Ab urbe condita

He had hardly disposed of that war before a more alarming commotion awaited him at home. After tremendous conflicts, the Dictator and the senate were worsted; consequently the proposals of the tribunes were carried, and in spite of the opposition of the nobility the elections were held for consuls.

L. Sextius was the first consul to be elected out of the plebs. Even that was not the end of the conflict.

The patricians refused to confirm the appointment, and matters were approaching a secession of the plebs and other threatening signs of appalling civic struggles. The Dictator, however, quieted the disturbances by arranging a compromise; the nobility made a concession in the matter of a plebeian consul, the plebs gave way to the nobility on the appointment of a praetor to administer justice in the City who was to be a patrician.

Thus after their long estrangement the two orders of the State were at length brought into harmony. The senate decided that this event deserved to be commemorated —and if ever the immortal gods merited men's gratitude, they merited it then —by the celebration of the Great Games, and a fourth day was added to the three hitherto devoted to them.

The plebeian aediles refused to superintend them, whereupon the younger patricians were unanimous in declaring that they would gladly allow themselves to be appointed aediles for the honour of the immortal gods.

They were universally thanked, and the senate made a decree that the Dictator should ask the people to elect two aediles from amongst the patricians, and that the senate should confirm all the elections of that year.

This year will be noteworthy for the first consulship held by a plebeian, and also for two new magistracies, the praetorship, and the curule aedileship. These offices the patricians created in their own interest as an equivalent for their concession of one consulship to the plebs, who bestowed it on L. Sextius, the man who had secured it for them.

The patricians secured the praetorship for Sp. Furius, the son of old Camillus, and the two aedileships for Gnaeus Quinctius Capitolinus and P. Cornelius Scipio, members of their own order. L. Aemilius Mamercus was elected from the patricians as colleague to L. Sextius.

The main themes of discussion at the beginning of the year were the Gauls, about whom it was rumoured that after wandering by various routes through Apulia they had reunited their forces, and the Hernici, who were reported to have revolted.

All preparations were deferred with the sole purpose of preventing any action from being taken by the plebeian consul; everything was quiet and silent in the City, as though a suspension of all business had been proclaimed, with the one exception of the tribunes of the plebs.

They did not silently submit to the procedure of the nobility in appropriating to themselves three patrician magistrates, sitting in curule chairs and clothed in the praetexta like consuls, as a set-off against one plebeian consul —

the praetor even administering justice, as though he were a colleague of the consuls and elected under the same auspices.

The senate felt somewhat ashamed of their resolution by which they had limited the curule aediles to their own order; it had been agreed that they should be elected in alternate years from the plebs; afterwards it was left open. The[*](Pestilence in Rome —Death of Camillus.) consuls for the following year were L. Genucius and Q.