enture
to meet, but suffered the enemy to go through their country committing
devastations in every direction. Nor were depredations committed more
extensively in that quarter in any preceding war. The whole of the
booty was given to the soldiers. In addition, they received praise, in
which the minds of soldiers find no less pleasure than in rewards. The
army returned more reconciled both to their general, and also, thanks
to the general, to the patricians, declaring that a parent had been
given to them, a tyrant to the other army by the senate. The year
which had passed with varied success in war, and violent dissensions
at home and abroad, was rendered memorable chiefly by the elections
of tribes, a matter which was more important from the victory in the
contest[77] that was undertaken than from any real advantage; for more
dignity was withdrawn from the elections themselves by the fact that
the patricians were excluded from the council, than influence either
added to the commons or taken from the patricians.[78]

A still more stormy year followed, when Lucius Valerius and Titus
AEmilius were consuls, both by reason of the struggles between the
different orders concerning the agrarian law, as well as on account
of the trial of Appius Claudius, for whom Marcus Duilius and Gnaeus
Siccius appointed a day of trial, as a most active opposer of the law,
and one who supported the cause of the possessors of the public land,
as if he were a third consul [79]. Never before was an accused
person so hateful to the commons brought to trial before the people,
overwhelmed with their resentment against himself and also against his
father. The patricians too seldom made equal exertions so readily on
one's behalf: they declared that the champion of the senate, and the
upholder of their dignity, set up as a barrier against all the storms
of the tribunes and commons, was exposed to the resentment of the
commons, although he had only exceeded the bounds of moderation in the
contest. Appius Claudius himself was the only one of the patricians
who made light both of the tribunes and commons and his own trial.
Neither the threats of the commons, nor the entreaties of the senate,
could ever persuade him even to change his garb, or accost persons
as a suppliant, or even to soften or moderate his usual harshness of
speech in the least degree, when his cause was to be pleaded before
the people. The expression of his countenance was the same; the