Ab urbe condita

So in the 4ooth year from the foundation of the City and the 35th after its capture by the Gauls, the second consulship was wrested from the plebs, for the first time since the passing of the Licinian Law seven years previously. Empulum was taken this year from the Tiburtines without any serious fighting.

It seems uncertain whether both consuls held joint command in this campaign, as some writers assert, or whether the fields of the Tarquinians were ravaged by Sulpicius at the same time that Valerius was leading his legions against the Tiburtines. The[*](Contest over the Consulship.) consuls had a more serious conflict at home with the plebs and their tribunes.

They considered it as a question not only of courage but of honour and loyalty to their order that as two patricians had received the consulship so they should hand it on to two patricians.