e consuls accordingly chose out all
these men and sent them to colonize Velitrae, and enrolled the rest for
a campaign against the Volsci, that they might not have leisure for
revolutionary plottings, but that when they were all gathered together,
rich and poor, patrician and plebeian alike, to share in the common
dangers of a camp, they might learn to regard one another with less
hatred and illwill.

XIII. But Sicinnius and Brutus, the tribunes of the people, now
interposed, crying aloud that the consuls were veiling a most barbarous
action under the specious name of sending out colonists. They were
despatching many poor men to certain destruction by transporting them to
a city whose air was full of pestilence and the stench from unburied
corpses, where they were to dwell under the auspices of a god who was
not only not their own, but angry with them. And after that, as if it
was not sufficient for them that some of the citizens should be starved,
and others be exposed to the plague, they must needs plunge wantonly
into war, in order that the city might suffer every conceivable misery
at once, because it had refused any longer to remain in slavery to the
rich. Excited by these speeches, the people would not enrol themselves
as soldiers for the war, and looked with suspicion on the proposal for
the new colony. The Senate was greatly perplexed, but Marcius, now a
person of great importance and very highly thought of in the State,
began to place himself in direct opposition to the popular leaders, and
to support the patrician cause. In spite of the efforts of the
demagogues, a colony was sent out to Velitrae, those whose names were
drawn by lot being compelled by heavy penalties to go thither; but as
the people utterly refused to serve in the campaign against the
Volscians, Marcius made up a troop of his own clients, with which and
what others he could persuade to join him he made an inroad into the
territory of Antium. Here he found much corn, and captured many
prisoners and much cattle. He kept none of it for himself, but returned
to Rome with his troops loaded with plunder. This caused the others to
repent of their determination, when they saw the wealth which these men
had obtained, but it embittered their hatred of Marcius, whom they
regarded as gaining glory for himself at the expense of the people.

XIV. Shortly after this, however, Marcius stood for the consulship, and
then the people relented and felt ashamed to