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Bassus was aedile and quattuorvir at Herculaneum and then after holding the tribuneship of a legion is found next at Praeneste as a quinquennalis. M. Vettius M.f.
And who was this man? Although no nobility, no honours, no deserts should open to any man the road to domination, yet still the Claudii and Cassii, by reason of the consulates, the decemvirates, the honours of their own and those of their ancestors, and from the splendour of their families, had raised their aspiring minds to heights to which it was impious to raise them: that Spurius Mælius, to whom a tribuneship of the commons should rather be an object of wishes than of hope, a wealthy corn-merchant, had conceived the hope to purchase the liberty of his countrymen for two pounds of corn; had supposed that a people victorious over all their neighbours could be cajoled into servitude by throwing them a morsel of food; so that a person whom the state could scarcely digest as a senator, it should tolerate as king, possessing the ensigns and authority of Romulus their founder, who had descended from and had returned to the gods.
We agree with Milo, who declared, when banished, that he would never have been able to enjoy the fish of Marseilles had Cicero spoken in the Forum the speech which he afterward composed. "I would not remind you," he says, "of Milo's Tribuneship, nor of all his service to the State, unless I could make plain to you as daylight the ambush which on that day was laid for him by his enemy.
After this, Metellus, as soon as he had entered on the tribuneship, got together tumultuous meetings and proposed a law that Pompeius Magnus should hasten to Italy with his forces and should undertake the protection of the city, which it was alleged was in danger from Catiline.
In fact the tribunician elections were decided entirely to their mind, and the attempt of Marius to prevent the spurious Tiberius Gracchus from soliciting the tribuneship served only to show the celebrated man what was now the worth of his popularity; the multitude broke the doors of the prison in which Gracchus was confined, bore him in triumph through the streets, and elected him by a great majority as their tribune.
For, as you see, the death of Tiberius Gracchus, and the whole system of his tribuneship, has divided one people into two parties. But the slanderers and the enemies of Scipio, encouraged by P. Crassus and Appius Claudius, maintained, after the death of these two chiefs, a division of nearly half the senate, under the influence of Metellus and Mucius.
For this Campanian law contains a clause imposing an oath to be taken by candidates in public meeting, that they will not suggest any tenure of public land other than that provided in the Julian laws. All the others take the oath without hesitation: Laterensis is considered to have shewn extraordinary virtue in retiring from his canvass for the tribuneship to avoid the oath.
In concert with Marcus Flaccus who, although a consular, had again taken the tribuneship of the people, in order now to carry the law which he had formerly proposed without success he made a proposal to grant to the Latins the full franchise, and to the other Italian allies the former rights of the Latins.
It will take the tribuneship and the refinements of the aristocratic leisure, to make the rude wisdom of want and toil eloquent. But it has found a tribune at last, who will be able to speak for it, through one mouth or another, scientifically and to the purpose too, ere all is done.
The commons having warmly espoused the cause of Volero, at the next meeting, secured his election as tribune of the people for that year, in which Lucius Pinarius and Publics Furius were consuls: and, contrary to the opinion of all, who thought that he would make free use of his tribuneship to harass the consuls of the preceding year, postponing private resentment to the public interest, without the consuls being attacked even by a single word, he brought a bill before the people that plebeian magistrates should be elected at the comitia tributa.
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