to be released; nor did his own
proper jurisdiction set a limit to each, but they rested their hopes
on force, and whatever they set their mind upon, was to be gained by
violence. Just as the tribunes had behaved in impeding the levy, in
the same manner did the consuls conduct themselves in obstructing the
law which was brought forward on each assembly day. The beginning of
the riot was that the patricians refused to allow themselves to be
moved away, when the tribunes ordered the people to proceed to give
their vote. Scarcely any of the older citizens mixed themselves up
in the affair, inasmuch as it was one that would not be directed by
prudence, but was entirely abandoned to temerity and daring. The
consuls also frequently kept out of the way, lest in the general
confusion they might expose their dignity to insult. There was one
Caeso Quinctius, a youth who prided himself both on the nobility of
his descent, and his bodily stature and strength; to these endowments
bestowed on him by the gods, he himself had added many brave deeds
in war, and eloquence in the forum; so that no one in the state was
considered readier either in speech or action. When he had taken his
place in the midst of a body of the patricians, pre-eminent above
the rest, carrying as it were in his eloquence and bodily strength
dictatorships and consulships combined, he alone withstood the storms
of the tribunes and the populace. Under his guidance the tribunes were
frequently driven from the forum, the commons routed and dispersed;
such as came in his way, came off ill-treated and stripped: so that it
became quite clear that, if he were allowed to proceed in this way,
the law was as good as defeated Then, when the other tribunes were
now almost thrown into despair, Aulus Verginius, one of the colleges,
appointed a day for Caeso to take his trial on a capital charge. By
this proceeding he rather irritated than intimidated his violent
temper: so much the more vigorously did he oppose the law, harass
the commons, and persecute the tribunes, as if in a regular war. The
accuser suffered the accused to rush headlong to his ruin, and to fan
the flame of odium and supply material for the charges he intended to
bring against him: in the meantime he proceeded with the law, not
so much in the hope of carrying it through, as with the object
of provoking rash action on the part of Caeso. After that many
inconsiderate expressions and actions of the younger patrici