LI VY 6.

34- 36
LIVY, ROME AND ITALY: BOOKS VI-X OF THE HISTORY OF ROME
FROM ITS FOUNDATION, BOOKS 6-10, TRANS. RADICE, B.
PENGUIN, 1982. PP. 81-85.
[6.34.1] But the more settled all was abroad, thanks to the successful campaigns that year, the
more in the City the high-handedness of the patricians and miseries of the plebeians were
increasing from day to day. The very fact that repayment was demanded immediately made it
more difficult to pay; [2] and so, when a man no longer had property from which to make
payment, his good name and person were judicially assigned to his creditor by way of
satisfaction, and punishment had taken the place of his being given credit to repay. [3]
Consequently not only the humblest of the people but even their leaders were in such a state of
abject submission that, far from competing with the patricians for the office of military tribune,
[4] for the right to which they had fought so hard, there was not a man among them of energy
and enterprise who had the spirit to hold any of the plebeian magistracies or even offer himself
for one. The patricians appeared to have recovered possession for all time of an office which had
been only assumed by the plebeians for a few years.
[5] The patricians satisfaction as a result of this would have known no bounds had not a
small event, as often happens, drastically changed the situation. Marcus Fabius Ambustus, an
influential personage not only amongst men of his own class but also with the plebeians, who
never felt that he looked down on them, had two daughters, the elder married to Servius
Sulpicius and the younger to Gaius Licinius Stolo, a man of some distinction although of plebeian
birth. The very fact that Fabius had accepted him as a son-in-law had won him the peoples
regard. [6] It so happened that the two Fabia sisters were in the house of Servius Sulpicius, then
a consular tribune, and were spending the time chatting, as women do, when Sulpicius was
returning home from the Forum and his lector struck the door with his rod, in the customary
manner. The younger sister, unused to the custom, was much alarmed, and the elder laughed in
surprise at her sisters ignorance. But that laugh rankled in the others mind, for a womans
feelings are affected by little things. [7] I suppose, too, that the throng of people attending
Sulpicius and taking their leave made her own to be regretted, a misguided attitude we all share
when we cannot bear to be outdone by our nearest and dearest. [8] Her father happened to see
her when she was still smarting from her wounded feelings and asked if all was well. [9] She
was reluctant to give the reason for her chagrin, as it hardly showed sisterly affection and did
little honour to her own husband, but by gentle questioning he persuaded her to tell him; it was
being married to someone beneath her, in a home where neither high office nor influence could
come. [10] Ambustus then comforted his daughter and bade her take heart: she would soon see
the same respect paid to her own home as she saw in her sisters. [11] From then on he began to
make plans with his son-in-law, and also called in Lucius Sextius, an enterprising young man
whose ambitions were thwarted only by his not being of patrician birth.
[35.1] The opportunity for a revolution seemed to have come as a result of the crushing
load of debt, from which the people could hope for no relief except through placing their
representatives in the highest office. They argued that they must prepare for battle with this
end in mind. [2] By effort and previous achievement the plebeians had already climbed to a
position from which, if they continued their exertions, they could reach the top and equal the
patricians in official recognition as well as in merit. [3] For the moment they decided to get
peoples tribunes elected from their number, and via this office open up a way for themselves to
the other magistracies. [4] Gaius Licinius and Lucius Sextius were accordingly elected and
proclaimed three bills, all aimed at breaking the power of the patricians and advancing the
plebeians interests. The first dealt with debt, and stipulated that after subtracting from the
capital what had been paid in interest, the remainder should be paid off in three annual
instalments of equal size. [5] The second set a limit to land-holding and forbade anyone to
possess more than five hundred iugera. The third abolished the election of military tribunes and
ruled that one at any rate of the two consuls elected should be a plebeian. [6] These were all
measures of great importance which could not possible be carried without a bitter struggle.
Thus all the objects for which mens desire knows no bounds, land, money and
advancement, were simultaneously called into question. The patricians were thoroughly
alarmed at the prospect: they hurried to and fro holding public meetings and private
conferences but could not think of any solution except the veto, which they had made use of in
many previous confrontations. They accordingly set about getting support against the proposals
from the tribunes own colleagues. [7] These men, when they saw Licinius and Sextius calling on
the tribunes to vote, came up with a bodyguard of patricians and refused to allow the reading
out of the bills or any of the customary procedures prior to a plebiscite. [8] When the assembly
had thus been repeatedly summoned in vain, and the proposals were as good as rejected, Very
well, cried Sextius; as you are determined that the veto shall be so powerful, we will use that
very weapon to protect the people. [9] Come on senators, call an assembly for the election of
military tribunes. Ill see that you get no joy out of the word veto, which now so delights your
ears when you hear it from a chorus of our colleagues. [10] These were no idle threats; no
elections were held except for the aediles and peoples tribunes. Licinius and Sextius were re-
elected tribunes and would not permit the election of any curule magistrates, and this dearth of
magistrates continued the City for the next five years. While the people continued to re-elect
these two men as tribunes and they to put a stop to the election of military tribunes.
[36.1] Fortunately there was a respite from other wars, but the colonists of Velitrae
eagerly took advantage of the peaceful situation, when they thought that the Romans had no
army to check them, to make several forays into Roman territory, and set about laying siege to
Tusculum. [2] That was enough to rouse the plebeians as well as the Senate to feel deeply
ashamed that the Tusculans, their old allies, and now their fellow citizens, should be begging
their help. [3] The peoples tribunes relaxed their opposition, elections were held under an
interrex, and Lucius Furious, Aulus Manlius, Servius Sulpicius, Servius Cornelius, and Publius
and Gaius Valerius were elected military tribunes. [4] They found the people were much less
amenable when it came to levying troops than they had been about the elections, and it was
only with strenuous effort that they were able to enrol an army and set out. They then drove the
enemys forces away from the region of Tusculum, and even shut them up within their own
walls. [5] Velitrae was then besieged much more closely than Tusculum had been. Even so,
those who began the siege failed to capture the town before new military tribunes were elected.
[6] These were Quintus Servilius, Gaius Veturius, Aulus and Marcus Cornelius, Quintus
Quinctius and Marcus Fabius; but even they achieved nothing memorable at Velitrae.
At home matters took a more serious turn. [7]For besides Sextius and Licinius, who had
proposed the laws and were now re-elected peoples tribunes for the eight time, the military
tribune Fabius, Stolos father-in-law, was quite openly giving his support to the laws he had
suggested; [8] and whereas originally eight members of the college of tribunes had exercised
their veto on these laws, there were now only five, and they were confused and puzzled as
people usually are who have broken with their party. They could only repeat words put into
their mouths and justify their veto by what they had been privately taught to say [9] that a
great many of the plebeians were absent with the army at Velitrae, and elections should be
postponed until the soldiers return so that the whole body of people could vote on matters
which were their concern. [10] Sextius and Licinius, with some of their colleagues and the
military tribune Fabius, were well versed with the experience of many years in working on the
peoples emotions. They started bringing leading senators forward and harassing them with
questions on every point they were putting to the people. [11] Did they dare, they asked, when
there was a division of land and the plebeians were assigned no more than two iugera each, to
demand that they should be permitted to hold more than five hundred iugera themselves? Was
a single patrician to possess land which should be shared amongst nearly three hundred
citizens, while a plebeian could scarcely find space on his land to house the necessities of life or
provide a burial-place? [12] Or did they want the people, crushed by usury, to surrender their
persons to imprisonment and torture rather than pay off the capital sum they owed? Did they
intend that parties of debtors, bound over to their creditors, should be hauled off from the
Forum every day, to fill the houses of the nobility with chained slaves, and turn every patricians
home into a private gaol?