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

19. When peace had been established, the tribunes began to urge the patricians to fulfil the promise made by Publius Valerius; and to urge Gaius Claudius to absolve the manes of his colleague from deceit, and allow the law to be discussed. The consul refused to permit discussion of the law, until he should have accomplished the election of a colleague. [2] These disputes continued up to the time when the comitia met to fill the vacant consulate. In December, thanks to extraordinary zeal on the part of the patricians, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Caeso's father, was declared consul, to enter upon the office at once. [3] The plebs were filled with dismay at the prospect of a consul incensed against themselves and strong in the favour of the senate, his own worth, and his three sons, none of whom was inferior to Caeso in courage, while they surpassed him in using wisdom and restraint when the need arose. [4] Cincinnatus, having taken up the magistracy, harangued the people incessantly from the tribunal; yet was no more vehement in repressing the plebs than in castigating the senate. [5] It was owing, he declared, to the apathy of that order that the tribunes of the plebs, whose tenure was now become permanent, exercised such a tyranny of speech and accusation as might be expected in a disordered household, but not in the public affairs of the Roman [p. 67]People. With his son Caeso, manhood,¹ steadfastness, and all the qualities which honour youth in war and in civil life had been driven from Rome and put to rout. [6] Garrulous, seditious, sowers of discord, obtaining office —by the most wicked practices —for a second and even a third term, the tribunes led as lawless a life as kings. “Did Aulus Verginius,” he cried, “because he was not in the Capitol, deserve less punishment than Appius Herdonius? Nay, somewhat more, if one were disposed to be fair. [7] Herdonius had one thing to his credit: by professing himself an enemy, he as good as warned you to arm; the other, denying the existence of a war, took away your arms and exposed you unprotected to your slaves and exiles. And did you —without offence to Gaius Claudius and the dead Publius Valerius be it said, —did you carry your standards against the Capitoline Hill before clearing these enemies out of the Forum? I am ashamed in the sight of gods and men. [8] When foes were in the Citadel, foes in the Capitol, when the captain of slaves and exiles, profaning everything, was quartered in the very shrine of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, it was Tusculum —not Rome —where the first sword was drawn. It was a question whether Lucius Mamilius, the Tusculan general, or Publius Valerius and Gaius Claudius, the consuls, would free the Roman Citadel; and we who until then did not allow the Latins to touch their weapons, even in their own defence, though they had an enemy within their borders, had now, unless the Latins had armed of their own free will, been taken captive and destroyed. [9] Is this, tribunes, what you mean by helping the plebs, —to deliver them over unarmed to be slaughtered by the enemy? Why, [p. 69]if the humblest man belonging to your plebs, a part² of the people which you have sundered, as it were, from the rest and made a country of your own and a state apart, —if [10] one of these, I say, had announced that his slaves had armed and seized his house, you would have thought yourselves bound to help him; was Jupiter Optimus Maximus, beset by the swords of exiles and slaves, too mean to merit any man's assistance? [11] And do these tribunes demand that they be held sacred and inviolable, in whose eyes the very gods are neither the one nor the other? So! Weighed down with crimes against gods and men you assert that you will carry through your law this year! Then, by Heaven, it was an evil day for the nation when I was chosen consul, far more evil than when Publius Valerius the consul fell, —if indeed you carry it! [12] First of all then, Quirites,” he concluded, “I and my colleague are resolved to lead the legions against the Volsci and the Aequi. We are somehow fated to enjoy the favour of the gods in larger measure when warring than when at peace. How dangerous these peoples would have been, had they known that the Capitol was seized by exiles, we may more profitably conjecture from the past than ascertain by trying it.”