History of Rome

​This trial and the proposed law kept the state in a state of agitation; there was peace from foreign wars.

​While the tribunes, like victors, believing that because of the blow dealt to the patricians by Caeso’s exile the law was as good as passed, and, as far as the older patricians were concerned, had retired from the possession of public affairs, the younger men, and especially those who had been Caeso’s companions, ​increased their wrath against the plebs, but did not lose their spirit; yet in this they made the greatest progress, that they tempered their impulses in a certain measure.

​When for the first time after Caeso’s exile the law began to be proposed, drawn up and prepared with a huge force of clients, they attacked the tribunes, as soon as their clearing of the crowd gave cause for conflict, in such a way that no single individual carried home from there any special share of glory or hatred, while the plebeians complained that a thousand Caesos had arisen in place of one. On the intermediate days, ​on which the tribunes did not bring up the law, nothing was more peaceful or quiet than those very men: they would greet people cordially, converse with the common folk, invite them to their homes, attend them in the forum, allow the tribunes themselves to hold their assemblies without any interruption in other matters, and were never harsh to anyone either publicly or privately, except when the discussion about the law had begun;

​elsewhere they were a youth friendly to the people. And not only did the tribunes conduct their other affairs in tranquility, but they were also re-elected for the following year. Without even a word of offense, much less any violence, they had gradually, by soothing and handling them gently, tamed the plebeians. By these arts throughout the whole year the law was eluded.