the belly they only undid themselves: they
languished for a while, and perceived too late that it was owing to the
belly that they had strength to work and courage to mutiny."

The moral of this fable was plain. The people readily applied it to the
patricians and themselves, and their leaders proposed terms of agreement
to the patrician messengers. They required that the debtors who could
not pay should have their debts cancelled, and that those who had been
given up into slavery should be restored to freedom. This for the past.
And as a security for the future, they demanded that two of themselves
should be appointed for the sole purpose of protecting the plebeians
against the patrician magistrates, if they acted cruelly or unjustly
toward the debtors. The two officers thus to be appointed were called
"Tribunes of the Plebs." Their persons were to be sacred and inviolable
during their year of office, whence their office is called _sacrosancta
Potestas_. They were never to leave the city during that time, and their
houses were to be open day and night, that all who needed their aid
might demand it without delay.

This concession, apparently great, was much modified by the fact that
the patricians insisted on the election of the tribunes being made at
the Comitia of the Centuries, in which they themselves and their wealthy
clients could usually command a majority. In later times, the number of
the tribunes was increased to five, and afterward to ten. They were
elected at the Comitia of the tribes. They had the privilege of
attending all sittings of the senate, though they were not considered
members of that famous body. Above all, they acquired the great and
perilous power of the veto, by which any one of their number might stop
any law, or annul any decree of the senate without cause or reason
assigned. This right of veto was called the "Right of Intercession."

On the spot where this treaty was made, an altar was built to Jupiter,
the causer and banisher of fear, for the plebeians had gone thither in
fear and returned from it in safety. The place was called Mons Sacer, or
the Sacred Hill, forever after, and the laws by which the sanctity of
the tribunitian office was secured were called the _Leges Sacratae_.

The tribunes were not properly magistrates or officers, for they had no
express functions or official duties to discharge. They were simply
representatives and protectors of the plebs. At the same time, however,