nes of the people before the commons, should go on
taking the votes, until he elected ten tribunes of the people; and he
spent his tribuneship in worrying the patricians, whence the surname
of Asper was given him. Next Marcus Geganius Macerinus, and Gaius
Julius, being elected consuls, quieted some disputes that had arisen
between the tribunes and the youth of the nobility, without displaying
any harshness against that power, and at the same time preserving the
dignity of the patricians. By proclaiming a levy for the war against
the Volscians and AEquans, they kept the people from riots by keeping
matters in abeyance, affirming that everything was also quiet abroad,
owing to the harmony in the city, and that it was only through civil
discord that foreign foes took courage. Their anxiety for peace abroad
was also the cause of harmony at home. But notwithstanding, the one
order ever attacked the moderation of the other. Acts of injustice
began to be committed by the younger patricians on the commons,
although the latter kept perfectly quiet. Where the tribunes assisted
the more humble, in the first place it accomplished little: and
thereafter they did not even themselves escape ill-treatment:
particularly in the latter months, when injustice was committed
through the combinations among the more powerful, and the power of the
office became considerably weaker in the latter part of the year. And
now the commons placed some hopes in the tribuneship, if only they
could get tribunes like Icilius: for the last two years they declared
that they had only had mere names. On the other hand, the elder
members of the patrician order, though they considered their young men
to be too overbearing, yet preferred, if bounds were to be exceeded,
that a superabundance of spirit should be exhibited by their own order
rather than by their adversaries. So difficult a thing is moderation
in maintaining liberty, while every one, by pretending to desire
equality, exalts himself in such a manner as to put down another,
and men, by their very precautions against fear, cause themselves to
become objects of dread: and we saddle on others injustice repudiated
on our own account, as if it were absolutely necessary either to
commit injustice or to submit to it. Titus Quinctius Capitolinus for
the fourth time and Agrippa Furius being then elected consuls, found
neither disturbance at home nor war abroad; both, however, were
impending. The discord of the c