Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 3
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

14. This trial and the promulgation of the law¹ kept the citizens in a turmoil: from foreign wars there was a respite. [2] The tribunes, assuming that the rebuff sustained by the patricians in Caeso's exile had given themselves the victory, believed the law to be as good as passed; and so far as the older senators were concerned, they had indeed relinquished their grasp upon the government; [3] but the juniors, especially those who had been of Caeso's fellowship, grew more bitter against the plebs, and their courage ran as high as ever. Yet they greatly promoted their cause by tempering their fury with a kind of moderation. [4] At the first attempt after Caeso's exile to pass the law, they were organized and ready, and fell upon the tribunes with a great army of clients, as soon as the tribunes gave them an excuse by attempting to remove them; in such wise that no single patrician came off with any [p. 51]conspicuous share of glory or unpopularity, and the² plebeians complained that a thousand Caesos had sprung up in the place of one. [5] During the intervening days on which the tribunes took no action about the law, nothing could have been more peaceable or quiet than these same youths. They would salute plebeians courteously, converse with them, invite them to their houses, assist them in the courts, and permit the tribunes themselves to hold their other assemblies without interruption. They never displayed arrogance towards any one, either openly or in private, except when the law came up; at other times they were democratic. [6] By avoiding so much as an offensive word, to say nothing of any sort of violence, they managed little by little, with gentleness and tact, to disarm the hostility of the plebs. By such arts the law was evaded for an entire year. And yet not only did the tribunes carry through their other measures without opposition, but they were even re-elected for the following twelvemonth.