Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 20, 2025
An expression of his heard in the assembly, which was very silly and almost insane, after he returned into the city on being sent for on account of some tribunitian disturbances, increased this bad feeling; on Sextus, a tribune of the commons, proposing an agrarian law, and at the same time declaring that he would also propose that colonists should be sent to Bolæ; for that those who had taken them by their arms were deserving that the city and lands of Bolæ should belong to them, he exclaimed, "Woe to my soldiers, if they are not quiet;" which words, when heard, gave not greater offence to the assembly, than they did soon after to the patricians.
The commons were only devising by what means they should re-establish the tribunitian power, that bulwark of their liberty, a thing now so long discontinued.
But the person who most persuaded and induced Cato to take the oath was Cicero the orator, who argued and urged that perhaps it was not even right for him to think that he was the only man who ought to refuse obedience to what had been determined by the common voice; and when it was impossible to undo what had been done, it was altogether senseless and mad to have no regard for himself; and of all evils, he argued, it was the greatest to give up and surrender the state, to the interests of which all his actions were directed, to those who were plotting against it, as if he were glad to be released from all struggles in its behalf; for if Cato did not stand in need of Rome, Rome stood in need of Cato, and all his friends also did; and among them Cicero said that he was the first, being the object of the designs of Clodius, who was clearly proceeding to attack him by means of the tribunitian office.
What else do you suppose that they either then dreaded, or now wish to disturb, except the union between the orders, which they think contributes most to the dissolution of the tribunitian power?
While they exclaimed in these and such terms, they found in Appius Claudius an opponent not unequal to them, who had been left behind by his colleagues to check the turbulence of the tribunes; a man trained even from his youth in contests with the plebeians; who several year's before, as has been mentioned, recommended the dissolution of the tribunitian power by means of the protests of their colleagues.
By adopting the style of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, son of Antoninus and grandson of Severus, he tacitly asserted his hereditary claim to the empire; but, by assuming the tribunitian and proconsular powers before they had been conferred on him by a decree of the senate, he offended the delicacy of Roman prejudice.
He took occasion to give to his edicts, in his consular or tribunitian capacity, a perpetual force; and his rescripts or replies which issued from his council chamber, were registered as laws. He was released from the laws, and claimed the name of Caesar. The people were deprived of the election of magistrates.
Then both the tribunitian power and the liberty of the commons being firmly established, the tribunes now deeming it both safe and seasonable to attack individuals, single out Virginius as the first prosecutor and Appius as defendant.
The plebeian tribunes, overjoyed at the dissension among the patricians, said, "that there was no support in persons who were not held in the rank of citizens, nor even of human beings; if ever the posts of honour were open, and the administration of government were shared, that they should then see that the decrees of the senate should not be invalidated by the arrogance of magistrates; that in the mean while, the patricians, unrestrained as they were by respect for laws or magistrates, must manage the tribunitian office also by themselves."
He accepted of the tribunitian power for life, but more than once chose a colleague in that office for two lustra successively. He also had the supervision of morality and observance of the laws, for life, but without the title of censor; yet he thrice took a census of the people, the first and third time with a colleague, but the second by himself.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking