Immediately after this victory of a most ruinous precedent a levy is proclaimed; and the tribunes being now overawed, the consuls accomplish the matter without any opposition. Then indeed the commons became enraged more on account of the silence of the tribunes than the command of the consuls: and they said "there was an end of their liberty; that they were come back again to the old condition of things; that the tribunitian power had died along with Genucius and was buried with him; that other means must be devised and practised, by which to resist the patricians; and that the only method for that was that the people should defend themselves, since they now had no other aid. That four-and-twenty lictors waited on the consuls; and that these very individuals were from among the commons; that nothing could be more despicable, nor weaker, if there were only persons who could despise them; that each person magnified those things and made them objects of terror to himself." When they had excited each other by these discourses, a lictor was despatched by the consuls to Volero Publilius, a man belonging to the commons, because he stated, that having been a centurion he ought not to be made a common soldier. Volero appeals to the tribunes. When one came to his assistance, the consuls order the man to be stripped and the rods to be got ready. "I appeal to the people," says Volero, "since tribunes had rather see a Roman citizen scourged before their eyes, than themselves be butchered by you in their bed." The more vehemently he cried out, the more violently did the lictor tear off his clothes and strip him. Then Volero, being both himself of great bodily strength, and being aided by his partisans, having repulsed the lictor, when the shouts of those indignant in his behalf became very intense, betook himself into the thickest part of the crowd, crying out, "I appeal, and implore the protection of the commons; assist me, fellow citizens; assist me, fellow soldiers; there is no use in waiting for the tribunes, who themselves stand in need of your aid." The men, being much excited, prepare as it were for battle; and it became manifest that there was urgent danger, that nothing would be held sacred by any one, that there would no longer exist any public or private right. When the consuls faced this so violent storm, they soon experienced that majesty without strength had but little security; the lictors being maltreated, the fasces broken, they are driven from the forum into the senate-house, uncertain how far Volero would push his victory. After that, the disturbance subsiding, when they had ordered the senate to be convened, they complain of the outrages committed on themselves, of the violence of the people, the daring of Volero. Many violent measures having been proposed, the elder members prevailed, who recommended that the unthinking rashness of the commons should not be met by the passionate resentment of the patricians.
The commons having espoused the interest of Volero, with great warmth choose him, at the next election, tribune of the people for that year, which had Lucius Pinarius and Publius Furius for consuls; and, contrary to the opinion of all men, who thought that he would let loose his tribuneship in harassing the consuls of the preceding year, postponing private resentment to the public interest, without assailing the consuls even by a single word, he proposed a law to the people that plebeian magistrates should be elected at the comitia by tribes. A matter of no trifling moment was now being brought forward, under an aspect at first sight by no means alarming; but one which in reality deprived the patricians of all power to elect whatever tribunes they pleased by the suffrages of their clients. The patricians used all their energies in resisting this proposition, which was most pleasing to the commons; and though none of the college could be induced by the influence either of the consuls or of the chief members of the senate to enter a protest against it, the only means of resistance which now existed; yet the matter, important as it was by its own weight, is spun out by contention till the following year. The commons re-elect Volero as tribune. The senators, considering that the question would be carried to the very extreme of a struggle, elect to the consulate Appius Claudius, the son of Appius, who was both hated by and hated the commons, ever since the contests between them and his father. Titus Quintius is assigned to him as his colleague. In the very commencement of the year no other question took precedence of that regarding the law. But though Volero was the inventor of it, his colleague, Lætorius, was both a more recent abettor of it, as well as a more energetic one. Whilst Volero confined himself to the subject of the law, avoiding all abuse of the consuls, he commenced with accusing Appius and his family, as having ever been most overbearing and cruel towards the Roman commons, contending that he had been elected by the senators, not as consul, but as executioner, to harass and torture the people; his rude tongue, he being a military man, was not sufficient to express the freedom of his sentiments. Language therefore failing him, he says, "Romans, since I do not speak with as much readiness as I make good what I have spoken, attend here to-morrow. I will either die here before your eyes, or will carry the law." On the following day the tribunes take possession of the temple; the consuls and the nobility take their places in the assembly to obstruct the law. Lætorius orders all persons to be removed, except those going to vote; the young nobles kept their places, paying no regard to the officer; then Lætorius orders some of them to be seized. The consul Appius insisted "that the tribune had no jurisdiction over any one except a plebeian; for that he was not a magistrate of the people in general, but only of the commons; for that even he himself could not, according to the usage of their ancestors, by virtue of his authority remove any person; because the words run thus, if ye think proper, depart, Romans." He was able to disconcert Lætorius by arguing fluently and contemptuously concerning the right. The tribune therefore, burning with rage, sends his beadle to the consul; the consul sends his lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual, without power and without magistracy; and the tribune would have been roughly treated, had not both the entire assembly risen up with great warmth in behalf of the tribune against the consul, and a rush of persons belonging to the multitude, which was now much excited, taken place from the entire city into the forum. Appius, however, withstood so great a storm with obstinacy, and the contest would have ended in a battle, not without blood, had not Quintius, the other consul, after giving it in charge to the men of consular dignity to remove his colleague from the forum by force, if they could not do it otherwise, himself assuaged the enraged people by entreaties, and implored the tribunes to dismiss the assembly. "That they should give their passion time to cool; that delay would not deprive them of their power, but would add prudence to strength; and that the senators would be under the control of the people, and the consul under that of the senators."
With difficulty the people were pacified by Quintius: with much more difficulty was the other consul by the patricians. The assembly of the people being at length dismissed, the consuls convene the senate; where, though fear and resentment by turns had produced a diversity of opinions, the more they were recalled, after the lapse of time, from violence to reflection, the more averse did they become to a continuance of the dispute, so that they returned thanks to Quintius, because by his exertions the disturbance had been quieted. Appius is requested "to consent that the consular dignity should be merely so great as it could be in a peaceably conducted state; that as long as the tribune and consuls were drawing all power, each to his own side, no strength was left between; that the object aimed at was in whose hands the commonwealth should be, distracted and torn as it was, rather than that it should be safe." Appius, on the contrary, called gods and men to witness that "the commonwealth was betrayed and abandoned through cowardice; that it was not the consul that was wanting to the senate, but the senate to the consul; that more oppressive laws were now being submitted to than were sanctioned on the sacred mount." Overcome however by the unanimous feeling of the senators, he desisted: the law is carried without opposition.
Then for the first time the tribunes were elected in the comitia by tribes. Piso said that three were added to the number, whereas there had been only two before. He names the tribunes also, Caius Sicinius, Lucius Numitorius, Marcus Duilius, Spurius Icilius, Lucius Mecilius. During the disturbance at Rome, a war with the Volscians and Æquans broke out; they had laid waste the lands, so that if any secession of the people should take place, they might find a refuge with them. The differences being afterwards settled, they removed their camp backwards. Appius Claudius was sent against the Volscians; the Æquans fell to Quintius as his province. The severity of Appius was the same in war as at home, being more unrestrained because he was free from tribunitian control. He hated the commons with more than his father's hatred: he had been defeated by them: when he was set up as the only consul to oppose the tribunitian influence, a law was passed, which former consuls obstructed with less effort, amid hopes of the senators by no means so great (as those formed of him). His resentment and indignation at this, excited his imperious temper to harass the army by the rigour of his command; nor could it (the army) however be subdued by any means; such a spirit of opposition had they imbibed. They executed every measure slowly, indolently, negligently, and with stubbornness: neither shame nor fear restrained them. If he wished the army to move on with expedition, they designedly went more slowly: if he came up to them to encourage them in their work, they all relaxed the energy which they before exerted of their own accord: when he was present they cast down their eyes, they silently cursed him as he passed by; so that his mind, invulnerable to plebeian hatred, was sometimes moved. All kind of harsh treatment being tried in vain, he no longer held any intercourse with the soldiers; he said the army was corrupted by the centurions; he sometimes gibingly called them tribunes of the people and Voleros.
None of these circumstances were unknown to the Volscians, and they pressed on with so much the more vigour, hoping that the Roman army would entertain the same spirit of opposition against Appius, which they had formerly entertained against the consul Fabius. But they were much more violent against Appius than against Fabius. For they were not only unwilling to conquer, like Fabius' army, but they wished to be conquered. When led out to the field, they made for their camp in an ignominious flight, nor did they stand their ground until they saw the Volscians advancing to their fortifications, and making dreadful havoc on the rear of their army. Then the obligation to fight was wrung from them, in order that the victorious enemy should be dislodged from their lines; yet it was sufficiently plain that the Roman soldiers were only unwilling that their camp should be taken; some of them gloried in their own defeat and disgrace. When the determined spirit of Appius, undaunted by these things, wished to exercise severity still further, and he summoned a meeting, the lieutenant-generals and tribunes flock around him, advising him "that he would not determine on venturing a trial of an authority, the entire strength of which lay in the acquiescence of those who were to obey. That the soldiers generally refused to come to the assembly, and that their clamours were heard in every direction demanding that the camp should be removed from the Volscian territory. That the victorious enemy were but a little time ago almost at the very gates and rampart; and that not merely a suspicion, but a manifest indication of a grievous disaster presented itself to their eyes." Yielding at length, (since they would gain nothing save a delay of punishment,) having prorogued the assembly, after he had given orders that their march should be proclaimed for the following day, he, at the first dawn, gave the signal for departure by sound of trumpet. When the army, having just got clear of the camp, were forming themselves, the Volscians, as being aroused by the same signal, fall upon those in the rear; from whom the alarm spreading to the van, confounded both the battalions and ranks with such consternation, that neither the generals' orders could be distinctly heard, nor the lines be drawn up, no one thinking of any thing but flight. In such confusion did they make their way through heaps of dead bodies and of arms, that the enemy ceased to pursue sooner than the Romans to fly. The soldiers being at length collected from their scattered rout, the consul, after he had in vain followed his men for the purpose of rallying them, pitched his camp in a peaceful part of the country; and an assembly being convened, after inveighing not without good reason against the army, as traitors to military discipline, deserters of their posts, frequently asking them, one by one, where were their standards, where their arms; he first beat with rods and then beheaded those soldiers who had thrown down their arms, the standard-bearers who had lost their standards, and moreover the centurions, and those with the double allowance, who had left their ranks. With respect to the rest of the multitude, every tenth man was drawn by lot for punishment.