§3.55.1per interregem deinde consules creati L. Valerius, M. Horatius, qui extemplo magistratum occeperunt.
, through an interrex, consuls were elected, Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, who immediately entered upon their office.
quorum consulatus popularis sine ulla patrum iniuria nec sine offensione fuit; §3.55.2quidquid enim libertati plebis caveretur, id suis decedere opibus credebant. §3.55.3omnium primum, cum velut in controverso iure esset, tenerenturne patres plebi scitis, legem centuriatis comitiis tulere, ut, quod tributim plebes iussisset, populum teneret; qua lege tribuniciis rogationibus telum acerrimum datum est. §3.55.4aliam deinde consularem legem de provocatione, unicum praesidium libertatis, decemvirali potestate eversam, non restituunt modo, sed etiam in posterum muniunt sanciendo novam legem, §3.55.5ne quis ullum magistratum sine provocatione crearet; qui creasset, eum ius fasque esset occidi, neve ea caedes capitalis noxae haberetur. §3.55.6et cum plebem hinc provocatione, hinc tribunicio auxilio satis firmassent, ipsis quoque tribunis, ut sacrosancti viderentur, cuius rei prope iam memoria aboleverat, §3.55.7relatis quibusdam ex magno intervallo caerimoniis renovarunt, et cum religione inviolatos eos tum lege etiam fecerunt sanciendo, ut, qui tribunis plebis, aedilibus, iudicibus decemviris nocuisset, eius caput Iovi sacrum esset, familia ad aedem Cereris, Liberi Liberaeque venum iret. §3.55.8hac lege iuris interpretes negant quemquam sacrosanctum esse, sed eum, qui eorum cuiquam nocuerit, Iovi sacrum sanciri; §3.55.9itaque aedilem prendi ducique a maioribus magistratibus, quod etsi non iure fiat — noceri enim ei, cui hac lege non liceat —, tamen argumentum esse non haberi pro sacrosancto aedilem; §3.55.10tribunos vetere iure iurando plebis, cum primum eam potestatem creavit, sacrosanctos esse. §3.55.11fuere, qui interpretarentur eadem hac Horatia lege consulibus quoque et praetoribus, quia eisdem auspiciis quibus consules crearentur, cautum esse; iudicem enim consulem appellari. §3.55.12quae refellitur interpretatio, quod iis temporibus nondum consulem iudicem, sed praetorem appellari mos fuerit. §3.55.13hae consulares leges fiere.
Their consulship was popular, without any injustice to the patricians, yet not without giving offence to them; whatever was secured for the liberty of the plebs, they believed that that was detracted from their own power. of all, when it was as it were a disputed point of law whether the patricians were bound by the plebiscites, they carried a law in the centuriate assembly that what the plebs had ordered by tribes should bind the whole people; by which law a most sharp weapon was given to the tribunitian proposals., another consular law concerning appeal, the unique safeguard of liberty, which had been overthrown by the decemviral power, they not only restored, but also secured for the future by enacting a new law, no one should create any magistrate without the right of appeal; and that if anyone should have created such, it should be lawful and right for him to be killed, nor should that killing be held as a capital crime. when they had sufficiently strengthened the plebs, on the one hand by the right of appeal, and on the other by tribunitian aid, they also restored for the tribunes themselves, so that they might seem sacrosanct—the memory of which thing had by now almost faded away— reviving certain ceremonies after a long interval, and they made them inviolable not only by religion but also by law, by enacting that whoever should harm the tribunes of the plebs, the aediles, or the decemviral judges, his head should be devoted to Jupiter, and his family should be sold at the temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera. this law, the interpreters of the law deny that any one is sacrosanct, but they assert that he who harms any of them is ordained to be devoted to Jupiter; therefore, that an aedile is arrested and led away by the superior magistrates, which, although it is not done lawfully—for it is not permitted to harm him to whom it is not allowed by this law—is nevertheless a proof that an aedile is not held as sacrosanct; that the tribunes are sacrosanct by the ancient oath of the plebs, when they first created that power. were some who interpreted that by this same Horatian law, provision was made also for the consuls and praetors, because they were created under the same auspices as the consuls; for, they said, a consul was called a judge. interpretation is refuted, because in those times it was not yet the custom for a consul to be called a judge, but a praetor. consular laws were passed.
institutum etiam ab iisdem consulibus, ut senatus consulta in aedem Cereris ad aediles plebis deferrentur, quae antea arbitrio consulum supprimebantur vitiabanturque. §3.55.14M. Duillius deinde tribunus plebis plebem rogavit plebesque scivit, qui plebem sine tribunis reliquisset quique magistratum sine provocatione creasset, tergo ac capite puniretur. §3.55.15haec omnia ut invitis, ita non adversantibus patriciis transacta, quia nondum in quemquam unum saeviebatur.
It was also instituted by the same consuls, that the decrees of the senate should be delivered to the aediles of the plebs at the temple of Ceres, which previously had been suppressed and altered at the pleasure of the consuls. Marcus Duillius, tribune of the plebs, proposed to the plebs, and the plebs resolved, that whoever should leave the plebs without tribunes, or whoever should create a magistrate without the right of appeal, should be punished with scourging and death. these things were transacted, although against the will of the patricians, yet without their opposition, because as yet no severity was exercised against any single individual.