an, and equally so to cattle. The lands were left
desolate; the city exhausted by a constant succession of deaths. Many
and illustrious families were in mourning. The Flamen Quirinalis,
Servilius Cornelius, died; as also the augur, Caius Horatius Pulvillus;
into whose place the augurs elected Caius Veturius, the more eagerly,
because he had been condemned by the commons. The consul Quintilius
died, and four tribunes of the people. The year was rendered a
melancholy one by these manifold disasters; but from an enemy there was
perfect quiet. Then Caius Menenius and Publius Sestius Capitolinus were
elected consuls. Nor was there in that year any external war:
disturbances arose at home. The ambassadors had now returned with the
Athenian laws; the tribunes pressed the more urgently, that a
commencement should at length be made of compiling the laws. It was
resolved that decemvirs should be elected without appeal, and that there
should be no other magistrate during that year. There was, for a
considerable time, a dispute whether plebeians should be admitted among
them: at length the point was given up to the patricians, provided that
the Icilian law regarding the Aventine and the other devoting laws were
not repealed.

33. In the three hundred and first year after Rome was built, the form
of the government was a second time changed, the supreme power being
transferred from consuls to decemvirs, as it had passed before from
kings to consuls. The change was less remarkable, because not of long
duration; for the joyous commencement of that government became too
licentious. So much the sooner did the matter fall, and (the usage) was
recurred to, that the name and authority of consuls was committed to two
persons. The decemvirs appointed were, Appius Claudius, Titus Genucius,
Publius Sestius, Lucius Veturius, Caius Julius, Aulus Manlius, Servius
Sulpicius, Publius Curiatius, Titus Romilius, Spurius Postumius. On
Claudius and Genucius, because they had been elected consuls for that
year, the honour was conferred in compensation for the honour (of the
consulate); and on Sestius, one of the consuls of the former year,
because he had proposed that matter to the senate against the will of
his colleague. Next to these were considered the three ambassadors who
had gone to Athens; at the same time that the honour might serve as a
recompence for so distant an embassy; at the same time they considered
that persons acquainted with the forei