Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 5
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

10. The consular tribuneship of Lucius Valerius¹ Potitus (for the fourth term), Marcus Furius Camillus (for the second² ), Manius Aemilius Mamercus (for the third), Gnaeus Cornelius Cossus (for the second), Caeso Fabius Ambustus, and Lucius Julius lulus,³ was a time of great activity both at home and in the field. [2] For they made war at many points simultaneously, before Veii, at Capena, at Falerii, and in the Volscian country —to recover Anxur from the enemy; —and [3] in Rome both the levy and the payment of the war-tax occasioned difficulties, a quarrel sprang up over the co-optation of plebeian tribunes, and the trials: of the two who had lately exercised consular powers aroused no small commotion. [4] The first concern of the military tribunes was to levy troops, and they not only enrolled the younger men, but also compelled the seniors to enlist for service in guarding the City. But the more they increased the number of the soldiers, the more money they required for pay. [5] This they tried to collect by taxation; but those who remained at home contributed with reluctance, because they had also in defence of the City to perform the labour of soldiers and serve the commonwealth. [6] To make this obligation, heavy in itself, seem yet more grievous, the tribunes of the plebs delivered seditious speeches, in which they alleged that the senators had established pay for the troops for this reason, that they might ruin one half of the plebs with fighting and the other half with taxation. [7] They were now drawing out a single war into its third year, and were purposely misconducting it, that they might conduct it the longer. Again, with one levy they had enrolled armies for four wars, and [p. 37]had haled away even boys and old men. [8] Now they⁴ were confounding winter with summer, to allow no rest ever to the unhappy commons, on whom finally they had even imposed a tax; [9] that when they should drag home their bodies spent with toil, with wounds, and at last with old age, and should then find all things gone to waste in the long absence of the owners, they might pay tribute out of their diminished property, and return to the state many times, as it were with usury, the wages they had received as soldiers.

[10] What with the levy and the tax and the weightier cares that preoccupied men's minds, they were unable on the day of election to return the full number of plebeian tribunes. [11] An effort was then made to obtain the co-optation of patricians for the vacant places. When this failed, nevertheless, in order to invalidate the law, it was brought about that Gaius Lacerius and Marcus Acutius should be chosen tribunes, without doubt through patrician influence.⁵