soldiers; they conquered before they perceived that they conquered
without a leader. Many of the exiles defiled the temple with their
blood; many were taken alive; Herdonius was slain. Thus the Capitol was
recovered. With respect to the prisoners,[124] punishment was inflicted
on each according to his station, whether he was a freeman or a slave.
The commons are stated to have thrown farthings into the consul's house,
that he might be buried with greater solemnity.

[Footnote 124: Niebuhr thinks that Caeso was among the number. See cap.
25, where we read "Caesonem neque Quintiae familiae, neque reipublicae
restitui posse." Comp. Niebuhr ii. n. 673, Wachsmuth, p. 347.]

19. Peace being established, the tribunes then pressed on the patricians
to fulfil the promise of Publius Valerius; they pressed on Claudius, to
free the shade of his colleague from breach of faith, and to allow the
business of the law to proceed. The consul asserted that he would suffer
the discussion on the law to go on, till he had a colleague appointed in
the room of the deceased. These disputes held on until the elections for
substituting a consul. In the month of December,[125] by the most
zealous exertions of the patricians, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, Caeso's
father, is elected consul to enter on his office without delay. The
commons were dismayed at their being about to have as consul a man
incensed against them, powerful by the support of the patricians, by his
own merit, and by three sons, not one of whom yielded to Caeso in
greatness of spirit; "whilst they were superior to him by their
exercising prudence and moderation, when the occasion required." When he
entered on his office, in his frequent harangues from the tribunal, he
was not more vehement in restraining the commons than in reproving the
senate, "by the listlessness of which body the tribunes of the commons,
now become perpetual, by means of their tongues and prosecutions
exercised regal authority, not as in a republic of the Roman people, but
as if in an ill-regulated family. That with his son Caeso, fortitude,
constancy, all the splendid qualifications of youth in war or in peace,
had been driven and exiled from the city of Rome: that talkative and
turbulent men, sowers of discord, twice and even thrice re-elected
tribunes, lived in the most destructive practices with regal tyranny.
Did that Aulus Virginius," says he, "deserve less punishment than Appius
Herdonius, because he was