t to them they would give their answer.

[Footnote 151: The dress of the citizens.]

[Footnote 152: Two classes of persons are here intended: 1. Those who
accompanied Virginius into the camp. 2. Others who followed them
subsequently.]

51. The ambassadors being dismissed, Virginius reminds the soldiers
"that a little time before they had been embarrassed in a matter of no
very great difficulty, because the multitude was without a head; and
that the answer given, though not inexpedient, was the result rather of
an accidental concurrence than of a concerted plan. His opinion was,
that ten persons be elected, who should preside in the management of
their affairs, and, in the style of military dignity, that they should
be called tribunes of the soldiers." When that honour was offered to
himself in the first instance, he replied, "Reserve for an occasion more
favourable to you and to me those your kind opinions of me. My daughter
being unavenged, neither allows any honour to be satisfactory to me, nor
in the disturbed state of things is it useful that those should be at
your head who are most obnoxious to party malice. If there will be any
use of me, such use will be derived not in a less degree from me in a
private station." They then elect military tribunes ten in number. Nor
was the army among the Sabines inactive. There also, at the instance of
Icilius and Numitorius, a secession from the decemvirs took place, the
commotion of men's minds on recollecting the murder of Siccius being not
less than that, which the recent account of the barbarous attempt made
on the maiden to gratify lust had enkindled. When Icilius heard that
tribunes of the soldiers were elected on Mount Aventine, lest the
election-assembly in the city might follow the precedent of the military
assembly, by electing the same persons tribunes of the commons, being
well versed in popular intrigues and having an eye to that office, he
also takes care, before they proceeded to the city, that the same number
be elected by his own party with an equal power. They entered the city
through the Colline gate in military array, and proceeded in a body to
the Aventine through the middle of the city. There, joined to the other
army, they commissioned the twenty tribunes of the soldiers to select
two out of their number, who should hold the command in chief. They
choose Marcus Oppius and Sextus Manilius. The patricians, alarmed for
the general safety, though there was