracted controversy throughout the year. The plebs re-elected Volero. The patricians, feeling that the question was rapidly approaching a crisis, appointed Appius Claudius, the son of Appius, who, ever since his father's contests with them, had been hated by them and cordially hated them in return.

From the very commencement of the year the Law took precedence of all other matters. Volero had been the first to bring it forward, but his colleague, Laetorius, though a later, was a still more energetic supporter of it.

He had won an immense reputation in war, for no man was a better fighter, and this made him a stronger opponent. Volero in his speeches confined himself strictly to discussing the Law and abstained from all abuse of the consuls.