tribunes the right of
practicing augury in their assemblies: nominally this was an honor and
dignity for them, since from very ancient times this privilege had
been accorded the patricians alone, but really it was a hindrance. The
nobles intended that the tribunes and the populace should not
accomplish easily everything they pleased, but should sometimes be
prevented under this plea of augury. The patricians as well as the
senate were displeased at the consuls, whom they regarded as favorable
to the popular cause, and so did not vote a triumph to them--though
each had won a war--and did not assign to each a day as had been the
custom. The populace, however, both held a festival for two days and
voted triumphal honors to the consuls.

_(BOOK 6, BOISSEVAIN.)_

[Sidenote: B.C. 448 (_a.u._ 306)] When the Romans thus fell into
discord their adversaries took courage and came against them. It was
in the following year, when Marcus Genucius and Gaius Curtius were
consuls, that they turned against each other. The popular leaders
desired to be consuls, since the patricians were in the habit of
becoming tribunes by transference to their order, and the patricians
clung tenaciously to the consular office. They indulged in many words
and acts of violence against each other. But in order to prevent the
populace from proceeding to greater extremities the nobles yielded to
them the substance of authority though they would not relinquish the
name; and in place of the consuls they named military tribunes in
order that the honor of the title might not be sullied by contact with
the vulgar throng. It was agreed that three military tribunes be
chosen from each of the classes in place of the two consuls. However,
the name of consul was not lost entirely, but sometimes consuls were
appointed and at other times military tribunes. This, at all events,
is the tradition that has come down of what took place, with the
additional detail that the consuls nominated dictators, though their
own powers were far inferior to those appertaining to that office, and
even that the military tribunes likewise did so sometimes. It is
further said that none of the military tribunes, though many of them
won many victories, ever celebrated a triumph.

[Sidenote: B.C. 447 (_a.u._ 307)] It was in this way, then, that
military tribunes came to be chosen at that time: censors were
appointed in the following year, during the consulship of Barbatus and
Marcus Macrin