Curiosities & wonders > Titus Livius' Roman history

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TITUS LIVIUS’
Book III.
might soon arrive according to concert, followed by those
of the iEqui and Volsci, the eternal enemies of Rome;
who would not come to ravage the country as formerly,
but to take possession of a city, already half taken.
Among so many causes of distrust, their principal terror
was with respect to the slaves, no man knowing but he
had an enemy in his house, in whom they neither could
safely confide, having no assurance of their fidelity, nor
seem to distrust, for fear of making them enemies. Such
was their embarrassment, that they did not imagine that
a thorough reconciliation between' the orders, would be
sufficient to save the state. However, among all the ca¬
lamities that threatened them, they had not the least ap¬
prehension of danger from the people or their magis¬
trates. Their domestic dissensions they considered as
evils of a gentle kind, being ever the consequences of
freedom from all other calamities, and for the present
seemed to be absorbed in this foreign alarm. However,
it was this that bore heaviest upon them, when totter¬
ing this under the pressure of other troubles. The
phrenzy of the tribunes rose so high, that they insisted
the war was a mere bugbear,—that the capitol had been
seized with no other view than to make them forget the
bill: but were it once passed, they would see those cli1-
ents and creatures of the Patricians, finding all their
riotous exertions to obstruct it ineffectual, steal away in
as great silence as they entered. Then calling the peo¬
ple from their arms, they held an assembly to pass the
law. In the mean time, the consuls convened the senate,
more afraffl of the tribunes than of the enemy, who had
alarmed them in the night.
CHAP. XVII.
Animated speech of Valerius. Obstinacy of the Tribunes.
"When word was brought that the people had laid
down their arms, and quitted their posts, Publius Vale¬
rius, leaving his colleague to keep the senate together,
left the senate-house in a great hurry, and flew to the
temple to the tribunes. “ What is the meaning of this,
^ said he,) tribunes ? Will nothing less serve you than