Ab urbe condita

The influence of the senate, however, was overborne by the angry temper of the plebeians, and a most vicious precedent was set by the condemnation of those innocent men to a fine of 10,000 “ ases ” each. The senate were extremely distressed.

Camillus openly accused the plebeians of treason in turning against their own magistrates because they did not see that through this iniquitous judgment they had taken from their tribunes the power of veto, and in depriving them of that had overthrown their power.

They were deceived if they expected the senate to put up with the absence of any restraint upon the licence of that magistracy. If the violence of tribunes could not be met by the veto of tribunes, the senate would find another weapon.

He poured blame on the consuls also for having silently allowed the honour of the State to be compromised in the case of tribunes who had followed the instructions of the senate. By openly repeating these charges he embittered the feeling of the populace more every day.

The senate, on the other hand, he was perpetually inciting to oppose the measure.[*](i. e., the proposal to make Veii a second Rome.) They must not, he said, go down to the Forum, when the day came for voting on it, in any other temper than that of men who realised that they would have to fight for their hearths and altars, for the temples of the gods, and even for the soil on which they had been born.