History of Rome

​Then M. Valerius and Sp. Verginius were made consuls. There was peace at home and abroad; but because of the inclemency of the weather, trouble was experienced with the grain supply. A law was passed for making the Aventine public land. The same tribunes of the plebs were re-elected.

​In the following year, during the consulship of T. Romilius and C. Veturius, these tribunes in all their public meetings kept urging the law: they said they were ashamed of their number having been increased in vain, if that matter should lie idle during their own two years of office just as it had lain idle during the whole of the previous five years. While they were most active in these matters, ​alarming messages came from Tusculum that the Aequi were in Tusculan territory. The recent merit of that people made it a matter of shame to delay assistance. Both consuls, sent with an army, find the enemy in their own stronghold on Mount Algidus.

​There the battle was fought. Over seven thousand of the enemy were slain, others routed, and a vast booty was acquired. On account of the emptiness of the treasury, the consuls sold it. This act, however, was a source of resentment to the army and provided the tribunes with material for accusing the consuls before the plebs.

​And so indeed, as soon as they went out of office, during the consulship of Sp. Tarpeius and A. Aternius, a day for trial was appointed: for Romilius by C. Calvius Cicero, tribune of the plebs, and for Veturius by L. Alienus, plebeian aedile.

​Both were condemned, to the great indignation of the patricians, Romilius to a fine of ten thousand asses, Veturius to fifteen thousand. Nor had this calamity of their predecessors made the new consuls any less active; they declared that though they themselves might be condemned, the plebs and the tribunes could not carry the law.

​Then, having abandoned the law, which had grown old after being proposed, the tribunes began to deal more mildly with the patricians: they urged them to put an end at last to their disputes. If plebeian laws were displeasing to them, they should at least allow joint lawmakers, chosen both from the plebs and from the patricians, to be appointed, who would propose measures advantageous to both sides and tending to equalize liberty.

​The patricians did not reject the proposal; they only maintained that no one but a patrician should propose laws. Since they agreed about the laws but differed only about the proposer, ambassadors—Sp. Postumius Albus, A. Manlius, and P. Sulpicius Camerinus—were sent to Athens and ordered to copy the famous laws of Solon and to study the institutions, customs, and laws of other Greek states.