Ab urbe condita

Nay, on the contrary, there had been some cases of patricians being impeached after their year of office, but none of plebeians. The quaestors also, like the consular tribunes, had a few years previously begun to be elected from the plebs; in no single instance had the Roman people had any cause to regret those appointments.

The one thing that was left for the plebs to strive for was the consulship. That was the pillar, the stronghold of their liberties. If they arrived at that, the Roman people would realise that monarchy had been completely banished from the City, and that their freedom was securely established, for in that day everything in which the patricians were pre-eminent would come to the plebs —

power, dignity, military glory, the stamp of nobility; great things for themselves to enjoy, but greater still as legacies to their children.

When they saw that speeches of this kind were listened to with approval, they brought forward a fresh proposal, viz. that instead of the duumviri (the two keepers of the Sacred Books) a College of Ten should be formed, half of them plebeians and half patricians. The meeting of the Assembly, which was to pass these measures, was adjourned till the return of the army which was besieging Velitrae.

The year passed away before the legions were brought back. Thus the new measures were hung up and left for the new consular tribunes to deal with. They were T. Quinctius, Ser. Cornelius, Ser. Sulpicius, Sp. Servilius, L. Papirius, and L. Veturius.

The plebs re-elected their tribunes, at all events the same two who had brought forward the new measures. At the very beginning of the year the final stage in the struggle was reached.

When the tribes were summoned and the pro- posers refused to be thwarted by the veto of their colleagues, the patricians, now thoroughly alarmed, took refuge in their last line of defence —supreme power, and a supreme citizen to wield it. They resolved upon the nomination of a Dictator, and M. Furius Camillus was nominated; he chose L. Aemilius as his Master of the Horse.

Against such formidable preparations on the part of their opponents, the proposers on their side prepared to defend the cause of the plebs with the weapons of courage and resolution.

They gave notice of a meeting of the Assembly and summoned the tribes to vote. Full of anger and menace, the Dictator, surrounded by a compact body of patricians, took his seat, and the proceedings commenced as usual with a struggle between those who were bringing in the bills and those who were interposing their veto against them. The latter were in the stronger position legally but they were overborne by the popularity of the measures and the men who were proposing them.

The first tribes were already voting “Aye,” when Camillus said, “Since, Quirites, it is not the authority of your tribunes but their defiance of authority that you are ruled by now, and their right of veto, which was once secured by the secession of the plebs, is now being rendered nugatory by the same violent conduct by which you obtained; if, I, as Dictator, acting in your own interests quite as much as in that of the State, shall support the right of veto and protect, by my authority the safeguard which you are destroying.